Saturday I went out for a ride over the local heath, still building myself up after the several weeks of no riding. The ride itself was nothing spectacular, made it up a hill which I have targeted as one of the hills I need to beat although I was a gasping wheezing wreck at the top. It was nice to be able to get home and not have to wash the bike as the ground was so frozen although thinking about it I would of been unable to wash the bike as the hose was frozen!! I digress. Anyway the wife had gone shopping so I came home to an empty house. When I put the bike round the back of the house I noticed that the back door step was wet, which seemed strange since everything else was frozen and it was dry when I left. I went back round to the front door and let myself in. I then headed through the house toward the back door so I could go and lock the back gate. When I opened the utility room door I was greeted by a lake of water on the floor, it could of only come from the washing machine or the washing machine plumbing.

I called the wife and informed her of the problem and suggested she curtailed her shopping trip to come and help with the bailing out. Once out of my cycling gear, I realised that the puddle was not getting any bigger so what ever was leaking had stopped (or run out of water). The washing machine had been on but had now finished its cycle. That meant that either a pipe on the washing machine had split or the waste. outlet had sprung a leak. The wife arrived back home as I finished clearing the washing machine so I could move it out and get to the pipework. I started to pour some water down the waste pipe which quickly overflowed onto the floor. I gave it 5 minutes to run a ways and then pour some hot water down the waste pipe, this started to backup but then suddenly cleared. The waste pipes runs round the side of the house and under the back door, sometime ago the bracket holding the waste pipe under the door broke so there was a slight sag in the middle of the pipe. I guess that water was sitting in the pipe and overnight Friday and Saturday morning it froze. A temporary repair has been made the hold the pipe up so that it maintains the run to the drain and does not hold any more water.

While the rest of the country woke up to snow this morning, all we woke up to was wet rain soaked roads and a rise in temperatures. So this morning ride was a mud fest, although there were still some frozen bits hidden in deep puddles which made things interesting. I did a Throop loop but it was only a short loop as my legs were feeling it a long with a another problem\injury I am plagued with, so I decided not to push it and headed for home.

I am hoping for a quiet weeks this coming week, some how I don’t think I will get one.

I had decided to ride a short loop from Badbury Rings to Long Crichel and back, while I was doing that my wife and son would start of riding with me but would then turn off and do a short loop round the fields and back to the car park at Badbury Ring. All the paths they were riding were very wide and quite smooth farm tracks with the last part riding along side the road on the wide grass verge.

Things did not start off well for the wife, we had stopped on a hill (after about half a mile) where the son had got stuck with his gears and ground to a halt, after manually changing them for him and then giving him a quick push start up the hill he was away and made it to the top. As I remounted my bike and started pedalling I heard some shouts from behind me followed by arghh and then laughter, on looking back I saw my wife laying on the ground with the bike on top of her laughing her head off. Apparently she wobbled when she started pedalling and then just keeled over.

When we got to the split I went over all the instructions with my wife and son again as they had never ridden on their own before, bid them farewell and rode off down my trail wondering when the first phone call would come asking for help. Thankfully that call never came.

My ride was pretty much uneventful, quite muddy in places with my third puncture in three rides coming about two thirds of the way round. This time the culprit was a Slime inner tube (the Dr Sludge tubes having been consigned to the rubbish bin) that I had stuck a patch on after getting a hole in the tube which was to big for the latex slime to repair. The patch I had put on the tyre had lifted and the slime was oussing out (as was the air).

Once I had replaced the tube I carried on back to the car park at Badbury Rings where I found my wife and son playing Angry Bird on their phone. I found out that they had not ridden up the grass verge as it was too heavy going (and I would agree with that, it was hard going) so they had rode the half mile or so on the road carefully, I was quite impressed. Their little ride was just over 5 miles while mine was just under 14 miles.

