weekend plans?

adm1

Nothing on Saturday as I'll be on a flight back from San Francisco until lunchtime.

Cycling up to the top of Barhatch Lane on Sunday morning to grab a place to watch how the pros do it a few hours later in the ToB.

Fireblade96

Gussio wrote:

Yes, 100 miles offroad is harder than it sounds and the steepest bits seem to come in the second half. The plan was to do it over 2 days but a) the missus said no; and b) the bothy at Gumber is closed during September. Fenix LD20 packed with fully charged batteries, nestled against a full pack of fig rolls. Weather forecast is for a slight tailwind. If it goes horribly wrong I can always sleep under a bush...

I rode the SDW a couple of years ago, over 2 1/4 days...it's hard enough ! First day was a late afternoon start so only made it to Meon, next night in the youth hostel at Arundel (?), then Eastbourne and train home. We stopped in a little farm shop on day 2 and they must have thought the locusts had descended, ate everything in sight !

Good luck, enjoy !

Daz555

Night in.

Night on the lash.

Sunday morning - hangover followed by footy. First game of the season for me so going to be tough tough tough...

essex-commuter

rubertoe wrote:

essex-commuter wrote:

I will be taking down 4 double fluorescent lights that I put up 3 weeks ago. They've worked intermittently
since I put them up, lightling randomly when switched on or not at all. Electrical wholesaler is replacing them. Trying 'normal ones' now, the ones I had were high frequency.

I won't be on Tinterweb as I still haven't got any broadband since moving in 4 weeks ago. TalkTalk...OMG, don't even let me start ranting....

Did you take them with you when you moved? How you getting on with their call centres BTW?

Its my poorly mums birthday today - so tomorrow the family will be going to hers for a bit of lunch. Sunday is morning ride followed by Football at the in-laws. Then a week off work! Whoop.

I assume you mean take Talktalk with me, yes I did. TT call centres...to be honest it's been the most stressful thing about the move. I've never come across such an incompetent bunch of... no it's the weekend, I will not spoil it for myself...

Err...still no broadband....

essex-commuter

walkingbootweather wrote:

essex-commuter wrote:

I will be taking down 4 double fluorescent lights that I put up 3 weeks ago. They've worked intermittently
since I put them up, lightling randomly when switched on or not at all.

Would you like us all to come around and help, you know 'cause many hands make light work :idea:

Oooh I see what you done there, that's pretty funny! OK, I've drunk a bottle of red already...and a few beers, everything is quite amusing...especially trying to type. Won't mention any secretaries...

Initialised

Laying a floor, hopefully finish on Saturday so I can cash in my Man Points (c) and disappear on the bike for a few hours on Sunday.

cyclingprop

Sat:
Dirtyburger
Watch my team play
Couple of beers

Sun:
Blast out 25 miles
iTunes Festival.

rubertoe

essex-commuter wrote:

rubertoe wrote:

essex-commuter wrote:

I will be taking down 4 double fluorescent lights that I put up 3 weeks ago. They've worked intermittently
since I put them up, lightling randomly when switched on or not at all. Electrical wholesaler is replacing them. Trying 'normal ones' now, the ones I had were high frequency.

I won't be on Tinterweb as I still haven't got any broadband since moving in 4 weeks ago. TalkTalk...OMG, don't even let me start ranting....

Did you take them with you when you moved? How you getting on with their call centres BTW?

Its my poorly mums birthday today - so tomorrow the family will be going to hers for a bit of lunch. Sunday is morning ride followed by Football at the in-laws. Then a week off work! Whoop.

I assume you mean take Talktalk with me, yes I did. TT call centres...to be honest it's been the most stressful thing about the move. I've never come across such an incompetent bunch of... no it's the weekend, I will not spoil it for myself...

Err...still no broadband....

when I moved two years ago, I tried to bring Talk Talk with me, but I got so annoyed with the incompetence and frustrated with their call centers that I just binned them and moved provider even though its costs me a few quid a month more.

