Scottish Coast to Coast...bit late

Confession time..I had actually written some stuff regarding this a week or so ago in a Word document that I cannot find anywhere, on any computer I come into contact with. As someone who looks after databases and other people's data for a living that is a a bit of an embarrassment, lol.

In summary, it was a great trip, some stunning scenery, some pelting rain, some sun, some clag, some bog to park bikes in, some great riding, great company and a not so great a raging permanent headwind for about 6 of the 7 days. Will get some more detail out soon.

Highlight for me were the Corrieyairick Pass (or River Corrieyairick as it was that day) and the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, I will be going back there again, definitely.

Photos are on Flickr and get noticeably more numerous the further west we travelled.

GRRRRRRR!

Just about sums up the last few weeks for me....in no particular order:

Car trouble, more car trouble, calf injury and hobble of shame back to car after half a mile of running trouble, suspension fork trouble, even more car trouble, moron runner trying to push me off my bike trouble, car basically dead trouble, buying another car trouble, surfing forums relating to "new" car today to find it is also prone to injector problems trouble and nowhere near enough riding and no running.....thank god I'm off to ride across Scotland on Saturday.

Car has spent most of last three weeks in garage, with a week of respite when it worked properly but was soon back in...diagnosis, new fuel pump, injectors and possibly turbo which would cost about twice as much as the car was worth to repair. The fuel pump thing is not unknown in 02 Mondeo's but I was a bit p*ssed off that a car that has done just over 100, 000 miles is basically scrap. It was not a good car at all, I managed to limp it to webuyanyshed to offload it. It smoked like crazy all the way there but behaved itself when being "inspected". Not a great result.

Not having a car has had a real impact on my riding, I've done a good few rides to work and the odd offroad ride if Jez is around but the amount of faffing and working from home has made it surprisingly difficult.

I decided to pick up the running to make up for the lack of riding but my left calf decided to go ping after a mere half a mile of my inaugural run so hobble of shame back to the car (which was actually working that day). I think it is due to singlespeeding/pushing harder gears and the wrong kind of stretching. I think it is just being loaded a bit more with all the out of the saddle riding (and low cadence sitting sometimes), my usual stretches don't seem to touch it but handing my heel off a step seems to so I've been doing that daily though it is still not right. My knees aren't bothered at all on the other hand.

Sent rear shock and TALAS fork off the Titus to TF Tuned for servicing...shock needed new body but otherwise ok TALAS are apparently dead, anodising all worn off down in the lowers, deep joy. They were actually working ok so the guys at TF Tuned suggested running them into the ground then replacing with a set of Revelations, lol.

Last Sunday headed over to Hurstwood for a bit of a Calderdale ride, my car worked perfectly on the way over. Very windy day but sunny. I was having one of those days when I couldn't ride for toffee, felt dead and had no control over the bike at all. Had a proper girly strop and sat on a rock for a while, hee hee. Been years since I did that. Day was not improved when we encountered the runner on the canal towpath.

He was jogging along the canal towpath towards Hebden Bridge, wearing MP3 player and totally abd utterly oblivious to anyone or anything else. He was also apparently incapable of running in a straight line which made getting past somewhat difficult as he couldn't hear our shouted "excuse me's". Eventually he seemed to settle on the left side to Ed and I went to pass him on the right when he decided to jump a puddle. Well not only jump it but completely jump to the other side of the towpath without a backward glance, bloody numpty.

Of course he landed on Ed's front wheel, got a bit of a fright because obviously noone would be passing then started bawling at us, we weren't offended as it was clear he thought he was talking at a normal volume, just his music was obviously on pretty loud. We did point out he was prancing about like a fairy on a public towpath and perhaps he should pay attention as he wasn't running so fast that nothing was going to pass him. He let all 6ft 3 of Ed go past but as I went to give him a wide berth on the left (away from the canal, thankfully) he stepped over and tried to push me off my bike, fecker.

I had an attack of the red mist, skidded to a halt and as he ran past I thumped him in the chest as hard as I could, don't think he expected that. To be frank, neither did I and it didn't escape me that it probably wasn't the most sensible thing to do. I have a feeling he also thought things had gotten a bit out of hand and he left the towpath a few metres later. Nearly ruined the ride for me and really wasn't clever but I do get quite p*ssed off at a certain type of bloke who wouldn't say boo to Jez or Ed or any of the lads as they ride past but will voice their "disapproval" at me (whatever it happens to be at the time, just being a woman on a mountain bike seems to annoy some of them I think) , had it loads of times.

Had to fight a raging headwind all the way back to Hurstwood, including having to pedal all the way down the Gorple Road, don't think I had to touch my brakes once. On the way home my car decided to start packing in.....