The replacement parcel from Chain Reaction Cycles for my lost parcel turned up, must say they were very good about it no arguing about it. To be honest it has been a bit of a quiet week, four trips for work this week all had early starts so I ended up having early nights to ensure I got some sleep. My intended mid week ride this past week never happened, school visit and acting as the family taxi put pay to that. Not sure where I am riding tomorrow yet, fancy something different than the normal Throop loop so I think I will go and investigate my list of saved rides and see what I have not ridden for a while.

Last night after returning from collecting my bike from CycleFix after having a new headset fitted I found a large nail hanging out the side of the rear tyre of the van and leaking air. It was 5:30pm as I franticly called a couple of tyre centers to see if I could get it fixed. In the end, nobody had a tyre on the shelf but I was able to get the spare fitted but now I am running about with no spare tyre until they can get a replacement.

Every morning this week I have had an early morning call regarding a server problem, this mornings was the worst, I was 140 miles away and the system was down, I had only just arrived at our main office and I had to get back in my car and drive 100 miles back to the servers. The system was down for 3 hours, that sort of thing does not help the stress levels.

I have had the last of my anti biotic and my shin is feeling ok, a little itchy from time to time, so will keep an eye on it. I did ride on Sunday without no ill affects.

Roll on Friday night, I am on holiday for the half term week. Was going away but due to the wife’s lack of work we have decided to stay at home (she may be working next week). At least I won’t have to answer me phone.

The car has to go back in on Friday so they can do the bits they did not have the parts for last Friday plus the bits that I asked them to do and they said they did do them but they have not, just glad I don’t have to pay for the crap service.

Right I am all for free stuff but lets be honest a lot of the free stuff now a day is just naff. Well take a look at Sintel and download the video. There is a huge choice from 120mb right up to 500+mb for the HD version. It is only a short film but it has been made using completely free software that many hundreds of people have contributed to designing and then programming. Then using this free software they produce a quality piece of animation. This is why I like Linux and all that it stand for (anyone geeky enough to be reading this please don’t starting preaching to me about Linux, gpl and fos, I am talking to the unconverted here and I don’t intend to confuse or scare them off).

Tomorrow the car is in for a service, lets hope they do better than the four day it took for the last service. Then it is of to Southampton in the roller skate (as my kids call them, small hatchback type car) I get as a courtesy car for the day, bet it will have no fuel in like every other car I have had from them. I have to collect one of those basic all in one printer, scanner copier things that refuse to work from the local branch. Then all I have to do is get it to work oh the joy, at least it is Friday.

Finally well done to the Chile for the rescue of the trapped miners, 2 months ago very few people gave the miner a chance of being alive let alone a chance of getting all 33 out alive after so long.

The whole air of the school was different than any of the other we had visited, there was no hard sale (like the last one), it certainly was not a modern built school, but it was clean and tidy, the staff and pupils were helpful and friendly, that’s not to say the other schools staff and pupils were not friendly, but they were friendly in a different way which I can’t explain. All in all I was impressed, I was not expecting to be but I was.

Now it is down to a lot of form filling and like every other parent with children moving to grammar\secondary next September a long wait until March the 1st

OK, a question, guess what I nearly ran over this morning???

No it did not have any legs

No not a snake

??????

Ok it was a “Henry the Hoover”!!!

As I went up the road this morning a van pulled off the petrol station forecourt onto the road in front of me and at speed (I was a little way back so no danger), as he went up the road the rear door of the van flew opened and Henry came tumbling out. On impact with the road, the motor section parted company with the body with rubbish spewing out across the road. I managed to swerve around Henry and chased the van up the road. The driver was completely oblivious to the fact that he had lost Henry. After flashing my lights at him and waving my arms out the windows he pulled over. I drove up along side him and told him his rear door was open and Henry was a quarter of a mile away outside the petrol station sat in the middle of the road, I don’t think the driver was impressed.

