"Mountain" Biking for Beginners.

Steve and his girlfriend Lesley came down to visit me in Bristol this weekend. They came down on Saturday and we went out for some food and beers around Bristol.

I had quite a good time showing some of the sights and sounds around Bristol to Lesley as she had never been to Bristol before.

We even managed to gate crash a private party at the Mud Dock later on in the evening. We managed to get into the private party venue without realising that it was a private party. I remember mentioning to Steve at the time that it looked like a bit of an odd set-up with a big happy birthday sign handing from the roof inside the bar.

Then when we got to the bar a few people were looking at us a bit strangely. I ordered a couple of drinks from the bar and before the barmaid could serve me a beer someone asked who we knew at the party. We all said pardon and then we realised it was a private party.

At this point we made a hasty retreat laughing all the way to the exit. If only we had been a bit quicker we could have just replied 'John', or 'Peter' and may have got away with it!

On the way out we noticed a small sign on the steps up to the bar saying that the private party was on tonight and the place was closed. How could we have missed it, I think I saw the sign on the way in, but didn't take any notice of it as I was too eager to get a beer.

On Sunday I convinced the two of them to come out on a small off road bike ride at Ashton Court. It was only a very short 5 mile beginner route and ideal for the two of them.

I really needed the training and would have gone on my own in the morning and let them stay in bed for a while longer if they wanted.

Fortunately the weather was quite good and
we all had a really good time on the ride. Even though both their bikes were quite old and didn't even have front suspension they both coped really well with the technical bits. I even had a quick go at Steve's bike and it was quite a bone shaking change to ride a bike without any front or rear suspension or disc brakes.

The three photos were taken near the end of the course on the easier gravel path outside of the forest. They wanted an actual action shot so the last one is of them on the bikes riding past me.

NFL Sunday!

Last Sunday Phil, Dave, Jason (Uni mates) and I had tickets to see the first NFL American Football game outside of North America. The game was between the New York Giants and the Miami Dolphins. The Giants were strong favourites as the Dolphins hadn't won a game yet all season and were mid way though the season. We made a long weekend of it and Dave, Phil and I got together in MFK on Friday night, then went to meet Jason on Saturday in London stayed at his place till Monday.

We had lots of fun playing games and enjoying each others company all weekend. We even got to meet up with another friend of mine Steve, on Saturday night for beers and a curry. I always have lots of fun when I get together with my friends from University.

Here's Phil (left), Dave (Giving head lock) and Jason in our seats at Wembley.

Pre game warm up by the New York giants. True athletes as you can see in the middle.

And the Dolphins cheerleaders put on a good show. The game was classified as a Dolphins home game so their cheerleaders were around to support them.

The kickoff by the Giants.

And the cheerleaders started doing whatever they do.

The quarterback star of the Giants, Eli Manning about to throw a pass.

Cheerleaders keeping us entertained, as to be honest the game wasn't a good one.
The Dolphins Quarterback Cleo Lemon (and he was one today) taking a snap of the ball to start a play.

The game was very wet with a very muddy field, unfortunately the cheerleaders were obviously getting cold as they put on their jackets for the last quarter.

The teams line up for a Dolphins snap. It was raining quite hard for the second half of the game.

Overall it wasn't a very good game, but the stadium was packed out with over 81,000 fans and the atmosphere was very good. The Giants won 13-10. I screamed my lungs out and was well heard in our area of the stadium. Even though I didn't really support any of the teams playing as I'm a long term New England Patriots fan, it was great to actually see a regular season NFL game in Wembley.

I was happy at the end of the day as the Patriots slaughtered the Washington Redskins 52-7 and are unbeaten so far at 8-0.

I also went running in MFK on Saturday morning and unfortunately managed to twist my ankle which put me out of action for exercise for most of the past week. Then I managed to catch a cold (probably from hugging and kissing Dave as his daughter had a cold and he was carrying it) which manifested itself on Thursday and put me out for this weekend. Grr...

A video of the stadium during the game.


And a video of a cheerleader for balance. :-)

Practicing for the Wobble.

Unfortunately not too much to report except for training recently.

