The weekend of the 5th, 6th and 7th May were booked to go to Tosside (Gisburn Forest)in Lancashire to meet up with some friends from a mountain bike forum. I had planned to leave early Friday morning going to our branch in Preston and then when finished head over to Tosside about 40 minutes away for a weekend of trail riding. Things did not go to plan, Thursday night I got a phone call at 9pm to say that the power had again gone off at head office (they had had power problems all day but we had been told by Eon at 5pm that everything was sorted). So a change of plans for Friday morning, I now had to get to head office before they start work on Friday morning. They start at 7:30am and I live 130 miles away, you do the sums, at least head office is sort of on the way to Preston.

I arrived just after 7am and thankfully all the servers fired up without a problem, but by now it was rush hour time so we hung around head office before hitting the road shortly after 9am and headed for the M5\M6. Preston was reached just after midday after an interesting drive through the town centre (missed turn off on M6, sat nav choose the route through town).

Things did not improve with the job I had to do at Preston, missing instructions, people not putting me through correctly on phone systems and idiots on the other end of the phone. Once everything was working (well at least my part was working) I phoned the alarm company, after a couple of unsuccessful attempts to get things working I was told that they would need to call me back which may be on the following Monday I told them that I would not be there on the Monday and that they can come out and resolve the problem themselves, I had had enough.

We eventually made it to the camp site by early evening, lovely and sunny but a bit windy, a small group of riders went of for a early evening ride but I decided not to go, but then I decided that I would and got changed and then headed out towards Gisburn Forest (we were and 1/2 mile from the forest). I came across the new Hope trail and headed off down the trail. The first thing I will say is it not really my sort of trail big jumps and big drop offs, not my sort of ride by I got to the bottom and met up with the riders. After a play and chat we decided to ride back up to the top and do another ride down the Hope trail. Once back at the bottom we headed back into the strong wind back to the camp-site.

Back at the camp site I came across a problem, despite filling the water tank up with water the previous night our water tank was empty, not good. In the end I used the on-site facilities and then joined everybody else for our hot pot evening meal (provided by the camp site manager). It had been a very long day so it was not long before I was heading for my bed. I wanted a good night sleep for the following mornings ride.

In the end I had a lousy nights sleep, got up with a stinking head ache. As I sat there drinking tea and feeling sorry for myself, my phone rang it was my son, “Dad we have got a leak”, then I heard my daughter in the background and my son past the phone to her. Apparently she had woken up to water coming through the bedroom ceiling in our room. We made a few phone calls and past on instructions but in the end there was only one thing we could do, go home. So we packed up, said a quick good bye to everybody and embarked on a 295 mile 6 hour drive home.

By the time we got home the leak had stopped, I was in no mood to venture into the loft so I decided that was going to be a Sunday morning job. Unfortunately at around 1am in the morning the leaking started again and in short I just lost the plot. I could not sleep in the bedroom I was curled up on the sofa and the black clouds were now at ground level.

Sunday morning dawned and I was in no mood to venture into the loft so we did the only thing we could do and called a plummer, it was a cost we could do without but we had to fix the leak. Thankfully they came out quite quickly and considering it was a call out on a bank holiday Sunday it was reasonably priced.

By now it was to late in the day to do anything so I just sat on the sofa feeling sorry for myself for missing out on the weekend.

The miserable weather has stopped me from riding lately, I went out riding this past Saturday and Sunday but both were shortish rides. I did consider riding yesterday except it rained and it rained again tonight. Tomorrows an early start, Thursday is shopping night as it is our sons birthday on Friday. So it is the weekend now before I get back on the bike.

Back home with the new shiny rotor I quickly fitted the new rotor to the wheel refitted the wheel, fitted the brake calliper and it was still rubbing on the calliper. After checking the internet for inspiration I decided to take all the bits off and start again. It was only as I was taking the adaptor off the forks (for those non cyclist out there, there is an adaptor that fits onto the front forks that the brake calliper is bolted to), that I noticed that there was a small arrow printed on the adaptor saying up, it was currently pointing down doh! Refitted the adaptor the right way up, refitted the calliper, adjusted the fit and everything was working as it should. In my defence what I will say is the instruction that came with adaptor had drawing on showing the positioning of the adaptor on the forks, one picture showed my adaptor fitted to the forks in a position that was actually upside down. There were no specific instruction just general instruction, it was only the arrow on the adaptor which pointed out my error.

