Category Archives: Biking

Cyclocross = pain!!!

So this is a bit late but i wanted to share with you our experience this year with cyclocross racing.  I have did it once before last year, but this was to be Lara’s first attempt.  It was at a local Loch near Banchory.  A small course which took about 8 minutes to complete.  The females course was 45 minutes long, and mine was an hour (so sexist!!!! why punish us for longer!!!)

This was Lara’s first bike race for well over 18 months, she was nervous and full of doubt of her fitness, but as we all said to her, it is fun!  Yeah who was I kidding, cyclocross is pain!!  the start gun goes off and basically you have to red line it until the end.  It is a sprint fest.  but what makes it interesting is that it is such a short lap you get to get faster each lap as you learn the lines and you get to have good battles with other riders.

Lara charging up one of the many obstacles (a sand trap) they like to throw in a bit to keep you on your toes.  Lara finish mid pack which I think is extremely admirable for her first go at racing since she fell pregnant.  She said she thoroughly enjoyed it once she got going and is keen for more.

Next up was my race, I was nervous, but this was mainly due to me being the only one on the start line without shaved legs and warming balm on – I was about to get spanked by a whole load of off season training road racers.  The start gun went and everyone hit overdrive!!!!!!!!  Where the hell they all go!?!?!?!?!?!

I gave chase, with most of them being road racers, they don’t possess much off road skills, this is where i managed to make a bit of time and few places back.  With my heart trying it’s hardest to pop out my mouth in protest of the requests I was making of it,  i had to keep on repeating to myself “it is only an hour, dig in”.  I was having a great little tussle with two other riders who would get me on the uphills but i kept on taking them on the downhills.  For three laps we swapped leading positions, i decided to take it easy on one lap to be able to try and get them both and then try and drop them for the final lap.  Well that was a great idea in practise until my front wheel found a slippy bit of mud and i went down and hit the deck.  We were going at a fair ratchet so i must have slid for 5-8 m on the floor till I stopped.  I slip slided my way back to the bike and had to straighten the handlebars.  they had gone……  bugger. 

from there I just had another lap by myself making sure no one caught me to finish – which I did.  A great fun race, a bit painful on the red lining front,  but i will definitely be coming back for some more!  Was great to be able and go out and race on the same day.

Up Macdui on a bike

Rich, Martin, Neil, Ryan and I went for a jaunt up to Ben Macdui (second highest lump in the UK) with our bikes on Friday

We set off from Linn of Dee and the weather was great for this time of year, we were all in shorts and t-shirts.  By looking at the maps we knew it was not all going to be rideable and soon turning up right to the Sron Liach ridge the hike a bike began, and it went on, and on, and on

after about and hour and a half of shoudlering our bikes, eating jelly sweats and swearing at each other we finally made it to the top.  Thankfully we had great views all around us and did the now custom ‘Gun Show’ at the top

Now for the fun bit, this was going to be a great descent, a long descent and a testing descent for both us and our bikes

just before we got off the Plateau Martin managed to slice his tyre wall. A great start.  But once fixed we got into the descent proper.  It was all it was rumoured to be, a bit rocky technical mental track down.  Rich was the next victim to fall to the trail, loosing his rear mech to a large pointy rock.  Not to worry we will all help!

it took of rock bashing, sawing and brute strength to fix it but we got his bike back up and running again.  Off we went again, for martin to puncture again.  This became a bit of the theme for the descent!

i think by the time we had finished we totalled 9 punctures, two ripped off rear mechs (both Rich’s who had to resort to single speeding) a slashed tyre wall and a broken rim.  A great hard days riding in the Cairngorms riding.

the beer tasted so good after we arrived home!  All the pictures can be seen by clicking here

Swimming , running & Biking

Yup you guessed it, I was convinced by Frank that another triathlon was a good idea.  this one had a slight twist, no sanitised swimming pool swim, but the swim was from the main land to an island in the North Sea……

this is frank in front of the swim we had to do to the island on the other side, we had to take our bikes and running gear over on the little boats and then come back again to then swim.

this was taken from the boat ont eh way over, was a great day and a relief as it was raining heavy the day before!  I must admit i didn’t do a great deal of swim training for this race, just a bit in the lake in Gap so was rather scared of it as i had never swam in the sea across a channel before.  I had i mentioned this was a ferry lane as well…. 

