So rather nippy this morning, because it is probably the first real freeze this year, there is no salt or grit out.
-3 in Westhill this morning. Ice everywhere, slippy as hell.
Didn’t manage to get to work without leaving part of my buttock on the road.
Love commuting in the winter! Think I might invest in some metal spike tyres! Sorry about the pictures
Baby sophie decided that I was nice and warm and a good place to sleep. She smelt good and is horribly cute! She is wicked but makes weird squeking noises.
Sitting at work on Friday morning, I decided I wanted to have a go at what I call real mountain biking. The hint is in the title. Don’t get me wrong, I love the man made centres, they give awesome bang for the buck and they do exactly what it says on the tin. But, they do lack a certain raw feeling of proper mountain biking in the mountains.
I had recently read a bike forum of a guy who had been up Ben Lomond. It is the most southerly Munro and is 974m (3196ft in old money) tall and lies in the Trussachs National Park. Wondering who I could convince to come riding with me than no other than Scott rings me saying he is back from offshore. Told him to pack his bags and come and pick me up from work as we have some biking to do!
Three and a half hours later we are in the car park of Ben Lomond, it was 6pm and we got changed and started to make our way up quick smart. The route was up and down the main walkers route, we had arrived late on purpose as this path can be very busy with walkers and it is best to ride it early or late to miss scary the bejesus out of walkers and have them wave their walking sticks and throwing their map carriers at you as you hurtle past them.
The cloud level was slightly rising as we climbed up, but I think we were climbing too fast (yeah right) and by the time we got to the top we were well in the cloud.
It was a true Scottish summit, IE couldn’t see jack! But still managed to get the now classic ‘hero mtber on top of moutnain bike over head’ picture.
Soon the stupid rain came. Oh well, what can one do – apart from slip slide down the hill.
The descent is mental! Up there with some of the best I have done in the UK, Big rock fest made that little bit more interesting with the wet rock.
The inevitable happened and one of us got a puncture. Thankfully it was Scott (nasty friend I am). A little further down I think Scott was starting to get tired. The poor sod had been offshore for 3 weeks, and he had been on night shift for the last week! He had a momentary lack of concentration and got thrown over his handle bars. Made a small yelp and got up straight away and swore loudly in a way only a true Scotsman in pain could. It was obvious it was more than a small knock. Poor bugger then limped his way down the hill, he did it 3/4 of the way down so wasn’t too bad.
He braved on through some pretty miserable weather to get down.
I was still having a great time and loving the route, but a little conscious of poor sick note behind so didn’t go too far in front so that I couldn’t see him. We got down alright. Got changed quickly as it was a midge fest and drove to find the nearest pub that would feed us. We found one that even did pizza. Three weeks offshore, night shift, biking a Munro form sea level and having a huge crash meant that Scott was going cross eyed after half a pint and was looking at me in a way that made me feel unconfortable. Time for bed – alone!
Woke up the next morning and it was clear that scott was not going to ride today and that he probably should go to hospital and get it check out. Back to aberdeen A&E and straight through! he came out with a nurse looking at him like he was glue sniffer ” biking up a Munro at 8pm on a Friday night?!?!?!?!?”and a diagnose of just deep tissue bruising. a couple of days of icing and anti inflammatories and he should be fixed to come out biking again! He can’t wait!
The house is nearly in a live able state, we have places to put things, hang things and hide things. It was time to get away for the weekend and go and play as if I had to make another trip to the dump or B&Q I was going to scream.
Friday night we drove over to Aviemore and went to a pub and had a few drinks and had a really nice evening just the two of us and talked baby names and the best tyres for gripping wet granite amongst other random topics. In the morning we drove over to Laggan and had a great day biking
We did the upper red, lower red and a few laps of the orange. Was great. All taken at a slower pace due to Lara being pregnant of course(if the mums are reading!). We finished by about 3, we returned to Aviemore and I went shopping for a few bits. After this we spent a lovely afternoon sitting in a cafe watching the world go by drinking soft juice and beer – (guess who had which!) and reading. We had dinner and went and watched the soapbox cart race coming down from the ski centre. I was expecting some small wooden boxes bodge together together. Quite the opposite – the winner was a carbon fibre bodied aerodynamic speed bullet made by bentley’s graduates for the fun of it. I couldn’t even get a picture of it it was that fast! I did get a couple though,
These guys had huge nuts – they averaged just under 50mph down this road over a 4 mile course with their bums about 2″ above the floor. Great fun to watch.
