guilty pleasures

i just realised that this week has been bookended by two 'guilty pleasures' rides. monday morning and friday afternoon.
both involved driving to get there.
both short and sweet.
both in stolen time when i should have been working.
both complete with a dose of gleeful smugness because the trails were deserted.

if you look closely at that poor beleaguered 69er you will see that it is also patiently bearing the mud of not only these two rides but a handful of others as well. only the rotors, the heel-rubs and the inside face of the chain are shining. the rest is a uniform coating of filth.

guilt.

j.

time off in lieu

sunday, stanmer cross. this race and i are developing a history. it is traditional that i start it feeling like hell because it's on or around my birthday and that makes me feel old. this year it was a couple of days early but i still felt like hell thanks to a day of riding north downs badly in good company on saturday (which always makes it worse) and then a rare migraine thanks to skipping too many lunches lately. wobbles and squiffy vision not the best preparation for hooning hard for an hour.

still, sun out, bike cleaned, breakfast forced, jersey on and many friends gathered to play and spectate. not a bad way to spend a sunday. nearly missed the start thanks to an apathetic bimble of a warm-up, begin at the back and "go!" we're rolling, elbows out, legs up, fast fast fast.

1 x twenty minutes: wheel watching, trying not to get in anybody's way, trying to pass as many people as possible, "you can vomit in my shoes if you like".
2 x twenty minutes: pass in a jiffy, beer hand ups, loving the trails, bacon aeroplane noises, someone tells me off for giggling as i undertake them "it's not funny" "no, it's hilarious!".
3 x twenty minutes: clock watching, counting down, ding-dong-avon-calling, are we nearly there yet, private battles, sprint for the line, dead dead dead.

happy legs, beer buzz, chatting, laughing and once the results appear shortly before the rain a sneaking suspicion is confirmed that i managed, somehow and despite all expectation, to be first lady home. day made, princess. pie, mash, peas, gravy from pokeno pies who treated us well and didn't grumble about the muddy boots, home to a warm bed and a cup of tea.



monday, tuesday, a brace of rides with good friends adding layers to the feel-good smiles. north downs, cheeky monday off, trails to ourselves, exploring, restoring, bakewell tart and tea, peaslake robin, golden trees through the mist, pin eyelids & drive home to the welcome warmth of the post-bath nap.

south downs, old-school tuesday night ride, filthy trails, minor mishaps, 'a while' sitting in the woods passing bottles and flasks and baking around, socks and nettle beer, final grins on donuts, new lines, reconvening, the same familiar ridiculous singlespeed drag race down lewes road to end, can't remember the last time i finished a 'fun' ride with this hacking racer's cough.



balance regained.

j.

Where's my Mojo? :(

I've been really unmotivated to ride for the last few weeks. I think it's got a lot to do with having spent a week in Italy with Rivierabike on top class, full-on mountain trails, then coming home and doing my first ever solo 24 race at the No Fuss Events, Relentless 24 at Fort William. The quality, technicality and downhilleriness of the riding in Italy has made all my local rides seem flat and lacklustre. At the race, I disappointed myself by not coping well with the psychology of 24 hour riding. I then came down with the flu and since recovering, have been feeling flat and wimping out on riding in the increasingly dank and dark evenings. What a wuss!!! *kicks self in shins*

I'm about to try and get Jojo's Mojo back by committing to ride with other people in the next few days and just get the legs turning again. It's that bit harder to wimp out if you've arranged to ride with a mate. There's a bit of a pressing need to get my head sorted and get back on form again as through the delirium of my influenza, I happened to be online at 12.00 noon on the 5th of November and managed to secure a solo spot in the Strathpuffer.... Wonder what climatic challenge it will throw at us this year? The inaugral year was ice cold with a short stretch of mud; 2007 was soaking wet, ice cold with miles of pad-eating-slurry and Jan 08 was sheet ice on the course and hurricane force wind that flattened the campsite. Surely we're due a dry warm one in January 09?....

Jojo x

(Inspiring Italy pic on 'Cop Killer' taken by Leon Topps)

good times

Anyone else permit themselves a small smile of excitement after listening to the news this morning? :o)

Last night under this roof before packing life up again and heading east for a couple of weeks. Great day today riding bikes in the woods, a touch of sunshine and a few new friends, a spot of mizzle, buffed trails, a few too many uphill "one more times", larches spilling golden needles all over the buffed trails. Topped off with a fine cuppa and and stalking the chiller aisles in search of pies to fuel the companionably silent drive home. Now rehydrating with Brakspear Triple. Okay, the off season is over...

Life is good.

j.

Yay Susan!

Congratulations to Susan who finished the NYC Marathon in 4h 41m! We are SO proud of you!

