Took my 3 month old puppy out for a very, very short ride for the first time a few days ago. She loved it! She is a vizsla cross.

I take my puppy to work. Worse than a kid! Shits under other peoples desks all the time.

Strange, it is correct although I haven’t put “at” in capitals. Can you try again?

Yes, Bunnyhop you are right about the beds. I don’t mind putting up just one person/room to start off with until I know if I like the B&B thing or perhaps will have lots of couples (lots of walkers around here). Another idea would be to do tailor-made packages for people wanting to introduce their other half to mountain biking. You could hardly pick a more romantic place really than this hillside! I could offer a bit of skill training as well and if it’s a lady lend her a high-spec bike for the duration of the stay.

Thanks for the offer of helping guiding, bunnyhop.

That is a lot of good advice you have all given me!

I got the feeling people have the same priorities as myself, good food, good, practical and clean facilities. I’m not particularly interested in attracting “normal” people (or good quality customers)since we only have two bedrooms available to let (one double, one kingsize)and I don’t want to fill every weekday/weekend up anyway. I know I won’t make loads of money from it and that isn’t the point of doing it anyway.

So this is where it’s up to now:

Good comfy mattresses (tick)
One en-suite bedroom, one with private bathroom (tick) Neither with cream carpets or carpets in the bathrooms!
Lots of hot water (tick)
AGA for drying all sorts of stuff (tick)
Laundry service (tick)
Route cards (tick)
Secure bike storage (tick)
Bike washing facilities (tick)
Work shop with all the tools and stand (tick)
Good selection of high quality breakfasts (tick)
Communal honesty bar/snack area with tea/coffee making facitities (tick)
TV/DVD/Nintendo Wii/books/Magazine in the guest lounge. (tick)
Real Italian coffee from home ground beans with real milk (tick)
Super trails and fantastic views (tick)
Pint glasses in the rooms (tick)
Pub 10 minutes walk away (tick)
Friendly dog (tick)
Guiding if desired (however don’t expect your beds to be made that day!!)

Wifi is a tricky one. The wireless networks aren’t working very well in our house due to the increadibly thick stone walls (don’t think they had wireless networking in mind in the 17th century!) but there are networking points in a lot of rooms so I might look into that side of things as it seems quite important to a lot of people.

Just need to get a few reading lights and a few other bits and bobs and do some more route cards and then I’ll open for business from mid June onwards!

I’m doing a website that should be ready in about three weeks time. If anyone would like the link to it when it’s ready email me. Don’t want to look for business on the forum so won’t post again about it, but very happy with all the good advice from people here!

I mean it literally starts from the front door!

I’d love to get a license for alcohol, but isn’t it quite difficult and expensive? The very cosy local pub (the Fox for anyone near Mellor/NewMills area)is only 10 minute beautiful walk away.

We are on the edge of the Peak district and which ever direction I go I have absolutely superb technical trails and the rides can finish and start with superb descents! I’d love to share it with other mountain bikers and do guiding if wanted! (done guiding course) and since I also love to cook and clean and socialise I thought B&B would be perfect!

That’s really good stuff! I agree so much especially with the pint glass! But I’m sure I would have forgotten about it if nobody had mentioned it. I also hate the tiny useless little ones that all the hotels/B&B seems to use.

coffeeking,
don’t agree with you about ignoring the dog would reduce you in status relative to the dog. It’s easy to see how older dogs use this to assert their dominance to younger dogs by just ignoring them. And it works the same way in humans!! If you are ignored you immediately feel less important than you did before you got ignored.

Thanks for all the advice. I wouldn’t like to hit her anyway so I’ll do the yelping thing a bit more. It does seem to work when it’s only me around so I suppose the next step is to practise more consistency with other people around. Also I now tell everyone new she meets when and how to greet her so that they don’t teach her the wrong things. I’m sure it will pay off although I probably do come across as a bossy rude person to the new people I meet. You don’t have much time to tell them as they all just walk up to her straight away because she is so cute!

I’ve already shown her my bike (cycling around her letting her follow me and calling “sit” and make sure she sits. Very hard to figure out a perfect strategy for this since I don’t want her following other mountain bikers when she is older thinking they might give her treats! At the same time I don’t want her scared when she sees people on bikes.

Thanks for mentioning the Kelpie! You are so right! We met the dad and he is pure breed Vizsla but only saw a photo of her mum and the mum looks proabably 85% like a Kelpie. They had no idea of her heritage since she was abandoned as small puppy before they adopted her.

So far the biting is the only problem with her, in all other ways she is perfect! I’ll try some of the methods mentioned and see if it helps.

Around where I live there are lots of horse riders that invariably have a dog with them. Never seen them get off their horses to clean up after the dog…never mind the horse! Would be way too terrified to point this out to them though. But I’m not too bothered because it’s the countryside so I suppose it’s expected to be full of shit and mud!

I agree with sharki, she should tell the person. I dealt with a solicitor when we moved house who was unbelievably rude (rude as in no manners, not in a sexual way). After the 3rd phonecall I had enough and told him that it was unacceptable. He was mortified. He had no idea that people found his manners rude. He was very polite and even quite friendly afterwards.

Already used mine!

Was going to order something yesterday but never got around to it! Glad I waited!