Sunday we woke to a really colourful sunrise as we were sleeping in the van in the ski centre car park up high. I got up and started to get our climbing stuff ready. Soon I realised I had left my rucksack at home and we did not bring Lara’s one as she is pregnant and is not allowed tocarry weight – how convenient. Not wanting to go and buy another one for a day I decided I would just suffer and carry my 130l duffel bag up, this thing is a monster and was not the most comfortable thing in the world, but had no alternative. Each step I took it smacked the back of my thighs. Rather annpoying after an hour!
The walk into Coire An T-Sneachda was reasonably quick, Lara was marching on ahead as she was carrying nothing and I had it all (as can be seen above) Our aim was to climb Fingers Ridge which can been seen up and just left and above my head on the ridge or the red line below from standing under the route.
It is a 150m Diff, so nice and easy as Lara is pregnant after all. The climbing was great, nothing difficult and in a lovely place. We had a few splats of rain but nothing horrendous on the way up
A few hours later and we get to the top and onto the Plateau. A lovely climb with some good exposure to concentrate the mind. We walked back down the goat track and back to the van. Lara did her normal ‘sleep all the way home’. A great weekend outside and a great relief to be away from DIY and decorating!
All the pics can be seen by clicking HERE
A few weeks ago it was my 30th Birthday. Does this mean I am a grown up now? As a kid 30 to me was an adult, at 30 I still feel like a kid. It’s interesting how different friends’ lives can turn out. Some of my friends are going forth and multiplying right in front of my Facebook-stalking eyes. Some of them have kids starting school, others still feel the urge to shrug responsibility and don’t look in a rush to dump their rucksacks and around the world travel tickets any time soon. Strange and wonderful how we all grew up in different directions. I alwasy thought and wanted to ‘be old and have kids’ but now it is here it is very scary. I think I just have to accept the fact that I am not a youth any more (although skids are still cool) and that this is the time I do need to be getting on with these things otherwise it might get too late for me to enjoy a family. I never wanted to be an really old dad so the time is now!
Enough of my drivel. I have a cool wife, for my 30th birthday she ran around behind my back for ages and organised a whole bunch of my mates and swore then to secrecy and to go tank driving!!!!
We all got a go to drive these monsters around a field and up and down trenches. Some were more successful than others, some got told off for going to fast (Russ..) and others for going too slow (couldn’t possibly incriminate!).
All in it was a wicked thing to do as I never would have thought of it, and now I can say I can drive a tank! After we all finished, we got into our cars and drove down to Peebles for a night out
It all got rather messy, jelly fights, drinking silly alcopops, Mrs Goddard sampling wierd and wonderful local deap fried delicacys and then crawling back to the camp site.
Amazingly no hangovers all round in the morning?!?!?!? We all went to Glentress and road moutnain bikes, some old hat at it, others relatively new to it. All really enoyed it.
It was a fantastic weekend, I would like to thank all who made the effort to come up for it, was touched at the effort put in, and of course thanks to Lara for organising it for me, good wife! The rest of the pictures can be seen by clicking Here
A miracle of human magic has happened, against all odds and beliefs…. Lara is pregnant! Everyone doubted the ‘potency’ of my role needed to play in the act of making a baby after sitting on a bike for last 10 years non stop. But to all the non believers out there – it works!!!!
We had the 12 week scan last week, all looks good. All the limbs etc in the place where they should be, ugly little thing at the moment, more like an alien than a human. Lara is doing fine, she is slowly coming out of being constantly tired and being in bed by 8pm every night. She has had no morning sickness and is not a massive hormonal mess. Actually to be honest I have got away with ‘crazy pregnant women’ stories I have heard about pretty well.
She is due on the 29th of January, so Rachel sorry you will have to come second place from now one (very unlikely the wee fella will come out on that day anyway)
I am fine, very excited and scared at the same time, I suppose it is getting to grips how this will change my life, the responsibility and the thought of actually being a father and have someone look up to me for guidance and maturity….. The last bit is going to be the hardest! Will keep you all updated to how it is going over the following 6 months. The wee man is due on the 29th of January.
Yesterday as I muddled around the house, I seemed to kick stuff by accident over and over again. Each occassion saw a plethora of foul language being released.
Woke up this morning and looked at my foot. Guess which one got repetitive strikes! Stupid toe
Lara, Scott and I went off over to the West coast with our mountain bikes. With spring kicking up a gear and midges soon going to rule the skies and bite the hell out of anyEnglishman stupid enough to be in their near vicinity. Where was I? Oh yes, off to the west coast with bikes – I havewanted to ride these routes for a few years, but getting the weather or lack of midges is a very short window.
