We arrived at Cannock at about 10:45am after our sat nav decided that we wanted to go to the local power station at Cannock, once we corrected that little error we were soon in the car park. Just on 11am we left the car park and headed to the woods. Its fair to say that this is probably the biggest forest trail centre I have been to so was a little unsure what to expect. One thing I was not expecting was how unfit I felt, any sniff of uphill and I was a wheezing gasping heap. Anybody that has been to Cannock will know there is a lot of ups so that did not bode well.

One thing I hate about new places is that they show you up so badly (well at least for me they do), I guess because there are no real trail centres around my ways I don’t get to practice on the narrow twist trails or the rock gardens. It is not that I find difficult but more frustrating when I don’t clear a particular obstacle and unfortunately there were a few of those.

About half way round the trail, my trail enemy turned up, cramps. Now I had filled my 3ltr Camelbak with plain water and had a 1ltr water bottle with SIS Energy drink in it. By the time I had got to 3/4 of the way round I ran out of all drink and the cramps were hitting me really badly. Thankfully one of my fellow riders gave me some of his drink he had left. At one stage the pain in my calf’s was so bad from the cramp that I could not stand up on the pedals. Despite all this, I was enjoying the ride but the cramps and the uphills were killing it for me. I was not alone in the cramps department, a fellow riders was suffering with cramps in the thighs.

I must thank my fellow riders, despite my slowness they were there waiting for me at the end of every section and allowed me time to recuperate before heading off to the next section. This made it a bloody long day and we only just got back with enough light to see where we were going, the last section in the tree was very dark.

Despite my discomfort it was a very enjoyable days riding with some very nice fellow riders.

Ready and eager for the off, yours truly 2nd from left

I have been looking into my cramping problem, I am a person that perspires a lot anyway so normally drink a lot, on one of my normal rides which is flat compared to Cannock I don’t normally have a problem. But when I do rides like Cannock, ride in a group (I do a lot of solo riding) or an organised ride I tend to push that bit harder, thus I sweat a bit more thus losing those vital electrolytes quicker (at least that is what I think is happening). I was hoping that I could keep my Camelbak just for plain water, but now it looks like I will be adding some form of energy drink to my Camelbak to help resolve my cramping problem.

One other problem I had which I did not mention was I was having chain suck problem, this did not hold me up to much as I found it was best to leave it in a low gear anyway. I had a play with the front mech on the bike a couple of rides ago so I think it might be to do with that. I had to fit a new chain to day as the other one had reached its limit so I will be doing a little adjust later in the week, it started to rain so had to pack up.

Finally Clive over at MassiveMTBer put me onto this this new blog , have a read and let me know what you think.

And absolutely finally because I told him I would, here is dear son doing what he does best

Drinking hot Chocolate

Here a picture of what I have been working on at work

Servers & Sans

Two new servers (the green lights) and two new San units (only read if you like reading geek) above the servers. A total of 36 disks, 18 in each San unit which is small fry to large corporation style sans but for a small business, it is a lot.

Took the camera out and took some pictures for the first time in months. Only went down to the local beach on a windy day but it was fun.

Here is a kite surfer about to launch their kite.

Kite launch

The shot was taken looking towards the sun which is why everything look so dull apart from the bright blue kite.

Here a shot looking out toward France (it is over the horizon a bit!!)

Breaking waves

Finally from the camera a dog and ball leaving the water, I had a bit of fun with this one

Dog, ball and water

On the bike riding front, I was intending to go on a club ride this afternoon, but thing got in the way and ended up going shopping this morning when I wanted to do a couple of bits on my bike. So I did the work on the bike this afternoon, including bleeding the rear brake as it was a little soft and every intention of going out tomorrow morning.

I was going to write a lot more about my roller coaster week but just can’t seem to get the right words out at the moment, so I will leave with a picture.

Long and not quite so winding path

Now I have only ever ridden one purpose built forest trail and that was Gisburn. When I rode there I was with a group who knew all the trails and routes so it was very much follow the leader and you were warned about the next major obstacle coming up. Well I was riding this one on my own and after a couple of laps around the skills park I was feeling decidedly uncomfortable. I am not sure why, I had no problem riding each obstacle but I felt so clunky rather than flowing, I left the skills park and headed for the red “Ridge Ride Trail”. The start of this trail is also the start for the, green Discovery and blue Challenge trails and part of the walking trail so the first few 100 meters is a bit of a dodgems.

