I’m not renewing the domain, so I’ve copied the blog to a different location.

http://teamotter.wordpress.com/

I don’t expect anyone actually reads this rubbish but you never know.

So as we left things, I was unsure whether I’d prevent my defecit from growing. I did, as it happens, but only just – managed a full commute on Tuesday which was great, then on Thursday I rode to work and Jane picked me up to go straight over to take Mum & Dad out for a lovely meal at the Fox Inn. Still 4 days defecit though

That’s the commuting, what about the fun rides? Over the weekend we got out with Andrew Herbivore on a local loop through Lyme park, his weight loss is continuing and his fitness is improving too – even though he’ s not as fit as Jane, he’s still twice as fit as when we first met! THat was the first ride with the new shifters too, bought some SLX shifters and put them on the Roscoe so I could get a comre comfortable position with the awkward bloody hope levers. It meant putting on the XT mech from the blue pig, but that was not really a problem and all seemed to go well – all seemed to work ok!

Monday was booked off work for a photoshooty day with Chris Turner, however Jane was feeling Ropey and Chris had unexpected work to complete so I ended up not riding and spending the day doing odd jobs like braking bricks in the back yard. Great.

So that brings us to this weekend. Yesterday we had a great snowy ride round our local loop, as per my write up on STW – quoted here in case the site gets hacked again this year…

so, todays second planned photoshott day with Chris is also cancelled, no bad things the snow over the tops means he would have struggled to reach our house. Have to decide now if I should go to work for the two days I’m supposed to be in this week, or if I should just take them as holiday…

So, I fixed some punctures and what not but didn’t get out till later in the week, it was Thursday to be exact. All fine going into work, I noticed the soft tyre and pumped it up, but on the way home I was concerned that it was soft again. Didn’t bode well but didn’t really register, I just put more air in and set off. By the time I got to the bridge under the M60 @ portwood, it was flat, so Jane had to come out and pick me up. when I got home I took the tyre off and by folding it in on itself I found the problem, a small piece of glass stuck in the tyre, it had cut a slit about a centimetre wide! Grrr!

At the weekend, we went out to Malham for the annual Christmas weekender, got up at stupid o’clock on saturday and drove up. In a change from the normal route over to Arncliffe and back, we went the other way, over to Settle via Stockdale Lane, back to the North and a quick loop of the Tarn before heading back down. It was low cloud on the way out which meant conditions were quite greasy, and we did have fun when we found a herd of over 20 young highland cattle crowding the gate we needed to go through! Had a great day out though, even if we did get a tad lost and end up doing some bog trotting as we roudned the Tarn. In a very surprising change, it would appear that I am fitter and better on an MTB than Rod, he’s been riding far too much on the road of late!

So, having purchased a new tyre I got another commute in on Tuesday, again though the tyre was soft when I came to go home. Bloody useless pump at work can’t cope with road tyre pressures and gets really hot, I’m also afraid I’m going to break it as it’s really flimsy. On top of that the head got stuck on my valve and in trying to remove it I ripped the valve out of the inner tube! Will this never end?  I bought new tubes from NWMTB and eventually got home and went to see the doc, the shoulder injury has not got better. She prescribed some powerful anti-inflammatory tablets and a visit to the x-ray people to get the inside looked at – its possible that I’ve pulled a piece of bone off.

Rode in the next day, had breakfast at 8 and went to the pharmacy at 9 to get my tablets. Rang the x-ray dept at 10 and was asked to come in at 3.30! Decided to cycle home first and get changed so had lunch at 12 so I could leave at 1. as I was getting the bike ready I felt a need to use the facilities, and some 20 minutes later!!! I felt that I could get up again. I limped home and barely made it, Jane had to drive me to the hospital I felt so wiped out. Looks like the tabltes didn;t agree with me so the doc has now prescribed a gel for me instead of the tablets.