By now it was to late for the shopping or the club ride, so I opted for lunch and an afternoon ride on my own. I had been reading on the local club forum about exploring Ramsdown Forest, this is normally part of my Throop Loop ride. So I set off towards the Stour River which for a sunny afternoon was quite quiet, I was expecting a running battle with walkers and their dogs. If I need any proof that spring was here, a mouth full of bugs did that and had me grinding to a halt coughing and spluttering much to the amusement of those around me. I made it down to Throop Mill where I met two fire engines, an ambulance, ambulance car and a police car blocking the entire road. It seems as though somebody had had an accident on the river bank about half mile away and this was as close as they could get. As I crossed the bridge over the weir I could see a group of florescent green jackets down along the river bank to the west of the weir, I was heading east.

In Ramsdown Forest I decided to ride up to the view point, I have only done this once and as I want to improve my hill climbing it seemed like a good idea at the time. By the time I got to the top of was a gasping spluttering wreck again and again an amusement to those already at the top of the view point.

I took the opportunity to have a rest and take some photos (see below) before heading back down the way I came up. I did some more exploring around the forest and while I did try a couple of paths I had not ridden before none of them revealed anything special. From Ramsdown I decided to carry on like I would do on a Throop Loop and headed out towards Hurn Forest and then out onto Parley Common and home.

A very pleasant afternoon and where until near the end of the ride I actually felt I had a pair of riding legs, hopefully they will be there again tomorrow!!

Looking west towards Hurn Airport, you can just make out the roofs of building on the industrial estate alongside the airport.

Looking out towards Ringwood (hidden behind the trees) A338 in the middle ground

Looking east towards the Isle of Wight and the needles

Been a while since my bike has snuck in to a picture

I decided on a trip to the beach, it was a ride I was going to do with my son the other week (can’t remember why we did not do it) so I thought it would be a good idea to remind myself of the route, that was assuming I could get past the head wind I was riding into. Once I found the shelter of trees it was not to bad. On the first down hill bit I realised that I had no real front brake, I could the lever back to the handle bar with only marginal affect of speed!! Thankfully there were only a couple of small hills to go down.

I was soon at the beach, I took a picture for the wife just to prove that I was there, it was nice and sunny, a bit breezy although it was now on back pushing me along the promenade. Plenty of people, kids on scooters and dogs on leads (30ft leads!!) to dodge. Saw an old guy in one of those electric buggies, he was sat in the middle of the path blocking a council van from getting past, he then started to move to his left and the van started to move past him when suddenly the guy just turn right and nearly ran into the side of the van. I some time wonder about the ability of some old people to be able to handle those electric buggies.

The beach in all its black and white glory, kite surfers in the distance

A quick game of dodgems across the square in Bournemouth town centre and then up to Meyrick Park for the return leg home. This was the only time I lost the route I came out of Meyrick to early but hey ho. The only down side of this route is that there quite a bit of road riding involved but as a ride it is a simple quick ride.

Work has been manic this week and show no signs of changing next week but at least for the most part it all went according to plan (not that I have a plan…). Have a few laptops and PC to sort out this coming week so hopefully I will be left alone long enough to get on and sort them out.

Had a lovely phone call from the insurance company (national company, big name, yellow is there colour) that insure the companies vehicles, claiming that they had phoned me and arranged an engineer to come and look at my van (afters it little bump) and that the engineer came out and could not find anything wrong with the vehicle. Well that was wrong on three counts, first they had never phoned or spoken to me, secondly I never had any visit from an engineer, and thirdly you would have to be blind to miss the damage. I am now waiting for the engineer to phone me to arrange a meeting as the girl on the phone could not understand the concept that my location can change on a daily basis so it is very difficult to say where I will be in two week times on any given day.

