This evenings after work bike ride had a slight extension to the usual route.

As our usual route takes us fairly close to Beacon Hill, we decided to make a diversion after Woodhouse Eaves and head up to the highest point in Leicestershire at 294 metres above sea level.

The Horse & Cycle route up Beacon Hill is actually not that bad - it's quite a long track but not as steep as I thought it would be. At the top we mustn't have seen the "no bikes beyond this point" sign and rode right up to the trig point - if you are riding up a hill you may as well ride right to the top!

Coming back down the hill was a hell of a lot more fun than slogging up it, although you don't notice on the way up quite how some of the bends suddenly tighten on you like you do when you are hurtling back down at 30mph!

If we can find a nicer way to loop the top of Beacon Hill rather than having to go up and down the same track I think we may have a new route for after work rides :)

Labels: biking

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Trailguru.com is back.

I've updated the Chrome Hill and Specialized First Ride links appropriately.

Labels: biking, hiking, trailguru

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Just got home from a very busy weekend.

On Saturday, it was John's stag do, so after an afternoons Karting in Stoke - which John won, as he usually does! - it was off up to Manchester for a night out.

We had rented two apartments to stay in and were very impressed. They were in The Light - a "Boutique Aparthotel" which is right in the centre of the city and rather plush... and with a very good view out over Manchester from the room we had on the 14th floor.

After a spot of food we headed out into town, and after a few refusals for being a group of blokes we ended up in LOAF which despite my initial reservations was a really nice club with a reasonably priced G&T. At around 1:30 the rest of the group were looking to head off elsewhere while I bailed and headed back to the apartment... I had an early start in the morning.

Sunday was an early start after a late night as I set off from Manchester and headed south to London as Tasha was running in the marathon. With quiet motorways and some slightly optimistic interpretation of speed limits I was sat on a tube heading into Bank station by 12:30pm. Once at Bank it was a change onto the DLR and out to Limehouse to meet up with Mi, Marc and the rest of the folks at Mile 21.

After several Elvis's, a bananaman or two, and a lot of men in tutu's Tasha finally ran past... and was gone in seconds while I was still turning my camera on. For the brief moment I saw her she was looking very strong for 21 miles into her first marathon.

Once she'd run past us we headed out to Canary Wharf to find a tube station without a massive queue and head back into the centre to meet up with Tasha again after the finish.

After fighting down Whitehall and through to the meeting place at Horseguards we eventually managed to locate Tash and found out she'd run her first ever marathon in a very respectable 4 hours and 32 minutes 7 seconds.

And Tasha's first request having run a marathon - "let's find a pub"....

Labels: marathon, running, stag do

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You may have noticed that most of my recent ride posts have included a link to trailguru.com.

Trailguru is a very cool free app for the iPhone (and other mobile devices) that records your rides / walks / drives using GPS and lets you upload them to the web where you can see them on google maps.

Unfortunately it looks like they're having a few database problems at the moment and the site is down, so although I've got recorded trails for my Chrome Hill walk and my Specialized first ride I've not been able to upload them yet.

Once the Trailguru is back I'll get them uploaded and update the posts.

Labels: site down, trailguru

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Took my new bike out for a blast round Sherwood this morning and I have to say I'm pretty impressed.

The M4 frame feels extremely light and responsive, and although they lack the remote lockout I loved on my Tora's the Rockshox Recon forks seemed to cope really well with the bumpy stuff.

I parked at Tony's and rode across to Sherwood from there as the Forestry Commission website was unclear about whether or not there was an event on, so I figured rather than pay to park and find the trails closed, if I parked at Tony's at least I'd have the ride across.

In the end everything seemed open when I got there, so I had a good ride around over the various terrains on offer at Sherwood.

Overall my first impressions of the Specialized are very good - frame is light, gear change seems smooth, forks seem to soak up the bumps with no issues (despite having to reach down for the lockout now... I did love my remote lockout...), and the brakes feel good and strong and give nice feedback despite what I would consider a bit too much play in the lever before they engage.

My only issue so far is that I think the saddle feels a bit harder than my old one, but as my old one was also a Specialized Body Geometry saddle (albeit a different model that is now seemingly unavailable!) I'll give it a few more miles and see how it settles in.

Here's to more riding.