Kids went back to school round our way today and the road were chock a block with cars, why? We leave home around 8am which is before the schools start so why are the roads full of bloody cars? Its the same when the schools break up there is a noticeable drop in cars on the road. I know a couple of people who catch the bus to work in the morning and they love it when the schools break up because the buses are not crowded with school kids and the journey is about 10 to 15 minutes quicker, less stopping and less traffic.

I don’t know where the summer holidays have gone, it seems like it was only last week that the schools broke up for the summer, I was looking forward to those long summer evenings. Now it is September, it is getting dark around 8pm and now the temperature has dropped a couple of degrees over night they are talking on the radio about turning the central heating on……………….WHAT, IT IS NOT BLOODY COLD!!

Finally a thank you to the penile shaped driver, driving a V reg BMW convertible, sporting fake M3 badges. I am not annoyed that you pulled up along side me and squeezed me into the kerb (as the road went from two lanes to one) and I had to back off. No, I am annoyed that I did not think at the time that the car I was driving was a courtesy car on company insurance (mine was in the garage) so I should of held my ground and let you wreak havoc down the sides of both car because you were in the wrong and I had nothing to loose. Everybody around you would of seen you for what you are, a sad guy who thinks driving a BMW improves his image, you sad sad person!!

Old Ford Pickup

Purple Pickup

6ltr of GM Muscle with added laughing gas for fun!!

Negative pickup, OK I played around with this one, it should be a Red Ford Coca Cola Pickup

Left-hand side of the Peterbuilt engine

The right hand side of the Peterbuilt engine, 16ltrs 6 cylinders of chrome, this Truck is all show

It was an interesting evening but a complete pig to take any pictures because people just wander across in front of you which is why I took the pocket camera rather than my dslr camera. One final shot from Friday night

Looking out across Poole harbour towards Sandbanks

Yesterday was shed painting day, it is only the second time that we have painted the shed in 7 years, one 2.5ltr tub of paint (well wood preservative as it now called) was enough to cover our small shed with enough left over to paint half a fence. So now we have to buy another tub to paint the complete the fence!!

Went out for my normal early Sunday morning ride today, wished I had stayed in bed now. It only took a couple of miles before my back started to complain, it was OK sitting on the bike and riding but when I had to exert a little pressure on the peddles (like going up a hill, even little inclines) or when I ran over a bump (tree root), my back complained. I kept thinking about cutting the ride short and heading for home but I stuck with it and did the full loop for 26 miles (probably not a good idea). Not only did my back feel worse than it did after Friday’s ride I also felt pretty worn out, so maybe my body had still not recovered from the ride on Friday? I had planned to ride tomorrow but I have binned that idea to give my back a rest and won’t look at getting back in the saddle until next Saturday.

So after a relaxing bath this morning I watched, the rescheduled Speedway Grand Prix from Croatia (rained off from Saturday night) and then flicked between the channels to watch the F1 from Belgium. While I am talking TV I have just watched Gee Atherton win the Mens UCI Downhill World Cup. In between the F1 and the Mens downhill I cleaned my bike.

Tomorrow we have the joys of a trip to the tip with all the rubbish I moved from around the shed pre painting. The car will then need to be cleaned ready to go into the bodyshop (2nd attempt) first thing Tuesday morning for the rear bumper replacement. Then we off to the local park to watch some bands play, one of the bands, is made up of the kids of the wife’s niece. By all accounts they are pretty damm good. They are building a web site at present so here is their Facebook Page Finally tomorrow, it weigh in night at Slimming World , I am not holding my breath this week.

That is what my blog has been saying to me for the past 36 hours. Seem as though there was some file corruption in the section that controls the logins etc. After some help from the guys at WordPress Support I have been able to get access to my blog again. What I like most about this is that the WordPress software that this web site\blog is built on is free, the Theme I uploaded a couple of weeks ago is free and the support I have had over the past 36 hours has been free, that my friends is the joy of Open Source Software or OSS for short. The company I work for have just invested in a web site which has CMS (Content Management System, well technically it is WCM but I am not going into that here), which is what WordPress is, well suffice to say my solution is a hell of a lot cheaper than theirs is.