Talking of Bournemouth town centre earlier, I came across this video in the week of urban mountain biking which just so happens to be in Bournemouth

NOTE: You might see an embedded Vimeo video window below, if so play the video from there, if you don’t then click the link below this message

Mountain Biking around Bournemouth town centre

Trole Industries Bike Team – Bournemouth from Trole Industries on Vimeo.

Introducing the Trole Industries Bike Team in association with Surface 2 Air Sports. Shot in Bournemouth UK during the unseasonal warm October 2011.

Featuring 3 members of the Trole Industries Bike Team:
Pete Warner 4 Cross/Downhill
Peter treviss-Bell – Downhill/BMX
Tom Miller – BMX

Trole Industries Apparel
http://www.troleindustries.com

Trole Industries Bike Team
http://biketeam.troleindustries.com

Partners:
S2AS
http://www.s2as.com

Shot on
Panasonic Lumix GH2
Canon EOS 550D
Panasonic FZ45
Panasonic FZ38

Music from
M83 – Coulours
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
The Naked and Famous – Young Blood
Wolf Gang – Lions In Cages

Saw a mountain biker who shall we say was doing a different kind of riding in a BMW convertible, not that I was worried but please on a residential road!!

Also had a numpty in a four wheel drive who thought it would be good to see if he could run me and some pedestrians over as we crossed pelican crossing. Yes he had the green light but he was still on the round about 60mtr prior to the pelican crossing so we had plenty of time to cross with out obstructing him, even the pedestrians got a cross with out a problem but it did not stop him from screaming the engine and glaring at us as we crossed in front of him. I offered him a single digit salute to let him know how I felt.

Just spent a pointless 2 hours trying to get something to run on the server at work this afternoon (need everybody of the system to run), it failed, not sure why as it ran perfectly when I did this in November. The joy of working from home over a weekend, looks like I will be trying again tomorrow evening.

Back home I am left to my own devices as the family go off to do some shopping. With everything assembled and a quick run through the gears and everything seemed to be OK. A quick spin down the road and back revealed otherwise. The chain would not lift off the inner ring and on to the middle ring, it would either end up sucking it self between the chain stay and chain ring or just sit half way rattling across the teeth of the chain rings. No amount of adjusting the front dérailleur made any different, so I loaded the bike up and headed over to Cyclefix to see if they can resolve the issue so I can at least go for a ride.

Diagnoses came down to two possible faults, the small inner chain ring was worn and holding the chain or the middle chain ring was incompatible in some way. The only way to resolve this was to fit a new one of each (one at a time) to see if this resolved the problem. I could leave my bike and it would be ready late afternoon or I could do it myself in the shop using the spare bike stand, I took the later option. I soon had the crank out and in bits fitted the new small chain ring and then re assembled the crank. A quick test on the bike stand showed it was changing ok so I took the bike for a ride around the doctor surgery car park next store. The changing from small to middle chain rings was now working. So yet another chain ring was purchased, all in all an expensive morning and the bike is now sporting three new chain rings and a new chain.

Here is a picture of the old and new chain rings (sorry not a very good picture)

The old chain ring is the top one and if you look carefully you can see the wear compared to the new one behind

Here another reason I had to change the chain ring

Bent tooth

After all that I never had time to go for a ride this afternoon so the bike is now ready for tomorrow mornings ride

While it was my normal Sunday route I had decided to check out a couple of new sections, the first was in Ramsdown forest. I had seen a path leading a way at the top of a short climb so I though I would try and find the bottom end of the path and see if it was a better\more interesting climb than the short climb I usually take. Unfortunately I could not find the start of the path so having cycled up the short climb I could not be bothered to go back the newly found path, so I left that for another day (maybe when I do the ride in reverse which I do from time time to relieve the boredom of doing the route in the same direction).