Once out on to the red trail proper you start to descent down the the side of the valley and I just could not get comfortable, I don’t know if it was because it was all new to me or what but I could seem to ride smoothly. I was happy with the challenges that the trails was offering me and did not feel out of my depth but I was just so unsettled that I could not get into a nice flow.

I got to black trail “Ridge Ride Extreme”, it is only 0.6mile long and after a short break I had a go at it and made a total mess of things, I did not fall off (well not on the main sections anyway), but my unsettledness just seemed worse. When I did fall off was when I stopped to have a breather, I put my foot down only to find I was on uneven ground and keeled over sideways. Once at the bottom of the black trail, it was a climb back to the top, only a couple hundred meters but I walked most of it.

Once at the top of the black trail I took refuge in the shade, today was hotting up to be the hottest day of the year. After a suitable rest I started on up the red trail, up as it was now a fire road climb back up the valley, not sure of the distance but I guess about half a mile, again in the full glare of the baking sun. At the top it was across the road and then into some more single track back towards the visitor centre.

Back in the car park I took time to cool down in the shade by my vehicle and refuel myself. I study the cycle map (Adobe Acrobat required) for my next challenge. I opted to both the short and long loops on the Challenge Trails. Now I thoroughly enjoyed the short loop, very similar to the red route but less aggressive humps but lovely flowing dodge in between the trees as the trail ran down the valley. Once at the bottom of the run it was time to ride back up but not on a fire road but on single track (OK the first 100meters or so is fire road) which seem to make it easier than the earlier red climb. Once back up you rejoin part of the blue trail you have already travelled and then take a turning off for the long loop. The long loop is a completely different to the short loop as it more XC type trail fairly flat but with some little dodgem section in between the trees and the occasional cow, yes there are some cows to dodge as well.

All in all and enjoyable day, just a little puzzled as to why I could not get comfortable on the red route, as for the black, I found it short and uninteresting, the blue short loop was certainly the best and yes I would certainly go a gain if only to try and get comfortable of the red trail.

A little picture of me trying to look like and mountain bike rider

Practising on the north shore in the skills park

In the end I opted to contact the local council and see if they would help as some of the house that connect to the drain are council house while others are privately owned (all were council at one time). Well they past me from one department to another before I landed at environmental health who were helpful but could not do anything unless I refused to clear the drain (had I gone down that route it would take several day to resolve by which time sewage would seeping from the drains and our toilets out of action). So I contacted the local water company and they said they understood my problem but if I called them out and they had to use a high pressure hose to clear the blockage it was down to me to pay and then recoup the money from my neighbours. So I opted for one of their engineers to come out and make an assessment of the problem before deciding what to do next.

The guy turned up within the hour and let just say he was there for 5 minutes and all my problems drained away. Apparently on the outlet side of the drain there is a U bend (like you have on the back of a toilet). This is to stop sewage from coming back up the pipe if the main sewer floods. So the actual outlet pipe is at about 45degree downwards to the main pipe so there no chance of having a severe bend in the rods when you use the rods to clear the blockage.

One thing that did come to light is that from October 1st, the water company will be responsible for all the drains from the point of leaving the building. So had this of happened after the 1st October it would of been a simple call to the water company.

As I had been sorting out the drains I never got to go for the planned morning ride. I had planned a ride with the wife for Tuesday, she has been out of the saddle for over 12 months following a knee injury and then hayfever induced asthma. So we decided to do the ride in the afternoon. I spent the rest of the morning checking her bike over and fitted a new padded seat cover. In the end all the bike required was air in the tyres, not bad for a bike that has not been used for over 12 month.

I had decided on a simple flat route along the river down to Throop round to Merritown and back to Throop and along the river. Number one son was coming with us as well so not only did I have to ensure the wife would not do anything to injure her knee again and I had to make sure number one son did not ride into the river. Turned out to quite an uneventful 7.8 mile ride, the wife rode of into the distance as I sat back and guided number one son, even he never complained about the distance. He made up for it later that night, he woke up screaming as he had cramp in both his calf muscles….

Last night was weigh-in night and I can happily (if a little bemused) report another 2lb loss. I thought thing were going to be a bit iffy after a meeting with several packets of biscuits last week. I am once again back into the 16st arena and this time I intend to stay in the there unlike the last couple of visits.

Tomorrow I off to somewhere new for a ride and more usually it is a trail centre, after my last trip to new riding area was followed by a visit to A&E I have dug out my knee pads just encase, won’t help my shoulder if I come off but at least my knees will be a bit safer!! More of my road trip tomorrow if I make it back in one piece.