On another note, I managed to find the information just hours after the race ended from the incredible database on the official website. You can put in any athletes name and get a little chart showing their race and split times at key checkpoints. Did I mention there were 38,000 runners? Oh- and if you want to be really scared, put winner Paula Radcliffe's name into the tracker and see her average mile pace....

Minx

random acts of kindness

Thank you to Martin who sent through a guide to Scottish country dancing this week (he also sent some Sport Beans but they didn't make it into the picture because I ate them for breakfast of course....) Now I did a lot of country dancing as a child so I'm slightly concerned that he somehow divined that I would love it, and know that I would abandon the ever present and over flowing to-do list in favour of practicing the Strathspey Travel Step.

Also, one of those 'how lovely are some people?' moments..... I had an email from a customer this morning telling me not to credit some money she was owed but to add it to Susan's running fund. I am incredibly touched by this- so thank you Shona. 

Right, I'm off to scour the schedules to see if I can find NY Marathon coverage so that I can spend tomorrow afternoon on the sofa drinking hot chocolate and trying to catch a glimpse of that Greenwood girl.

Minx  

ordinary world

I don't think blogger publishes its posts with time stamps so, to clarify, it's 02.06 on, er, Wednesday, and I am w i d e awake thanks to inadvertently discovering that chocolate brownies are a palatable caffeine vehicle when late night work is called for. And I've just done a fair bunch of work thanks to that. Oops.

Rummaging around now whilst waiting for the washing machine to finish and the sun to come up. Could be here a while.



Spent overdue and lovely time with old friends today. Sarah, Dan and Hope are not bike people (I'm working on Hope, at six months old she shows potential but is not quite big enough for a Rothan yet) but still wanted to hear all about America adventures. They totally get the cake thing, they get adventures too because they've had plenty of their own and have plans for more, they just don't get the bike bit - but that doesn't diminish it an ounce for them.

It's good to be reminded that what we play at can be relevant in the real world, too. It's easy to become too introspective pedalling around on your own all the time, when it feels like all you ever get to do is listen to bike people talking about bikes in an insular little world, and often not even riding them, just talking a good ride...

Sometimes it's good to talk about socks and crawling and shepherds pie and forget about wheels. Here's to a few more ordinary days.

j.

stfu*

I love racing at Thetford, it is my most favourite of racing places and Dusk til Dawn the one event I look forward to over any other. Partly this stems from the fact that it's the last hurrah of the season, but also the fact that the atmosphere never falls short of brilliant thanks to skilled and attentive organisers and the way that they use their trails, which is rarely short of sublime. The weather forecast was none too promising but that's what we have waterproof shorts for, isn't it...

So, after a practise lap and lots of hellos, fifteen minutes standing on the start line in strong winds and sideways rain, we embarked on an amusing start loop behind a pace quad, holding position at the front of the pack with pointy elbows and a little give and take. Three fast laps of a swoopy, entertaining, singletracky course, swapping third and fourth with Fi, wind and rain less of a problem than they could have been thanks to the trees, some particularly unpleasant sucky mud but plenty of friends around to banter with, all ready to do battle with the night. It was shaping up so well...

And then when the normal lap four demons popped up (god i'm tired, this really hurts, have i got a puncture, i feel sick, is that a blister on my hand, i can't ride that, WHY?), there was nothing to answer them with. Completing The Thing, which sucked up my life and my energy for two years, battling that monster and sending it packing has turned me inside out in many ways and completely changed the way I feel about certain things. Apparently including racing.

There is an emptiness where the reserves of stubborness and determination used to be. It's not an unpleasant one, but it is unsettling, and as equally endless a bottomless pit as they were an unclimbable hill. The usual doubts and fears went clanging straight to the bottom of it with nothing to intercept them on the way.

And so when I got to the end of the lap I stopped, and sat down, and my wise and lovely pit crew Adam tried coaxing me out with new bottles and food and batteries for a few minutes whilst I tried to make sense of weird emotions, until he quietly reminded me that I really don't have anything to prove anymore. And, as usual, he was right.

I passed the rest of the night enjoying the rare and novel experience of wandering round a race site in the middle of the action, chatting and sharing quiet moments and coffee with friends old and new between laps, using the pointy stick of encouragement on pet soloists Phil, Gareth, Nigel (finishing his first ever 12 hour in fine fashion) and Fi (who took a frighteningly steely podium place as well as two large bacon sandwiches, both of which made us proud), practising my heckling on a very muddy One Speed Revolution who were thankfully going too fast to hear and generally lounging around watching the mud turn a different shade of grey. All to the familiar soundtrack of soggy grass and scorched disc rotors. Lovely.

After four laps at a fair old clip I still feel satisfyingly battered today and there's just as much wet, gritty kit mouldering in kit bags as there would have been had I rode the full twelve hours. There isn't a shred of regret, just the calmness that I still can't fathom and the reminder that sometimes it's harder to make the right decision that it is to carry on regardless of it.