The next new bit was at the top end of Hurn Forest (part of the route when I go out to Moors Valley). When I leave Hurn Forest I turn left down an unmade road, looking at the map there seemed to be an option to turn right and head of into some more woodland. So I headed out that way this morning, turned right instead of the normal left and about 100mtrs from where I turned right I was met by a large sign saying “Private- Keep Out”. So I returned back down the unmade road deciding what to do and I opted to carry one like I was heading out toward Moors Valley but look for any access to the area I had seen on the map which was on my right. Once I got to the main road I turned right as normal, after about 200mtrs I found a gate that led onto Ashley Heath Country Park (not to be confused with Avon Heath Country park which is about 1 miles to the west). Must admit I never knew the place existed. Had a quick ride around having a little explore but I became weary of the weather as dark imposing clouds were gathering on the horizon. There is certainly more to explore here so I will be paying a return visit.

While I was working on the bike yesterday, I noticed that my bottle of chain lubricant was nearly empty again (second bottle of dry lubricant I have bought this year) and it got me thinking. I use either Finish Line wet or dry lubricant dependant on the season and for the most part I am happy with either product bar one thing, the cost.

Do you realise that buying it at £6.99 per 4fl oz bottle from CRC, it works out at £279.60 per gallon (see maths below)

160 fluids ounces to 1 imperial gallon
160 \ 4 = 40 (4oz bottles to the gallon)
40 x £6.99 = £279.60

That is a disgrace (I don’t purely blame CRC as many other retailers are selling at the same or more for the 4fl oz bottles). I know Finish Line do a 1 gallon container of the oil but I have not found a price for it although one guy did say that he picked up a gallon for £183.60 on special offer!!

So I posted on the MBR forum asking the questions what chain lubricants do other mountain bikers use, several of the replies listed chainsaw oil, so I will be looking at getting some of this and see how thing progress. At the end of the day, it can’t be any more expensive than buying the Finishline products. Be interested to hear what other use and there relevant costs.

Friday’s visit to the hospital for my shoulder went OK, the doctor was happy with the situation with my shoulder, I have about 85% movement in my shoulder with the only problem being in the extreme of shoulders limits. I must admit that I have been surprised by how much my shoulder has recovered since my off 10 days ago. The ultimate question to the doctor was “when can I get back on my bike”, the answer was as soon as I like providing my shoulder felt comfortable on the bike.

With the weather forecast for the weekend I decided to try and ride on Saturday. I opted to ride the Throop Loop simply as it was a relative smooth ride and there was plenty of option to cut the ride short and head for home if my shoulder decided it had had enough. There was also the threat of rain all day on Sunday.

So after a little tweaking of the front gear change I left in glorious sunshine with the my shoulder showing no ill effects of being back on the bike. A few weeks ago I found a new access to Hurn Forest right opposite the exit to Sopley Common. You simply leave the gate from Sopley Common, cross the road and pop through a hole in the hedge. Popping through the hedge involves hopping up the 12″ high verge. I have done this a couple of time, normal practice, push down on the handlebars then lean back and push down on the pedal and the front wheel will pops up, then roll through the hole in the hedge. Well not sure what exactly went wrong but if ask the driver of oncoming car who had a birds eye view of the incident he should be able to tell you. I think I just mistimed everything and never got the front wheel up which meant when it hit the verge I just sailed straight over the handlebars. I fortunately fell to my left and managed to grab my bike so it did not fall back into the road. I never got to see the driver face as he went past, but if he was not laughing then he must have been having a sense of humour failure. I quickly scrambled through the hole in the hedge and recovered my composure.

Thankfully the rest of the ride was uneventful, I managed to do the completes Throop Loop, the last few miles of the ride done in the pouring rain. I had no more pain in my shoulder than I started with so I am happy with that.

Sunday morning dawned with pouring rain so after a lay-in I am currently seated on the sofa typing this and watching the Le Mans 24hr

Checked the gps data when I got home, shortly before the crash I had hit 36mph, I braked when I was at my fastest as I realised that if I fell off it would hurt, so I slowed down, then started to speed up again and then came off. Never realised I was going that fast though.

I have just swapped the rear wheel over from the Cannondale to the Whyte (fortunately they are both Mavic 717 rims with Hope Pro2 hubs). To be honest the Whyte wheel is not looking to good, I found a another broken spoke (a third) and this one had broken the shoulder off the nipple, it was still stuck in the hole in the rim and it was only when I was checking each spoke that it came away in my hand. Several other spokes felt loose but that maybe because the wheel is out of true, have to wait till see what the LBS says.

