Or something. Anyway, Steffi's school was closed today, so as we were up at the normal time, we went and played in the dawn snow before everyone else ruined it! Greedy old us.
Minou was fascinated and it came up to her tummy. We had about 4 inches in MK this morning and I had to help dig out Ant's car AND push him onto the road so he could get to work. Ahh the dis-advantage of 'working' from home.
Anyway, here are the pics:
Back Garden. Looking better than ever as you can't see the mud!
One week after our accident, Daryl and I are feeling a bit more human, I think, and recovering from the bruising well - the good news is that Daryl's op went well. A massive thanks to the Mountain Rescue teams that helped us off the hill in such appalling conditions.
The main aim now is to recover and try and run the Edinburgh marathon in May to raise funds for MR. Training will resume as soon as I can stand on my heel!
After a wicked time at Christmas, seeing family and catching up with old friends, a few of us headed out to see Chris and Kate at Mountain Spaces, staying in the apartment below their Chalet, for New Year! Bob is also out there and we managed to hook up with him a few times too...
A slightly hungover Gav joined me in MK, before driving North to Shef, to squeeze in some pre-Christmas activity of the climbing sort. We'd originally planned to climb Mam Tor gulley on Sunday, but shelved that for later, with more people.
Sat evening saw us down at the Works, having a bit of a bouldering session and me still very much recovering from my hacking cold/cough (actually have been coughing up blood and what can only be described as 'skin', or lung... not nice). Good fun as always.
Then back to see Jen and off to sleep as we were both shattered!
Next morning, we were up bright and early and at Burbage North for 09:20. Windy, and very overcast, but not too cold, so after a false start when Gav realised he'd left his rock boots in the car, we were off! The rock was slightly greasy and green in the shaded bits, but mostly ok. As a result, we were limiting our selves to low grade v.diffs and Gav had a good go at his first lead, which was almost successful, but needed a pretty bold finish for the grade, which I ended up leading - probably the fist multipitch 12m route ever!
Anyway all was fun and you really got a wind blasting as you came over the top of the routes! Then it started raining and we did our last route in waterfall conditions which was novel. Soggily, we retired to Jen's for tea and to dry off, before heading back out to the Foundry for a bit more action. Not very much, mind as we were now knackered!
Off home and it took me four hours to get back as they'd shut the M1! Rubbish! Nice one G+J good fun before Skiing next week! CAN'T WAIT!
With beautiful sunny weather and a slightly under the weather Daryl, we got out early on Saturday to have a go at Elbow ridge, a limestone diff route in a gorge in the Peaks.
Route outline of traverse in red.
Its quite a strange little gorge type affair, with a road running through it and strange limestone cliffs and stacks running up the sides. Having driven past it an had a recce, it didn't look too bad at all, but with a cold night, the air and ground were frostly and the downward sloping rock was a touch slippery, making for an interesting bit of a climb.
Pitch one was the sketchiest for Daryl, as we'd roped up in a three but forgotten the rack, so only had slings for protection, which was not really any protection, at all!
There was one crux move on this pitch, which would have resulted in a nasty fall if not careful, but Daryl got through it to a good belay and brought us both up nicely. Then it was the start of the traverse, which was good fun, if not a bit undignified - the ridge is quite thin and its safest at some points to 'ride' it by straddling your legs either side for secure progress. Some of it was done on two legs, but there was a lot of unorthodox technique being employed!
We did this traverse in two pitches due to rope lengths and the moving in threes (which was a first for us and good practice), finishing up on a grassy ledge on the other side. After which, we avoided the v.diff continuation because of lack of gear, and scrambled up to one side of the Matterhorn Ridge, topping out for a photo and discussion of a thoroughly enjoyable route.
After getting down, it was off to lunch with the girls and hook up with Jim and Sarah, who'd come up from London on the train. After lots of pizza, the boys headed off to the Works bouldering wall, to embarrass ourselves and have some fun trying their routes. Its such a good wall, with loads of cool stuff, tea and all sorts. It very nearly got off to a bad start as paying on my card, a machine error nearly debited £65,000 of my account, rather than the £6.50 it should have been. Luckily avaided at the last mo! Price of climbing walls has gone through the roof!
Anyway, we all had a good time and polished off a few nice routes before heading back to meet Rich, Anna and some more locals for food and Wii games at Jen's. All in all, I'm absolutely stuffed senseless!
Thanks for a wicked weekend and get well soon Dr Jen!!!!
Watch out, 'cos we've revolutionised the look of this here badboy. We are reverting to some kinda basic layout type thingy - it may be long or short term. I'm not in control, Gav is. Basically we can now receive abuse on the comments front. Anyway, we will have a tinker over the next few weeks.
Can't wait to get out to France over New Year to see Chris and Kate and shred up the pow all extreme-like. etc.
Last weekend saw the Hong Kong 24hr PedalKart race, a great event with about 50 entries competing to see who could clock the most laps of an 800m track over the course of the day. My school entered 5 trusty steeds, including our elite ride with carbon-kevlar shell and everything. We didn't win any speed prizes this year, but got the best team trophy for having the, er, best team. Cathay Pacific won overall, they were machines! But we had better t-shirts.