Here what the ranger was looking for (picture taken a year or so ago)

I had intended to go out riding early this morning, but getting up late put pay to that idea. When I did pull back the curtains I was surprised to see it raining. I ended up watching the F1 practice session, then going shopping then back home to watch the F1 qualifying. So it was mid afternoon before I got out for a ride so instead of the planned route I opted for a local ride over the heath and tried a few of the trails in different directions.

I am on holiday this coming week so I have a couple of rides planned during the week (up until Wednesday) then I will see what the rest of the weeks weather brings. One job I have got to do is drain clearing, as in the main sewer. About six other house’s drains run into our drains and then into the main sewer, well Friday night all the other house’s drains were blocked, some idiot had put a large plastic\metal rail thing down the drain and was causing a blockage, once that was removed everything started flowing but it seem as though the large amount of debris that was backed up has restricted the flow from the last man hole into the sewer (it happened once before). So I need to borrow some rods and give it a push to clear it out the way, not a job I am looking forward to.

Here how the BBC Sports Web Site reported it (look at the guy in the fence).

Apart from the F1 this afternoon which was fairly entertaining and watching the cycling I have done very little . Stepping on the scales won’t be much fun tomorrow night.

Anyway back to the plot, once I had been booked in I was quickly seen by a doctor (who turned out to be a mountain bike rider as well), she gave my shoulder the once over and said that she did not believe anything was broken but would send me for an x-ray just encase. After a 10 minutes wait for an x-ray then a further 15 wait I was called back to the cubicle. Before seeing the doctor I was seen by a medical advisor about alcohol education. Apparently it is an iniative that they are running and all those that are seen in A&E are offered this service, apparently many people that visit A&E do so because of an alcohol induced injury.

After my alcohol education, the doctor arrived to tell me that there was no broken bones but there was a larger than normal gap between my collar bone and me shoulder joint. Apparently this is normal if have had a dislocated shoulder. The doctor thinks my shoulder either partially dislocated and then relocated or full dislocated and then relocated its self. My arm is now in a sling and I have a return appointment on the 10th, so no riding for me till at least next Friday.

Tuesday I have other commitments so there will be no riding but will try and get some bike maintenance done then hopefully out for a big ride on Wednesday, not sure what the rest of the week hold, not thought that far ahead.

I think part of Saturday lack on enthusiasm is that I had not planned anything in advance which is partly due to the fact that my Memory Map program is not working on my new PC. I have installed it but it is not letting me see the my licensed maps I have. Will hopefully have it sorted ready for Wednesday ride, have a couple of idea but will see how it goes.

In the not very frequent “What animals did you see on your ride today” column, I can tick off a Kingfisher and 3 deer. The deer were very close, one watched me ride past while the other two carried munching grass. Also heard a Cuckoo and something shrieking from the bushes, sounded like a peacock but I never saw it.

Then in 1994 still into computers I found another game that indulged my secret, this game was so much better than the previous game, more colour, better graphics, oh the excitement. In 1995 a Deluxe version was released, I could hardly contain myself. By now my wife was sharing my secret and thoroughly enjoying herself and keeping it in the family my brothers took an interest in it as well.

Again as the years rolled by and I grew older, the urge slipped away again, I would briefly revisit my secret but it was just for a day never anything more. Then in 2003 unknown to me my secret started to make a come back. I uncovered this secret in 2005 and once again was involved in my secret world, again the wife joined in and in later years my young son has joined in.

Dear readers, my secret is………………………………………………………………..I like trains!!

I actually blame my father, as he dragged my to the railway station when I was about 5 to see the Flying Scotsman go through Poole Station, I don’t remember a lot about the train but I can remember somebody hanging out the window of the Pullman door holding a 2lb bang of sugar!!

Going to Henry Harbin Secondary School (now Poole High School) which is situated next to the main Waterloo to Weymouth line it was second nature to become……………………….a train spotter (oh the shame). Yes I stood train platforms quickly writing down train numbers down in little books. But upon leaving school I also left my interest in trains behind for the most part.

In 1985 I bought a game for my PC called A-Train, I could not stop playing it. Then with the advent of a new PC which meant the game played at absolutely silly speed I stopped playing the game. Then in 1994 I found a new game Transport Tycoon. This was followed a few months later by the expansion pack and then the Deluxe version. Over the years the game became stale and I stopped playing it, I moved from running Windows operating system to running Linux Operating systems. When suddenly one night while surfing the net I found Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe OpenTTD for short. This was a remake of Transport Tycoon Deluxe built by enthusiast and not only for Windows based PC by Linux and other as well, check out the OpenTTD web page, it is also free although donation are always welcome.