In my very infrequent “what dead animal have you seen when riding” column, on Sunday I saw a dead Otter, to be honest I have never seen a live Otter in the wild only in zoo etc. It was at Parley Cross roads a busy local junction, about half a mile from the river. It had obviously had been run over and either crawled of was picked up and dropped onto the grass verge. To be honest I did not know that we had Otters in the area.

Finally another picture from my gallery

Kite buggy racing at Westward Ho!

Despite the chain problems yesterday ride was very good, plenty of new areas (to me) were ridden and when it came to the hills I was able to hold my own on most of them, towards the end I was at the back but I was not miles behind. By the time we got back to the starting point my legs were feeling it but I had pedalled 17 miles in a group which meant it was a faster pace than I would of ridden at on my own.

This mornings ride was a normal Sunday Throop loop, unfortunately I was only a mile or so into it when problems struck. The rear brake was rubbing so I stopped to adjust the calliper when I noticed not one but two broken spokes. I can only assume that I broke them on yesterdays ride at some point and failed to notice them when I got home last night. Fortunately the wheel was still running pretty much true so I opted to carry on with the ride and take each part as it came. I avoided as many of the bumps and roots as I could and managed about 75% when I caught the edge of a root with the back wheel which made a lovely twangy noise which had me thinking I had broken another spoke or two, I decided that I won’t push my luck any further and headed for home. So currently both bikes are off the road and little chance to get them sorted until the end of the month.

To continue my theme of breakages, I seemed to have broken my credit card, I had to get some fuel for the company car, I inadvertently gave the cashier my personal credit card rather my company credit card and then wondered why it would not accept the (company credit card) pin number, I only realised when the cashier said because of all the failed attempts my card was now blocked. I phoned the credit card company up and apparently there is a password on my account now since I had the fraud earlier in the year, I don’t remember setting one for being asked for a password and I certainly have not received any notification of one being set to me. Unfortunately they can’t tell me what it is (which is fair enough) or do anything to my account until I give them the password. The only way to get the password changed is to write a letter (as in snail mail) to credit card company and ask them to reset it. Not overly impressed to be honest.

Tomorrow is weigh in night, not to sure what to expect this week, I think I have been good but don’t want to get my hopes up only for the scales to tell a different story………………

Now continuing my infrequent dip into my gallery, here another picture for you

Two kite buggies on an alien planet

There plenty more photos in my gallery (click the link)

It was then time to get the Whyte out the shed and and start chasing the creak that has been bugging my rides for the past few weeks. Decided to take all the suspension links off and clean and grease the bearings and reassemble. I also ended up removing the crank and cleaned and re-greased the bottom bracket bearings as well as the front wheel bearing (noticed a little rust mark on the hub by the axle, turned out is was from the retaining spring washer and not the bearings). A quick ride round the block and the ride was silent so hopefully the creak has been resolved.

Once the bike was put away and the mound of tools that had made there way out of the shed were returned to the toolbox it was time to tackle the creeping bramble bush. I noticed earlier in the week a few new shoots of brambles popping up in the garden. Closer inspection revealed a long tentacle like branch had made its way through the garden rubbish pile and was slowly creeping its way across the garden, putting down new roots every few feet. So it was on with the thick leather gloves and out with the gardening fork for a bit of bramble removal. I upset a slow worm in the process, thought at first I had killed it but as I tried to pick it up it slithered in to the grass and disappeared. Eventually removed about 20ft of bramble tentacles from the garden ensuring I got as much of there roots as I could.

When we first moved in I spent a year long battle reclaiming the garden which had returned to a wild overgrown natural state. Now apart from one small corner where the rubbish pile is, the garden has been de-brambled and I am not about to let the brambles get a foot hold in the garden again, one day I will get the final corner cleared and rid the garden of brambles for good.

Tonight’s task is to plan my rides for the next three days.