Deficit still stands at 4 days as I’ve got 2 days in this week and last week. driving tomorrow, off work on Monday, christmas do on friday – will I at least stop the deficit growing? we’ll have to see…

With bad weather and feeling grotty, I’ve not ridden the MTB for two weeks, and the deficit is back to four days. Felt fine this morning though so off I went – I even managed to notice the soft back tyre before leaving and pump it up! I’d fitted the new rack, and the nice belt clip Jon gave me was doing the job of holding the holy hand grenade in place, until Morrisons when it fell off in the middle of the road with a loud clonk. I ran back and holding my hand in a “stop” sign, dashed out into the road to pick it up. All fine, thankfully.

Homeward bound, I kept checking it and all seemed fine, until I was almost at the first farm past Bredbury hall – stopped to check the light, noticed it wasn’t there. Bum! Retraced my steps and foundit, just 60 yards this side of Bredbury Hall. No sign of the belt clip though, so I slowly made my way back until I reached the point where I’d turned round. Still no sign of the belt clip, but a distinct hissing sound from the back tyre. Great, a puncture, just what I need. I ended up pushing the bike down to the farm yard and using their massive lights to give myself some visibility. It worked, I found the puncture, not entirely sure what caused it though, I may have to strip that tyre off and have a good look – I think there’s something stuck in the tyre that I couldn’t find.

The temperature plummeted while I was doing the wheel, but I did sort it eventually and made my way slowly home. It was only on reaching home that I realised I hadn’t done my back brake – but since I’d had the puncture at more or less the lowest point, and had been cruising, I hadn;t really needed the brakes thankfully.

Off to the garage shortly to fix some puncture tubes and sort bikes and things

well, the weather was indeed horrendous but I managed to get a second commut in on Friday! Great, that manages to keep my defecit to three days. Didn;t get out over the weekend as the weather was horrendous, but did manage a commute on Monday. Went back to NVL training on Tuesday which was a bad idea as my shoulder flared up as a result, and I’m coming down with a stinking cold so I doubt I’ll get the second commute of the week tomorrow Back to a 4 day defecit, then.

so, I got two more days in last week to bring the deficit down to three (actually I got a lift home on Friday as we were in the pub and it was battering down so I had another pint – but it still counts as I did ride in and didn’t drive home!). On sunday, we went out round Marsden with Keith to recce the next STW ride – out towards Meltham, down Wessenden, up to the pennine bridleway, down into Dobcross, quick pint at the Royal Oak, heights, then back via the Pack horse trail. Another commute today, but the weather forecast for the rest of the week is horrendous….

So, after two weeks off, I resumed my riding with a nice easy 26 miler! Yes, my first ride back was the STW Marple ride. Idiot. The plan was that Jane’s friend Conor would come over on Friday: He was over from Northern Ireland on a riding tour of the mainland, so I’d booked the day off to take him out. That plan was cancelled when Auntie Stella passed away, I was a pall bearer at the funeral scheduled for Friday and that was taking priority over everything. Luckily Conor was able to re-arrange and he came over on Saturday evening after riding in the lakes. Poor lad had been drenched. The Sunday ride went off really well, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. It did turn really cold while we had a pint in the Moorfield Arms, strangely. Even more strangely, there was very little in the way of mechanical problems, just one or two punctures and them towards the end of the ride (Graham on the Last Drop to Rowarth and Mart outside Capri Farm). Dave did leave his glasses at the end of the field of doom, so had to climb back up to recover them whern he realised – at the point where we met the Pennine Bridleway! By this pont we’d split into two groups, Jane had led 7 others off from Highgate Lane straight up Twentytrees while the rest of us did the field of doom, Dave caught us as we reached the wall just past the trees themselves and we all caught the others at the next wall!

Anyway, after the ride we had showers and baths, then went to the pub for a meal. We were home by 8 and I was so knackered I was in bed at 8.30, got u pat 8am the next day  – 11.5 well deserved hours in bed!

Today I’ve commuted, it was wet and not particularly nice, I was lit up like a christmas tree but still had one car try to pull out on me, she saw me immediately and stamped on the brakes so no harm done but it did get my heart going! After pulling back to only one day down though, the two weeks off has bumped me back up to four days down in total. one more day this week minimum, a third day will very much depend on the weather.

