Blogfromthebarn

A very organic approach to engineering, bamboo bicycles...

The back story, my Christmas present this year (from the current wife) was a two-day workshop building a bicycle, from bamboo! A pretty niche idea but I'd enjoyed making my fixie (click here for that tale) so much last year that Mrs Stuffy felt that I'd like this. 

Labels: Alf Webb, bamboo, bamboo bike, bike, blog from the barn, blogfromthebarn, Chain Reaction cycles, CrateBrewery, fixie, Gloopy Sunday, Hackney Wick, hemp, mountain bike, MTB, oakwood barn, resin, Stuffy, Velodrome

posted by Stuffy @ 3:31 pm 1 comments

Team Tuxedo cruise round Corsica

There's an annual thing we do, every year as it happens, where I, the missus and a couple of chums pop off to stay in the South of France with another couple of chums and we all put on matching cycling jerseys and we then pedal around for a couple of days alternately cycling (not the missus, she's part of the support team), drinking coffee, drinking wine, drinking beer, drinking more wine, well, you get the picture.

We call it the Team Tuxedo Tour, last year we journeyed from lovely Vence in the Alpes Maritimes to delightful San Remo in Italy, an excellent and deeply enjoyable trip despite the presence of some seriously hilly bits.
Some excellent meals, good wine, good companions and a great way to spend a long weekend.

This year we needed a new challenge. But where to go?

The 2013 Tour de France had kicked off on the lovely island of Corsica and I, nay we, had all been impressed by what a delightful cycling venue that island looked, the prospect of effortlessly cycling through majestic gorges and into ever-opening vitas of beautiful azure seas and delightful fishing villages.

Well, it had to be done.


We did some research (although somehow missed the bit about all the uphill stretches) planned a four day trip, the ferry ride from Nice to Bastia is about 5 hours, we ordered fresh jerseys, we polished our bikes.

Deepest thanks to our Support team, Elaine, Mrs Stuffy and Marie-Pierre.

And serious Kudos to the cyclists,
Myself (l'ours volant), Dicky Bird (l'oiseaux),Chris our (Chef de l'equipe) Roy (Le Roi) and Ricardo (Le Facteur-he always delivers)

We headed for Heathrow, fluttered to France and enjoyed a delightful trip around the Cap Corse.

I'm not going into too much detail because there is a video so do feel free to click on the handsome folk in the photo and enjoy the ride, or not, as you wish.

Labels: Bastia, battalion, cervelo, corsica, corsica ferries, cycling, Fuji, nonza, Oakwood, porto centuri, road bike, Stuffy, team tuxedo, tour de france, Tuxedo tour, Vence

posted by Stuffy @ 4:57 pm 0 comments

A fixation, a fixie, a flirtation with fashion,, a folly?

I am, as many of you will know, one of those folk who seem to always need a project.

Over the last year or two I've been intermittently fixing, modifying, rustically pimping and mechanically restructuring my Series 3 Land Rover and despite my best endeavours it's now currently running smoothly and my list of things to resolve has 98% of its boxes ticked.

The joy of a Land Rover is that it won't stay fixed for long. But, O best beloveds, "a project" is a very different thing than fixing. There are always demands at the barn for my dubious repair skills, some triggered by chickens, foxes or bees. Some by garden activity, trees falling down, the occasional exercise in electrical, the inevitable plumbing challenge.


I always have a few bike maintenance jobs on hand but again that's not a project, bikes break and I fix them, that's just the circle of life.

So, a project...

For no good reason I found myself looking wistfully at an old bike I've had hanging around for a bit and deciding that what it needed was everything extraneous or superfluous stripped off, cleaned, painted and rebuilt as a single speed or fixie bike. Fixies are very much the 'now' thing in cycling in our cities, single speed, (no complex heavy gears) lightweight, minimalist bikes built to cut through heavy traffic and designed to go quickly along flat city streets rather than up and down hills with much puffing and panting. As I live miles from the city, with plenty of ups and downs not only an impractical but a downright silly idea.

I started browsing the web for inspiration and ideas and was checking out prices of various components on Ebay when I came across a listing for a single speed bike, the right sized frame but with a number of mechanical problems, mostly around buggered up (technical term) wheel, bracket and hub bearings, damaged wheels and defective brakes.

There was little bidding activity on this bike which I put down to this terrible photograph used to portray it but the text did mention that the builder was a chap called Alf Webb, a name I knew. He's a bit of a bike maintenance legend and a little research on various cycling forums identified a number of comments, criticisms and photos of similar bikes, apparently Alf specced and commissioned 250 track bikes a few years ago as "a project" and to promote his wheel building service. So, the original plan paused and I put in a very low offer in to try and win this bike.

