Eat Your Carrots

Women's Footy

I'm thinking of taking to watching women's football. No, not for the reason you might be thinking of. Honest! But goals!! In the 15 women's FA Cup ties today there were no fewer than 83 goals! I did used to watch it a bit when it was televised (probably C4) several years ago and it was fast, flowing and exciting. The number of goals comes from A) having no "not losing is the most important thing" attitude that seems to prevail in the men's game and B) having totally rubbish goalkeepers! Perhaps if we changed the rules so that all goalies in the men's game had to be women, football would become exciting again.

Britney vs Grant

I've been meaning to say for a little while now just how much Britney Spears resembles Sunderland football star Grant Leadbitter, now that they have basically the same haircut.

See for yourself.

         
Grant Leadbitter            Britney Spears

Keen On Keane?

So Roy Keane is the new Sunderland manager. Am I happy about that? I don't know (yet). I'm perplexed though. Earlier in the week chairman/manager Niall Quinn sacked himself (as manager)and promised us a "world class manager". Is Keane a world class manager? He's never been a manager until today, so how can he be said to be "world class". Let's just hope he turns out to be.
And why have the negotiations dragged on so long? It's wasted an awful lot of time. He now has 3 days to buy whoever he can manage to attract to the club.
Well at least we won today. "On our way, we're on our way..."

Rain Stops Play

No biking for us last night. It looked quite nice as we left work but by the time we got to our intended start point 1/2 an hour's drive away the sky was as black as coal and the rumble of thunder was all around. In fact I've never heard thunder like it, it wasn't distinct batches of rumbling, it was constant and seemingly from all around. No way we wanted to be out on open moor tops in weather like that, so we retired to the pub instead.
Recent squad addition Stuart wasn't with us, and won't be for quite some time. He bust his arm in 3 places on Monday in a cycling fall, showing just how dangerous it can be when you appear to have no fear!

New Season, Same Rubbish

The new football season is with us again, and those of us who support Sunderland and who thought it would be a better season than last look likely to be disappointed. The optimism generated by the Niall Quinn consortium takeover has totally evaporated in the wake of 4 defeats in 4 games.
There's still time to turn it around, but we're already 10 points behind the league leaders and come the end of the season that could be to big a gap to make up. Hold on, I'm being over-optimistic. I'm already thinking we may still be challenging near the top.
Well, a couple more games should knock that out of me.

And Then There Were Three

We had a new addition to our "biking club" yesterday in Stuart, a friend of one of the girls at work. He was a very useful addition too, because he knows some good routes and the one he took us on yesterday was superb - plenty of tough climbs and fast descents.

We were a bit worried when we saw Stuart's elbow pads - "if you need those we're staying at home" is what we thought. We saw why he needs them though when he took a high-speed crash in a perfectly flat ford, when any lesser man would be struggling to find a way to fall off.

Oh how we laughed.

Whitby To Scarborough

We kept up our cycling craze for the fifth consecutive weekend, which just goes to show how good the weather has been because the slightest sign of cold or rain is enough to send us scurrying for the conservatory with cocoa, slippers and a book. This week we decided we'd do the Whitby to Scarborough route, which follows the course of the old railway line between those two seaside towns (thankfully they've taken up the track and the sleepers, which makes it much easier to cycle on). All along the route you pass old platforms, some still with station buildings, others with none. In most cases the station buildings have been converted into tea rooms and B&Bs, which is rather nice.
The first place of note that you come to after leaving Whitby is Robin Hood's Bay, only 3 or 4 miles distant. I'd been there once before, in April 1989, and it was nothing like how I remembered it. I'd thought it a drab and dreary place, down on its luck and in need of some renovation. Well, I guess that's happened because the place now is superb. The narrow main street descends precipitously down to the sea (a 1 in 3 descent) and is lined on each side with tea rooms, shops and houses, all of which look totally beautiful.
Further narrow streets branch off here and there and the whole place is beautifully picturesque. We wished in some ways that we didn't have our bikes with us, so we could have wandered around a bit more unencumbered. It's hard to believe that we'd been here only once before, given its proximity to Whitby, but we'll visit it again in the near future.
The beach is perhaps not its best feature, being largely covered by the tide most of the time except for a strip below the cliff to the south. When the tide goes out it leaves a vast expanse of sand, uncovered but wet, filled with intricate little gullies and pools, nice for kids (big and small) to explore.
The morris dancers were in town on this day, doing their thing at the top of the cliff and due to move down to the sea later.
We had to leave Robin Hood's Bay after only an hour - we still had 17 miles to go. For some reason I didn't take many more pictures on the route, and those that I did take (the usual action shots of wife on the trail) don't seem to have turned out! Suffice to say that the route passes through some very beautiful woodland scenery, punctuated by a series of bridges, some still in use, some abandoned. At various places, as mentioned earlier, the old stations have been converted into cafes and B&Bs. The most notable of these was at The Station House at Cloughton. This looked really beautiful and very tempting. An interesting place to spend a night, I'd say.
Eventually we arrived at Scarborough, after about a 2 1/2 hour ride. We didn't go right into the town but stopped at Scalby Mills where there's an excellent pub of (roughly) the same name. We ate our picnic on the sea wall, had a couple of halfs and some chips at the pub and then did the return journey. The views as you approach Robin Hood's Bay from the south are wonderful.
This was a good ride, not too challenging other than in terms of the distance covered, although you do tend to notice the long, gradual climb up to Ravenscar, the highest point on the route. Of course this means there's a long, gentle slope down at either side, where you can freewheel at about 10 to 12 mph for 5 or 6 miles. Or, if I wasn't with wife, where you could bomb along at 20+...
So where will cycling take us next week? We're currently eying The Waskerley Way.

