I didn’t get to bed until early Saturday morning, thanks mainly to a couple of DVDs — The Forgotten (silly) and Dodgeball (very funny) — and a certain flatmate getting home from the pub without his door keys. Anyway, not enough hours of sleep later, that very same flatmate knocks on my door:
Him: “You coming to Cwm Carn?”
Me: “Mumble grumble mhrrrr”
Him: “Sweet! We’re leaving in about half an hour.”
And so we did. The main aim of the trip was to play on the new Mojo downhill track, but seeing as my DH bike is currently lacking its rear shock, I took the Big Red Stiffee.
As soon as we got there I remembered. I hadn’t ridden my bike since Cumfest and had forgotten to sort out the singleator. To do that I’d be needing an 18mm cone spanner. Where was that? Yep, you guessed it, its in the garage back home.
That wasn’t going to stop me though, and it wasn’t long before I was off and riding round the “Twych” cross-country trail. Unfortunately my complete lack of fitness and the aforementioned chain tension issue got in the way every time the trail went uphill (its amazing how much confidence you lose when you can’t be sure a pedal stroke won’t slam your knee into the bars), but even so it was great fun. The singletrack (clearly inspired in places by the trails at Afan Argoed) was great fun, especially the whoop-de-whoop bits, and the final descent to the car park. Perhaps the most satisfying was the short descent that goes alongside the forest drive. I was absolutely flying along there with some kids cheering me on from the roof of the big 4×4 that I was comfortably keeping pace with. Then the trail went back into the woods and that was the last I saw of them. The only problem is that its not long enough. Still, I suppose you’re allowed to do as many laps as you like…
I got back and found the others playing on the new DH track. Now, before you start moaning about how its not open yet and we shouldn’t be riding it yet, several of the Mojo crew who built the trail were riding it too and encouraging the rest of us. They just don’t want you doing uplifts yet.
Its proper big — like something straight out of the Alps. There’s plenty of massive berms, hips, drops, doubles and even a few bridges to play with, but its all rollable – so if you don’t fancy flying 30ft through the air you don’t have to. There were a couple of locals playing on there and making to look decidedly easy, or so I thought.
Nope, that’s nothing. A bit later Rowan Sorrell and Tim Ponting of the Mojo Racing team turned up with some mates their mates and made everybody else look silly. They were going massive off of everything they could. Really really impressive stuff. I want to go back and have a play on my full susser now.
We stopped off on the way back, picked up Brett’s sister and went for a pub dinner somewhere near Crickhowell. I’m not sure quite how we got her and two big mountain bikes across the back seats of Brett’s car – it certainly didn’t look very comfortable. I’ve not laughed that much in ages.
Should you be interested in such things, there’s more pictures in The Gallery.
Just got a text from Lewis:
Keep your eyes open for a patriot with plasters on the brake handles and non working front gears. Mine’s gone missing. Bastard.
So if you happen to see a black Orange Patriot around Cheltenham that fits that description, and looks like the one in the photo below, feel free to get in touch.
I needed a stock photo. I figured I’d get one from one of the usual free/low cost places around on t’internet. First up I tried stock.xchang, and was greeted with:
sorry for this unexpected downtime. we’re having trouble with one of our servers and we’re going to have to install some new hardware. don’t worry, stock.xchng will be back as soon as possible!
Fair enough thinks me, I’ll try iStockPhoto, only to find that they’re down too!
iStock is temporarily down, we will be back soon. We promise.
Bah and indeed humbug. And its going to rain forever.
Who’d have thought they’d have Zebras, Monkeys, Lions and Leopards just up the road from here eh? Pictures in The Gallery.
Oh, it was the Cotswold Wildlife Park. I spent a couple of years working a few miles down the road, drove within spitting distance of it on the way home, and never once registered its existence. It took my mother (who lives about 130 miles from me) to a) point out that it exists and b) drag me there. Glad I went though – its not every day that you get to see White Rhino and eat/drink slush puppies.
I should point out that Great Grey Owls are very sinister looking creatures in real life (as opposed to the quite friendly looking specimen on that page). They seem to belong in some sort of gothic horror film. Perhaps that’s not too surprising, considering their native habitat is the dark and remote forests of Alaska and Lapland.
I was writing something funky[1] with JavaScript at work today. It meant taking my skills up a notch.
Its like my knowledge of French. I remember some of the basics from school, so I can ask for a beer and a pizza, or fumble my way through a leaflet. There’s no way I could hold a proper conversation or write extensively myself though. I use it so rarely that I have next to no idea how to do anything meaningful with it.
Yet here I was today having to write something new. I couldn’t just copy and paste this time – it required real thought. Trying to work with a foreign language when you know so little about it is a frustrating exercise to say the least. I spent quite a lot of the afternoon swearing under my breath, sighing loudly and frantically googling for answers. Then all of a sudden it began to click. It all started to make sense.
Its a good feeling when that happens. That stupid little thing you’ve been trying so hard to do all afternoon works perfectly. Its only a simple bit of code in the grand scheme of things, but the page would be useless without it, and what’s more, I made it do that all on my own. I feel better about having it on my CV now.
I should probably go through and give the variables proper names though. if (heffalump = document.forms[0].monkey.options.length) doesn’t look too professional does it?
[1] That’s funky in the loosest possible sense of the word.
I do it every time I go on holiday. I’m fine up until the last day, and then for some inexplicable reason I fail to apply sunblock. As a direct result of this, my cheeks and the tip of my nose are currently a somewhat different colour to the rest of my face. To me it says “No worries, you’ve just spent the week snowboarding in the Alps”. No doubt to the rest of the world it says “FREAKAZOID!”.
See, I’ve just got back from a week spent playing with my friends in the snow. Charlie drove Gary, Emma, Rob, Brett and myself down to Les Coches in his fantastic VW Transporter Caravelle Minibus thing, where we met up with Neil, Simon, Pete, Owen and Anne.
I spent most of the first day desperately trying to remember how to ride a board. The first run we did – a steep blue from Les Coches to Montchavin – was a nasty bugger and I spent most of the time falling down it. Luckily things got better quickly and my confidence grew quite quickly from there on in.
By the end of the week I was joining Charlie, Gary and Brett on their mad off-piste adventures. Our final run of the week saw me have a fantastic crash in the trees. Tired legs got things wrong and I ended up lying with my head pointing down the hill and my board caught behind a tree. Escaping that one would have been interesting had Charlie not come to the rescue…
There’s loads more to tell (the dutchmen, Brett’s rock trotters, the flirty waitress, Si’s cooking, the fosters girl, the flashing bouncy ball, the world’s hottest fajitas, the list goes on…) but it can wait for another day. You can find a load of pictures in The Gallery.