Its nice to have a UK call center to talk to and they even send me texts when (and there rarely is) a problem with the line.

Initialised

Laying the floor went well, I knocked out the downstairs electrics, broke the internet and TV cable, sent the wife out for a meal with the inlaws and kids now my father in law is in A&E and my son is in bed with a bucket as they both seem to have food poisoning. So much for escaping to the hills for a few hours tomorrow. I'm only 1/5th of the way across the room (the most fiddly bit with a bay window and two radiators to work around) and it's too late to be banging away now.

Nevermind, I have Black Mesa to finish while I wait and see if Mrs Ini and her folks need any help getting home.

mtb-idle

god ride yesterday in perfect weather conditions.

This is a great route to Eastbourne from SW London taking in a loop towards the end that gives you a small then medium then large hill up to Beachy Head and then descend into Eastbourne.

Train home was only a tenner with a railcard and another 12 miles on stiff legs as we rode from East Croydon to home making it 88 miles or 141km for the day.

cyberknight

Tidied the whole house in readiness for the estate agent doing some photos, that was 5 hours on saturday gone , did a quick 25 mile loop later.
Sunday i did the loop again in the morning instead of a club run as i got a new bike for my 5 year old , put it together and tried to get my lad to ride it without falling off to many times.

SimonAH

Club ride today abandoned as yesterday afternoon I realised that the grapes on my vines needed harvesting as the first few bunches were starting to go overripe. Quite a few hours of picking, stripping, treading (really! We went old school!) and straining later we have 24 litres of home grown grape juice ready for my first ever from complete scratch attempt at winemaking!

More importantly, on saturday afternoon we unexpectedly got the results from MrsAH's amnio (also our wedding anniversary) so had the great fun of announcing an impending son to my (totally unaware) eight year old daughter over a restaurant meal and the by phone to the rest of the family.

An eventful weekend!

msmancunia

Aw congrats!

(the baby boy, not the grapes...).

mudcow007

congratulations Si!

jzed

Weekend went completely off track. Ended up acquiring this Beagle puppy on Saturday



and then spending all weekend following it around cleaning up, visiting vet for innoculations, and sleepless nights. To top it off seems to have picked up kennel cough from the vets.

Koncordski

JZed wrote:

Weekend went completely off track. Ended up acquiring this Beagle puppy on Saturday



and then spending all weekend following it around cleaning up, visiting vet for innoculations, and sleepless nights. To top it off seems to have picked up kennel cough from the vets.

Looks dangerous mate, it's already bitten the head off that small child! :shock:

mudcow007

JZed wrote:

Weekend went completely off track. Ended up acquiring this Beagle puppy on Saturday



and then spending all weekend following it around cleaning up, visiting vet for innoculations, and sleepless nights. To top it off seems to have picked up kennel cough from the vets.

ahh fantastico

are you using "puppy pads" other wise that rug will be smelling of dog wee an poop in a week

Green Brompton

mudcow007 wrote:

JZed wrote:

Weekend went completely off track. Ended up acquiring this Beagle puppy on Saturday



and then spending all weekend following it around cleaning up, visiting vet for innoculations, and sleepless nights. To top it off seems to have picked up kennel cough from the vets.

ahh fantastico

are you using "puppy pads" other wise that rug will be smelling of dog wee an poop in a week

Cute! Yep, the rug may have to be replaced in a few months... They get better though!

jzed

mudcow007 wrote:

ahh fantastico

are you using "puppy pads" other wise that rug will be smelling of dog wee an poop in a week

That rug is no longer there. It decided once it had the head off the toy it was going to set about destroying the rug. Waiting for it to attack the sofa next.

Can't put puppy pads down otherwise they are immediately pounched upon, ran round the house with and then destroyed. Resorted to newspaper which doesn't seem to have the same attraction.

The shy placid puppy in the space of a 2 hour car journey turned into a little destruction machine.

mudcow007

JZed wrote:

mudcow007 wrote:

ahh fantastico

are you using "puppy pads" other wise that rug will be smelling of dog wee an poop in a week

That rug is no longer there. It decided once it had the head off the toy it was going to set about destroying the rug. Waiting for it to attack the sofa next.