Apart from Monday night success (I lost another 3lb) there has not been a lot to write about this week which under the circumstances is just as well. No ride yesterday as it was raining and I had to get the shed cleared out so I could get all the bikes in the shed. Five hours later the shed had been cleared with enough space to park all the bikes in the shed and be able to get them out again without to much of a problem.

Went out for my customary Sunday morning Throop Loop, another two and three quarters ride time. Met Mr Grumpy on my way back along the river complaining about Mountain Bikes on the path, well I never heard him complain about the dogs that run around which are not under the owners control, causing havoc and a danger to walkers, runners and cyclists alike, leaving their deposits all over the path for other to enjoys……..NOT! Maybe Mr Grumpy should stop being a miserable old git and start enjoying the scenery.

Saw my first KingFisher today, it was only a common Kingfisher, a couple of weeks ago in the same area I saw a guy land a large 18lb-ish Pike. If had not taken up cycling I may never had seen any of this. I have seen a host of wildlife since I have started riding, ridden area that I never knew existed and I feel a lot better for all this.

Have a busy week coming up, my car is into the body shop tomorrow, I am all over the place on Tuesday, Thursday night we are going to the evening events for the Bournemouth Air Show, Saturday I am off to the wilds of Hampshire (better known as Liphook) for a cycle ride and then on Sunday were back to Bournemouth beach to see the Air Show. Better not forgets tomorrow nights weigh in and food tasting session at Slimming World , better make sure I get weighed first before I start the food tasting!!

After lasts week no show by the insurance engineer the insurance company decided that they don’t need to inspect the car now. So this afternoon I go to book the car in to the body-shop and was informed that the insurance company have not notified the body-shop so I had to phone the insurance company up again, “Oh we thought you were going to pay”!!!!!! The car was damaged by a third party and is a company car, why would I be paying? The insurance company were going to contact the body shop so hopefully I will get a call from the body-shop tomorrow\Monday to book the car in.

Clive from Massive MTBer left a link to the blog he write for Bike Radar. His latest blog inspired an interesting comment from a reader regarding the genetics of being fat. Click here to read the articles. While interesting to read and understanding why you get the urge to eat, it still boils down to will power to block out the voice on the hunger monster within.

I have missed the opportunity to do an evening ride this week for one reason or another, just hope the weather holds for the weekend so I can ride, not sure where but might try the Purbeck’s again. The evening and morning are now starting to get get darker, better start making to most of these opportunities.

Just doing some basic tidying up on the site, I doubt you will see any changes as it is mainly minor little points. Biggest change is adding the gallery link in the header I am still putting off the big change or rather upgrade, moving this site onto WordPress 3.0, currently running on WordPress 2.9.2 Still quite a few people running into problems with their upgrades so I will wait a little longer till they have ironed out a few more bugs and then look at doing the upgrade. I will probably change the layout of the site at the same time (part of the upgrade process is you have to revert the site page back to the basic wordpress), seeing as the current decoration has not started peeling off the walls yet I will wait a bit longer.

The car went for its MOT, what a cock-up. The car was serviced about 6 weeks ago and I was told then that the front brake discs need changing but there was still life in the pads, but seeing as I needed to have an MOT soon they would leave doing the front brake until the MOT. So I booked the MOT for the 12th and reminded the garage that it need new front discs and pads.

Car dropped off at 8:30am, phone call 11:00am cars failed MOT on faulty rear light (bulb blown), front brakes and binding rear brakes, told them I was in no hurry for the car and would collect it at 5:00pm. Phone call from garage at 3:00pm, car has only just come back into the workshop might not be ready until late tonight, not to bothered as I had their roller skate to drive………………I mean Renault Twingo. So I said I would pick the car up sometime after midday Tuesday depending when I get a free 5 minutes to collect it. Phone call from garage Tuesday 4:00pm, car still not finished, now have to order new parts for the brakes, parts won’t be here till Wednesday, explain that I won’t be here on Wednesday either and that I need my car for a trip up country, am told that the car is currently sat in the workshop with no wheels or brakes on it. Concede I have to take the roller skate on a 280 mile round trip. Finally collected the car early Thursday morning.