I have visited the train depots and looked around modern diesel as they were repaired and serviced. Even had the chance to drive a train, ok it only went a couple of feet but at 15 years old I was living the dream (same type as this one in the picture in this post. I have taken my son to the local steam railway (including to see Thomas). But now I realise it the mechanical aspect that I enjoyed about the train and not the collecting of the train numbers.

As I mentioned above, my brothers also had this interest in train (they went to the same school), one has kept that interest and taken it much further that I ever did, you can check out his web site, but you will need to take your own anorak! click here

The picture below is from the Didcot Railway Centre, a good day out for any closet trainspotter and their family

Old time Railway Station

Got the rear wheel fixed for the Whyte, total of four broken spokes in the end, two I found after the ride, one I found taking the wheel out and the lbs found a fourth when they were working on the wheel. Managed two rides this past weekend despite the wind which was really blowing on Sunday. Only rode my local loops although I did find a new section on the Throop loop ride at Hurn which will cut out a section of road riding.

The TV repair man (think we need to change that description) turned up on Saturday and just picked the TV up and took it a away for repair. Apparently he is not allowed to repair TV’s on site. He told us it could be upto 14 days for the repair……thankfully I got a message from them last night it is on its way back to us on Thursday. I now know why we used to huddle round the TV when we were younger, you can’t see a 14″ TV from the other side of the room.

Roll on Friday as I am on holiday for a week, have a couple of rides in mind while I am off so hopefully get rid of this wind and look forward to a dry week calm week, sunshine would be a bonus.

As expected last week large loss was a fluke and as normal has balanced out this week with a gain..

While everything around me seems to be breaking I must be really tempting fate as I have been playing with a new mini laptop today. Bigger than a netbook but smaller than a notebook the Thinkpad Edge 11 is quite dinky. As much as I like the dinky size on the laptop I think I would find it to small for long term use. This one’s job if for occasional office use and on the road use, it will certainly be a lot easier to carry around compared to my 15″ screened Lenovo laptop.

Well that it I’m off before I break something else……………….

You can find out more about Andy, his video and photographs on his blog

The second is another picture from my gallery, Hungry New Forest Pony

A New Forest Pony munching on one of the many Gorse bushes in the forest

I spent the morning fitting the bottom bearing and crank to the Cannondale which was a lot easier than I had expected and within a couple of hours I had the chain rings and crank fitted, so I allowed myself to take a quick ride up and down the road to check the chain rings in operation and under-load, all seemed well.

I had considered riding tonight but with one of the local live weather station showing winds blowing at 20mph and gusting to 30mph and the threat of rain, I let the inner wimp win (as Clive would say).

Here are a couple more pictures from our back catologue

Early spring sunshine in the New Forest

Spring sun through the trees

Bike Night on Poole Quay

Late evening sunhine on the quay bikes

Last October I noticed a mark on the door, on closer inspection it turned out to be a crack in the panel of the door and closer inspection still it was not the only crack. We notified the supplier and they came out, checked the door and confirmed it was cracking. Then they needed photographs which was quite good as the cracks were now growing. Then everything stopped, there were excuses like, so and so on holiday, we lost your file, can you send us x y z again and so it was until yesterday when were were told they were coming out to fit the door. So what was I not surprised to get a phone call telling they could not fit the new door as the new one was 8mm to tall!!

Apparently they are coming back on Tuesday to fit the newly reduced in height front door, I am not holding my breath but I will be home when they come to fit it and if there are any problems somebody will be getting some serious ear ache…..

Been looking at some more of my old photos and found this one

Sun star through the tress

Photo was taken at Gravel Hill (which is part of Canford Heath) not far from one of the trails I ride. It was taken nearly 4 years ago (11 days short) before I was into mountain biking.

If you wanted to see some more of mine (and the wife’s photos) you can have a look at our photo gallery, nothing special just snaps

When I got up I had put my cycling shorts and short sleeved based layer on, with the Grand Prix over and breakfast consumed I went and got the bike out the shed, boy was it cold, so cold in fact that I changed into my cycling trousers, and long sleeved base layer. Now more suitably attired I went and got the bike out the shed only to find it had a flat front tyre, I only swapped the tyres over yesterday afternoon!!

