NCR5 with JB.

A really good afternoon out with JB, to say I was a tad aprehensive would be an understatement. If you read his Blogs regularly you'll know he is way down the route of actually being a cyclist and does 100s of very fast miles pretty regularly. I'm nowhere near as fit and experienced. I was counting on Rafe to ride him into the ground on Friday!

At about 1315hrs I set out and met up with John at the Waseley Hills Country Park just by the South Car Park.

My Ridgeback at the start point.

John came up the road we're looking down in the photo above. After a quick "hello" we were off. I was very concious of not holding him up!

I very roughly knew where NCR5 went but it did appear to go in and out of some pretty obscure places. So with my local knowledge and JB's Garmin I was fairly confident we'd be ok.

I think I've mentioned before, most of my pedals are fairly solitary pursuits when before I was always used to pedalling in groups. So I do enjoy the chance to chat if I am pedalling with with other folk. And happily JB seemed pretty happy to chat with me.

Through Rubery, Frankley and then down the slope which is Tessall Lane over the main A38 Bristol Road to Longbridge and back on to a dedicated cycleway which is the Rea Valley.

I nearly creamed in going through a gate onto a road due to leaf mulch on the deck. But I held it up! I couldn't crash on successive journeys out could I?

First part of ride below!

It was then a short piece of canal from Kings Norton to Cotteridge then back on the Rea Valley NCR5 cycle way which took us in a roundabout way to Cannon Hill Park by Edgbaston Cricket Ground, home of the Bears!

JB took this photo of me desparately trying to keep up while on the cut in Kings Norton.

This piece of the ride was spent trying to catch an old guy on an MTB after we'd missed the entrance to NCR5 by an industrial estate. He was motoring though. We caught him in Cannon Hill park and JB had a bit of a chat with him while we pootling along.

Then through Balsall Heath, it isn't the greatest area, drugs and other negative social issues being rife in the locale so I was quite keen to get a wiggle on through there!

Then into the City Centre, the route absolutely gobsmacked me! Through Hurst Street, up towards New Street and across Broad Street. A very busy route. Why didn't they put NCR5 back on the cut at Edgbaston and just carry on up the Towpath through Birmingham? Seems a bit barmy to me sticking cyclists through that madhouse. But what do I know?

The last bit on the canal is the final part of my old commute pre road bike. Although the NCR5 is on the otherside of the canal to that I usually ride on and the path is a bit more agreeable.

We finally got to Ladywood Middleway bridge where I said my goodbyes to JB and wished him luck for the rest of his adventure.

I decided to pedal home straight up the cut and back along NCR5 to home. The weather changed as I got into Northfield and started hammering down. I was pretty wet I got home. But I loved every minute of it.

Amazingly I had done 28 miles, my longest pedal since I started this thing. I used my Cyclemeter App for my Iphone for the first time and a very useful bit of kit it is.

Stats here:

Started: 3 Apr 2010 13:57:38

Ride Time: 2:23:52


Stopped Time: 0:00


Distance: 28.35 miles


Average: 11.82 miles/hr


Fastest Speed: 27.08 miles/hr


Climb: 2425 feet


Calories: 2631

Route here: http://maps.google.com/?q=http://share.abvio.com/d1c4/1bb6/4b96/d37e/Cyclemeter-Cycle-20100403-1357.kml

My bike was absolutely filfthy, check it out!

Thanks to JB, I hope I didn't hold you up too much mate, Some serious bike cleaning today!

NCR5 Day, well a bit of it anyway...

My kit is ready, my Ridgeback is sorted and at around 1230hrs I'll get a text off JB saying what time he'll be up the road. Then meet up and pedal with him through Brum to Smethwick where I'll say my goodbyes to him and wish him luck for the rest of his adventure. I just hope I don't hold him up too much as I've been told by a certain MTB instructor that's he's quicker than a quick thing. And as you all know I ain't that quick!

I'll have the usual helmet Cam and my camera with me so expect a write up with footage and piccies tomorrow.

I've also had a couple of requests to put up some Curry recipes. I'll get around to that with pleasure. They are authentic as they're an old mate of mine from Land Rover Mum's recipes. That reminds me, I must drop Iqram (Ikky to his mates) an email, haven't spoke to him ages.

Curry recipes on a cycling weight loss Blog. Whatever next!?

May I be the first to wish you all a Happy Christmas!

So, Easter. Always a bit of a strange type of break to me. Dunno why, maybe it's because no-one makes a fuss of Easter as they do Christmas and the weather is usually crap. If you could see outside my window now you'd know what I mean!

I'm still nursing my aches and pains from my crash on Wednesday, I think that proves I'm not as young as I was!