So didn’t ride at the weekend – we took Finley to the park, and on the homeward journey I could feel every pulse in my jaw. Spent the day breaking bricks instead, laying a base for the patio where the greenhouse will eventually stand.

Got a commute in on Monday – first night commute of the season. Decided to go through Chadkirk woods, and mentally said “oh this could be greasy” so had to be very careful when getting onto the boardwalk through the woods at an angle. I promptly crashed on the very first pedal stroke!, So,  I spent the next half mile scooting the bike very gingerly along the path and over the various sections of woodwork. Had to walk the bike down the massive flight of steps to the canal too, as my confidence was gone and I could ride neither the steps (never tried them on a CX but have done them on an MTB) nor the drainage gully to the side that I normally ride – just had this mental thing about slipping and going down again. The shoulder was ok that evening but I felt some twinges in the night and when I got up I realised I’d done something. Was hoping it would get better but that’s not happened so have been to see the doc, who has diagnosed a rotator cuff injury – probalby the supraspinatus. I’ve to use Ibuprofen and let it rest for a couple of weeks, so no volleyball and will have to be careful about getting back on the bike.

So, last weekend we were supposed to go out with Souter and friends, but due to illness they had to cancel. Instead, Jane and I did a recce ride for the planned STW Marple ride. 5 and a half hours, 26 miles (we rode to and from the start point from our house), 2000 feet of climbing, one puncture at strines station, going a little too fast and heavy on the bouncy bike.

3 commutes this week, monday, tuesday and wednesday brings me to a one day defecit, which is nice, but the root canal I had on Thursday is giving me gyp so we’ve ducked out of tomorrow’s planned loop round Jacob’s Ladder.

So, I’m rubbish at updating the blog. Hey, tell me something I don’t know. IN fact, I’m even more rubbish than when I stared this post, given that I started it close to two weeks ago and then left it to moulder (and then left it another week again!).

Well, I commuted home after the last post, and got in the second commute of the week. Thursday, Jane and I did a local night ride, cheeky woods, romper, bone mill, I then dropped round the back of the paper mill while Jane went round. Up to the Fox, up Nealds way and home over Black Lane. Jane rode some of the tougher stuff as in the dark, she wasn’t frightened by what she couldn’t see! Down past Emmy’s place and through to Shielan, home over the golf course where I saw a badger!

The next day I drove to work as I was going to the shop on the way home to collect the Roscoe. Mmm, nice! Bloody awkward fitting brakes though! Took off the Juicy 3s and put them on Jane’s Juliana, so I could fit the Hope Tech X2s. That was a trial and a half. I’d tried to fit them to the Blue Pig, only to realise that I couldn’t run them in the normal position as they interfered with the shifters. I got them sorted enough to do one ride, but as I can’t remove the shifter windows on the Deore shifters on the piggie, it wasn’t a viable long term option so off they came to go on the Roscoe, as originally planned.  On the Roscoe, the shifter windows are built into the clamp as they’re SRAM X7, so the new brakes should go on now problems, shouldn’t they? Well, no. the body of the lever is so thick, the positioning is awful. Four weeks in, the brakes are usable but I need to have another go at the positioning, I keep knocking the shifters accidentally so I’ll have to rejig everything to get it right. On top of that actually fitting the brakes was a chore in itself – the adapter wouldn’t fit! It looked like I’d been sent a 203mm adapter rather than a 183mm adapter, as the pads were just skimming the outside edge of the rotor. At least, it looked like that till I turned the adapter round and suddenly everything was well with the world. D’oh, numpty!

