The bank holiday activity thread….

Have we had one?
What did you do / ride ?

No riding, but I did get out chasing DofE groups as supervisor, beautiful on Saturday, overly damp on Sunday morning 🙁

Also to a Scottish beach in May… 😆

First time riding in Wales this weekend.

Fri – Cwmcarn
Sat – BPW uplift
Sun – Afan
Mon – Forest of dean

Popped to Parkwood springs on the way home last night for a session on the dual slalom too.

Awesome!

Made a fair bit of progress with this.

Sneaked out for a ride just before sunset. Shoulder checked a tree and embedded a piece of gorse a good 1/2″ into my finger.

this

leading to

then

Activities?

What did you reckon to that, Binners? Thinking of taking my lad next time the girls head out shopping.

Low-ish level Lakes on Saturday with added mechanicals, leading to full fork service on Sunday.

I did gone done ride Gravel Dash over the weekend.
It was good fun. The beer and BBQ at the overnight was great. The riding was great. The people were great.
The traffic on Monday morning heading home wasn’t.

I’ve been getting increasingly fed up with covering my shiny new Smuggler in crap on every ride. Yes, I know, it’s a mountain bike, it’s designed to get muddy and I dare say those 8 little bearings are well sealed and not that hard to replace, but I’d just rather not. Unfortunately I can’t seem to get on with hardtails (even on plus size tyres). So, while I cogitate over whether to try full-fat, I built up my old Five and have been playing about in the mud on it.

In these days of boosted, plus-sized 650b bikes it’s easy to forget just how good these old 26″ trail bikes were. Still probably the best tool I’ve got for sliding around in muddy forests.

Lovely all day on the sauce with the wife Saturday that started with some very nice food at a posh place in Brum and finished with some cracking cocktails.

Sunday was a slow start followed by a 90th birthday party. The intention was to get out on the bike after that, that stopped as we started the 2nd bottle of wine. Ending up talking rubbish and drinking rum. It was awesome.

Monday finally got out on the bike, cracking ride around Brum along the tow-paths and into the hill, awesome ride. Then we went to see The Jungle Book a the cinema which was pretty damn good too.

So, not a lot of bike work but a great weekend non the less.

Saturday. added bit of driftwood to the revised front garden;

A mixed weekend of taking our boys to watch Stoke v Sunderland (which, despite the last minute equaliser, was ace), birthday BBQs and a fab ride on my road bike. Yesterday was a bit naff though. AM was housework, PM was looking out of the window forlornly at the rain with a sleepy 2 year old on my lap and the evening was spent on my laptop pulling a newsletter together. Living the dream 😆

Spent Saturday wandering round here…..

…checking out the paintings and chandeliers and that. Also trying to prevent the kids from accidently destroying priceless antiques.

All the while jealously eyeing up the hordes of happy bikers who were buzzing round the car park before / after heading to the trails.

martinhutch – Member

What did you reckon to that, Binners? Thinking of taking my lad next time the girls head out shopping.

Its absolutely bloody brilliant martin! They have literally every arcade game in there. A tenner in, 5 for the kids and it swallows up hours!!! My girls are 12 and 8 and they absolutely love the place. In the words of the youngest as she blasted away at Tie Fighters in her X wing “THIS PLACE IS SOOOOOOOOO COOL!!!!”

Is that Drumlanrig?

Is that how you spell Drumlanrig?

Is that Drumlanrig?

Is that how you spell Drumlanrig?

Yes and yes.

Hats off to the peeps at Drumlanrig for taking the highly unusual step of selling a Family Ticket which includes 2 Adults and 3 kids instead of the usual experience of having to buy a “Family” ticket plus an additional child.

I only had a few hours spare yesterday but managed a few miles on the CX bike on the lovely dusty dry trails nearby..

Oh no hang on. That was last weekend.

This was yesterday

Sat – kids ride/ play in the woods 🙂
Sun – Gorrick 100 with Mrs Yak then dinner with kids and grandparents 🙂
Mon – another kids ride 🙂 then fillering and painting 🙁

Thought it was Perchy.