Wiki, Susan, Nick and Susan's flat mate (Sorry, but my aging memory has let me down on his name, Matt or was it Ben?) went out for a short ride around the Oxfordshire countryside a couple of weeks ago.

We were lucky to probably catch one of the last warm days of summer. We met up and went straight after work for about three hours.

It started out as a gentle ride along the road up and down some hills. Wiki made up the route for us and she did say that it was a gentle route with only one big hill, which was off road. I tend to think when Wiki says the route is gentle then it's probably average for most other people. :-)

As it turned out the route was quite gentle and there was only one really steep hill. It was quite good fun to cycle up it as well, as the off road bit was more of a wide bridle path and I managed the up hill in one go.

Mind you it was probably only because the hill was in a forest you couldn't see the route up and the top. As the route up was divided up into lots of hidden steep bits and not so steep bits it was quite easy to just keep chugging along till I got to the top. I think if I had seen the route up from the beginning I might not have made it.

There were the usual number of stinging nettles on the way back along the bridle paths. At one point I was following Wiki along the paths and while going though a very overgrown set of nettles Wiki started to slow down. I shouted at her to not slow down at the nettles and to speed up. I think she had a long sleeved top on and shorts so wasn't quite feeling the nettles as much as I was in my shorts and T. Either that or she just doesn't notice them. Once she heard me she did start to speed up again. Susan later on said that she could hear me laughing and shouting at Wiki to speed up, all very funny. I really felt the nettle stings all night long!

On the way back we had the fortune to see a really lovely sunset while cycling along some fields. A marvellous end to a good fun cycle ride.

I've also been trying to train harder and harder at the gym and on my weekend cycle rides in preparation for the Real Ale Wobble in November. I've had some mixed results as the gym training is working out quite well, but trying to do longer and longer cycle distances is proving difficult. My last cycle to Bath and back really took a lot out of my legs, I can do it in one go with one brief stop in Bath, I covered 34 miles but it was all on tarmac. I'll be much happier the sooner I can invest in a road bike rather than having to take my mountain bike on the roads!

My bike was serviced earlier this week and I was quite proud as the tyres needed changing as they had worn down enough. A proud first for me. :-)

Recipe for Disaster.

- Take one software development company and make the development team go outside.
- Add an idea for a country pub crawl and mix in some bicycles.
- Have some of the developers drink lots of alcohol when at the pubs.
- Watch them fall off their bikes as the day progresses.
Well that was the plan...

Earlier this week we had our development summer do. We normally do something like hire one of the company boats and go up/down stream visiting a couple of pubs during the day, or go bowling or go karting as they did last year. Remember I was in Sydney last year so missed the go karting. This year we went on a local country pub crawl, most of us were on bikes but those that didn't want to ride walked/drove a different route.

Being so energetic I wanted to go on the same off road route that Wiki and I did the last time I was cycling around Wallingford. Roger was up for it as well so we both got into work early and went out. Unfortunately my car could only take one bike and Roger's hire car wasn't exactly big either, so both of us drove to the start point and went from there.

We were quite lucky for the entire day as the weather was ideal. It was partially cloudy so ideal for cycling.

Roger and I managed to do most of the off road course from Wiki's map directions before we had to head back to Wallingford to meet up with the rest of the development team for the pub crawl. It wasn't quite as good as I remember it but still fun all the same.

Here's Roger taking some snaps of the green English countryside for his friends back in Australia.

Once I got back I had to organise the cyclers back at work. We had a split of about two thirds of the team cycling and one third walking. The route we had planned would visit four pubs and be all on minor roads. There were only a couple of hills and I figured that the less able cyclers could at worse walk up them.

Once we set off I felt like I was leading a gaggle of ducks just waiting to get run over by the cars. I was in charge of the cyclers for the day as Wiki was unfortunately down with a cold.

We had a good start and managed to get to the first pub without any problems. Here you can see Simon, Allen and Roger (L to R) going off road to take a slightly different route to the first pub. This time I stayed with the main group to keep an eye out on everyone. At the first pub we stopped for forty minutes and all had a pint, some even managed two pints!

On setting off to the second pub a few people went an alternative off road route to it. I went with the off road group as everyone else assured me that they could get to the second pub without any problems and that they had a map anyhow.