Labels: biking

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After the discovery that my bikes had been stolen last Tuesday I've been going through the process of an insurance claim. And today my replacement bikes arrived :)

I'm quite amazed how quickly this all got turned round - just over a week with two bank holiday days included in that time - and I think I can now recommend Nationwide for insurance. For bike claims they go through a third party bike supplier who sort out replacement bikes and then claim back through Nationwide. The wholesaler in my claim was wheelies.co.uk who I have to say were extremely helpful and made the whole process pretty easy.

On a day when the news is full of stories about people profiting from fraudulent insurance claims I think I managed to actually come out ahead on a completely genuine claim. This is mostly down to the plummeting British (World?) economy as most bikes and components seem to be sourced from abroad and have gone up in price massively in recent months.

Replacing my old Saracen is a Specialized Hardrock Sport. I was pretty amazed by this as the Saracen was getting on for 5 years old and I didn't think it was worth that much any more.

Although my GT was new in February it was a 2008 model. The replacement I was offered was a 2009 model which had gone up in price quite a bit from the 2008, as had the Rockshox Tora forks I had on it. Because of these price increases it worked out that rather than have the new GT with fork upgrade I could afford a more expensive bike within the claim value.

In the end I opted for the Specialized Rockhopper Expert.

Garage security has been beefed up a bit with two new bolts / padlocks on the outside and a security cable and padlock on the inside to tie the bikes to each other and the beetle. Hopefully that should stop these two going the same way as the Saracen and GT.

First ride of the Rockhopper should be on Saturday at Sherwood... I can't wait.

Labels: biking, insurance, specialized

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As today was a bank holiday I went out on walk with Tim up in Derbyshire.

We met up in Earl Sterndale across the road from a very local looking pub called The Quiet Woman. The pub sign is a neatly dressed victorian looking lady carrying a tray of tea. All very normal until you notice she's got no head.

Suffice to say we didn't pop in for a drink...

It's been a while since I've really done any walking (not counting "to the car" and "round the shops" as walking!), in fact the last walk I did was Coniston Old Man as part of last years adventure challenge.

Parkhouse Hill was a rather steep reintroduction and I needed a sit down to get my breath back at the top. Then I realised we'd come up the easy side as the descent down the other side was even steeper. Chrome Hill - although higher - was a much easier climb as it is a bit more gentle and I think I was starting to warm up a bit after the initial shock of Parkhouse Hill.

With the two hills out of the way early on, we dropped down the back of Chrome Hill and then looped around the back of Hollins Hill and down through through Hollinsclough before skirting around the bottom of Parkhouse Hill and back to the car - still avoiding The Quiet Woman.

If I'm doing the adventure challenge again this year (which I am) then I think I'll need a bit more hiking training before June as this was only just over 6 miles with two pretty small hills and my legs feel knackered.

Labels: challenge training, hiking

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We've veen down to Wales for the weekend visiting the Mi's folks for Easter, and while Mi and her mum took the nieces for their swimming lesson I went out for a ride down the Taff Trail with Alun - I borrowed Alun's bike and he rode Barbara's - and we loaded them into the back of his van and headed to the trail.

We started from Tongwynlais (A470 / M4 junction) and followed the trail down the river into Cardiff.

Having only really driven into Cardiff it's amazing how picturesque the route down the River Taff is, with weirs and waterfalls. The trail eventually brings you into Bute Park and then down to the back of Cardiff Castle and just a stones throw from the Millenium Stadium.

As we rode through the park I kept thinking I heard a lot of snatches of foreign accents (and I don't just mean Welsh!)

Turns out I was hearing correctly - the park was full of French rugby fans all enjoying the sunshine waiting for the Cardiff Blues v Toulouse Heineken cup match on saturday afternoon.

After a quick stop for a photo of the stadium to prove to the girls that we'd made it all the was to Cardiff we headed back up the river to the van.

11.5 miles was a good ride and I was very impressed that Alun kept up considering he's not had his bike very long. I think it was the furthest he's managed.

Now to get Barbara up to that distance may take a bit longer...

Labels: biking

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Went to the garage this morning to pick my bike up to go riding after work only to find that some thieving *@!$ had broken into the garage and made off with both bikes at some point between Saturday evening and this morning.

Cue a day spent on the phone to the police, the insurance people, the people the insurance people use to sort out replacement bikes, and the council who I rent the garage off.

Really not a happy bunny but it looks my insurance will cover the loss... hopefully it won't take an age to sort out.

Labels: biking

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Went out on the usual Loughborough loop this evening with the two Andy's for the first after work ride that didn't need lights or a big jacket.

Bring on the light and the warmth :)

Labels: biking

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