No sooner bid than done, the bidding never really heated up and I won the auction for £60. An apologetic mumble to Mrs Stuffy that I'd 'accidentally' bought yet another bike, a quick drive to delightful Didcot and I was delighted (relieved) to finally see what I'd bought and discover that it was pretty much what I'd hoped for. Result!



I bought the bike back home and stripped everything off it. An exchange of emails and conversations with Alf and with support from the twin resources of Wiggle and the helpful gents at my Local Bike Shop, (Wellington Trek in Sunningdale) I spent a couple of evenings, rebuilding the bearings and wheels.

Then it was  back onto Ebay to find cheap replacements for the pedals, handlebars and brake system. It's a flip-flop hub so I can either run it with a freewheel or fixed, (fixed means using backward pressure on the pedals to make the back wheel skid and hopefully stop before impact). I've not tried it fixed yet but I shall.

The frame cleaned up really well, has little damage and is a lurid dark blue/purplish/black effect, it looks a little as if it was painted by dipping it into an oil bath but I quite like the effect and decided to try and stick with a blue theme for handlebar tape, pedals and chain.

The saddle was well past it so (thanks Ebay) I sourced a replacement and I really didn't want drop or straight handlebars, the bike originally had some nice Deda drops but I'd decided I definitely wanted bullhorns.
Again Ebay was my friend and I managed to find some really nice ones (Deda again) for a tenner including postage.

I've added some additional touches, some tensioners designed for BMX bikes to help keep the chain working effectively and I like the blue mountain bike pedals, this velo doesn't need clips, I'm not racing it and I do want to be able to hop on it in a pair of ordinary shoes and pop to the pub or pick up the papers without all the lycra/lubrication and gear that invariably accompanies the annual Tuxedo Team tour (this year watch out Corsica) or the weekly road or off-road exploits of the group of my chums collectively known as the Breakfast Bike Buddies (motto, "it's not about the bike, or the ride, it's all about the breakfast").



So that's the Alf Webb fixie project, pretty much done, I'm happy with the result and thought I'd share it with you, the only question now is, what's the next project?

Well I've still got that original bike hanging around, I wonder ...

Labels: Alf Webb, bike, blogfromthebarn, Breakfastbikebuddies, bullhorn, Deda, fixie, flip-flip hub, LBS, Local Bike Chop, Oakwood, project, rebuild, Stuffy, Tuxedo tour, Wellgo, wellington trek, Wiggle

posted by Stuffy @ 3:36 pm 1 comments

Captain America, a bit of a ring doughnut, if you know what I mean,

Captain America, The Winter Soldier, it's a bit of a ring doughnut, if you know what I mean, 

Labels: blog from the barn, Captain America, Chris Evans, cinema, doughnut, haiku, Marvel, oakwood barn, Robert Redford, Samuel L Jackson, Scarlett Johansen, Stan Lee, Stuffy, Winter Soldier

posted by Stuffy @ 3:50 pm 0 comments

Wes does Grand Budapest, a movie, a madness, a mess? yes and well worth it...

So the film drought has ended and we've emerged, blinking and shaking into the watery spring sunshine, we've stretched, yawned, scratched ourselves and shuffled off to the cinema.

I'm sure you're agog to hear what lured us from our movie hibernation.

Now then O best beloveds, there are movies we (Mrs Stuffy and I) view because we've read a great review, there are some movies that friends are keen to see so we go along from a sense of kinship and fellow-feeling. There are movies that one or other of us are obligated to attend simply for the sake of continuity (why else would one keep indulging the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise?) and there are a few actors and directors who rarely let us down, (there are no bad films with Ed Harris in for example) And there are films that fall into the "we haven't been to the movies in ages and that's the least bad choice" box.

So, guess which category The Grand Budapest Hotel fell into?

Well you're wrong, we like Wes Anderson, we don't necessary understand him, but we like what he does when he's near a camera, I love the stop-motion weirdness of Fantastic Mr Fox, the seemingly un-related and irrelevant bits, I have no idea what was going on in The Darjeeling but it made me care, even if I didn't understand it. We really liked Moonrise Kingdom, the serious kids, the childlike adults, the extraordinary beauty of the filming, the stillness, the frenzy, the retro colours, costumes and scenery, the inexplicable sudden appearance of a narrator, the self-indulgence of the director and (as in all his films) the cast list of assorted stellar mainstream acting talent mixed with the young, fresh, naif, newbies.