Anyway, happy thoughts, 3 miles of mainly downhill back to the car:





Picking up a VW Passat tomorrow, more injector problems heading my way it would seem. This time it'll be Jez's fault, he insisted on a Passat or an A6 (out of my budget).

Rucksack advice required.

I've not died just been quiet and not had the best July early August ever I have to say. Jez has been away a lot, we have a bit of a standard joke that something always breaks or goes wrong when he's away...the fridge, the kitchen lights, his car getting stolen (not really fun that one) but this year it seemed to have been mainly ok.

Until last few weeks where grandparent, codger cat then heading for codgerdom car all decided to have something quite wrong with them. A bit stressful to say the least. However, got a good blast on the road bike on Saturday and ridden in to work yesterday and today and things are starting to feel right in my world again, yay!

Anyway, back to the matter in hand the zips on my trusty Salomon 20L commuting rucksack have both finally given up the ghost. I've had it for years and got my money's worth so I now need to replace it with something similar. I think it was too long for my back really so looking at the OMM sacks. My last drop is too small really so its a choice between:

The Adventure Light 20L

http://www.theomm.com/products/packs/adventureLight.html

Or the Ultra Light 15L

http://www.theomm.com/products/packs/ultra-15.html

It needs to have waist pockets for works pass, keys and enough space to take clothes (no shoes or owt as they are at work), a camp towel thingy and some food but not be so big I'm tempted to carry too much. Will also probably use it for light hillwalking and general fubbing around. Anyone got one of the above, how big are they really and what can you squeeze in them?

The Grinch is reborn.....

Here it is, good to be putting the frame to use again as had great fun on it before I bought the ti one and I do like the grinch green colour even though I normally wouldn't go for green, it seems to glow in murky light:

Friday evening saw it's first ride from Abbey Village up to the tower and round about the moor, currently gone for 32:18 on there and it will stay for a bit methinks. The climbs were as hard as I thought they would be but only had to walk a couple of very short sections (though one was spinning out on roots) so not too bad. What I hadn't even thought about was how much I use the gears to recover between efforts and not being able to was surprisingly hard but in a good way.

The chainline needs a bit of tweaking as it would skip when I got to that last gasp grind on the climb when I couldn't turn the pedals anymore, will need some spacers to fine tune it. The stem is also too long and puts me too far over the front when stood up, will put a shorter one on. A colleague of mine mentioned one of his mates had managed to go over the bars whilst going uphill, I can see that happening to me if the stem doesn't get changed!

Having the front tyre pumped up to "rock bloody hard" (thanks for that Jez) didn't help the handling I have to say, had a corking stack early on as it just pinged sideways off a root and skittered everywhere on the climbs. Only thought to check once I got to the tower as I know I'm really not fond of the tyre that's on the front and thought it was that (tyre will be getting changed as well).

Did 12 miles which was just right, though it was my arms that were complaining more than my legs which I expected, shoulders absolutely killed on Saturday. It will certainly make the short midweek spins harder, which is what I wanted. It still goes downhill very well but feels sluggish on the up in comparison to the ti one but hey, it'll do.

Stuff....running...and a bike project...

Been a bit quiet lately, my hip/lower back has been annoying me quite a bit since my topple onto the rocks last month. It didn't hurt at all during the Trossachs Ton but ached quite a bit for a few days afterwards and I was aware of it aching when riding the MTB's.

Jez and I had a few days away to Wales taking it easy, a quick blat round the Marin Trail for the first time in a few years was fun though I had forgotten just how much fireroad there was on the bloody thing and how much the singletrack doesn't actually decend. However it was dry and dusty and we were both on full suss for first time round there too and it was faaaaast.

A bit of a toddle up Snowdon (on foot) and some touristy stuff wandering round Caernarfon Castle and Newborough beach. We were lucky with the weather as it didn't start tipping down until we headed back home.

In the last couple of weeks I have resumed running, yay just in time for the wind and rain! No more than 6 easy miles and mainly all offroad, hip was achy afterwards for the first two runs but it now seems ok. I am now a complete convert to running in compression tights/shorts, I bought them for recover after my long mara training runs and I am now wondering why I wasn't wearing them when I was running, really stopping the little calf niggles I get when doing more cycling than running.

I had a visit to the chiro at the beginning of the week and my pelvis is moving fine and not hurting after short rides/runs now so it's time to start getting some good rides in again, will leave the runs short for a while yet.

Tonight I'm heading out to test out my new project....been feeling guilty about my old 456 frame just hanging in the garage so have assembled various bits from our garage/flea bay/singletrack classifieds/Merlin and Jez just finished building it before he bogs off for another few weeks. I did originally intend building it myself but he offered as he was servicing forks/faffing with brake hose/servicing hubs anyway.

Anyway photo and report of pain to follow.....