Just back from deepest darkest Wales ( well Ruithin and Llangollen to be honest and they are not really deep or dark ) full of happy happy joy joy after the awesome wedding of the young Mr Robert Campbell to the beautiful Miss Alison Collett. Bob and Ally chose a perfect little Welsh church just outside Ruithin for the ceremony and the reception at Trevor Villa ( near Llangollen ) matched in perfectness(?).
My Top five of the wedding:
1. Great hotel overlooking the Dee- The White Waters in Llangollen.
2. Tasty food - Proper BBQ by the famous PJ.
3. Thumping base - The Cheese dropped a the phat ones on the decks all night long.
4. The Guard of honour - Ben and I were chuffed at being the chosen.
5. The Perfect couple - Smiles all round and you can't beat that.
They are off to Sardinia for a few days now and then off to Thailand later in the year ( taking some of the Wormfood surf wax they had as favours ). There is something about having 2 honeymoons which makes sense!
Click the image above for some pics or click here
Oh and it is our 6 month anniversary today too...wahey!!
Summer is coming to an end. There is condensation on the car windows in the morning, the wind has a bite to it and the nights are drawing in. Not quite sure what happened to the hot weather. It seemed to come early and leave quickly ( maybe it is employed by the council? Actually no council employees ever come early! ), either way we haven't had the nice evenings which enable after work rip ups on the local bike trails ( though we have still had plenty of fun click here and here ).
Anyway, back to the tale, Wrennie, Darren and I pulled a bit of an early start out of the bag yesterday so we could leave early and get over to Llandegla with plenty of daylight. All was going reasonably well on the climb up out of the car park, Darren was fettling a bit with his new bike ( a rather nice Identiti Mr Hyde ) and I managed to loose a pin from the brake lever on my bike ( Oooops might have been that off-trail incident at the Gasnach ), but it was still all good.
Rode the black sections with gusto ( though it was pretty hard without a front brake ), styled the jumps and enjoyed the empty forest. For the first time ever I cleaned all the jumps on the Old Black section ( JJ's ) and decided to sit out the next run whilst Wrennie and Darren walked up for another go. 10 or so minutes later Darren rocked up with a big grin and just said "Oh Wrennie has a puncture.".To be honest I didn't really think anything of it. After all I carry a rucksack with repair kits, spare inner tubes, tools, first aid kit, spare top etc etc ( yes I know a bit overkill, but you never know.. ). Wrennie ' Man of the Woods' on the other hand didn't even have a rucksack on him ( though Darren did and he also had the same kit as me ).
Wrennie 'Man of the Woods'
Darren used to be really silly on a BMX so is a puncture repair king. Took 30 seconds to whip out the inner tube and slap a couple of patches on the snakebite double puncture. Pump up tyre....hmmm that looks weird....and where is the third tyre lever......Ah!
Tyre deflated to find the 3rd tyre lever inside!
Wrennie Applying Pressure...
Hey why don't we just run a 26" tube in the tyre? Oh this is a special bike for special people and it has a BMX rear bolted hub ( i.e. you need spanners to get the wheel off )...knocked that one on the head then.
So we walk a bit to give the original glue time to set and then out with the inner tube again ( it is dark now ) and Darren starts creating a Blue Peter special repair....which in true childrens television style doesn't work.
The Blue Peter Fix..
And so began the long dark walk out of the forest ( I could have left Wrennie to walk out on his own, but I am just too nice ). We met scary horned cows at one point, I almost fell into a ditch at another point and what seemed like an age later ( and after a concerned call from Ben who realised we must still be out there in the dark ) we found the van and could relax and smile about it all.
Llandegla Trail Map ( with puncture marked )
So what can be learned from such an epic...?
1) Always carry stuff to fix your own kit.
2) 24" bikes are for special people only
3) Wrennie may be able to whittle a bowl out of spruce, but doesn't know how a bike works
4) Biking with mates is still fun even when you are walking...
Remember folks... BE PREPARED!
Just back from a couple of days exploring the Northumberland Coast. Amazing castles, coastline and a cracking B&B to boot ( Redfoot Lea in Alnwick ).
Check out the pics here or click the image above.
Yep, a couple of weeks ago saw little old Timbo turn 30 years young. Vicky was down in London for my twin sisters hen do ( and to catch up with some friends down there ) so she surprised me on Wednesday night with a little party with cakes and candles the lot.
With Vicky away I arranged for a long weekend of mountain biking up in bonnie Scotland. Ben had been keeping me up to date on his bike build in the week running up to the trip, but even with maticulous planning we still ended up building a complete bike in my garage on Friday morning.
This late start meant that Kirroughtree would have to be a left for another time and the weekend would be spent at Glentress Mountain Bike park near Peebles.
I had been fortunate enough to have been lent a very impressive Commençal MiniDH bike by Madison ( the UK importers ) as my current XC bike is really not up to being ragged around boulder fields and hucked off anything with a slight lip.
With the two very expensive bikes loaded into the back of the Vic-Tim wagon, we rocked up to Glentress Freeride park for an evening of remembering how to huck the meat properly. The Mini DH has a bit of weight behind it, but it just takes everything you can throw at it. I was cleaning lines I would have run away from and cried about a couple of weeks ago. The low bottom bracket height was a bit cheeky, but it did mean that the bike was really well balanced ( which came in very useful on the skinnies! )
Saturday came with a heavy head ( got to love that Single Malt ) and a lot of rain. We rode from the campsite in Peebles up to the trails and up the hill on the red route. After flying on the classic Spooky Wood section from the top we met some locals who showed us the shortcuts to link up the red and black sections on the way down. It was wet, it was messy, but it was also fast, flowing and lots of fun. The day ended with more silly park action trying to nail jump after jump. Sunday morning was wetter still and drinking "Jaeger Bombs" on Saturday night ( Red bull and Vodka with a depth charge of Jaegermeister ) didnt help with the focus, but egg on toast and a cup of tea from the Hub in the Forest sorted us out. With the wet weather we bailed on going down the road to Innerlieithen ( the locals said it would be pish ), so with a new addition of our mate Cam, we followed the same route again but mixed it up with different parts of the trails. Now back at work with sore legs and not looking forward to unpacking lots of wet, stinky kit when I get home.
More shots in my Flickr album here
House Update:
Vicky has been silly busy painting with Capuccino Candy 4 and Maplewood 6 in the conservatory and kitchen. I've ripped out the fitted wardrobes and stripped the wallpaper back and we have the pros in fitting a new bathroom as a type this.