Due to one thing and another I never got out for an evening ride this past week so this morning ride was my first since last weekend. While I had planned to go riding today I had not decided where, when I went to bed last night I had decided on the local heath but when I got up this morning I felt I wanted to ride some where new. I remembered seeing a route on bikely web site which showed a route down to the local beach. After a quick search I found the route and downloaded it. Unfortunately it was part of a bigger route so I chopped out the section of the route I did not want and left just the section to the beach and back and then uploaded it to my GPS. I was interested in this route for two reason, one it used a couple of new section of areas that I already ride and secondly I was interested in how much of an off road ride there was to the beach. The route was not a direct route from A to B but more of a direct-ish route using all the available off road sections in between home and the beach. It turned out that from my house to the beach, along the promenade and back through Bournemouth town centre and out through Meyrick Park to the point where I crossed my outward path near Bournemouth University was 7.5miles. I guess 50% of that was off road (a mix of heathland track, path through woodland and gravel paths). At this point I decide I still wanted to do a bit more riding so I continued along the road to the local heath and took a loop around the heath and then home. Checking the GPS at home showed 18.9 mile ridden. Nothing spectacular, but interesting none the less.

While out riding this morning I pasted two new cycling attraction currently under construction but close to opening, one is the new Bournemouth cycle track at Slades Farm and the other was new cycle shop opening on the premises of an old cycle shop that closed towards the end of last year in Wallisdown.

Bad ankle, I have what the doctor called an inflamed tendon in the back of my ankle. If you have ever suffered from tendinitis in your wrist then you know what it is like except mine is in my ankle. I normally take Ibuprofen for it and it is normally gone within 3 or 4 days. Well it started last weekend and eased of during the week until yesterday when I decided I would walk from and to the garage when I took the car in for a service. By the time I got back home last night my ankle was screaming, this did not bode well as I was supposed to be taking the wife to Esher in Surrey on Saturday for a Bead Show. I hobbled around Sainsbury doing the weekly shop (which was quicker as dear son was not with us) and then it was home to rest my ankle.

Before heading off to the bead fair I had to get the Cannondale over to CycleFix to have the crank and bottom bearing removed the bottom bracket faced ready for new bearings. As I was changing to a different type of crank and bearings there was no point in me buying the tools to remove the old bits so I opted for Cycle Fix to do the job. As I was resting my ankle last night I had to remove the chain and pedals from the bike first thing this morning. Getting the bike ready was quite a quick job even under the deep red sky this morning. With the bits removed and the bike locked in the bike rack on the car it was time for breakfast. An hour later we were sat outside the bike shop waiting for them to open so I could drop the bike off and head for Surrey, about a 2hr journey.

We left the shop shortly after 9am and arrived at Sandown Race course just on 11am. Parking in the car park I was faced with a stiff uphill walk to the main entrance and every step hurt like hell. Now you may be wondering why I am going to a bead show, it is simple. I have dragged the wife around to various days out in the past where she has had little interest but has duly come along. Well now it was my turn, the wife is interested in beaded jewellery and it was my duty to ensure that she attended this show, that not quite how the wife worded it to me, unfortunately I can’t repeat what she said to me for fear of this blog being censored…….

After resting my ankle for a few minutes I was able to walk around the show reasonably comfortably, neither of us had ever been to one of these show so were were not sure what to expect, I guess there must have been around 50 stalls, many of them selling the same as each other but several with some unique beads. I did what many other husbands were doing just walking past the stalls scanning the contents and then standing back and letting the wife’s do the closer inspections. After one tour round the hall we had refreshment in the cafeteria, the wife announced that she only wanted to go back to two stalls to purchase some beads which I thought was pretty good as I was considering staying in the cafeteria while the wife went around the hall again on her own. Having purchased the beads we headed for the car and lunch before we headed off to the next part of the day.

Being close to Guildford we decided to pop into Evans Cycle store just to be nosey, I have to admit I was little disappointed. The store was nice and clean, but the staff outnumbered the customers and while it was big store it seemed empty, there were plenty of bikes but the accessories side of things was very scant. We only spent a few minutes in the store and then left without buying anything (not that I had intended to).

