Progress so far...

June 30th 2009 - 22 stone 4Ibs. Current weight - 17 stone 1Ib. Weight loss - 5 stone 3Ibs. Commuting miles - 3389.
Non commuting miles - 359. Mileage this week - 101 miles. Total mileage - 3748 miles.


Sunday 18 July 2010

Family Sunday.

As befits all family Sunday's I haven't had time to fart! I've just quite literally sat down for the first time today.

Yesterday was spent getting my bikes ready for the week ahead. I always enjoy that.

I got my MTB back from the bike shop after I pinged a spoke on the back wheel on my last MTB ride. I also had it upgraded a tad with the addition of a hydraulic disc brake on the front wheel.


As you can see it looks the business!



Cool levers.



Even cooler disc and caliper.

I then removed the old V brake bosses with a little bit of elbow grease and a Junior Hacksaw. A couple of minutes with a file, emery paper and Gloss Black enamel paint soon had an invisible modification.

The afternoon was at the swing park, it was also an opportunity to collect a load of watercress that grows in the stream next to the park.



                     Fay and Dan on the swing.


The evening was spent at the Dodford Inn where we had a meal to celebrate my daughter Fay's and my Mum in Law's birthday. I got on the outside of too many real ales so I deserved my thick head!

I was up early this morning as well, along with Fay, as I promised to take her shooting. I have permission to shoot over 120 acres of land near the village of Feckenham . It's my bosses land and I can come and go as I please. There is plenty of stuff to shoot for the pot, Rabbits, Pigeon, Pheasant, Deer but occasionally you draw a blank and see nothing.

Like this morning.

Never mind, but it was a good opportunity to teach her some weapon safety and markmanship principles. I suppose that's an advantage of having a Dad who was a small arms instructor in the army!

Learning about safe weapon handling is fantastic tool to teach discipline and the importance of correct procedures.



We set up a range and went through the safety drills and then covered some marksmanship principles.

I was very pleased to see she seems to have inherited the Chapman shooting gene. My Granddad was a sniper in the First World War, my Dad was also a marksman in the RAF and I was on my Regimental shooting team in Army competitions along with my brother. For a first attempt (granted it was with a scope) she achieved a brilliant grouping!



5 rounds all within the space of a 50p piece from about 75 yards! Not bad girl! But spot the flyer that went high and left, classic breathing fault...



Some local residents came over to see what we were up to!

I have some big plans for my Ridgeback commuter that I'm going to investigate tomorrow. If it's do-able I'll be telling you all about it! Actually I'll tell you all about it if it ain't!

9 comments:

  1. Nice caliper...

    BTW - whats a caliper?

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  2. Dude, the bit that is attached to the fork and contains the brake pads.

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  3. and there's me thinking its some sort of seed!

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  4. Bike. food. Yay. My dad taught me to shoot. I kinda miss it now like.

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  5. Learnt to shoot when I was at school, pistols in a range, but still a bloody good thing to learn, as you say, good for the disapline and procedures, you cant be messing with guns. On another point, why didnt you shoot one of them horses, thats good eating ;)

    Brakes look the business too!

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  6. My Grandad was a sniper in WWI too. He was in the Lovatt Scouts, essentially made up of gamekeepers & the like who knew how to spot.

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  7. Nice new brakes there Clive. My eldest son recently had a go at shooting and loved it. Trying to persuade my wife to let me buy him an air rifle is proving difficult though.

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  8. Ahh, the persuade wifey thing, I know that one mate...

    Good luck!

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