The off road route while not very challenging was good fun with Simon, Roger Allen and Andrew. We followed some single track bridle paths which went through plenty of stinging nettles, ouch!

At the second pub we met up with the walkers who had been on a short walk to another pub and back in the morning.

Phil bought in his automated chicken coup door opener. It basically has a light sensor and at dawn/dusk raises and lowers the door to the chicken house. Here we all are gathered around the gadget while Phil explains how it works. Apparently the chickens automatically go into the coup when it's dark. The device works very well and has saved Phil plenty of trouble in having to open and close the doors.

We had a rather sumptuous three course lunch at this second pub which was quite filling. After lunch we were meant to visit the last two pubs but we were all so full of food and beer that most people were happy to stay at the same place and just head home later on in the day.

Mohamed my boss was quite shocked by the bill as it came to £1030, so much so that he shouted out the amount much to our laughter. He was quite happy to pay it though as I'm sure it wasn't that expensive compared to other expenses claims.

On the way back Simon who probably had the most to drink during the day managed to come off his bike at the bottom of the steepest hill. I wasn't there at the time as Roger and I took an off road route back. He was probably coming down the hill much too fast for the 90 degree bend at the bottom. That combined with the amount he had to drink meant that he fell off quite badly and split his head open!

There was blood all over the place and the people with him called an ambulance. Two arrived, one from Reading and one from Oxford. In the end neither of them took him to hospital, they just patched him up and Mohamed called someone from work to take him to the Oxford hospital. He ended up with 25 stitches in his forehead and probably a ticking off for not wearing a cycling helmet. Simon should be back at work on Monday and I'll enjoy taking the piss out of him for falling off.

Here's a picture of just about everyone in our development team outside the manor house building where we work. I took this before we set off for the pubs in the morning.

Near the very end of the afternoon Mohamed managed to come off his bike as well but he only grazed his knee and I got a rear flat, probably while coming down some good hills on flint stones. Some of us went for more beers and a curry in the evening in Wallingford.

All in all a wonderful fun day out and with a 96% personnel return rate to work it was regarded a success too!

Peak District hill biking.

Over the past couple of days I've had a small holiday up in Manchester and the Peak District. I've been visiting Anne, Dave and their daughter Jennifer.

Dave and I went out mountain biking in the Peak District. We were quite lucky with the weather as it was partially cloudy and there wasn't any rain or wind.

We went to the Derwent Reservoir and the surrounding hills to go biking. Here's an image of the Ladybower Reservoir right next to the Derwent Reservoir.

The initial part of the ride was a gentle ride up and around the reservoir on wide gravel track.

We didn't see a soul for the first fifteen minutes, which was very peaceful. We did eventually see one fisherman in the distance and strangely enough a towel and pair of trainers beside the gravel path, but no one else in sight!

Here we are part way up the ascent and looking very happy, even though we were a little tired.

Once we started the proper ascent up one of the hills the bridle path started to get very narrow and also very steep up the side of the hill. It was just about impossible to ride the bikes up the hill so we had to walk most of the way up. It was enough of an effort walking up the hill, let alone having to carry our bikes up there as well!

The only animals we could see on the hill were the sheep and some grouse. Some of the sheep weren't that afraid of us and remained in place as we cycled by.

Once we neared the top of the hill we went over some flagstones that had been put down. They were a relief to cycle on on the way up and would prove to be really good fun to cycle over on the way down.

Here I am cycling towards the camera on the top of the hill. There was a fantastic bridle path along the top of the hill, which consisted of several dips and bumps and lots of large and small rocks to cycle over. It was great fun to cycle along the path bumping the bike over the numerous obstacles and almost falling off the bike several times. Needless to say that I had a massive smile on my face while cycling and really enjoyed it.

I was quite determined to try to cycle through every part of the path that I could to get he most out of it all.

Once we reached the other side of the top of the hill and started to descend we decided to turn back and head back down the way we came up. Continuing along the path would mean a very long cycle back to the car and we didn't have time for that.

Going down the flagstones proved to be a very good test of the suspension of our bikes. Fortunately for me I had a full suspension bike and I really needed it. Poor Dave whose fillings and arms must have been shaken to bits on his hard tail bike.

