On the warmest, sunniest day of the bank holiday weekend we were all indoors at the “Chill Factor E” ski slope thing (with a stupid name) wearing all of our winter clothes, playing in the snow and hurtling down a bobsleigh run thing on a small plastic mat. Great fun! Bloody freezing though.

We were having so much fun me and Michael made a stupid video.

50 miles on the road bike last night, Bury, Rochdale, Littleborough, Tod, Bacup Road (to Bacup, funnily enough) then over to Rawtenstall and back home through Ramsbottom. I started to get some pain in my left knee, which was weird. Stopped and unclipped and then clipped in again just in case my foot was slightly skewed, but there was definately something going ping when I was climbing out of the saddle. More news on that if/when my leg falls off.

Two young women in a car pulled up alongside me whilst climbing Bacup Road to offer me a pint! No idea. They were obviously more deranged than me.

I ended up walking half a mile through Prestwich to get home after I smashed my front wheel into yet another pothole and got a puncture. I was nearly home, it was nearly midnight, so I took the “waddling along the pavement in roadie shoes” option.

I had a day off work yesterday so rode the cyclocross bike over to Oldham, climbed up to Delph and joined the Pennine Bridleway. Headed south, got a bit lost where some of the signs have been removed and ended up in the middle of Glossop. After climbing the Chunal hell-climb I rejoined the bridleway and called in on Rich who served me a pint mug of tea. After a good natter and a brew I set off again, following the bridleway towards Buxton. It gets very steep and rocky after Hayfield and I was either straining up the climbs in my lowest 34:27 gear or plummeting downhill over rocks, giving myself impressively large, pumped-up forearms. Like Popeye.

I didn’t really have a rear brake for the whole ride, I tried to improve things a couple of times but I think the pad’s contaminated. It started to bite a bit after I dragged it all the way down a big hill but then my BB started creaking (again).

Eventually, the bridleway peters out and the route becomes predominantly tarmac, then joins a dismantled railway. I followed this for a bit then got bored and headed over to Macclesfield, all covered in dust! Ace. It’s always sunny and dry when I ride down here 😉

68 miles, 2240 metres ascent, just a drop of milk, no sugar. Cheers.

Another late night ride last night – a surprisingly short-and-felt-like-a-lot-more-than 35 miles but this time it was OFFROAD! Woohoo! It seems like ages since my last offroad ride. Everywhere is so dry and dusty at the moment, I had planned to ride a particular route but added a bit on for good measure. Plenty of climbing, plenty of rocks, cobbles and sheep. The best bit was my Ergon Grips that I’d just fitted to the Global – I’d heard some good reports about them but I was more impressed than I thought I would be. My hands normally feel a bit battered after 3 hours or so but these things are very comfy and offer loads of different hand positions. I wish I’d got some sooner in fact. Yes I know they look spazzy.

As usual for new bits, they started to rotate a bit by the time I got home which spoiled the party somewhat.

Anyway, why is it that every nook and cranny of the local bridleway network that are accessible by cars almost always contain a car full of young lads smoking dope?

I decided that I wasn’t going to be racing at Lee Quarry today, it would have been a logistical challenge too far just for a 90 minute race, so I went out uber-early on the road bike up towards Bacup (past Lee Quarry) and into Calderdale. 50 miles later I returned so that Deb could get on with her stuff.

We went to LQ later on just as the race was ending. Had a natter to Twinklydave who came 2nd, Rich and Ann who were there taking photos and Phil, who decided to enter the race in the “racer” category which was optimistic but he didn’t come last. Good lad!

We all then went up to the Singing Ringing Tree. The kids liked it even though it was totally silent (due to lack of wind), we had a picnic with a grand view and I got sunburnt again.

The weather looks like it’s going to continue for the rest of this week so I’m taking a day off to get another long ride in, in addition to the usual weekday darkness rides….probably the PBW down towards Buxton again