We drove to Torridon on Friday night and had a few pints in the Torridon Inn before crashing in the vans. Woke up, sorted some breakfast out and head off. We started off along side Loch Damh, a good start as it was flat and a good place to warm up the legs,
soon though things turned a bit worse…. Uphill. But not you normal uphill, one of those uphills that goes through bogs, big rocks and streams. It was quite a soul destroying climb as it was not all ride able, you would ride a bit then have to get off and push for a bit, then ride a bit, push a bit, ride a bit etc… you get the picture. Lara lost her normal calm demeanor and decided she wasn’t in a happy place and made us know it.
Finally we got to the top at Drochaid Coire Roill (who makes these names up), Scott above, and we readied ourselves for why we came here – the descent down to Annat.
The descent was brilliant, big, rocky at the top and then into the woods below. A brilliant descent, just a shame there was no other way to the top rather than up the boggy shite climb.
We went and had soup in the local cafe, and then drove around to LochCarron further south as this is where the next days ride started. As per usual, we found a pub, parked near it and went for some food and beer, and exited a little squiffy to retire to the van.
It rained heavy over night so we woke up to a very wet morning, never mind, we got up had breakfast and got going. The climb up Fionn Abhainn from Coulag was brilliant, was not to steep and technical to keep the mind focused. When we got to the Loch in Coire Fionnraich from where it was quite a long carry up to the top of Coire Grannda
as we came over the ridge we were greated with an amazing views over Creag Na h-Airigh Fraoich (had to copy that one down from a map)
after another hour or so we finally got to the top and happily put our body armour on and lowered the seatposts
This decent had to be the best I have ever done in the UK, 8km of singletrack, varied from fast and loose, to rocky tech and steap.
Didn’t take many pictures as never do as it was too fun to stop!
Another great weekend biking, all the biking is doing my legs good as I have the Fred Whitton in 2 weeks and I am rather nervous for it!
Update on the detox:
My life as a vegan is not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Thankfully the meat withdrawal symptoms were I was willing to kill anything that cast its own shadow are gone. Now, I am at ease with myself and have made peace with my new vegetable friends. The idea of a bunch of vegetables and seeds for lunch does not anger me. The only difficulty I have found this week is actually getting food that I am allowed to eat quick and easily. I went into tescos yesterday lunch time as the work restaurant only was serving steak and salmon (oh the irony) and I had to walk around for about 15 minutes before I found enough food that I though would suffice my hunger and cravings. I look like a real teenage girl reading all the food labels and scanning for ingredients.
The above is what I ended up with – Carrots, Red Pepper, humus (my saviour of the week), mini plum tomatoes, dried mango, pumpkins seeds and a litre of strawberry smoothie. Obviously I didn’t eat all of it as that would be greedy, but I needed a mix of tastes to satisfy my cravings.
One bit of advice I would give to anyone doing this sort of madness in the future is that smoothies are the mutz nutz at helping you cure that post main meal sugar craving. When normally I would be reaching for a Kitkat or cake, some smoothie seems to satisfy my sweet tooth.
Thankfully Lara is a great cook, the evening meals are great – we have had chilli, Thai green curry stir fries and ratatouille. All tasty and would be great in a ‘normal’ eating week.
Another observation I have made this week is how little I have been eating and how I am surviving no worries. My energy levels are the same, I think I am sleeping a bit longer but nothing horrendous. It really shows how much of a pig I am. The concept of eating until not hungry is one I should adopt rather than the ‘eat until I physically can not fit anything else in’ approach which is usually quickly followed with the bloated feeling.
Not sure by the end of the week I will be ‘cleansed’ or have a ‘centralised Zen euphoric energy state’ but I have learnt a few things about my eating habits and food in general.
Peace and love to the world
Dave the veggie eating tie dye wearing anti washing hippy
Off to Edinburgh we went to go to the much anticipated wedding, and it did not disappoint.
A lovely ceremony was followed by a night of great fun, drinking, dancing, party bus, laughing and the one and only last time I will ever wear high heals ( photographic evidence is onf acebook if you dare look).
It can not be said that these two are not pure class the whole way. Lara and I both wish you a life time of happiness and snogging in men’s toilets.
the rest of the photos can be seen here
The Blog of Dave Lara, Ellis and Freddy 