Once we started to descend the same path we came up things started to get a little hairy! I wasn't sure how far I would go down the narrow path before deciding that it would be safer to walk.

I surprised myself by going down the single track, which had a steep drop down the right and a steep climb on the left. I kept myself focused on the rocky path ahead and knew not to look right, down the hill, as I knew it would be a scary sight at the speed I was going. Dave managed to go much faster and even did a tail slide around a sharp corner.

As we got near the bottom of the hill the track got much too steep and rocky for us. Here you can see an example of what he had to deal with. If we went for this it wouldn't be a case of if we would fall off but more when and how badly!

We did see a mountain biker on the way up who was preparing to go down this part of the hill. He had a full-face mountain biking helmet on as well as some body armour. I wonder how he got on on the way down.

Also on the top of the hill we met three local lads who were out for a walk. They did look like they had just popped out for a walk around a town centre rather than a walk over the peak district. Totally unprepared, wearing the wrong clothes and not knowing where they were going really. I hope they managed to make it back without too much trouble.

Once we got to the bottom of the hill we took a short break beside a stone bridge where you could go for a dip in the river. There were swarms of midges by the river, which must have taken great delight in taking several bites out of both of us.

We then took a road path around the other side of the reservoir. It was a great end to a fantastic ride that day. We raced a little way around some of the climbs and just after one race a giant Hercules transport plane flew over our heads at a very low altitude. I put up one of my hands and yelled out to it in sheer joy!

It was a fantastic day and one that I really enjoyed. I didn't feel too tired after all the climbing and cycling and had so much energy I could have done it all again on the same day. Even better was that I didn't fall off my bike at any point and besides the midge bites I came away wound free!

Prison, ballooning in Bristol zoo.

The usual story of not having enough time to update my web blog. Apologies to everyone.

I've been back to Oxford recently and went out on the town with Emily, Deirdre and Allen. So much has changed in the city since I was there as a student. Well I guess it has been around sixteen years since I studied there!

One of the biggest changes is the castle that is next to the Westgate shopping centre. I don't remember ever going there as a student but the place has been recently converted into an area of restaurants, theatres and apartments.

We went to have dinner there at Carluccio's which was very pleasant. At the start of our meal a play started in the square. Here you can see one of the cast members on the balcony speaking down to the audience. This was only the start of the play and it then moved on to somewhere else.

After dinner we went to some of the old pubs that I used to frequent as a student. Once of the places was The Gloucester Arms. It's a bikers/metalers pub, which was always full of smoke and smelly bikers. Unfortunately because of the recent smoking ban the place only really smells of bad BO from the bikers! Deirdre tends to drink white wine when we go out. When I got to the bar I had to ask them for a wine list, knowing that they wouldn't have one. I got a laugh from the barmaid, and a reply that they didn't even serve wine let alone have a wine list.

A few weeks ago the Bristol balloon festival was on at Aston Court. My sister Helen came down to visit me over the weekend with my two nieces Aimee and Elise as well as my brother in-law Aran.

At the Balloon Festival there were other things shown as well as lots of hot air balloons. Here you can see the local TA showing off their big guns and how to do an assault on a bunker position.

There was also a pony and carriage display team called Chariots of Fire which both Aimee and Elise were very impressed with, as well as a motorbike stunt team.

Here's one of the very odd shaped hot air balloons, which was shaped as an Action Man. It looked very cool, but we didn't see it take off. They just inflated it and then eventually deflated it again. Maybe it was meant to help out in the TA training.

There was a very big fairground at the festival with lots of rides and the usual stalls as well. One of the smaller rides was this bungie-jumping ride for kids. Both Aimee and Elise had a go but it wasn't very cheap. At ten pounds a kid for only five to ten minutes jumping time they must have been raking in the money. There were four kids bouncing at a time and at that rate I think I should start one of these myself and make some money on the side.

Unfortunately we totally missed the evening ascent of the balloons. We decided to be more environmentally friendly and caught the bus to Aston Court. The bus back ran every hour at half past the hour. The ascent was scheduled to take place around six pm, but by seven they still hadn't taken off or even inflated.

