Bangor to Denver

Alarm woke me up at 5.45, I'd decided to ride into Bangor to get the train rather than sit in the back of the van. It was raining a bit so there was a last minute bike change (the nice road bike doesn't go out in the rain) but it was a nice start to the day to have 35 minutes on traffic free roads.

Train to Watford (delayed), bus to heathrow (delayed) queue, queue, queue some more, buy a bottle of 16 yr old Highland Park in duty free and board the (delayed) flight. Before you know it you've been up for 23 hours and are checking into the poshest hotel you've ever stayed in.

Welcome to America, baby!

Poor pootch

Pippa's my dog. She's had a hard time lately. Anterior cruciate ligament went in one of her back legs, coincidentally the same one that she tore all the tendons in 4 years ago. That wasn't so bad, the vets can fix these things, they substitute fishing wire for ligament and away you go, after a few weeks of recuperation. She was healing well, very well in fact, doing 15 minute walks a few weeks after the op. But then she started carrying her 'good' back leg, same symptons as before.
It's an age thing, her ACLs have stretched and she's got hip displacia.

It's rubbish when dogs get old.

Tryfan

Went to Ogwen on the way home from work to go for a run, it was a perfect evening so I went up Tryfan. Ok, it was more of a scramble than a run, but was oodles of fun nonetheless. Saw the RAF rescue helicopter on my way up, seems as though someone needed help getting off the hill. I decided that as I was only wearing shorts and T shirt and didn't have map, compass, spare clothes or food with me that it might be polite to give the Mountain rescue boys a wide bearth.

Tryfan was ace though, first time I'd been up to the top. although on the way down I'm pretty certain I passed the spot I'd reached with Pippa a while ago, when I turned back in the mist, not having a clue where i was - turned out I was about 40m below the summit. North Wales rocks.

where does the time go?

I don't know how it happens, but time vanishes before I get a chance to write anything here. It's 10 days since we went to Rob and Lydia's Wedding in St Agnes, Cornwall. I didn't have any holiday to use so it had to be there and back in a weekend - left work at 4.30pm, got to Plymouth at 12.30 am - nice. had an easy dive to St Ag saturday morning, mooched around with Vic, Lisa and Bex doing flower arranging and casually checked into the B&B to get ready for the main event.
That's when I discovered my suit trousers weren't there. Oh dear! This was with just under an hour before kick off. I tried the only clothes shop in the village - women's only, they suggested a sarong (no thanks) but luckily Sue bumped into the groom, who made a call to his neighbour Paul, who provided a pair that fitted exactly.
With that little hiccup dealt with the rest of the day was superb, even without getting stupidly drunk. best wedding I've been to - hurrah for Rob and Lydia!

Snowdon

I've been quiet lately, chest infection and general clutter of life getting in he way of fun. anyway, left work tonight, made the most of some rare good weather and headed up snowdon on bike. Made it to the top in a shade over 2 hours, clear skies, no wind, chuffin ace views, sun starting to dissappear.

What a peach of a descent! Made it down in one piece, no mechanicals, just as the last smidgeon of daylight vanished. Pinch flatted on a kerb 50 yards from the van.

Does it get much better than this? I don't think it does :)

Rob's Stag weekend

What a weekend - back in Leeds for the first time in over 2 years, catching up with friends I hadn't seen for atleast that long. The occaision? Little Rob aka The Overseeer, aka Dr Chug was having his Stag do. There was nothing planned for Friday night so naturally we all met at becki and Lukes and drank red wine like it was going out of fashion. Woke up predictably early and dehydrated on Saturday and mooched around Sara and Aidan's place getting shot at by young Lucy and set about re-invigorating myself.
Went to X-scape in Castleford in the afternoon for a male bonding session: lazerquest with Rob, Aidan, Alge, Luke, Paul and Pete. I think most of us got our arses kicked by all the 9 year olds tearing about the place, I know I did, but Rob was apparently quite good, ranking as 3rd hardest "quester" - I guess it favours short people :-)
After that we did aerial rope course thing where most of us kacked ourselves, well pretty much everyone except Pete who was loving it. So yeah, we got wupped by 9 year olds and then acted like a bunch of sissies, it was brilliant.

Scooted back to Leeds for a cracking meal at Hansa's followed by drinks. Lots of drinks. We started in The Reliance, joined by Vix and Bex and Lisa and got things going with a tequila slammer. After one beer I switched to G&Ts to try to shake the bloated sleepy feeling. Everyone was flagging after the meal and I think it was only more Tequila that rescued us from slumber, but by about 11.30 we were hitting our stride I think. stayed in Reliance until they shut then went to North Bar until they shut, then onto the Sela Bar until they shut and then some other place that nobody remembers the name of (funny that...). It was carnage. Bex had her bag lifted, Lisa was apparently talking to herself in Sela and then fell asleep, I ended up with someone elses phone(?) and we finally rolled home at 4.45am. Rob collapsed on the garden Steps before rallying enough to wobble upstairs and pass out fully clothed, Alge videoed most of that scene and sent it to Lydia (his future wife) who received it on her way to church a few hours later.

Sara described my appearance the next morning as "shambollocks". Happy days!

Mountain Mayhem

It was Mountain Mayhem last weekend - 24hr mountain bike racing(?) at it's best and worst. i was honoured to be riding with Singlespeeders of Destruction, thanks to Chipps, Biff and Nick for being a gorgeous team to get properly broken with. Felt absolutely empty after the first lap, so just tried to survive after that. It got easier on the next lap, then I did a double night lap and went to bed feeling sick. woke up after 3.5 hours sleep and thought "my knees hurt, I don't want to do another lap". Had a quadruple espresso and thought another lap or two might not be so bad and ventured forth. The horror. It was like a re-enactment of the Somme with bikes instead of bullets. I might have thrown my bike down when i got back and cursed about dragging a 50lb mud laden singlespeed around that course.

It was ace!