Me wifey and the brood went shopping yesterday morning to stock up the curry indgrediants, we found a new little family run Asian food shop in Northfield, the bloke in there absolutely made a fuss of the kids and said he'd gladly get in anything special we might need, he said he could tell we knew our Asian food. I don't think it was anything we picked or said, he was just looking at my belly.

In the afternoon I finalised the plan for the Bees APDG session and got all necessary kit loaded into the car. The session went pretty well, but it was very wet, the lads all enjoyed sliding in to score tries through the standing surface water and diving on their comrades who were trying to stay dry. I haven't laughed so much in ages! They're all top fellers and bloody good players to boot.

Today is about prepping to meet JB tomorrow, he's probably setting off about now, so good luck mate, and turning all of the rugby gear around for next week. Hmm, that might be a problem as it's muddy as hell and might test wifey's patience!

To finish, it'll be curry making time, then off to the Dodford for our weekly trip out.

MTB instruction, snow, wind and face plants.

Yesterday I was over the Lickey Hills which are handily adjacent to where I live. The weather was cold, wet, snowy, windy and generally very, very unpleasant. Ideal MTB weather then!



The route above isn't the route pedalled, the reason for that will be explained later, but it does give an indication of the terrain at the Lickey's. The bit from 2.5 miles to 5.4 miles is the Lickey's.

What was special about yesterday was that I met up with two of our fellow cyclists, Rafe and Jon. It's worth telling the background to this.

Rafe if you recall his blog entry from February went on a MTB instructor's course with a view to running courses in his neck of the woods. So I don't steal any of his tale the bottom line is that this is going to go ahead.

He mentioned to me in an email conversation a while back that he would like to trial his newly obtained skill out in the spirit of getting practice in before he has paying customer's  and he knew that Jon had mentioned a desire to deal with obstacles and downhills with a bit more confidence and speed. I live roughly between the two so a plan was made to meet up and for Rafe to do an instruction session for the two of us over the Lickey's

1100hrs at mine was the meet, and Jon bowled up bright and early at 0940hrs, no traffic on the M6 as it was half term meant there was no anticipated hold ups and he flew through. Luckily I was right in the middle of watching The man who cycled the Americas which again was brilliant.  We waitied for Rafe who showed up at the appointed hour and drove over to the Lickey's.

Bikes out of the car. It might be prudent to mention that Jon has a rigid single speed Kona which is as light as a light thing that has just been on a crash diet and Rafe has a mega lightweight full suspension trail bike that would double quite easily as a race bike or a long distance day ride. I had my 10 year old full suspension Marin. Gulp.

Please remember this wasn't going to be a "going for a ride" type of day, this was about Rafe practicing his instruction, me and Jon hopefully learning something and having a good laugh in the process.

The first bit was a quick pedal to what is known locally as "The Chute", it's a long straight downhill, not too steep but with a rooty jump and plenty of sneakily hidden roots just trying to have you off your bike.

Rafe decided the start of the chute was a good spot to talk about covering brakes and ideal handle bar set up of levers and gears. Obviously Jon on his single wasn't too bothered about the gears bit.

Up the adjacent hill at the start of the chute to talk about body positions going downhill and the way the bike react to various inputs. All very well done if I might add. Then Rafe's demo down a slippery leafy rooty slope. I'm saying nothing. Just check out the video below at 7 minutes 10 seconds in!



In all fairness to Rafe, (He's in the dark kit by the way for those that have never met him) the root that sprang up and bit him was very well hidden and would have captured the most expert of MTBers! He did control the crash and the slide out very well. Far better than a certain person who should know better, but more of that and the footage later!

Jon had stated that he needed to master basic jumps and carry speed through technical downhills as he wasn't by his own admission that confident about those things. The rooty jump at the start of the Chute was an ideal training spot. Rafe demo'd the required technique, basically arse over the back of the saddle, cover the brakes and roll over the obstacle, then me and Jon rode it and rode it until it was sorted. Then the chute itself. A high speed descent to the very bottom of the Lickey's.

As you can see by the video below I wore quite a bit of Rafe's mud and so did my helmet cam. So apologies for the murky footage, but blame Rafe!








This little section after the chute was about getting the front wheel over trail obstacles and progressing to Bunny Hops. If you check the footage out from 8 minutes 30 second you'll see just how good I am! That was the first time a bunny hop has malfunctioned on me in years!

A pedal over to the tea rooms for a much needed rest and a brew followed.

Unfortunately I only remembered to take one piccie, this of Rafe looking forward to his Hot Chocolate, I kind of wished I taken a group shot, as we were all by then suffering from Licky Hill's Face pox! It's like measles only the spots are a muddy blacky browny colour.