We now took a leisurely drive home via CycleFix to collect the Cannondale and boy was he busy in the shop, I have never seen so many bikes in the shop (all repairs, he does not sale bikes), apparently the good weather has got everybody thinking about riding their bikes.

Back home I had time for a cup of tea before we were back out again to visit one of my nieces poorly computer. Said computers is currently on its second virus scan having already removed a handful of nasties.

So no ride today hopefully going out tomorrow, ankle permitting

Yesterday it was warm enough for me to ride in just my short sleeve top, I had started with my jumper on as well but that soon founds it way in to my backpak. Two rides this weekend nothing exciting except for two punctures. One when I got the bike out the shed and another out in Canford Heath, the tube I fitted had a faulty valve, so I had to fit another tube to the tyre. Neither ride was anything exciting just a normal Canford Heath and Throop rides, tried a couple of new bits on each ride which seemed to work well.

Only a short ride on Saturday as I wanted to get back, clean myself and the bike before the rugby started, good idea until the wife decides she wants to go shopping as well before the rugby starts, sorted it all out in the end. As far as the rugby went it was a bit of a disappointment, the only decent match was the Scotland v Italy match. As for England v Ireland, I’m not sure England turned up, Ireland gave the team they were playing a lesson in rugby, had they played like that for the entire tournament then they could of been in a position to take the Grand Slam. Then moving onto to France v Wales, it was not as one side as the Ireland England match but again one sided.

As I mentioned last week my credit card was scammed, I have had an e-mail from Chain Reaction Cycles, two letters from my credit card company and a new credit card this week. I thought that the three security numbers on the back of the card was supposed to make scamming your card harder?? The only thing getting harder is using your card with all the additional information you have to provide when you order on-line, then should you need to contact the card company to discuss anything you have to recite a couple of volumes of personal information and family details just to talk to somebody.

Tomorrow night is weigh in night, hopefully it will be down

I went to bed last night unsure if I was going to go for a ride today, forecast was rainy showers. When I got up this morning it was raining so I had breakfast. As the rest of the house started to rise at 9am I noticed sunshine, a quick check outside revealed no rain, sunshine but a bit cooler than yesterday.

Quickly changing into my cycle gear I was soon off down the road, decided to ride the Throop loop but in reverse today as this would give me the option to explore Parley Common and find a new route (which I did). The overnight rain had made the trails all slippery again after they had dried out from the sunshine and wind of the past week. I must have enjoyed myself as I soon found myself heading for home.

Suitably covered in mud (I had forgotten how dirty naked legs get when riding through mud), a bath was the first task when I got in. The wife kindly offered to run the bath for me so while the bath filled with water I took the opportunity to check my e-mails. I had an e-mail from my credit card company thanking me for changing my password, er I had not changed anything. A quick phone call revealed that somebody had tried to scam my credit card for £699 about 20 minutes after I left for my ride this morning, fortunately it was blocked. In short my card has now been blocked and I have to wait 7 to 10 days for a new one. Tomorrow I have to phone several parties to inform they should not try and charge anything to credit card until I get the new card and can give them the new card details. I then need to speak to the credit card company to find out how there added level of security that they insist I use was so easily breached and why I was not informed (other than an auto generated e-mail).

I will be posting more about this in the coming days including where I think they may have got hold of my credit details from, I need to ask some question first.

After sitting down to watch England struggle to a win over Scotland in the rugby this afternoon, I then had to continue working on sorting out why the wife could not login into her blog, started this Friday night and eventually resolved it about 20 minutes ago. Now I have a computer to rebuild (unrelated to the above) just another job on my to do list!!

It is very easy for us to sit back and say it happens but after mother nature wreaked her havoc in Japan on Friday it can be difficult for us to comprehend the damage done. Have a look at the link from the BBC News site, it show aerial pictures of before and now of areas of devastation, I think the first couple show the devastation the most, you can see the before where all the house are, then look at the after and there is nothing.

I was a little disappointed though, there is a path that goes all the way around the perimeter of the park but you can’t ride the section that runs along the shore line of Poole Harbour. There was a large gate which stopped you from going through with your bike, seemed a bit stupid as the path on the other side of the gate was the same wide path that I had been happily sharing with all the other park goers.