Moon boots (ride with flat pedals) and thick woolly socks! Works increadibly well, although not very stylish! Trick is to have a lot of room in the boots so that the toes have space to wiggle about. I have terrible problems with cold toes but this has completely solved it! Keeps the ankles warm and well protected too!

I’ve got over the guilt now. I was surprised actually how quick and easy it was to break its neck. I have pet chickens and a while back one of them needed to be put in heaven due to very old age and motor neuron disease so I killed it by putting it in a bin bag of pure nitrogen gas. Wonderful way to euthanise since it just fell asleep within 10 seconds and died immediately. No panic, nothing. Don’t think I could break the neck (or bite the head!!!) on an animal that I know personally though.

Well, I did seriously contemplate taking it with me but since it was the start of the ride and by the time I would have got home it would have gone cold and in my experience a lot harder to pluck I didn’t in the end. I also was paranoid that it might have suffered from a rare form of pheasant BSE given the poor control over its extremities it had so in the end I left it for the fox. Kind of regret it now since I love eating pheasants.

Arrgghh, good point, feel even worse about it now!

Nbt, now I know the attraction of sports beer! Definately planning in midroute fueling stops more often! Worrying though that I went faster than ever before on the last downhill! Will definately limit myself to one pint!

snowslave, sounds interesting. I always go out cycling on Wednesdays anyway. What time do you usually set off?

Nbt, I’ve emailed you now.

Thanks nbt! That’s quite a few! I was planning to go out tonight too. Would you mind if I came along on your ride? What time do you set off? And how long do you plan to be out for?

My husband has got one, a HP velotechnik Street Machine. People do seem to notice him while he is riding it judging by the amount of harassment he gets!

Youths shout “That’s sick!!!” to him which I suppose could be interpreted as a compliment occasionally!

Would ride it myself if only the pedals could be brought closer to the seat without having to shorten the chain!

Since I started mountain biking a couple of years ago there are no non-cycling related photos. My mum back in Sweden has got sick of just seeing photos of me wearing a helmet and covered in mud.

No problem in Manchester. Very congested roads this morning which makes cycling even more rewarding! Don’t find cycling on snow and ice particularly difficult but then again I did commute on bike in Sweden during the winter months so I guess I’ve had some practise!

Aracer, of course I haven’t got any REAL evidence for the helmet saving his life. All I know is that the witnesses to the accident couldn’t believe that he actually wasn’t dead having seen the impact. Of course I know that the helmets are suppose to break and if it hadn’t broken I would have been very worried that it wasn’t working properly.

The debate is quite strange here, people who don’t for one reason or another want to wear helmets seem to feel the need to do them down and people who wear helmets swear they are really good and do the thing they are suppose to do. All I know is that I always seems to bruise/cut my knees and shins when I’m not wearing my bodyarmour, so I’m not going to tempt fate by not wearing my helmet!

I once saw a bloke (about 15 years ago)who had put an upside down colander attached by rubber bands on his head as a helmet while cycling….

It doesn’t make sense to look at the low number of people who has had their heads squashed and then say that the helment wouldn’t have made much difference to most of them. The point is (and speaking from experience) the accidents that happen where people are wearing helmets and because they are wearing helmets aren’t serious enough to report or make it into statistics is the relevant thing to look at. My husband would have been dead if he hadn’t worn a helmet on his commute. He was going at full speed (20mph) in a cycle/buss lane when a car pulled in front of him with no warning at all. He was catapulted through the air and landed on the back of his head on the other side of the car. The helmet was completely broken but his head was intact and dispite a minor concussion he didn’t even need to see medical attention and never ended up in the statistics. If he hadn’t worn a helmet I’m sure they would have said that wearing a one probably wouldn’t have made much difference but that fact is it saved his life.

I don’t think wearing a helmet should be compulsory but it’s stupid not to wear one.

I was held back at airport security in Spain because I had put my DMR V12 pedals in my handluggage. They must have thought they were some kind of weapon that potentially could cause a lot of damage (true I suspect if you thinking of your shins…) I would have been gutted if they had confiscated them but thankfully, due to me looking as sweet and as weak as I possibly could, they let me keep them.

At my company we received a Nintendo Wii free with an order. As most people already had one I asked everyone (about 15 people)if I could take it for a very substantial donation to the tea/coffee club. Everyone now has free coffee and biscuits for 4-5 months and I’ve gave the Nintendo Wii to my son for his birthday. Everyone happy!

He didn’t actually say anything. Just looked very sheepish wishing I’d stop ranting at him. Kids here generally aren’t bad so I wasn’t worried I’d get much abuse back even though he was far taller than me. I’ve got a very sneaky suspicion I might just know his parents and if that is true there will be an even bigger rant for him later….

I wear moonboots and thick socks when I cycle in this sort of weather! (Yes, I have flat pedals…although I’m sure there is a gap in the market for moonboots with cleats!) I definately value comfort and warmth before looking stylish!

That’s quite encouraging then! We certainly do need a kick up our backsides as people are completely frustrated by the lack of managment and organisation! I would still offer to be the first in the line to get sacked though because I do need a change and do something else for a while and others here are more dependent on keeping their jobs.

Maybe I should look really lazy then and confess that I’m the cause of all the faults of the company! Maybe by just getting rid of me they think they can keep the rest! I like the plan!