We could see all the balloons laying flat on the field but none of them were inflating. We had to catch the 7.30 bus to get the kids back home in time, just as we were getting on the bus we could make out some of the balloons going up, so we only just missed it.

Here are a few of them just passing the Clifton suspension bridge. It must have made a great sight to see them all rising.

The following day we all went to Bristol Zoo. It's the same zoo that Johnny Morris used to film from for all the kids TV programs that he used to make. I have very fond memories of his TV show and his voices he did for the animals.

One of the more impressive animals at the zoo was the silver backed gorillas. Here you can see the dominant male during feeding time. Helen said that he really did look like a large man in a suit. It's amazing how human they behaved.

He must have been a lucky gorilla as he had two females to keep him company and one of them had recently given birth to a baby. The baby gorilla was especially cute and was also very shy. He rarely strayed very far from his mum and spent most of the time hanging on to her arm.

While we were having a picnic lunch at the zoo there was a floorshow on for people to see and meet some of the smaller animals. She demonstrated some ferrets, mice and also a python snake.

At one point they wanted some child volunteers for the show. We were about to ask if Aimee wanted to go up there when we noticed that her face was covered in juice from eating red cherries. Maybe she shouldn't go up there while looking in such a state! Obviously she didn't have a clue that her mouth was covered in cherry juice, but she did look very funny.

The python snake that they had on display was particularly impressive as well. You could get very close up to it and I did. Unfortunately they didn't want you to touch it just in case you caught something of its skin.

They also had an example of the skin that a larger python would have, which was taken from an illegal poacher. I think the kids were more impressed with the snake skin than the real snake, maybe they were thinking what a great new belt or bag it would make!

Here's a picture of my nieces though a glass bubble. You could crawl under a display of locusts to see them from the other side in more detail. Most of the locusts were giving each other a piggyback for some strange reason according to Aimee and Elise!

After the zoo we went for some great food at a tapas bar beside the Bristol docks. As you can see both Elise and I enjoyed some really great banoffee pie deserts. It was a surprisingly large desert and we both felt quite sickly after trying our best to eat as much of it as we could.

More off roading and pub cycling.

I've been cycling the Bristol to Bath cycle path for the last few weeks every Sunday Morning. The distance from my house to the end of the path at Bath is around 17 miles each way which is probably near my limit with a couple of stops along the way. I've only done the full distance once but I have done three quarters of it several other times.

It's a good flat route to cycle along and I believe follows along the old railway path. Well it's relatively flat along the cycle path, but not so flat from my house to the path.

There is a great tunnel along the path at the Bristol end, and on a hot day like today it's a welcome break from the sunshine. It's quite good fun to cycle though the tunnel at speed as all you can hear in it is the drips of the water and wheels of my bike.

There are several places along the route where you run parallel to the old railway track. I'm guessing that a few train spotters keep this steam train running along the railway. At a couple of points you even have to open gates to cross the track.

It looked like a fully working train and the carriages also looked like they had cutlery laid out on the tables ready for lunch.

If I decide to stay in the UK then I'm going to have to invest in a proper road bike. It can be quite knackering to ride a mountain bike along the smooth tarmac. The gears are all set so low that most of the time I'm in the top three gears, also the knobbly tyres don't do me any favours.

Earlier on in the week I went out on a brief country ride with some work friends. Wiki is planning a pub bike ride for our development summer day out in September. We decided to ride the route that Wiki has planned for the day, unfortunately without stopping at any of the pubs.

It's only 5.5 miles each way with one small hill and one larger one. I'm sure that everyone can walk up the hills if they are struggling to cycle up them. We also have most of the day to do the route which only took us about 40 minutes without stopping.

Here you can see Wiki, Claire and Severien in front of the Maharajah's well near to the Cherry Tree pub. This 370ft well was built for Stoke Row village by the Maharajah of Benares (now Varanasi) in 1864. As the local area governor, who was from Stoke Row, had told the story of a boy in the village whom his mother had beaten after drinking the last of the water in the house during a drought.

The Maharajah was so touched by the story that he financed the digging of the well, along with a keeper's cottage and a cherry orchard to provide for the upkeep of the well.

Here's a lovely picture of Claire that she took just after taking photo of me in front of the well with my camera. I'm not sure what sort of face she's pulling at the camera.