And of course a strong intent to spend the next few months doing fun things on a bike that don't require the demon-beating mechanisms to be pressed into action, in the hope of coaxing them back out of retirement before I get fat and slow... ;o)

j.

* "soften the f*** up". er, thanks, jo.

a rallying cry

Minx first met Susan Greenwood when she called out of the blue because she'd won a the Netjetters travel writing competition for The Guardian. The prize was funding for a proposed trip across the States by bike, which she'd blog as she went along. The only problem was, as she usually rode her bike in cast-off blokes jeans (oh and yes, had never actually ridden further than her London commute...) she didn't know what to wear. Giggling over euphemisms for preventing 'bottom' soreness is a quick way to bond and she's been a true and lovely Minx Girl ever since.

Abandoning her bike for a while, Susan is running the New York marathon next month, and could do with some support. I've spent ages trying to paraphrase this, but instead I'm just going to post her email to me...

"On November 2nd I will be running the New York Marathon because well, what is life without a challenge and because a few months ago my dad died from an atrociously under-funded and overlooked disease called Motor Neurone Disease (yes, Stephen Hawking.) There are no words for how much I miss him but there is an institute being built in Sheffield which from next year will be dedicated to the study of the condition and hopefully a treatment. It is to this end I am sacrificing my knees.I know we all have causes close to our hearts and I know some of you have had your fair share of heartbreaks. I’m not expecting you to donate anything except that I am. I will call in any favour, buy any beers and pay in to the favour bank for years to come if it means you will sponsor me whatever you can afford. Quite simply, I’m begging! This link is to my dad’s obituary because it helps me to know that as many people as possible know that once upon a time an amazing man called John Greenwood existed, the next is to an article I wrote in The Times about the disease and institute and the final link is to the John Greenwood Trust donations page hosted by the Charities Aid Foundation. Like I said, I know there may be other causes which are dearer to you but this means the world to me and I really could use your support (this also comes in the form of emails, texts and post-event Grolsch.) My dad was the bravest person I have ever met and I just want to make him proud one more time."

So yes, as Susan says- we all have our own causes. But she is a friend, and that makes hers a little bit ours too. And if everyone that reads this nips over to donate even the cost of today's skinny latte then Susan's cause will be several thousand quid better off.

Minx

Too nice to drive

I had a few places to be today and had anticipated a day of in and out of the car, but it was just so sunny I couldn't face it. A bit of timetable inspecting and I determined I could just as conveniently train it and bike it, get everything done and enjoy around 30 miles of sunshiney riding. What could have been a stressful day ended up being lots of fun!

Vikki

Le Tour

Sunshine, chips, ice-cream and pro-cyclists. Enough of a lure that a few of us pedalled out to the coast today to watch as Tour of Britain whipped through Southport. Lots of fun. About 65 miles of riding for me, I wonder if the pros are fuelled by chips and lollies?

Vikki

curb your enthusiasm

can't. stop. riding...!

currently reacquainting myself with the joys of the road bike (resplendent with new flowery bar tape and hoods, thanks jo). i like the big ring, i like 12% hill reps, i like squeezing ninety minute sprints in between the showers, i like the fact that i only have about thirty seconds of flat-out in me before my endurance tuned legs give up and die in a stinging heap of noodle wobbles, i like going fast for a change and i like that there is something to work on again.

rain? yes. pissing down. nothing quite like head down in the drops sprinting downhill through a river to elicit giggles.

bikes are ace.

j.

Nocturne Photos

Chris Hoy on the Rollapaluza, setting the target time of 19 seconds for 500m.

Ali M fastest female on the rollapaluza with 24.6 seconds, disappointed not to be awarded her prize by Chris Hoy himself at the end of the night!

The pros on the circuit round the Quays, almost too fast to photograph.

Vikki

Nocturne

Pedalled into Salford this evening with friends for the Salford Nocturne races. Got to give a good cheer to a few of our returning Olympians, despite best psycho-stalker efforts didn't get close enough to Chris Hoy to handle the gold!  Some great racing, Rollapaluza hi-jinks, beer and music. A top night out. Some photos to follow when I get chance.

Vikki 

Soggy Scottish Summer Fun.

After the very special experience of carrying a clay bike round the Sleepless in the Saddle course for 24 hours, this short bit of sub-aqua northshore at Dalbeattie was a doddle. Sadly the child-free week of biking in the Borders that followed the Joy of SITS, gradually morphed from holiday to endurance event itself as the steady rain continued day and night.

Hairyscary and I threw in the soggy towel on camping and retreated to a hostel at Keilder hoping to be soaked in hot water from pipes rather than cold water from heaven, alas, 'twas not to be. A 'very mild' dose of Legionella in the shower system (yummy!) meant ending another day with what my granny termed 'a hoor's bath' of a stand up wash at the sink.