Been years since I’ve been there.

I rode the trails and chatted to the bloke in the shop – proper slightly odd but really likeable MTBer.

I rode the trails and chatted to the bloke in the shop – proper slightly odd but really likeable MTBer.

🙂 That’ll be Rik then !!

Superb trails, I renewed my season pass the other week. Probably my favourite of the ‘man made’ trails in the 7 Stanes area. Added bonus being the amazing Tearoom 🙂

Aviemore – hired fatbike to try out. Rode Aviemore – Badaguish – An Sluggan – Forest Lodge – Ryvoan bothy – Aviemore. Great ride, decent weather.

GT on Saturday morning:

Mac-and-cheese at the cafe afterwards, very tasty.

Sat. Long ride in the AM then gardening PM
Sun. short ride then muchos cake eating watcing the rain
Mon. Work in the am, walk in the sun PM
quick blast before work this AM too 🙂

Friday night beer festival at the Norfolk arms. Chatting to the guy from meantime brewery as he plied us with samples of his wares including 7.4% IPA. Stumbled home in the dark.
Saturday slow start. Went to see a play at the Lyceum in the evening.
Sunday pleasant brunch at Hathersage social club followed by dog walk, quick 22 miler on the road bike then captain America civil war with son. Rather good.
Yesterday built wheels up while it pissed it down. Out for tea then home to catch the mighty foxes lifting the trophy.
Not a bad weekend all told. 😀

Saturday – walked around the Isle of Wight, 106km in 23hrs 18min which was plenty of time to reflect on why on earth I wasn’t doing the 50/50 Gravel Dash instead 🙁

This weekend was Easter for those on the old calendar, innit.

Consequently, some of us may not have been able to ride as much as we would have otherwise.

The chocolate, meat, and beer intake mean, however, that riding as much as possible will now be a necessity over the coming days!

Freeder neet

Last neet

A weekend of snooker, swimming, kids rides, ice creams and wary castle with the kids bookended by a couple of mtb jaunts – would have liked to have got a half day ride in but beggars can’t be choosers

Took my 5yr old daughter swimming and had a great time. I had to be Meatlug and Rowan was Fishlegs, (how to train your dragon) so I had to carry her about on my back swimming where she commanded. She even fed me rocks which I had to spit out as a weapon. Of course Meatlug was naughty and dived to the bottom at times leaving poor fishlegs to swim back to Berk.
Bought a curry and some beers ont’ way home and the wife and I watched GOT S04E01 – the one where Arya gets needle back, great stuff.

We went to MOSI and, it pains me to say, it is looking a bit tired with lots of stuff closed and many of the hands on experiments broken. In fairness to them there is a lot of work scheduled to be carried out though by the looks of things. The temporary exhibition in the 1830s warehouse consisted of some rust and the video installation in the Station Booking Hall was artywanknonsense at its best. The highlight of my son’s day was his cheese sandwich apparently, which is a shame as he is a big fan of the Underground Manchester exhibit and the talking toilet, both of which were closed.
I think we’ll give it a swerve until the new stuff is open.

We did Laser Quest too and I went full-on Brian Glover resulting in the following scores.
Son ( aged 8 ) : 2
Daughter ( aged 6 ) : –78
Me ( aged 47 ) : 1042

Sat: 130km fixed road, Sun: 75km on TT bike to break in the Ares saddle (or break in my own ares). Out by 06:30 both mornings and not warm. Monday: fettling of bikes to bling up Teen2’s Defy, bling down nephew1’s Defy and swap race tyres.

Blinged Defy picture…

And as Esher-Shore will attest: skinwall Corsas are just so cool 8)

Does no-one else get out?

Went out for a ride Saturday morning, crashed, bruised my hip and knee pretty good. Spent the rest of the bank holiday watching films.

Do I win?

Fun coastal state ngletrack exploring , a nit of road and some beer!