Well the starter horn went off and we all jumped in the sea, a chorus of high pitch squeals as the shock of the water and then a froth of furious swimming across to the other side.  once there grabbing our mountain bikes and riding around the island, and if that wasn’t enough we then had to do a hill run up to the high point on the island and then back down again, some of it included scrambling up rather steep slopes grabbing at heather as it was that steep and the running style was binned and the crawling style adopted.

this was all filmed for the TV program ‘The adventure show’ and will be shown on BBC2 in scotland on the 18th of October.  if you let young children watch it

Be warned – they interviewed Frank and he has a potty mouth!!!!!

It was a great race, amazing scenery and well organised, it was called the ‘Craggy Island Tri’ and I would recommend it to anyone.

Daddy and Daughter Bike ride

The day was not the best weather but we decided to have a go at family bike riding.  Euan & Lainie, Chris & Rowie and I decided to ride with our infants to from Aboyne to Ballater.  I had just bought Ellis a trailer and was keen to try it out, we chose a smooth trail called the ‘Deeside Way’ along an old railway line.

Ellis above in her trailer all wrapped up warm.  She loved it, half the time making noises at passing objects the rest snoozing.  We got to Ballater and went to a cafe to have lunch (and lots of cake) and then rode back again.  It was a great ride and great to finally be out on a bike with my daughter!  May it long continue like this!

Rest of the pics are here

Biking at the Lecht – Rock 1 Lara 0

Sunday we set off to go to the lecht to ride the lift accessed trails with the Cartlidge family and Richard.  Lainie strangely was quite on the way there, only once ever have I seen her in this state, and that was 2 years ago driving to Orciere Merlette when she had her first go at skiing….. odd.  It was to be Lainie’s first go at proper trail riding, she was strangely not her normal chatty self.

Once arrived and baby camp set up in the restaurant we set off up the hill on the lift that the British history museum might have interest in as well as any corrosion experts out there.

It was the girls and I who went first.  I took Lainie down to give her a few pointers on technique, speed and generally being rad.  She took it all in her stride and took off down the hill!  Think she is a bit of a natural and was whizzing down the hill with out a second thought, with most importantly a huge smile on her face!

We took it in turn after this to look after Sophie and Ellis whilst other rode.  It fell on my turn that Ellis was to be fed.  My lovely daughter decided she wanted to fidget alot whilst I was trying my best to get the spoon into the small opening that is her mouth.  I failed, she had ants in her pants and was a nightmare to keep clean.

I was a little scared of mummies return as I thought a bollocking was going to happen for covering her daughter in orange mush.  but she laughed – phew.

As the runs progress, things turned from nice amicable riding to racing, elbows out, and mashing the cranks to try and overtake each other – even from the start

To anyone who has not been – the tracks are good, they are not to technical but the more you ride them the faster you go and you get a real sense of achievement as you notice yourself progressing throughout the day.

Above is Euan on the exit of the rather large berms with Rich ‘pro elbow’ Bannister hot on his tail.  Lainie called it a day after 3 runs as she felt tired, it was her third day biking on the trot.  Lara advised her that this was wise as the dreaded ‘one last run’ always ends badly.  Lara announced ‘one last run’ and off she went back up the hill with Euan and I.  The wind was rather strong in one direction so going one way you jumped a lot further than expected, and then once a corner was turned you tried jumping and went no where. 

On the ‘ bigger than expected jump ‘ direction, Lara was highly tuned into her ‘gnarlyness’ and somewhat over cooked a jump with me following behind.  All I saw was a flash of wife high in the air, then spread across the floor seconds later.  It was the next bit that scared me most – she swore using words high up the severity chain.  This means it is bad!!!!  After a while we work out it is her hip and hand.  End of biking. (it was ok though as it was the last run anyway!!!)

We walked back up to the lift as we were closer to the top than bottom and got the lift down.  Poor thing was in a lot of pain so home and curry it was.  She was wincing a lot, on close inspection i diagnosed a badly bruised hand and reckoned it would be a week or so and should keep it moving lots.  We all know women are slight martyrs with the pain stuff and milk it a little.  I gave her sympathy.

She slept sporadically last night with the odd yelp when she rolled over.  I set off to work thinking she might have a hard day with a sore hand but nothing a few nurofen shouldn’t solve.