I eventually left the house at 9:30am, it did not take long for me to realise that my legs felt like lead, I was planning to do a long ride to make up for the no ride yesterday. I headed out through Throop, Hurn and out toward Moors Valley. I found the bike park at Moor Valley (well Watchmoor Wood) which is about the furthest point east you can get at Moors Valley. I did not try the park out but here is a short video made by some local lads of some of the attractions. I continued on tried another new bit I found where I nearly had an argument with a very large tree at speed, then onto the through the woods trail before heading back towards home. By the time I got home I had spend 4 hours riding and had 31.3 miles under the saddle.

An update regarding chain reaction and the card fraud. I had an e-mail from them on Thursday saying (and I quote) “our infrastructure was the target of a sophisticated attack which resulted in the theft of card details relating to a number of our customers”. They go on to say that the they have sealed the method of access used. They offered a £30 voucher to spend on my next order as an apology. I duly spent mine on Friday re-ordering the chain ring that I had cancelled as I had no credit card when it came into stock and a few other small bits, I made my payment via paypal. I ordered them at 10:08, they were dispatched at 13:10 and waiting for me when I returned home yesterday afternoon. Something tells me they are not very busy at the moment.

We (wife, son, daughter and me) eventually left just after 8am after the threat of “if you not down here now we are not going” etc. etc. We had not even got half way before the request for a toilet stop was made and to get some food as somebody had not had any breakfast, the reply was along the lines of “there is only another 40 more miles to go, you can wait till we get there”

We arrived at the Frenchay Campus a couple of minutes after 10, we were not the only ones, the placed was packed, we were eventually marshalled to a car park in the depth on the University. As we got out the car, I noticed something about all the other potential student walking out of the car park with their parents, they were all carrying sheet bits of paper. I double checked with the daughter who informed me that the only information she had about the day was an e-mail (which she had not printed off). We set off in search of the Media department (and the toilets), having no luck finding either we eventually asked one of the helpful students who were wandering around wearing red T shirts which said on them “Can we help?” written on them. When the daughter asked where the Media department was, she got a blank look and told we better check with main reception which fortunately was only in the next block. At reception we found we were told that we were at the wrong campus, we should of been at St Matthias campus which was just under three miles away across Bristol. So we hiked back to the car and set off for St Matthias Campus.

To be fair we found the place fairly easily, and followed the sign to the registration desk. Daughter picked up some paperwork while the wife, the son and I spied the cafeteria and some nice cold drinks. After the daughter had registered we all headed into the cafeteria for a cool drink. As we sat there drinking the daughter was reading the paperwork she was given and announced that the next meeting for her course she was interested in started in three minutes time!! We are dutifully followed the daughter as we crossed the campus to another building where we walked into a small hall with about 20 people already there and the meeting already underway. The only seating was on the front row so we quietly crept in and sat down. It took about five minutes for the daughter to realise that this was in fact not the meeting for her course but a different course completely. Having arrived late and being sat at the front we decided we should sit it out and wait till the end of the meeting before leaving.

Once the meeting had finished the daughter explained to the lecturer that this was not her course and asked if he knew where her media course meeting was being held? He duly pointed to the door opposite which had a big sign on it saying Media, if only we had looked behind us when we came into the building. As we opened the door to the media meeting we found that this meeting was also in progress (starting to make a habit of turning up late for meetings), as we quietly shuffled in and sat down the lecturer finished the meeting. We waited for everybody else to finish asking question before the daughter went up and asked some questions and collected some paperwork. After five minutes the daughter returned to where we were sat and said that was it, thinking she meant that was all she needed from this meeting I said where next then? I was not ready for the reply “home” After double checking with her that there was no other department she needed or wanted to visit, we headed for the car and home, we had not been there more than two hours!

As we made are way out of Bristol I remembered passing sign posts for Sherborne on the way up and I had been meaning to visit a bike shop in Sherborne. After a bit of frantic Internet searching by the family via their phones, the post code was duly loaded into the Sat nav and off to Sherborne we headed. An hour later we pulled up in the centre of Sherborne and with the family complaining they were hungry and it was lunch time I allowed them to drag me to the shops first for some food. After a bit of shopping we looked around the town but we could not find the bike shop. I saw a postman and asked him if he knew where the shop was, at first he said they were not far from where we had parked (which is what I thought) but then as we walked away, he called me back and said, “hang on they are not there any more, gone bust I think”.