I was going to mention that this is an odd offering but it's evident that's to be expected. This film defies pigeonholing, it's a recounting, in flashback, of the extraordinary life of a concierge in an unreal Europe, on the verge of an unreal world war, with unreal totalitarianism raising its ugly head, I'm not sure what, if any, political points are being made.
It's a tale worth telling for whatever reason. It's the visualisation I really love in his films, the way Anderson mixes live-action, broad surreal shots and panoramas with so much detail, so much happening in them, the occasional model, not trying to convince that it's real, it's patently a model but it's charming nonetheless. This movie made me smile throughout and occasionally chuckle, it demanded constant attention, many, small subtle things happen, there's no telling what is or is not significant. 
The appearance of a big-name movie star may be hugely significant or a throw-away cameo. There's no telling what might be a red herring and I've come to expect no clear outcome, resolution or meaningful message. It seems to me that Wes Anderson makes very attractive, clever films to amuse and surprise and that's just what they do. Is this a self-indulgent movie? Probably but it's also an indulgent film and I really did enjoy being indulged.

Did you miss the Haikus?

Pastel retro tale
Anderson does not fail to
muse, bemuse, amuse

Labels: blog from the barn, Bruce Willis, cinema, critic, Ed Harris, films, Grand Budapest Hotel, haiku, Harvey Keitel, Moonrise Kingdom, movie review, Mrs Stuffy, Oakwood, Ralph Fiennes, Stuffy, Wes Anderson

posted by Stuffy @ 1:00 pm 0 comments

A celebration of Scottishness, we Celts have to stick together

We've a chum called Gerry, he's the landlord of the excellent Inn@WestEnd, a delightful hostelry about one village over which serves fine food ale and wine at (he assures me) very reasonable prices.

Each year, on or around the 25th of Jan,traditional celebration evening of Scotland's premier poet, Robbie Burns, Gerry hosts a Burns night. 

They normally manage to include all the traditional elements, a piper, smoked salmon, haggis, venison and cranachan, neeps, tatties,  wine, whisky, women and song, whimsical poetry dedicated to cooked offal and a little speechifying from some of the guests. 

We, Mrs Stuffy and I, have attended for the last few years and always enjoyed the evening, (any excuse for me to break out the kilt) and this year we found ourselves booking and hosting a table for twelve. It would appear we'd made it sound very appealing to some of our chums. 

After we'd made the reservation I received  a text from Gerry asking me if I'd be prepared to deliver the toast to the lassies, a teasing but appreciative paean of praise to the fairer sex. 



How could I decline? I sat down and sketched out a couple of pages and Cha, as a professional actress, coached me with delivery and "that's not funny" feedback.

Steve, Dean and Glenn, in various stages of inebriation and varying degrees of fake Scottishness.

It went well, it was a fun evening and in response to a host of requests I agreed to post the speech here, enjoy, or not, as you wish.

To the lassies


It was very brave of Gerry when looking for a warm-hearted Scottish chap, able and willing to speak well of womanhood, to choose instead to recruit a grumpy,semi-articulate Welsh misogynist...

...but who am I to challenge his judgement?

Maybe he was thinking " we need someone with lots of experience of the fairer sex" but, as my dear old mum said at my wedding " he could have had any woman he pleased, sadly he never pleased any of them".

Maybe he was thinking of my technology background, the Scots are of course an engineering nation but that's traditionally the Scottish men, and today, according to the (Scottish) (male) Minister for technology apparently we're now entering a period of rapidly moving forward, which can only be good news for the fairer sex, who some might say have never really got the hang of reversing. 

Some might say that, not me, obviously. 

Indeed when we're talking of exemplary women, many folk apparently see Margaret Thatcher’s " the lady is not for turning" speech as less of a statement of political intent, more a lament for a lack of parking skills.

Oh yes,  it's all too easy when talking of the ladies to take the easy route and criticise women drivers, but that's not for me …

...because I'm pretty sure there's many a lady here who has, this evening, mysteriously found herself in sudden possession of the car keys as Gerry's notorious generosity with the wine bottle starts to kick in.

Here's today's made up fact, The kilt, as we see it so beautifully modelled here was an invention of a Manchester cotton mill owner, intended to use up surplus cloth. 

But for all that, there's no doubt that the Scottish male has adopted the kilt, they're a proud nation, but I can't help thinking it's an unconscious admission that it's very rarely the man of the house that truly wears the trousers. 