Friday afternoon I get the normal customer service call I get after every visit to the garage asking if everything was OK, so I explained the above I am promised a call from the service manager. 6:15pm I get a call from the service manager, explain the whole story again, he concedes they could of handle it better but that is about as far as it goes.

Fortunately for me it is a company car so I don’t have to foot the bill for the repair, I just have to put up with the inconvenience.

Just noticed I have not posted since Sunday, well Monday night being the customary weigh in night, it was another good night for me with another loss, can’t remember how much and don’t have my book to hand. No mid week ride this week due to the weather

That is enough waffle from me, will post more on Monday……………….hopefully

It seems as though the battery dropped a cell and I needed a new battery, the AA man had a nice little computer jobby to test the battery and tell him I needed a new battery (it also told him the type of battery, the current age of the battery and a lot more as well). This was where the fun started, first he had to get the old one out which was no mean feat, then he has to get authority to fit a new one which he had on the van………….at least he thought he did. He had two batteries in the van, one the correct size but with a lower ampage, one with the correct ampage but to big to fit the in the space for the battery. The AA are supposed to have 24hr call out with UniPart so if they need a part they can get hold of it. Local Unipart depot is 5 minutes drive up the road from me. So he phones Unipart and the call went straight to (mobile) answer the phone, he waited for about 20 minutes and tried several more times but it was always the same, just kept going to answer phone.

In the end he fitted the lower ampage battery and we were on our way by 15:00, not bad, an hour and a quarter from time of reporting the problem till I was on the move.

Unfortunately that put pay to my afternoon plans, I was going to take the wife out to a cycle shop she has not been to before to look at some bikes (dropping a few hints not that she needs reminding…….) but as wifey needed to pick up some bits for Sunday dinner and it was 15:00 it was off to the shopping centre and the bike shop will have to wait for another week.

Went out for my normal Sunday ride this morning at 7:30 and it was cold, the sun that was out and shinning when I got up at 6:30 but was now hiding behind a blanket of grey cloud. It took a good 40 minutes before I could feel any heat in my arms. I did my normal loop along the river from Northbourne to the weir at Throop, then across the fields towards Hurn Court School, then I dive off into the woods (not sure of the name) and cycle across the woods until I get to the Avon Causeway Road and cross that on to Sopley Common. I exit Sopley common near the rear entrance to Hurn Airport Industrial area and cycle along the road to Hurn Forest. I zig-zag my way across the forest for 6 miles and exit at Oakdene caravan park. Here I take a narrow footpath which I have now renamed Stinging nettle alley, on my left I have a 6ft high wire mesh fence that has been pushed into the footpath in places. The path is about a handle bars width and on my right are trees and bushes along with stinging nettles, brambles and common weeds all over the place. This leads down to a bridge over the Moor River (read stream). From here I take the short path to East Parley Common. I head across the common until I meet the Hurn road and then take the road back toward Hurn airport main entrance before turning off for Merritown and heading across the fields toward the weir at Throop. Then I just follow the path back along the river and home, nice little 27 mile round trip. The return along the river is normally quite busy with dog walkers, seemed extra busy along there today with fishermen, think it might be the start of the fishing season.

The new rear wheel and tyre behaved itself but I will need to pop the bike into the repair shop to get the gears re-indexed as they are not quite right, it seem to be on a gear higher on the cassette than it is registering on the indicator, the front needs adjusting as it is rubbing on the pickup arm when on the large chain ring and on the granny ring anything lower than 4 and it jumps. Now I know it is not to difficult to do but with all the gear problems I have had I want it sorted and running correctly before I brave it and have ago myself. Its not bad they have lasted since I had the major repair in mid March.

Tomorrow is weigh in might, watch this space…………….