Looking forward to catching up at Christmas - back to blighty on Saturday 20th.
What ho. Have managed to squeeze in a good dose of riding this weekend in the biting cold wind and sleet! Saturday I hooked up with Rob B for a sesh at Chicksands where the wind in the car park nearly made me pack up and go home, whilst waiting for the Polo of death to arrive. Apparently Rob has a sweet modification that allows you to hit all three pedals at once...
It was dry and early. After a few warm up runs, we had a bit of a play on the less scary wooden stuff and hit some of the kickers. I managed to ride the drop off/kicker at the bottom of the wall ride and Rob did some of the gappy shore stuff. Very good.
Then it was on to the 4x. I'd not ridden it before and had a bit of trouble getting to grips with things, but Rob was loving it and getting well involved. Next to the Dual and pump races. Turns out I'm about as fast a Rob if I pedal or not. Hmmm. Was fun though and the left line is definitely slower!
Anyway. Sunday saw overnight snow and a full on rain assault. Proper nasty, but I hooked up with Bob and the wonder bus in Dorking for a bit of Leith action. Wet and muddy style.
Not my best angle...
It was a bit cold and savage and after a few trails, we decided to session the awkward little jump pictured below, before retiring to dry pants and ale...
Getting ready for t'winter out here, Drove up to Avoriz a couple of days ago to seee what the conditions were like, it's not quite ready for boarding yet but there's 70cm of snow forecast over the weekend so fingers crossed the start of the season will start with a bang.
all arty farty looking across to the high peaks in Avoriaz from the top of the Super Morzine way of getting into the resort.
same position looking down over Avoriaz and down into the valley that Morzine sits in.
Also getting ready for the arrival of the international Bob of mystery, looks like we might live in not only the same country, not only the same region but in the same town for 6 months!! Christ, look out Morzine, this is what happened last time!!!
Watcha, Daryl here....went to Glentress on Saturday with Joe and Ken and rode the red route plus hit up the Freeride area. Absolutely fantastic place even in the wet especially spooky woods which has to be one of the best pieces of trail I have ridden full stop. Tabletop, Tabletop, Berm, rock step down, tabletop, tabletop, berm, berm brrrrrrrrpppppppp, brrrrrpppppp, berm etc. etc. etc. Will have to go back ASAP avec camera.
Well, big claims, I hear you say. Exactly right...
Fireworks and some rocking out to JL's band down the Craufurd helped set the scene on Saturday night...
Wake up. Daryl's on time from the South, Bacon sandwich and off! Straight to a very rain soaked Woburn, where the idea was to have a chilled and fun session, doing a few jumps and not killing ourselves. We had a great time running some of the soggy runs and trying to work some lines. The fact that the jump spot is so close to the car park, made me force a photographic mission, so after those sweet warm up runsof warm up runs, we hit the the hip line and broke out the camera. The following ensued!
Pretty happy with the one hander (even though small), but Daryl was killing it and we had an awesome day!
Even better, we got homr in time for the Grand Prix, for the most exciting race of the season and nice one Lewis for winning in the most tense 3 minutes ever!!!!
After which, Steffi had an amazing roast on the table in minutes and the new top Gear was on. WALLOP!!!!
On Thursday I had to drive up to Manchester for work so I decided to make the most of my altitude, have Friday off work and go riding with Jez who resides up here. After the excitement of seeing Bryan Adams live at the MEN arena on Thursday night (very, very random but free and strangely entertaining!!), Jez and I headed out to Ladybower Reservoir in the Peak District.
Firstly it was bloomin cold with a lot of ice and a bit of snow on the tops, so I donned the bib knickers and off we set. We did a big loop up and over 3 peaks and back down the other side. The first climb was steep and saw us off the bikes and on foot fairly quickly, we then traversed across between peat bogs and icy puddles and got covered in mud. Onto the first downhill which was a real challenge trying to pick the way between big boulders and peat bogs, which much to my amusement Jez did not quite manage towards the end, and fortunately I had the camera out ready to snap him coming down-superb over the bars moment-see pic....
looking good
ooopps over he goes
like a cat
We then crossed the reservoir by the weir and took a wrong turn up and onto the steepest track up the next peak!! We could have turned back but instead in true English Gent fashion carried on regardless which saw us shouldering our bikes up the steep rooty and wet climb! The next traverse across took us through the heather and onto the old roman road which made for a good descent and saw me suffer the same front wheel in bog, over the bars quickly type dismount! On through to a cracking rocky descent through the woods which tested the suspension to the max and past some cross country boys who quickly dissapeared from the known universe, another climb and a similar fast downhill took us back to the car park, a quick hose off of the bikes, a cup of soup and some hideous sights for the poor people trying to enjoy the views of the reservoir on a Friday afternoon, as we bared our white asses in a hasty change out of cold wet muddy keks.
A quality ride which served as a great introduction to the winter to come, and a nice change to ride some proper hills.