In the last few decades our society has evolved enormously in terms of equality for the working woman but we still hear, all too often, of the barriers to their advancement, we hear of “the glass ceiling:, seen by many woman as an insurmountable obstacle to career advancement but, to be honest, a glass ceiling is equally threatening to a man in a kilt. 

Particularly to those of us who practice the "true Scotsman" approach to underwear.

I mentioned the lack of woman engineers but women, of course, have invented many things, the concept of re-washing up, the curious ritual of re-getting dressed to go out, and of course they excel in the realms of philosophy. 
Many male philosophers have spent years trying to comprehend the level of abstract thought required to come up with " I shouldn't have to tell you what's wrong, if you loved me you would know what I imagine you meant when I invented the conversation you didn't have with someone I don't like" 

or indeed,  the awesome simplicity and genius innate in the philosophical concept of the totally unanswerable question, 
" does this dress make me look fat?" 

But it's their ability to accommodate our tiny little flaws, that offers the true picture of womanhood, and in the real world we should not classify the ladies by reference to so-called female role models whether  they be Margaret, Miley or the blessed Nigella. 

We should look around this room, at the wives and the girlfriends, (may they never meet)  the mothers, the sisters, the grans, the daughters, it's the lassies that complete us, that torment us, that make, and break, our hearts.

For, as Rabbie Burns said

But to see her was to love her; 
Love but her, and love for ever. 
Had we never lov'd sae kindly, 
Had we never lov'd sae blindly, 
Never met-or never parted, 
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.


Gentlemen, to the lassies.

.

Labels: blogfromthebarn, Burns Night, cranachan, Gerry Price, haggis, innatwestend, mrs stuffy., Oakwood, Stuffy, toast to the lassies, venison, whisky

posted by Stuffy @ 5:08 pm 1 comments

I'll make you Roux the day that ...

Every year for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries my lady wife and I go through a complex and often confusing (to outsiders) process. 

Mrs Stuffy buys me something that I would love to have but could never justify buying for myself whilst I buy her something that she hides in a wardrobe until she thinks I've forgotten about it (I never, ever, do).

As a result we now try and identify things like breaks, holidays, trips, weekends away, transient experiences that show we care but don't hang around if we get it wrong. Our recent Maldivian excursion was my attempt to please my birthday girl.

Last April, as yet another birthday dawned to the sound of church bells and urchins taunting me in the street, I discovered that I was enrolled in a cookery school session with that chap off Masterchef, not the plump, pugnacious one, the skinny, skillful one, Michel Roux Jr. 

I was delighted, I love to cook, I love to learn, he's obviously no slouch in the kitchen and he comes across well on his many TV appearances.

His signature restaurant is Le Gavroche, still one of the top UK restaurants, in that there, shabby London ghetto of Mayfair* and I'd not eaten there for some 20 years so it was fortuitous timing that chums Scot and Rosie shared a sumptuous (and very reasonably priced**) supper with us there a couple of weeks ago. I'd sort of hoped that Monsieur Le Chef would be there but it seems that "going to the rugby" justifies a night off from the pass. 

So to my birthday present, an intimate day cooking fine food with certainly one of the most respected (and to be honest, intimidating) chefs in the UK. The venue is the top floor cookery school at Cactus Kitchens in Clapham, it's part of a complex that also houses the studios for a number of cookery programmes including Saturday Kitchen, not a show I often see but I think I look at home on the set.

I joined the other students, (I think 'mature students' is appropriate), inevitably a mixed bag of mostly middle-aged keen foodies, chatty, knowledgeable and seemingly passionate about food, in some cases blessed, as I am, with a partner who will pay handsomely to get them out of the house for a day.


We coffee'd, we danish'd, we broke the conversational ice, we laughed nervously, we were mollycoddled by the lovely ladies who run the place and then we trooped upstairs into the eaves to meet the man.


I've done a cookery school at Raymond Blancs gaff, Le manoir aux quat' saison which was enjoyable but made notable by an absolute lack of Raymond. This was very different.

We gathered around Michel and he effortlessly kicked off the day, the format was fun, he'd demo some techniques all the while chatting about chef stuff, TV stuff, food stuff, personal stuff, encouraging questions, interaction and creating an easy informality. 
We then scurried off to our well-appointed stations to try and replicate what he'd shown us. As we exercised our respective culinary skills Michel circulated enthusiastically and guided, pointed out, complimented, enthused and in the case of my beurre blanc, rescued.