Can't put puppy pads down otherwise they are immediately pounched upon, ran round the house with and then destroyed. Resorted to newspaper which doesn't seem to have the same attraction.

The shy placid puppy in the space of a 2 hour car journey turned into a little destruction machine.

duct/ hostage tape!!

we had to tape the pads down until our collie couldnt manage to savage them to shreds

whats it name?

jzed

mudcow007 wrote:

duct/ hostage tape!!

we had to tape the pads down until our collie couldnt manage to savage them to shreds

whats it name?

Thanks for the tip will give it a try.

The dad is called Rock Solid which kind of reminded me of Rock Steady from Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles so thought maybe Bebop. Missus decided Rosie, so its Rosie.

cyclingprop

Bebop!

mudcow007

i wanted to call our collie Monster Truck but the mrs was having none of it

Molly it was

gbsahne001

my brother has two Beagles, one from a puppy, the other as a Rescue..... good luck

Gussio

Gussio wrote:

Kids with the grandparents, so catching the train to Winchester and riding along the South Downs Way to Eastbourne. 100 miles offroad with 13,600ft of climbing. Weather forecast is great and I'm looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet. Hoping that 11hrs is enough for the ride and have booked train back from Eastbourne as an incentive.

11hrs was not enough

12.5hrs moving, just under 16hrs elapsed. Produced a Strava profile something like the inside of a sharks' mouth:

http://app.strava.com/rides/22145935

Caught the 0558 from Richmond to Winchester, arriving 0730. Finally got to the start of the trail by 0800, after getting hopelessly lost around the one-way-system. First 20km was glorious, with the sun rising and dew everywhere. Very few other people to see. The next 140km were a bit more tricky and unearthed my major shortfall - riding with ridgid forks on the MTB rather than suspension. Arms and wrists still feel like someone has been hitting them repeated with a broomhandle.

Weather was lovely - sunny but not too hot. Taps to be found in useful places, so water never an issue. The views from the tops were incredible and there were a surprisingly low number of other people on the trail.

Navigation got a bit tricky when the sun went down and I got lost a couple of times. The worst of these resulted in my pushing the bike up an escarpment which was 150m high, in the pitch black, with a deal of uncertainty whether I'd actually find the trail at the top. Infact, that was probably the low point of the ride, closely followed by the piece of dog sh*t which flicked off my tyre onto the water bottle. The going was pretty slow in the dark, especially on the downhill bits. Front light battery gave up an hour from the end. Fell off almost immediately after that when I hit a patch of loose gravel, but thankfully didn't damage anything. Rode the remainder of the trail more gingerly, holding a rear light in one hand and cursing the moon for not having risen. Everything was getting a bit surreal by this point. Quite a relief to roll into Eastbourne and the luxury of street lighting.

Getting back was the biggest challenge. Having missed the last train to London from Eastbourne, I got onto the last train to leave the station which was the 2356 to Brighton. Figured that there might be a later train to be had from there, but I was wrong. Managed to find a National Express coach leaving at 0100 for Gatwick, but they wouldn't let me take the bike in the hold "in case it damaged anyone's luggage". Back to square 1 until a night bus showed up which was going to somewhere called Three Bridges, near Crawley. The driver was kind enough to let my bike on, and there was a 0210 train to Victoria which I just managed to catch. Got off at Clapham Junction and rode back to Richmond. Arrived home 0337 in a slightly dishevelled state. Sunday started at 0700 when the kids woke up....

It is a great ride, but probably more suited to two days than one. Could use some more flat sections too, rather than just up and down

clarkey cat

Oh my god that sounds brutal - especially the getting home bit. I think I would have just found a B&B!

davis

Wow. Chapeau.

Now, I did bloody tell you, didn't I? :-)

Gussio

Yes, you were right

The day was...erm...character building (and humbling).