We still managed to enjoy the riding and thanked our foresight of planning to do all the nice weatherproof trailcentres rather than brave the boggy wilds of 'natural' trails. The holiday was wrapped up nicely with a sunny but still muddy '10 More in Moray', No Fuss Events 10 hour enduro, where this Moray Minx Girl delighted herself by coming first in the ladies' solo category. Sadly my partner in biking, the other Moray Minx Girl, Roberta, was injured and sat this one out but did an awesomely fantastic job of keeping my spirits up as I ground out the miles.

Jojo xxx

discovering the inner lizard

Another year, another worlds...



Say to people that you're racing the singlespeed world champs and they'll assume you're an athlete. Jaffa skinsuits, french waitresses, 'vintage' lycra, large white pants and a gimpsuited batman probably don't figure in their picture of the deciding of who is the toppermostest singlespeeder of them all.

"Is it like the olympics?"



No.

Because there is laughter and smiling. Meeting with once-a-year friends and longed-for faces that have and haven't changed and toasts to the absent ones too. Proper racing on a proper course that provokes severe fits of the giggles in the heat of the midday NoCal sun and probably vastly exceeds legal endorphin limits. There are cow bells and heckling and secret smiles for the missing but remembered refrain to the Outcast's "you're all winners" banner. Prizes for the slowest and oldest and longest travelled racers and bikes of every breed in the box and then some. There is a course marker playing bagpipes and enthusiastic noisemakers at every step and intersection waiting to jeer and cajole and scrape up the pieces all with equal helpings of cheer. Bottle hand ups and tongue-out concentration and conversations at the tops of hills. Legs and arms and faces caked in sweat-stuck dust, kilts and bruises, bloody knees and beer. Lazing in the cooler shade and good socks for every racer and the chance to ride your one-speed bike in a fastish way without really needing to care about how fast you really go.

A day for trail love, not race love. The sun shone and we loved it. Ta Napa.


j.

welcome to denver...

...52 degrees and pouring with rain. the brits have landed.

bike fettling, big breakfast eating, news catch-up'ing, and general home reconnecting thanks to some lovely care packages, a brace of two mcvities digestive twin packs and a ziplock bag of yorkshire tea. the temptation to head south out of san francisco by bike and not east by train was substantial but plans were made so amtrak won out and it's great to be here with familiar faces again. looking forward to getting the kit off the bike and riding some trails; buffalo creek tomorrow (apparently an imba epic ride, and thankfully, also fast-draining...), then on to moab, fruita, elko and beyond. rah.

oh yes - and hello to tim and his exploding nettle beer :o)

jx.

san francisco

tuesday morning and fog so thick that it could have been the severn bridge and not the golden gate that i was riding over. clocked 1020 miles at the apex, deep waters and pelicans swirling below; it was supposed to be a 900 mile trip but diversions for cake add up to a few more, as usual.

oregon was just lovely, but california is weird, a strange mix of hippy-unfriendly that makes me wonder whether or not it's worth the effort. for every nice person i meet, there's another wacko just around the corner waiting to harangue me about the "english" and "their" war (be that the current situation or WW2 it seems we, or even i, am to blame for both and all). this morning's relief to slip into the city streets and become no-one again; bike tourists stuck out more and more the further south we came.

the gdr comedown has been neatly tempered by the trip down the coast. there is a happy rolling community all heading south; new friendships, in that pleasantly transient way of brief nights around a picnic table over supper and beers, endless superficial chat, no need to reveal or share too much, but a few days ago i realised that i needed to escape the slower pace we'd fallen into and exhaust myself again. it seems that some habits die hard and sleep becoming elusive means that i simply have to work harder to tire myself out before my head hits the pillow. unless i want to spend the night feeling my legs trying to pedal their way on down the road alone. i'd hoped that this would be something i could escape once 'it' was over but maybe not. maybe it was like that before 'it' all began. i can't remember.

so, a few hours in the city, wandering around on foot, accomplishing mundane chores and waiting, really, for a train to denver where i'll see the first familiar face for eight weeks. this blog (and emails, and trip planning, and checking back in with the world for really far longer than is polite) kindly bought to you by the apple store, san francisco...

j.

Pesky mechanicals

DSC00177
Originally uploaded by Nosila107

A lovely ride out (via Bicycle Doctor in Manchester) to Dunham Massey (best tea rooms ever) in the sunshine with friends. Luckily the pesky mechanicals weren't ours but we were on hand to help out a fellow rider.

Vikki

Global warming - ha!?

I don't know whether to blame Mother Nature or The Rain Gods, but either way can someone out there tell them it's August. In the Northern Hemisphere this is meant to be summer. I should have ridden today in a vest top not a waterproof. Sunscreen should have been in my bag not armwarmers. My post ride treat should have been enjoyed on a sun terrace not dripping and huddled in a cafe.

Vikki