Exciting Biking

We continue to enjoy cycling, something about which I'm very happy as biking was my very favourite pastime for several years until I mysteriously dropped out of it. I've been wanting to get back to it ever since then but never had a biking buddy. Now I have two, Al from work and wife.
Below are some pictures from recent excursions, the first two from a re-visited Hambleton Drove Road ride, which wife and I managed to do in about 2 hours 40, almost as quick as me & Al had done it. She can be quite speedy when she wants to be.

The other two are from Hamsterly Forest last weekend. I have to say what a great leisure resource Hamsterly Forest is. It has miles and miles of walks, bike routes and horse routes, all graded for difficulty and some designed specifically for families. There are picnic areas all over the place and the whole place is scenic with a capital S. There's a bike shop with bike hire, loos, tea rooms and visitors centre and a full program of events throughout the year. I've known about Hamsterly for years and used to bike there a lot several years ago, but it seems to have come on even further since then.

We did the "moderate" bike route and found it easy. Next time there we'll do the hard(er) route and see how we find that. For next weekend though (weather permitting) we plan to do Whitby to Scarborough, 20 miles each way, largely following the coast.

Twice As Fast

I went out biking with Al again on Wednesday and we did the same route that wife and I had done on Saturday, the Hambleton Drove Road. It was a lovely summer evening and the views were every bit as spectacular as on Saturday. We varied the route a little by going all the way to Sutton Bank on the Cleveland Way (it was too full of walkers on Saturday so wife & I detoured to get there). Going on the Cleveland Way takes you past the Yorkshire Moors' only lake, Lake Gormire (below).

Naturally Al and I are a bit faster than wife, and whereas it took wife & I about 2-10 each way, Al and I did the return trip in 2-20.
Wife and I may do this same route again at the weekend, it's so very lovely.

Biker Boy

I went proper cross-country mountain biking last night with my friend from work, the first time I've done that in about 10 years. I'm pleased to say that all the going to the gym isn't in vain because I was nowhere near as unfit last night as I was when I first started out mountain biking 16 years ago. Then I (and those I biked with) couldn't manage the big climb on the route we did yesterday and had to resort to pushing for the first few times we attempted the route. Last night Al & me managed it first time, though it has to be said he managed it better than I did.
It was a good ride and hopefully we can only get better (and fitter) in the coming weeks. Despite wife's worries (she made me take a whistle and first-aid kit, and wanted me to take a torch and body-bag) there were no major incidents on the ride, other than my puncture and Al's tumble down a rocky precipice. The boy scout's motto is "always be prepared" and I never ride without spares and toolkit, so the puncture was no problem. Luckily Al's fall wasn't too far or too hard, so he didn't need any running repairs.
We did have a delay at the start as he has a new-fangled swanky bike with hydraulic disk brakes. The bloke in the shop never mentioned anything about problems that might arise with these and we struggled for a full twenty minutes to get the front wheel back on (it has to be removed to fit the bike into the car). We eventually managed it by taking apart the whole brake assembly and putting it back together once the wheel was on. That all had the result that the brake didn't work at all (due, I suspect, to fluid loss from the system). Anyway, he went off with just a back brake working and by half way round the front one miraculously worked too. I think a trip to the bike shop is in order for a bit of training. I like my old-fashioned system, that you can fix up with bits of string if need be.
We did our route in 2 hours 20, which could be 2 hours 10 if not for the puncture. We'll see if we better that next week, by which time I also hope to have my bike's trip computer back up and running.
Fun, fun, fun.