I’ve spent a lot of time on the Isle of Anglesey in the past 40-something years. When I was a child I’d more or less be there permanently through the school holidays and most weekends during term time. I thought I was familiar with all of it, despite being able to pronounce a very small percentage of the place names properly.

When I entered the Tour De Mon sportive, I wasn’t sure if I was going to get much out of it. Apart from it being a good excuse to pay my parents a visit I assumed that there wouldn’t be many surprises throughout the whole ride. I’m glad I did enter though, the route contained plenty of unfamiliar lanes and ‘grass up the middle’ stuff to open my eyes to parts of the island I’d never been to or had long-since forgotten.

one of many wheel-sucking moments

It wasn’t easy either – 104 miles (plus a 30 mile ride to the start – rarrr) and over 2500 metres of climbing on up-down-up-down-up-down roads meant that you knew you’d had a good day out. There was even an actual sort-of race for a mile along the Mona airfield, which took some recovering from…

Next weekend it’s the 10@Kirroughtree race, about 3 miles from our new house in Newton Stewart. When I entered the event months ago I wrongly assumed that I’d be a resident of Newton Stewart by the time the race starts but obviously that isn’t the case, so we’re driving up from Manchester instead.

I’ve not done a great deal of training in the past few weeks either due to ‘other stuff’ but it’ll be a fun day out and to make sure it is fun, I think I’ll take a Big Bike with a Big Fork and Big Tyres and have 10 hours of fun in baggy shorts.

Another chance to see some more of the trails up there and to catch up with friends north of the border.

From here….

Soon the Miles family will be moving away from Manchester to side-step the organised chaos of the city to live in Dumfries and Galloway, over 200 miles away in Southern Scotland. I’m sure readers in the USA would drive 200 miles to buy a pint of milk, but in the UK it’s a long way.

…to here.

It’ll be a big change for us, moving to a town of 5000 people from a town of 500,000 but we’re good and ready after spending most of this year planning and trying to negotiate the incompatibilities between the English and Scottish conveyancing systems. We’ll be living in the caravan for a short time to work-around one of the main legal issues, but it’ll all work out fine.

It also means that apart from the occasional cyclocross race on the odd weekend that I’m not unpacking boxes and decorating, 2017 is pretty much over as far as racing bikes is concerned. With the current pressures of work and a life-altering house move, there just isn’t the time right now, nor is there an appetite for the added stress and hassle.

I’ve got plans for a Big Scottish Ride to keep the weight off and the fitness up before the end of the year and for the last few months of 2017 I’ll be training for the Strathpuffer 24  before I get stuck into things again next year, but things will start to look different from now on. Stay tuned!