So anyway, I  eventually got the brakes set up well enough to go for a ride, and we chose Cut Gate as the ride to christen the new bike. We decided to start at Langsett, and I was really pleased as the climb up North America was far easier than the last attempt just three weeks previously. Mind you, that was in part because I was fresh and hadn’t just had an admittedly fine BLT! We passed a couple of groups on the climb, one going up and one going down, and I did a far better job of the climb than previously, far fewer dabs and generally more stuff ridden cleanly. About 10 yards short of the cairn marking the top of the descent to Ladybower though, I lost momentum, failed to unclip and toppled sideways onto a tussock topped by some of the Peak District’s finest gritstone. First scratches on the bike. At least it’s over and done with and I don’t have to keep treating the bike with kid gloves! Off we went towards Ladybower and the packhorse bridge, the point where we’d make a decision about whether to do a loop of the reservoirs (with a stop for cake at Fairholmes) or just turn round and head straight back. As I waited at the bottom for Jane though, I noticed her waving at me, and eventually realised that she wasn’t just waving, she was beckoning me as something had gone wrong.

I ran up the trail and it turned out that her front wheel was loose, which is quite scary on that descent. It has already come loose once and she’d tried and failed to tighten it properly, so I made quick work of re-tightening it so she could do the last descent – or so I thought. Within 100 yards it was loose again. On closer examination, I found that the thread was stripping from the inside of the nut on the end of the QR – bugger! what can one do? Well, very little, especially as there are no nuts on the Roscoe, the front is 15mm bolt through and the rear has a captive QR. I tried swapping the nuts on the  front and rear QRs and that seemed to make  a difference, so we decided to ride down to the bike hire centre at Fairholmes to see if they could help.

As luck would have it, we arrived at the road to see a waiting bus! the driver very kindly let us on and we had a nice ride down to Fairholmes, where we bumped into friends who offered a lift home! Luckily though the very nice chap in the bike hire place gave us a replacement QR nut and we were soon off and on the way back. Thankfully, the return ride passed with no further incidents and we got home safely

Loads more to catch up on so brief notes it is:

2 commutes, one with Jane. Still up to date with the commutes

Thursday that week, Jane and I did the golf course / chadkirk / romiley / Werneth Low night ride. Not too pleasant going through Romiley so we may give that a miss until the nights get lighter or we are in a bigger group. Inbred and Piggie.

On the sunday, we went up to Ros & Gavin’s  new house for dinner, and a nice spin round Rivington. Did a nice new track from the antenna back towards Horwich, then climbed back up – Gavin snapped his chain and as he mended it we saw a Dc3 in WWII colours flying really low! cool! The back up, the mental descent to Belmont and back round past the pigeon tower and the ice cream run. I was on the Roscoe, Jane the Juliana.

Having been to the dentists on Friday and suffered all weekend, my toothache got worse and I have something else that was playing havoc with my insides so I had a week off riding. Bum, 2 days down on the commute. Luckily things got better by the weekend, so we went over to Ogden Water to do the STW ride with Ton

That week I rode to work on Monday as Jane needed the car, then rode to Sue’s to meet Jane Lovely food, then I went off to volleyball training in the car and picked Jane up on the way home. Got another commute in on the Wednesday, but didn’t ride Thursday as we were suppsoed to be out for a night ride with Mark & Gill. We had to cancel last minute and re-arrange for the Friday, so I didn’t ride in then either, bugger, that still leaves me 2 days down! The night ride was brill though, did the by-now-classic Werneth loop, which Mark and Gill really enjoyed. We then set in our lovely lounge drinking beer till gone midnight! Hardtail jihad again

Sunday was great, proper old school ride round Rivington with Ian and Dave. We explored the new trails at Healey Nab, and tried the third of the trails off the road leading up to the mast. Everyone had a good ride, I think.

And that leads us up to this week, where I got a commute in on Tuesday and a Wednesday commute where I met Jane. ON our Thurs night ride, we wwent up Linnet clought but turned round at the Fox Inn cos we both couldn’t be bothered. went hoe viat Strines station, shielan and the golf course, but funnily saw badgers either side of Chicken Farm rather than in Badger Woods. Felt crappy this morning and struggled to get out of bed so I am still 2 days down on my commuting target, but at least  the blog’s up to date!