After tea we went on a favourite very quick downhill section practicing carrying speed through the descent. This was Jon's particular problem. Not at the end it wasn't, he was flying that section with abandon, the improvement he made was startling! Credit to Rafe's instruction and Jon's skill set!

The final bit was an uphill drag back to car park, Rafe went into the requirements for effective climbing on a MTB off road, and with the elbows in bit I learned something about making my life easier on the uppy bits. To finish on a comment on climbing, Jon is a machine, he's very fit and very quick. Ok he's 16 years younger than me and carrying no weight disadvantage like me but bloody hell can he go uphill! I was in awe. I hope I can get somewhere near that ability, relative to my age of course!

All in all a fantastic 2 and a half hours, it snowed, it rained, we got wet and muddy but we had a fantastic time and a hell of a laugh. We all benefited from the experience, me and Jon learned stuff and Rafe polished his gig up. A win win all round.

As a footnote, after my face plant I am aching a bit today. But that's MTBing. As I said in the footage, "if you ain't falling off you just ain't trying!"

Easter starts here, and it's snowing!

Not very heavily though, it snows, then sleets then rains. Very dark and grey though which should make the off road fun a bit interesting today. A full write up with pics and video tomorrow.

The ride home last night was horrible. A very stiff head wind and bucketing down with rain. I don't mind the wet but it was like pedalling with your brakes on. I was knackered when I got home. I only just beat my time I used to do on my MTB!

I am planning a few excursions out over Easter so happy days!

An achievement of sorts...

Although I never really gave it any thought, it wasn't until I logged on this morning I realised I've actually cracked the 2000 mile pedalled mark since I started this thing. It would have been roughly going up the hill into Northfield yesterday evening I'm guessing. Anyway, the pedal home was without incident, my wheels for whatever reason now seem to be behaving themselves with no rubbing from them (how does that work then?) And unsurprisingly I had a functioning computer. I suppose having the front wheel in the forks the right way round would help that.

The pedal in this morning was the quick way down the Bristol Road with a quick detour at the Bristol Road MacDonalds up via Fiveways and down Icknield Port Road. That was a spur of the moment thing as while I was waiting at the lights I saw a guy on a MTB whizz across the lights towards Fiveways going at a fair lick. So I thought it would be a challenge to see if I could catch him up the hill when the lights went green for me.

Green light off I went, he was about 300 metres ahead but I could see I was gaining quickly, he was through the lights at the 5 Ways Railway Station and I was still gaining, 200 metres now so I put my head down, out of the saddle and went for it. I got through the lights by the railway station and sat up to see how close he was and the bugger had gone! I'm guessing he went left at the side road past the station. But my heart rate was well up and I got a bit of a work out so no harm done. Fair play to him though, he was shifting for a MTB.

This is my last day at work until next Tuesday. Pedalling is still to the fore though. Tomorrow I shall have company on an off road pedal over the Lickey's, I am being deliberately mysterious there! And on Saturday I'm joining JB on a very small part of his NCR5 pedal through Birmingham. It appears I have the NCR5 navigation duties through Brum. Gulp, no pressure then!

To finish on a positive, it seems the fair Emma's healing hands have done the trick, absolutely no twinges, aches or wierd pains (other than normal cycling ones) from my achillies or calves.

No twinges, good news...

First pedal in for a fortnight would you believe. Also the first time this year I've pedalled in without wearing a wooly hat under my lid, it's the first time Giant has got wet as it was persistently precipitating this morning and it was the first try out of new route that was not too hilly as I want to ease myself back in.

The biggest hill was at the start of my ride up to the Waseley Hills Country Park, then a very wet bit of country lane until I hit Bartley Green. I'm having wheel problems. My front wheel is still rubbing on the brake block when I'm up out of the saddle going up hill and my rear wheel started to catch the brake block down the lane just past the Prison Farm. I had to complete the ride with the calipers apart.

Oh, and my computer is knackered!

Route here:



Only one Joby to report, turning right at the Halesowen Streetbike Island a woman in a Smart Car entered the island going left and just missing my front wheel as I was about to get off the island. She saw me too late and waved an apology. That's ok then. It wasn't ok for the motorcyclist who gestured a despairing wave at me regarding the incident as he overtook me. And it certainly wasn't ok for the woman who he rode alongside and gave absolute loads to!




Injury wise no ill effects, generally no physical ill effects at all, it was a bit of a non event to be honest. But I'll go the quick less hilly way home tonight through Northfield and pop in to Northfield Cycles about the back wheel thing.


Finally a big shout to Joby and James for their successful completion of the Cheshire Cat thingymabob. Well done fellers!