Can anybody think of a way to make the Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker progress bar move across the screen a little bit quicker? Or perhaps even progress at all?
I’m getting a bit bored of waiting for it now. It’s taking up most of my system’s resources so I can’t really do much else while it chunters along. Gaaargh!
It started well. I plugged my earphones in and rode out into a sunny afternoon, across Kingsditch then up the RUPP to Elmstone Hardwicke. I was riding like a lunatic – drum and bass tends to have that effect. After that I wasn’t really sure where I was going, but a series of bridleways and country lanes brought me out just outside Tewkesbury. Exploring new trails is ace!
Shortly thereafter I came to that bridleway. That bridleway was rubbish. It’s obviously used more by horses than anybody else, so it’s muddy, bumpy and churned up making it a real challenge to go anywhere. It’s one of those annoying trails where if you lose any momentum you end up having to pedal down the hill.
I get to the end and turned left onto a road, and noticed a twig stuck to the front tyre. It’s slapping the fork with every revolution of the wheel. Not a problem, I’ll stop to remove it.
Oh CRAPOLA! That’ll be a thorny twig stuck in the tyre then. So I take off my camelbak, open it up… DAMMIT ALL TO HELL! I’ve still not put my pump back in there. I carefully break off the excess bits of twig without removing the thorns from the tyre. Now it’s a race to get home before the tyre goes flat…
After a short while, I come to a junction with the main road. The sign tells me it’s eight miles back to Cheltenham. I’m fairly sure I’m going to be walking some of that. Now, I know this main road – it’s a nasty big dual carriageway and really not a nice place to be on a bike. There’s got to be a much better route back through Elmstone Hardwicke again. So I take a left and follow the country lanes. I get to a t-junction and I spot a bridleway going straight on – that seems about right to me, so I follow it. Alas, within half a mile I hit a dead end.
There’s a stile over there, but that can’t be right – it’s a bridleway isn’t it? Horses can’t climb over stiles. I clamber over and and follow the trail anyway – it turns out to be a footpath that goes right through someone’s back garden. Oops! I eventually find another bridleway that takes me over the M5 and in the right direction.
They’re really badly signposted around here – there’s several junctions in the track where I’m reduced to following horse and bike tracks in the vain hope of staying on the bridleway. Somehow I do and and up on familiar ground. I know how to get back from here – or at least I should. I’ve not approached the path from this direction before and ride straight past it the first time. It’s only about half a mile further up that I realised my mistake. I go to turn around and realise the tyre is really starting to get soft now. NOOO! It’s OK though, I only have to get down the RUPP and then back across Kingsditch. It’s not far now.
I’m pedalling like a complete loony to get back quickly but I can’t devitate far off a straight line because steering is really getting interesting now. This would be fine, except the trail is getting to the really boggy rutted bit now. I nearly lose the front all over the place and keep catching pedals on the sides of the ruts I’m inevitably getting stuck in. Ah, there’s the burnt out car – I’m not far from the end now then.
The tyre went completely flat about 50 yards from my front door. Winner!
…all work and no sleep makes Olly a very tired boy indeed.
Owen posted an album of his life today. He’s by no means the first either – Stuart posted the wonderful Ubermix a while back aswell.
I’ve thought about doing a similar thing myself a few times in the past. The thing is, I don’t think I could – at least not without it being a huge multi-disc compendium. There’s just so much that i’d want to put in there, and I can’t see myself being able to edit it down to one CD at all.
The problem lies with albums, or rather that I can’t pick out one particular track. I too remember the evenings in the first year of college spent listening to Portishead’s Dummy. There’s no way I could pick one standout track from there – there’s too much good stuff to choose from. Then there’s the other albums that I played to death back then: The Fat of the Land, Mezzanine, Brothers Gonna Work It Out and Asylum to name but a few. How can I take just one track from each of those? I can’t (especially seeing as one of them is a mix album where are no tracks as such).
Sod it
I thought, I’ll list off my all time favourite albums
. That’s all well and good, except even that list got far far far too long within a space of about ten minutes. Right then, favourite artists it is then.
Or rather, it isn’t, because again, there’s bloody loads of them. So I’ve given up on that idea for now.
So it seems that Olly’s favourite band is “Various Artists”. Stick that on your shiny new iPod, it’s bound to be good.
…cliff-hangers on the end of TV programmes. Like for instance the one at the end of Lost season 2 episode 1.
What’s more, I can’t really talk about it, because everyone else in this country is still watching season 1, and I have to wait another week before I’ll be able to get the next episode on t’internet!
GWAAARRGGHH!
…spending about an hour trying to figure out a Javascript error that came out of nowhere, only to discover that it was my own debugging code that was causing the issue.
GAAARRGGHH!!
First ride out on the new triple-two today. I think we’re going to get along just fine. I got on it for the first run down Leckhampton’s main DH track and instantly felt at home. It’s a fair bit slacker and plusher than the Azonic, which only serves to make it more friendly.
At first I didn’t think I was actually going any faster than I used to on the Azonic. But then I started arriving at corners carrying quite a lot more speed that I had done previously, needing all the brakes I could get hold of just to bring myself to a halt. I rode straight down steep slopes that had always scared the life out of me before. I can tell this bike is really capable. Now it’s just the rider that needs to improve…
That’s the last time we’ll see my Azonic Saber in that particular build.
It’s been well loved over the past few years. It’s been almost the ultimate all-rounder. I’ve ragged it down world-cup level downhill and four-cross courses at one extreme, and done a 24 hour cross-country race on it at the other, not to mention the time I took the gears off and did the european singlespeed champs on it. It’s been ridden up and down hills and mountains in England, Wales, Scotland, France and Switzerland.
I’ve got some fantastic memories too. The trips to Glentress, Innerleithen and Fort William were fantastic. Those three weeks pinning it down the trails around Morzine, Les Gets and Chatel in the French Alps were awesome. Caersws at the end of last summer was amazing. That descent of Afan’s The Wall trail has to rate as one of my best-ever biking moments. Times like those, when it all comes together remind you exactly why you play this game.
Now it’s been stripped down to a frameset and a few associated bits hanging up in the garage. It’s served me well, this beastie, but it’s time to move on. Something bigger, badder (and with any luck, better) is taking shape…