Once we got to the Cherry Tree pub I was quite looking forward to a few pints of Guinness, however Wiki had other ideas. While Claire and Severien waited at the pub Wiki took me out on an off road track that she wanted to show me. I was expecting a short ride around the area but it turned into a ten mile off road trip.

I really enjoyed the off road track, there were a couple of small single track drops and some up hill bits as well. We did it all while hardly stopping at all, but I had stopped at one part on an uphill grass hill. While I was cycling up the hill I came around a bend only to see that it got even steeper which made me want to stop and walk the rest of it. Meanwhile Wiki just cycled past me, disappointed that I had stopped so near to the top of the hill.

I think that Wiki is without a doubt one of the fittest people that I know. Throughout the bike ride she barely looked like she was ever out of breath. She did confess that on the big hill she did break a sweat. I think I broke a sweat just getting up the small hill, let alone the big one. My only saving grace was that I could ride faster along the trails and downhill off road sections as she was a little more afraid of coming off her bike than me.

Here's WIki on part of the off road course beside a big mud puddle that we decided to cycle around rather than though.

Once we got back to the pub I had my well-deserved pint and then we went to Wiki's place, which is close to the Cherry Tree. She made us a fantastic dinner of Thai meatballs and rice. Yum yum!

One funny thing was that once we had finished at Wiki's place it was quite late so we caught a lift back to Wallingford in the back of Nick's van. As there were four of us I volunteered to sit in the back of the van with the bikes. I think you can just about make out the bikes and foot holding up the bikes to stop them falling on me on the left hand turns!

Faceplant.

I went up to Preston and Manchester last weekend to catch up with some friends.

In Preston I saw Jeff and Claire and had a good night out in Preston, well as good as you can probably get in Preston anyhow. Some of the women there are very, very rough!

On Saturday I was invited to Anne and Dave's place for their daughter Jennifer's second birthday party. We partied the night away, well the day away at least. I also managed to catch up with a few other friends that I don't see often enough these days which was good.

Dave and I had an original plan to go mountain biking in Delamere forest on Sunday morning and then head up to the Lake District on Monday as we both had a couple of days off work.

The mountain biking in the forest was fantastic. It was very muddy in places and we both had a great time cycling around the trails and off the trails as well. On one path which had lots of deep mud puddles we both managed to flip over our handle bars in separate incidents! I was cycling along as fast as I could and saw the puddles of water and noticed that they were getting a little deep, but figured if I kept on cycling fast through them I should be ok. Unfortunately I went though a very deep one and my front wheel dug into the mud and I was sent flying over my handlebars into the next mud puddle.

There was no real damage but I was totally caked in mud on one side and I had to pull out the front of my bike from the mud. It really was everywhere, I couldn't even see my bike trip computer. Dave managed to do the same thing a few seconds later as he took the lead. It looked quite funny to see him fly over the handle bars as he had seen me do earlier on.

We also cycled up the big hill in the area and I was particularly pleased as I managed to cycle all the way to the top with only one stop along the way. At the top I was really gasping for air but I was so happy that I managed to get to the top and only stopped once. Next time I'll have to have a go at getting to the top without stopping at all.

There's a small downhill course in the forest with some small jumps and sloped bends that you can pick up quite a bit of speed on. I was leading the way on this course when I got a bit of speed on a bend and then went over a bump only to come across another bump straight away. I remember the last time we were here I stopped at this point to negotiate the second bump. Unfortunately this time I went much faster and my front wheel went into, rather than over the second bump and then I went over my bike handlebars. Because I was going so fast and landed on the second bump, I ended up first landing on the front of my helmet and then the bottom half of my face!

I was quite lucky to have a visor on the front of my bike helmet as that saved most of my face. It dug into the earth and broke, but then my mouth and chin were next. My bike then came crashing down onto me as my SPDs (peddles) didn't disconnect straight away. At first I sat there and screamed out in pain, thinking that I had broken my nose. Dave came along a few seconds later to see how I was. He first said he thought I had broken my nose because of the blood. I pushed onto the bridge of my nose but didn't feel as much pain as I expected. There was a bit of blood and I think I'm still finding bits of grit in my mouth. At the time it was difficult to see where I had cut myself as I was covered in so much mud and sand.