We walked back to the car and what had been a sunny day had now clouded over and started to rain, well that just about summed up the day. It was late afternoon by the time we got home. I had thought about going for a ride this afternoon but I decided to go for a long ride tomorrow instead. I spent an hour or so swapping tyres and fitting some new Dr Sludge self sealing inner tubes. I will let you know how I get on with them in a later post.

Yesterday I had a drive to Northampton and had the joy of idiot drivers on the way up to our branch up there which delayed me by 30 minutes. Anybody that does a lot of driving will know the sort of thing I mean, slow drivers in both lanes of the dual carriageway, accidents tail backs, idiots who believe they are the only car on the road so they own the road and can do what they like (yes he was a young Audi driver), catching a pair of juggernauts overtaking each other. OK I know it is not the lorry drivers fault they are governed to 56mph but when it takes nearly 2 miles for one to pass the other you can’t help getting a little frustrated especially when I got stuck behind 4 separate overtaking incidences like this.

I enjoy driving but the past two days make me wonder why I continue to drive 32000 miles a year, maybe I am getting old (that was not an invitation to pass comment!) but some how I don’t think I would enjoy a job where I am tied to a desk 9 to 5, 5 days a week, I like my freedom……..

OK here something different, do you like decent music mixes? check out the appozone. He is a music lover that love remixing tunes. If you look around his web site you may well find some downloads (note they are not small downloads some are 100mb’s is size). As well as music, he loved kite flying which is where I met him, a genuine 100% guys

Appo (on the left) enjoying his two passions, music and a kite festival

The above picture was taken in 2007 at a kite festival in Essex, unfortunately there was no wind but the music was good!

As for Mondays night weigh-in, I am trying to forget it………………..

To try and get a balanced view I normally use three or four weather web sites, they will all give a slightly different view on coming weather and the art is to try and draw a balance between all of them. Here is a list of my 4 favourite weather web sites

• Net Weather
• Metcheck
• Weather online
• Met Office

I have several other local sites that I also use, one is a local sailing club which is useful for local wind speed. I have another one the whole family enjoy watching as it is a thunderstorm radar. Regardless of what any of them say it is still a case of getting up and stepping outside the back door and deciding on what to do from there.

Yesterday my get up and go got up and left, I just could not get motivated, it was gone 2pm before we went out shopping so the day ended with no bike ride.

Today I eventually left home just after 9am and headed for the river, no sooner had I got onto the river path I noticed that the river level was very high. I have ridden along the river many times when the level has been high so I know where the deep bits are……………………..or so I thought. The early parts of the path is broken up into field like areas (never any animals in them unless you count dog walkers and horse riders) each field separated by a hedgerow and each field has a path across the grass at the top end of the field. Reaching the second field I noticed that the path was flooded, realising that this are does not normally flood as it is one of the higher sections I decide to head across the field to the top path. This involved riding across the edge of the lake which had swallowed the path and half the field. Within several feet my front wheel had disappeared up to the axle in water I realised that this was not good (and the water was very cold as it flooded over the tops of my boots and waterproof socks), bear in mind that this not a field with short grass, no this is a field with very long grass that had now died off into large clumps. Hitting a low gear I kept pedalling and praying that I did hit one of the large clumps of grass and have to put my foot down. I made it out of the water and to higher ground and then continued along the path at the top of the field.

Skirting along the top of the fields I made it to field 4 only to find the entire field was flooded. Having experienced the cold water once I decided not to try and cross the field, so now what do I do?? I could try and get to Throop by the road but I would then still have problems later on trying to cross the Moore river as the area by Oakdene caravan park was likely to be flooded. In the end I decided to turn round and take the three and a half mile road ride to the local heath.

It was muddy but at least ridable unless you hit a patch of loose sand at the bottom of a hill on a right hand bend! The front wheel skidded in the sand and I went to put your foot down only to find where I was putting my foot down is actually a hole, I ended up falling over into a gorse bush with the bike on top of me! I could not even move without a dozen thorns pricking me.

With the drivetrain sounding like a bag of nails I headed for home. I spent the afternoon cleaning and preparing the Whyte for next weekends ride, a 25 miler around Cheiveley in Berkshire, one of the Evans “ride-it” rides. For whatever reason I have missed the fact that the chain needs changing until today (spotted the Cannondale needed a chain last week) so I have ordered a new one online this afternoon and will have to fit it one evening during the week.

As ever, tomorrow night is weigh in night, I think I have been a good boy, will have to wait and see if the scales agree!