We made fougasse, it's an easy bread but great fun, we cooked artichokes, a new experience for me, creating an artichoke cocotte filled with baked egg, ham, cream and chorizo. It was an interesting dish and obviously chosen to enable the demonstration (and subsequent exercise) of many skills, knife work, stove and oven use, palate, timing, concentration and a little instinct. It's a dish I'm now very happy with and will be delighted to inflict on family and chums here at the Barn. 




We also prepped and cooked some exceedingly fresh scallops, poached in a leek stock and served with leeks julienne on smoked salmon. Again, out of my comfort zone, I'm not a shellfish fan but I was delighted with the results, the techniques and information imparted and will be more than happy to deliver this dish to whomsoever is here next for supper.


All the clients seemed to be at least competent in the kitchen, apparently that's not always the case, they do have folk show up with no kitchen skills but I can't help thinking that would be a waste of some great instruction and insight.

Overall I find it hard to fault the day, the venue, the organisation or the host. As those who know me will probably attest I'm not prone to praise but he seemed to be a genuinely nice bloke and I'm now moved to break all my rules and congratulate my better half on a great gift and a great day. 



With Christmas on the horizon, no pressure there then***.

*sarcasm
**more sarcasm
***panic


NB Click on the Cactus kitchens logo for a link to their website.

Labels: artichoke, blogfromthebarn, Cactus Kitchens, clapham, Cookery School, fougasse, le gavroche, Michel Roux Jr, saturday kitchen, scallops, simplystuffycooking, Stuffy, whatsdadcookingnow

posted by Stuffy @ 1:31 pm 0 comments

An early autumnal treat, let's get tropical

Holiday challenge, it's unusual for me to be happy returning to places. There are many obstacles, in some cases restraining orders and in others, angry hoteliers with long memories.

If I've really enjoyed somewhere I irrationally fear that it will be disappointing on a second visit, and, if I've not enjoyed myself, well,  why would I return?

It's different for Mrs Stuffy, annually she and her chums swan off on a girls trip to the Greek islands, recently returning thrice to the same hotel in Mykononos, and that's fine for her but would make me most uncomfortable. 

We do however agree that the multitude of choices of island in the Maldives works for both of us. 

We both love the casual shoe-less sandy laid-back ambiance of most resorts, the staff are invariably great and enough of the guests well mannered and pleasant to be tolerable to the ageing misanthropes among us (me).  

She gets to lie on a beach or a veranda and Kindle away the days with occasional breaks for fine food, snorkel and swims. I tend to jump on a boat and get underwater for extended periods of time and I've found nowhere in the world that I prefer to dive. 


The 'not going back syndrome' means that we've been, in the past to Kuramathi and Komandoo, but this time we decided to throw caution to the winds and visit an island that does not start with the letter K. 

We flew off to Hakura Huraa in the Meemu atoll, a 10 hour BA flight and a 45 minute seaplane hop. Again, opinion is divided on the matter of seaplanes, He "isn't this fun?" Her "no".

The island, as one would expect, is very lovely although the weather was changeable and occasionally very damp as the rainy season started to flex its muscles. We had booked a water villa, a very pleasant setup on stilts over the lagoon with a private deck and steps into the sea, a glass floor and all mod cons. 

We've always been on land before and her ladyship found the constant susurration relaxing whilst I, inevitably, found it difficult to sleep as the tides and waves played a never ending symphony of imminent maritime disaster. 



The food was fine, the wine quaffable, we ordered a bottle of nice wine one evening and found it about as average as the all-inclusive plonk served nightly, It's the overall relaxing pace of these places that make the islands a delightful place to spend a few days, relaxing evenings with cocktails in the bar, critiquing the singers and the clothing choices of our fellow travellers. 


I should mention the swim/snorkel/dive  situation.

 The lagoon here was bigger than we've experienced elsewhere (maybe it's a K island thing) but it did mean a long swim to the house reef and against a strong current which meant her ladyship didn't enjoy the quality of snorkelling she was used to. 





On the up-side, for me the diving was excellent. I've always enjoyed every dive centre I've used in the Maldives (unlike occasional disappointments in the Caribbean, and that prat in Mallorca, deep breath, move on). The Dive team in Hakura were great and a joy to dive with. Interestingly some 60% of the 170 or so guests were young Chinese who apparently are not greatly enamoured of swimming although they are hugely in favour of taking millions of photos of each other every thirty seconds. 




This meant that on many occasions the dive boat with its crew of three was at the disposal of myself, the dive master/instructor and at most two other divers. An excellent and rare ratio and made some stunning diving both more relaxed for all of us and a very personalised experience for me as for three of my six days I was the sole client, spoilt rotten.