Here's a list of my aches and pains, I had grazed my top lip and bruised my bottom lip with a few bruises over my face, my left hand is quite swollen and I can't make a fist, both my knees are bruised and grazed as are my forearms and I have a case of whiplash on my neck. I also have some grazes on my chest where it followed my face into the earth. Oddly enough my throat is also really sore as my bike helmet strap must have pulled on my adam's apple when I helmet hit the earth. Ouch! It looks like Dave had just taken me out to the forest and beaten me up a bit. Two days after the accident I think my joints ache the most, maybe my body is trying to tell me something? At least I have a good excuse for not visiting the gym this morning and I don’t feel guilty at not going. Maybe I’ll take a few days off from exercise for now.

It did hurt quite a bit but I'm still really happy to have had the fun that I did on the day, even up to and after the big crash. I think that the thing that cursed me was just before we set off on the small downhill course I was saying to Dave that I was really having a good time and really enjoyed the thrill we got from mountain biking. Doh!

On Monday we had to cancel our trip to the Lake District because I really couldn't move my left hand very well so couldn't brake or change the gears on my bike, otherwise I would have really liked to go again.

I was really lucky not to have broken any bones or lost any teeth, even so I would definitely do it all again because it was so much fun and I've never felt so alive than that morning. I can't wait to get back on my bike again and get to the Lakes another time.

At least my bike made it without anything breaking, but it's time for a new helmet, now what colour should I go for this time and should it have a full face guard or not?

Big City Adventures of Me and My Bike.

I was in London with my mountain bike last weekend. My bike and I were visiting my mate Steve for some good food, beer and possibly some cycling.

We met up with Allen and Deirdre on Friday after work as Deirdre now works for the same company that Steve does. Steve gave us a quick tour of some of the BBC Television centre before going for beers. Unfortunately I had to leave my trusty bike in the BBC bike shed, as it wasn't allowed past security into the building.

This is the BBC News 24 set in the background and they were actually on air while we were watching. It was almost exciting to see the actual set and the news being read out while we were only a few yards away. One thing that was strange was how open the set was and how close the office desks were to the sets. Just to the right of this picture was where the news was collected from various sources for the program.

Any of us could have just run onto the set and for a few seconds been on live TV across Great Britain. Fortunately for Steve we all were well behaved.

We also saw the Blue Peter Gardens just outside of the infamous BBC canteen. It's a lot smaller in real life and just to the right of this photo is the not so pretty side of the BBC building.

Allen really wanted to eat at the BBC canteen so we had Friday dinner there. We were all unanimous that the canteen deserved its reputation for poor quality food. I had some beef chilli and chips, while the chilli wasn't too bad the chips had obviously been out for most of the day under a hot lamp. Poor Deirdre's cheese and onion pastie was just as dry and too hard for her to eat all of it. Allen had a burger that looked like it had had all the moisture removed from it before cooking!

I think that Steve had the safest choice of a baked potato and salad. Here you can see Deirdre and Allen after their sumptuous BBC meal in the canteen. I think Allen's smile is a little forced or maybe he was just happy to have survived the food. Well I think we all deserve Blue Peter badges for being so brave and eating the food.

After all this excitement we went to the BBC bar for some well deserved beers. There was some sort of birthday party on in the bar as there was a group of the BBC news crew getting quite drunk and raucous. They were mostly women and for some reason they had a giant six foot tall inflatable dick which was passed around the dance improvised dance floor! Unfortunately I didn't recognise any of them as actual TV news readers so didn't get a decent shot of anyone who's been on TV with a six foot willy.

We also got to see the Tardis, well one set version of it anyhow. To be honest it's not as big as you might think on the inside.

My poor bike ended up spending the rest of the weekend in the BBC bike shed. It told me that it didn't mind too much and had a good time chatting to all the local bikes. I kept it well chained up so it couldn't run off with any of them.

The rest of the weekend was either spend in a pub or a restaurant or both. It rained for just about all weekend so we didn't do that much except for eat and drink. So much for the great British summer!

My bike and I eventually came back home on Sunday evening, and even if I didn't get to use it, it was fun to get out and about in London with it. :)