I returned home after work to find this:

The pain had gotten worse during the day and Lainie took her to A&E where an X-ray confirmed the middle Metacarpal was broken in two places.  I felt bad.  I have taken a mental note to always remember that my wife is in fact ‘hard’ and probably a lot harder than myself in pain suffering.  God knows how I forgot how she coped during labour.  If I was thinking I would have looked backed to that and then saw the pain she was in with the arm and then come to the conclusion she would have shattered it all the way up to the shoulder!

So, Poor lara has a cast for the next 6 weeks – any ideas on how i should decorate it?  I will look after don’t worry mums, and Ellis is about to get a lot more daddy feeding time, so get ready for some more baby covered in food pictures!

Weekend away with Neighbours and Babies

Saturday we drove over to Laggan to all go mountain biking at Wolftrax, it is a purpose made trail centre with a good base at the bottom so we can all take it in turns to look after the babies whilst the others go around and do loops in roughly an hour on the bikes.  The weather was kind and the trails were amazing.  It was great to be able to bike with Lara again and she has definitely has alot more confidence and skill with her riding from air maiden a few weeks ago – she was flying over the drops without flinching and had a massive smile on her face.

 

Lainie was the true hero of the day, having never really done much mountain biking before to coming along having a go , doing it with no worries and loving it!  Euan was a happy man with the prospect of a wife who might be converted into a mountain biker?!?!?!?!  Who knows.

After we had all done enough loops and were knackered, we drove back to Aviemore our base for the evening, we drove around all of aviemore’s camp sites and to our amazement they were all full!  we all ended up staying in a hotel and had quite a novel evening in a hotel bar / restaurant pretending to be civilised!

Sunday was time to introduce the babies to the hills properly – with babies loaded up into rucksacks in there thickest and warmest clothes ( the mountains in Scotland are still a cold place even in mid July!) we set off up into Corrie An t’Sneachda. 

 This corries is really easy to get to from the Cairngorm ski station car park and is an easy wallk usually taking under and hour.  Ellis soon fell asleep and was not appreciating the views!

We all sat down next to the loch and had lunch and had a good chat looking at the cliffs and surroundings, we pointed out previous conquests of ours whilst puffing out chests.  The babies seemed to be happy as Larry (who ever he is) and sat and took it all in, had some lunch and went about their ways business as usual.  Scott, Euan and I left the girls to do a quick tour up and around Fiacaill Ridge and later met them back at the car park. 

The ridge can be seen above – Euan had not done too much scrambling in his life, so to satisfy the fear and nerves of the wives we roped up together for safety and scrambled up the ridge.  There are some pretty exposed positions on this ridge and Euan did them all with no worries, even stopping for a gun show!

A true hero! we shall be taking him with us into the hills for some more of his gun shows as they were awesome!

A great weekend playing in Scotland – only to be slightly dampened by thinking of going back to work tomorrow.  Have to earn some money to pay for that hotel!  All of the pictures can be seen by CLICKING HERE

Chilling in Peaks with the Australians

Ben and Amanda are over for Chris’s wedding, so what better way to warm ourselves up for the big occasion but to spend a week in the Peak District.  Amanda did a great job and hired us a little barn near Rushup edge in the middle of nowhere. 

We met them in Hathersage and after going for a quick bite to eat in the Outsider shop (we didn’t manage to get out with out buying some new stuff – that shop is never a good idea to go into) we went up to Burbage North to do a spot of climbing and bouldering.  Below are Ben and Amanda reacquainting themselves to Gritstone – this was done with rather a lot of swear words and grunting ( I have to raise my hand and confess I added to the obscenities as well).

The Next day Ben and I went biking whilst the girls relaxed in the sun, I forgot how good the biking is in the peak district.  It was a littel odd having to make sure what we where riding on was legal (in scotland we can ride anywhere and have much better access rights).

It was great riding with Ben again, my old riding buddy and best mate had returned from Oz to once again ride with me and try and better each other on the ups and downs ( neither of us acknowledge this though! )  we returned to the girls grinning ear to ear and then quickly changed to get going back to stanage to go bouldering for the afternoon (after lunch and a couple of cheeky pints).

I forgot how rough gritstone is on the old finger tips and all my finger tips fast turned a nice shade of pink and everything became super sensitive to touch ( washing up that evening was a sore affair!).  Another realisation that the bouldering really isn’t that good up in Scotland near us and we really enjoyed it and wished for better bouldering near to us.