Once at Upton Country park it is a case of returning the way you came, there is a option to venture on to Upton Heath but then it back onto the Castleman Trail and heading back towards Canford Heath. Took a different route across Canford Heath (compared to the one I took going) just for the variety.

I got back home comfortably warm in just under 3 hours for a 21 .5 mile ride, thought that was a bit slow but then I did make some detours and stops on my way.

It is currently raining with the forecast for more rain tomorrow morning, so not sure if I will be riding tomorrow or not.

Sundays ride (on the Whyte) was the same as I have done over the past few weeks, out to Moors Valley and back. Some of the fire roads at Moors Valley were hard work today, they held the Rallye Sunseeker out there yesterday and some of the fire roads were badly ripped up. This week I remembered to charge my little digital camera and had intended to video the bike trail route at Moors Valley. Unfortunately it started to rain as I started the trail and I gave up and put the camera away after the first 1.5 miles. I will post the best bits of what I shot later in the week, I set the camera a little to high this week so the shots I have got are a little hit and miss. By the time I finished the trail the rain had stopped and then started again about 2 miles from home, had to stop and put my “boil in the bag” rain jacket on.

Hope the three rides I have done since last Monday count for something at the weigh in tomorrow, being stressed I have been naughty with the eating, will have to wait and see.

I was up early and again the weather forecaster were right, no rain, cloudy and bit cool. I opted for a short sleeve t-shirt and my jumper this morning along with the padded shorts. IT was certainly cooler on the arms and legs as I went down the road this morning but I soon warmed up. Like last week I had been concerned that the river would be up but there no sign of it flooding, there was more chance of drowning in mud than water. There was mud every where along the river and through Hurn Forest although the worst was saved till last. Did exactly the same run as last week and this time the GPS recorded the route without a problem, it was the Muvi video camera that did not work, might have helped if I had charged it up!!

When I got to the “Through the Forest Trail” I pushed it to see how fast I could do it (I thought at the time I was videoing it as well). I did the 4.5 miles in 28 minutes which is about 9.6mph and I slowed down quite a bit from the last mile, I am no fast riders that is for sure.

I was trying to keep up a good pace, I wanted to complete the ride in under 4 hours. I did not feel to hot like yesterdays ride, in fact in the shaded area I felt a bit cold. When I got to Ferndown heath I came across the worst mud of the entire ride, giant lakes of mud and water across the paths, I just dropped it into granny ring and plodded through the mud, quite impressed really as I cleared it all.

I got back home and checked the the GPS to see the stats, I did the ride in 3hrs, 49 min, I was disappointed to note that the route was not 32.5 which I calculated last week but 31.2. Of the three times I have ridden this route now, today I felt the best during and after the ride, which is even better when you considered I had the short ride yesterday.

Tomorrow is weight in night, I think I have had a good week, I will let the scales be the judge of that though………….

After a late breakfast I wheeled the Cannondale out the shed and fitted the new chain and completed the other couple of jobs I had to do. There were still dark heavy clouds in the sky but no rain was falling. Looking around it seemed as though we had had a lot of rain over night.

I left the house at 11:30 having decided to do a short loop around Canford Heath. My earlier speculation that we had had a lot of rain was soon proved right, the path from the golf club was a very muddy. I other thing that struck me was how warm it was, by the time I rode up the short slope to the second gate I was sweating and I was only wearing a long sleeved base layer, cycling jumper and my padded cycling shorts….yes shorts! The trails were either very muddy or a running stream. After a short loop of the heath I headed for home, I wanted to save some energy for tomorrows long ride.

Looking over on Bike Radar and I came across a link to this site Bicycle Design Blog. The basic of the site is that budding bicycle designers submit drawings plans for complete bikes or bike components. These budding designers can be anything from a professional designer to a kid sat in his bedroom. I am still working my way through the blog, but the three wheeled cycle buggy for the disabled looks great.

It is just me slowly meandering along the river Stour around Throop with the camera mounted on my cycle helmet. Hope you enjoy