Sunday, January 30, 2011

Weekend of MTB action

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Just finished a sick ride. Fun day.I spent the weekend riding the Santa Cruz Tallboy in the Surrey Hills — 2hrs on Saturday around Box Hill, then over 4hrs today, around Peaslake. Today was gorgeous, such nice weather — cold, crisp and still — and the trails were remarkably dry. Every minute was a pleasure, apart from when people were crashing... First, Deke broke his chain riding uphill on the road resulting in a big over the bars, then Alec went over the bars because he wasn't concentrating rolling down a fireroad and lost his hand off the bars. Lots of pain, but fun for most of it, and I was alright. My legs are shot now though... Check the stats — over 1300m of climbing!
Oh yeah, I got a new phone, an HTC Desire — I'm loving the Vignette app for taking pics.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Riding and sliding

Fun day at work today, out riding the Santa Cruz Tallboy I have on longterm test. I really need to get some proper mud tyres.



Koppenberg Cross 2010, extra shots

Some of these shots appeared in a 10 page feature in the February 2011 issue Cycle Sport magazine (which due to vagaries of magazine schedules is no longer on the shelves at the end of January — don't worry, even people who work in magazines think that's madness too), but even in 10 pages, you could barely scratch the surface of how many shots I got from one day shooting at Koppenberg Cross. It was seriously photogenic, and as I had a photo bib from the organisers, I had amazing access, so getting good shots was pretty easy. Check out the slideshow below, or click the images to see them on flickr in a gallery.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Like cobbles? You'll love the Ronde Van Oost Lancashire

Alan Crossjunkie is back at it, organising his own grassroots sportive to coincide with the Northern European Classics. If you like cobbles, steep hills, and northern grit, this should be right up your street. Heck, even I'm tempted to do this and I really hate riding without a number on my back.
All the details on crossjunkie.blogspot.com
"Eee, by 'eck that's reet steep" etc

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Penguin Great Ideas — do judge by their covers

I got given a half a dozen books from the Penguin Great Ideas series for Christmas. These books are bloody brilliant, notably for the content, but also for their magnificent covers. Check out the Great Ideas microsite for more, they really are amazing. For cheap paperbacks — £5 each at retail — they are a no-brainer.
I've just finished Books Vs Cigarettes by George Orwell, and I'm currently plowing through Dostoevsky's The Grand Inquisitor (I read The Brothers Karamazov at uni but forgot most of this). Bite-size and brilliant, who needs a Kindle?
Penguin Great Ideas

Busy new year

Well I guess it's too late to say "Happy New Year" right?
It's been a busy few weeks for me, both at work for MBR (interviewing the guys from Hope in Lancashire f'rinstance, it's a good feature, keep your eyes peeled) and racing cross. You can read about all the racing I've been doing over on the Vicious Velo blog. The cross season is nearly over now, and I can't wait to have a break. Having achieved my goals of achieving a top 20 placing at the National Champs (I was 20th, just made it!) and finishing the final National Trophy in the top 30 (27th, comfortable, should have done better) for a top 30 placing overall (30th, cutting it fine again), I'm winding down now with a few local races — a win before the season's over wouldn't go amiss!
CS cover
If you picked up Cycle Sport magazine over Christmas (specifically the February issue), you would have seen my feature from the Koppenberg Cross. It looked really good spread over 10 pages, for which I must thank Matt who designed it; a cross racer himself, he did a good job with the raw materials.
Koppenberg CS
Kopp CS spread
I've got some more interesting jobs coming up in the next few weeks, hopefully I'll be able to share!