In the evening the girls went out for a bike ride whilst Ben and I cooked for them, when I say Ben and I, I really mean Ben cooked and I sat and drank beer watching him chucking in the odd supportive comment on his spice choice.

Ben and I spent quite a bit of time with the girls explaining the route we had for them on a map and in words for them to follow, when they got back (which for a start was a surprise as we were expecting a phone call to come and pick them up from somewhere lost) but on asking how got on they sheepishly told us that it wasn’t till they were half way round that they realised they had ridden the loop the wrong way around!  The girls claim it was down to bad verbal explanation of the route!

The next day we took it in turns to do a big loop from Hope, up over to Ladybower via “the beast”.  The girls went first, then Ben and I did it.

The Beast is am awesome rock strewn decent that tries at every opportunity to throw you off the bike if you let your concentration slip.  Once at the bottom smiling like a special child, we both recount stories of near death and how awesome we were, we set back off back up and over into the edale valley where we thought a mid ride pint was in order for.

After said pint we had a large road climb – having not realising what a mid ride pint would do to us we both steadily weaved our way up a steep climb wondering when we both become such massive light weights!

We got to the top and rode up Rushup Edge and by the time we had got to the top we had both sobered up again for the amazing decent back to the farm and the girls.

I spent the rest of the evening playing with Baby Ellis who had been a great baby and enjoyed being dragged all over the Peaks with us.

We all agreed it was a great few days and we all thoroughly enjoyed having our love of the peak district rekindled.  Shame it is so far away.  We packed up our stuff and headed East to the Wedding of Chris and Vicky, our excitement levels rising for the big day…

Air Maiden

Yes I got that right, it is a spin off form the amazing 90’s metal bang – Air Maiden is a female only MTB competition.  With all the passes I have been getting out I thought only fair that Lara gets to do some stuff as well.  We went down to Glentress for lara to take part in Air Maiden,  a two day mountain bike event, day 1 is a training day where they get coached on their skills, and day two is a competition to see who has progressed the most.

They were trained in jumps, cornering, drops and all general trail skills.

There were 50 women taking part with a huge variety of abilities.  Some would show most men up – others would get  a run for their money from toddlers…..

I spent the weekend walking around taking pictures of them all with Ellis on my back.  She quite enjoyed being on my back and was happily chatting away at everything when she was asleep

I think Lara did great, she progressed loads, got a lot more confident and even at the end faced the big kicker

Above is her first go at it, being led in by Polly who knew how fast to go so giving Lara the confidence she is going the right speed ot clear it.  She did it with ease and I was extremely impressed with her, she loved it and did it a few more time until she called it a day due to being tired.

We spent that evening camping again with Ellis and got a great take away curry – Ellis I think is starting to enjoy camping  – she definitely likes her little tent, she sits outside in it and plays and watches the world go buy happily sucking on her feet.

Sunday came with competition day.  Nerves where obviously high all around, the girls go measured on 4 runs, one of jumps, one of skinnies and drops, one of berms and then the big kicker.  Was a great atmosphere with all the girls cheering each other on and whooping and screaming.  Was great to see them all having a great time and supporting each other, something you would never get quite seen at a male event.

Above is Lara on her race run flying over the jumps.  It was a great weekend watching Lara having fun on her bike and playing with my camera looking after our daughter.

Enjoying the long nights up here in the North

There are many good and bad points about living where ever you live, one of the good points of living in Aberdeen is that at this time of year it doesn’t get dark until around 11pm.   This makes it possible to go out and play in the hills after work.  Over the last few days the “loving wife” has let me go out and play.  A few days ago, Andy and I ventured to Clach na Beinn to go climbing .

The last time I climbed outside was when Lara was 4 months pregnant on afterthought arete, tonight was to be a bit of a mission to get my head back into it.  Was great fun but I soon remembered why it had been so long since I had been up to the crag to climb, it is the roughest rock in the world and the climbing is not that pleasant!  Alot of jamming your body into cracks and wriggling up etc. 

Still Andy was very patient and was very encouraging, it was a great place to be after work up there on a hill top, the clouds where rolling in and out over adjacent hills and we were lucky not to get them where we were.  I led two climbs then Andy had a turn at leading a route of his choice.