The biggie for me was to finally break my Manta ray virginity, it's long been a wish and was finally achieved. I won't write too much as I'm linking to a film produced for me by the very lovely Sylvia from Maldives Dive and Sail.  I'd also like to offer a huge thank you to Basti, Bjorn and Achmed and if you're looking for a holiday with some world class divers they are, without a doubt, the biz.



           Click on the photo of the porky chap in a wetsuit to see the brief movie...                      
  


I would have some photos of my own but, for the second time my "waterproof dive camera housing" failed to live up to the first word in it's name and this enabled me to bring back to shore a camera sized sample of Indian Ocean water and $300 dollars worth of camera-shaped scrap metal.

Would we go back to Hakura Huraa? No, of course not, read the intro. 

Would we go back to the Maldives, yes, of course, like a shot.

Labels: alfonsstraub.com, BA, British Airways, camera, dhoni, dive and sail, Diving, Hakura huraa, holiday, maldives, male, manta rays, me emu atoll, Oakwood, Scuba, sharks, Stuffy

posted by Stuffy @ 10:28 pm 0 comments

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Sunday, ah Sunday, a restful day, a late alarm, a cup of tea, a gradual emerging from the snug cocoon of well-deserved rest, an amble to the paper shop, a leisurely and indulgent breakfast, a late lunch with family and friends, a glass or bottle or two, a recuperative, restorative, indulgent day.

So why was I up at 6:00 making up water bottles of electrolytes and energy, cramming croissant and banana into my mouth, squeezing my protesting body into snug lycra and meeting up with 70 or so whippet-thin cycling obsessives to ride 50 miles up hill and down dale across Southern England and 35 miles back.

There's a fine charity run by some lovely people, the 'Children with Special Needs Foundation'. Our chums, Gordon and Ann run it and they'd put an event together with the local Foxhills golf club near us to run an organised fund-raising 'sportive' (bike ride).

We'd assembled an equipe of nine bicycling friends and myself. I sorted out some team kit, branded long-sleeve jerseys (it is September) and we huddled at Foxhills at unearthly o'clock for coffee, danish and nervous laughter.

Our team, as you can see, was a good looking group and all in fine fettle as we set off with our ride guide 'John, a man who obviously has cycling coursing through his veins, (veins very evident on a man carrying nothing that remotely resembled body fat).

We set off well and passed a couple of the earlier groups, all was going well for the first ten miles until your humble correspondent, (who traditionally only shines on fast downhill stretches for some reason) had a bit of a 'coming together' with another of our team. He was mercifully unscathed, I however managed to buckle my front wheel, bend my chainring and pulverise my lower back. Our guide, John, was phlegmatic and parried all my attempts to get a ride back in the van, by summoning a spare bike and ensuring that all my many and varied excuses came to naught.

The remainder of the fifty miles to Farleigh, near Croydon passed pleasantly and with much challenge but I can't deny that I arrived at the lunch stop with a spring in my step, a spark in my eye, a quip on my lips and sadly, a twisted wrenching muscular mess of excruciating pain across my lower back.

Along with the other, "that's quite enough for me" retirees I made my way back on the team bus while   most of our team survivors set off on the 35 mile return leg. Luckily by the time they arrived back I'd done a serious quality investigation of the complimentary prosecco and was poised to attack the excellent hog-roast.

Special mentions for my colleagues in the team should go to Dean, who was 2nd over the finish line, bro-in-law Graham who rode his mountain bike the whole way and now "never wants to see that bike again, ever". Chef Winston had an 'orrible fall at 50 miles, minutes from lunch, lacerated a leg (his own) but manfully bled the 35 miles home. Steve C and Dave B who kindly called it quits and came back on the bus to stop me feeling lonely, Anna, (Mrs Shouty) rode an excellent ride and Richard and Glen, (the other XLshirts) who were a delight to ride with, kept me motivated and only ever slagged me off when they thought I was out of earshot.

All in all a fun day for a worthy cause




and as I lie here, wracked with pain, supine and suffering, I'm really looking forward to next time, if I can get my bike fixed, and get a bit fitter, and find anyone willing to ride with me, etc. etc. etc.






.

Labels: ann parris, bike crash, blog from the barn, blogfromthebarn, box hill, Children with special needs, cycling, Fairleigh, fox hills, gordon parris, ian wooldridge foundation, Oakwood, sportive, Stuffy

posted by Stuffy @ 7:51 pm 0 comments