My old Libre Buggy

The buggy has gone to a new home in Kent and the new owner has promised to make good use of it.

Apart from that I have no other news………….well I have plenty but I won’t bore you with it.

Went out for a ride on Wednesday night on the road to get a bit of practice for Sunday, 16 miles in 70 minutes which included a couple of stops, according to the gps averaged 12mph, was reasonable happy with that.

Here one of the pictures from Saturday trip to Westward Ho!

two wheeling the buggy with no hands

Look mum no hands

The rest of the photos can be found in my gallery

We went to Devon for a for a prior engagement, normally we go to the Ho! (as it is affectionately called in this house) at this time of the year as it normally the last Kite flying meeting on the beach before the summer restriction come into force. But as I am now left the sport and sold most of my equipment I was there just to say hello and good bye to some friend and take a few pictures of the days event. Will try and post a couple of pictures later.

Unfortunately the days events were not that great, there just was not enough wind. But the flyers were thankful for what they got as the forecast had been around 2mph. The beach itself was very rippled and large areas of soft sand, so you either found yourself stuck in the soft sand or you were knocking your fillings out over the rippled surface.

It am sorry to be leaving the sport but I just can’t justify having all the equipment and not using it, there just not the facilities around where I live to fly, to many weekends have been ruined by lack of wind, to strong wind or in the wrong direction.

By the time I got back home last night I did not have the energy to put my mountain bike back together again. As mentioned in my last post I was looking at the rear hub for the source of the clicking noise. Well things had not progressed well during the week, everything from the daughter only picking up one ball bearing instead of 18, to having a bag of bearings of two different sizes, down to not having the right inner tubes for the road tyres (more on that later). I had collected the wheels and tubes from the local bike shop before leaving for Devon on Saturday morning with the intention of fitting everything back on the bike Saturday night.

So 7am this morning I found myself sat in the garden (in a sunny spot) putting the wheels and chain back on my bike ready for a Sunday ride. As next weekend I am doing the sponsored bike ride (see the link at the bottom of the page) I had fitted some road tyres to the bike (hence the new tubes and my bike now looking very odd) and decided we would do a road ride.

We had intended to leave nice and early but I ended up watching the end of the Formula 1 race from China, seem as though I missed a lot of the action which happened in the first few laps. Don’t know what it is but I find something is missing from the racing now a days.

So when we eventually left home we headed for the New Forest. We had opted for a route starting and finishing just down the road from Burley village (free parking), no great distance as wifey can’t mange anything too long. All in all it was a nice ride, we choose the same weekend as Wiggle’s had one of their road rides running. Fortunately they were going in the opposite direction to us, saw everything from the old Raliegh bike to the super sleek high spec carbons racers and everything in between.

We stopped at Homesley tea room for a sandwich and refreshments (the wife was complaining) and very nice it was too. The wife did not fall off the bike this week which is quite unusual although she was nearly in collision with a donkey!

Tomorrow nights is the dreaded weigh in night, not sure what I will be like as I have been up and down like a yo-yo these past few weeks, all I know is there will be a weight!!

So last weekend I made the decision to leave the sport. The decision to sale all my kites and equipment was a tough one to make, I have been putting off making that decision for a while now. I came close to it this time last year but decided to stay with the sport hoping that I would be able to get out and fly more often. The start of the year (2009) started well with more flying done, but the chances faded away as the year went on and the kites equipment continued to sit there gathering dust.

So I made a list of my kites and equipments earlier this week and posted it on one of the kite forums. I then realised I had made one of the most basic errors, I had no photographs of the kite or equipment. While I have photographs from over the years showing my kites etc. flying, but the norm when you sale kites is to take a few close up shot of the kite on the floor to show the condition of the kite, so that my weekend job (with a forecast of wind and rain!!).

We are going to keep a couple of kites so that we can have a play and I will still pop along to my local field and do some photography so I am not completely leaving the scene.

One of the last rides in my buggy

The picture above was taken by the wife in July last year on my last but one trip out in the buggy at our local field.

My intentions are to concentrate more on the mountain biking now. Once the wife has recovered from the knee injury she got on her last ride (or should that be crash) a couple of weeks ago we shall venture out into the locals countryside and do some more exploring.

Weather permitting I will get out on the bike this weekend, either way it is going to be a mud fest……

To be honest I was surprised, I was hoping to maintain and expecting a pound on so a pound off was a bonus. 18st 6.5lbs at the moment, lightest I have been for a long time but no where near light enough yet. Not sure if I will make the 17st 7lb mark by early May as I had hoped for, but I am still going to press on.

The sun breaking through the trees at Gravel Hill

I must admit it has been several month since I took my camera out (proper digital SLR, not a compact). But I find with the cycling it is to dangerous to carry the camera for free of falling of the bike hence the reason I normally carry a compact around with me when I am riding.

In the past much of my photography has been kite sports related (another one of my hobbies) but since taking up mountain bike riding I have not really got the camera out. Hopefully as the better weather rolls in I will get the camera out.

This post is going to be a ramble about anything and everything. It was weigh in on Monday night and I had lost 2lbs. I am now at my lowest weight for a long time, was hoping to push it this week to get a 3lb loss to hit the 3st loss mark but I don’t think I will be able to rely on the cycling this weekend to help, the weather is looking totally pants. I went for a ride last night only a quick ride around the block, set the gps on my mobile phone before I left, got it out my pocket on my return to check how far the ride was and it had failed to work. It is not the first time the gps has failed but I am not sure why. I think the ride was about 4 maybe 4.5miles and I did it at speed, well fast for me anyway and I was bloody knackered when I got back. Apparently 5 miles in 30 minutes is supposed to help with my diet, only Monday will tell.

Talking GPS, her indoors in pestering me about what I want of Christmas, a GPS has been mentioned by her but I am not sure, it really depends on the level of details that I get from the screen\maps. It certainly would be handy for cycling but a handheld GPS is an expensive items, just not sure it would be worth it and give me what (I think) I want from a GPS.

While I have been doing all this cycling the one thing that has suffered is the photography, I have not taken a picture for month. My main area of interest kite flying is closing down for the winter (at least in my area, the look site we can fly one is water logged). The next big event we go to (and that only to take pictures) is the icicles (so named as it bloody freezing on the beach in January) event at Westward Ho! (its the same location the sidebar photographs were taken) towards the end of January 2010. Been the last couple of years for the day, would like to think I can get the camera out before then though. Would like to take it when we go out riding but I think the risk of falling off and damaging the camera\lense is to great. Thinking about going to the MTB centre near Blandford over Christmas\New Year so might do a bit of both, half day riding then half day photography and then half day riding……………..something tells me that won’t work.

The photograph’s I have added bear no relevance to this post what so ever, they are only there to break up my boring writing, the wood scene was taken 18 months ago and the sunset was taken over 2 years ago!

I have decided that I am going to make some changes to this site, while I like the quirky nature of this theme I just feel……………..well I feel I could find something better so I am on the lookout for a new theme.

Well that is enough of a waffle from me, I’m out of here

The day was not to bad, just fell a part when I got home, the new cooker had been delivered………………………..but it is damaged, my son is having problems with the school which I won’t go into but I am not a happy bunny about but at least I have a meeting with the school on Friday.

Managed to get a picture side bar loaded last night, tried several until I found one that I liked, still want to tweak it a little bit, just need to find out how. Picture are from Atmosphere 09  at Westward Ho! beach earlier in May. None of me as I am behind the lens