A lovely night was spent swearing at rock and getting disco leg.  When we looked at our watches wondering what time it was …… we were stunned to see it was nearly 10pm!  Time to pack up and hot foot it back.

Just as we packed up the cloud came in over the hill and we jogged down the hill back to where we had stashed our bikes and went home to bed.  A great evening.

Last night was of course “Thursday night boys bike night”.  With these long nights, again it is great to go slightly further into the hills and explore new trails.  We parked at Pass of Ballater car park and set off up to below Morven,  the views where great climbing upto Creagan Rhiabhach looking over to Lochnagar and Mt Keen

From here we followed a path below Morvern Eastwards and then spent a little time trying to find the path we wanted to get on to descend.

Amazingly when we left Aberdeen it was being bombarded with massive showers of biblical proportions but we managed to avoid all off these and it never rained on us once.  Once we found the descent it was awesome apart from the odd bush jutting out into the path at head height that you just had to go through and take the whipping!   After this we climbed back to the top of Cnoc Dubh and went down the ‘roller coaster’ to Loch Kinord and then back up through Burn O’Vat to the van – a good 35km ride after work.  We just managed to get last orders at the local once back in westhill, tired we happily drank beer.

I love these long nights!  only another 2 or three weeks till the nights start drawing in again though …….  Better make the most of them!

Bikes and Pictures

Unfortunately we didn’t seem to get the good weather the rest of the UK got this weekend, but when you live in Scotland you learn just to get wet!  Saturday we once again employed the wondrous service of Nancy next door to baby sit Ellis for a few hours whilst we went to the Pitfichie Downhill track with Rich (Nancy’s worser half).  This is where we really enjoy and reap the rewards of buying a 4wd car last winter – ‘Scrappy’ (yes she has a name) can drive to the top of the DH track with bikes on the back thus giving us the luxury of not having to push up after each lap for 35 minutes and can get more time going down than pushing up!

The rain showers were coming in and out making the track really slippy, once again Lara’s fear of wet slippy off camber roots came into play.  Many a cloud of blue air came from the wife as these things strike the fear of god into her! 

apart from the wet roots we managed to get four runs each (as we take turns in shuttling to the top) and had a great time, it is one of those tracks the more you ride it the more you get to know the lines and get faster and faster each time you go.

I have one of my best mates Mr &Mrs to be Raven’s Weddings coming up in a few weeks, normally I love weddings and get very excited for them.  Not this one, for some reason I thought it a great idea to offer my services as the wedding photographer.  It seemed a great idea at the time, but as the time gets closer and closer I am really starting to sh*t it!  I have been a keen amateur photographer for many years, usually just trying to get decent pictures for blogs or records of our doings.  I have done little what I would called ‘ proper ‘ photography.  Now doing the pictures for someones’ wedding is what I would call important, and thus should be taken seriously. There is only one other added pressure, the Mr and & Mrs to be have just started a blossoming career as wedding photographers…… so no pressure there then!

I have started practising, mainly on lara and the baby, but I am going to soon meet up with a few friends and start having portrait sessions with them.  Basically the more pictures I can take the better chance I have of not completely messing up the pictures for the big day.  With the ever suffering wife we went off to take some pictures.  Don’t worry I will not bore you with hundreds of pictures, but maybe just one or two.

Above : I sat there trying to coax a smile out of her for about 5 minutes and then gave up as she was just sitting there randomly rolling over into the dirt and then chatting to the twigs. But I wanted a picture of Ellis in the woods so just took it, I like it but would have been better if she would have given me a smile.  I think Ellis is going to have to work on her modelling abilities before I offer any sort of pocket money!

Again , far more interested in the wheat than looking and giving me a smile….  thankfully Lara was a much more helpful model and was being kind to me, I shall give her her pocket money 🙂

As a side note Richard and his five year old daughter Katie came to the woods with us and went for a bike ride together

I watched then ride off down the little singletrack paths into the woods, and I have to admit I was rather  jealous of Rich being able to go riding with his daughter, she was having a great time loving being on the bike only having dumped her stabilisers 6 weeks ago and whizzing around everywhere with a smile on her face.  I suppose my time will come and before I know it Ellis will be having to wait for ‘ the old man’ when we go biking together.  All good things come to those that wait.