Holiday riding

As you'll have noticed, I'm back from my holidays; a week in a caravan at Limefitt Park near Troutbeck in the Lake District. One of the best things about Limefitt, is the bridleway that runs through the site and over towards Kentmere, so I took my bike with us. I was limited in how much/often I could ride, but was on track for one ride every day, until I was ill part-way through the week.

1. Saturday: Up Garburn Road for half an hour, then back down to the site


2. Sunday: Up to the top of Garburn Pass (until I could see Kentmere village), then back down again


3. Monday: Around Robin Lane to Waterhead, then back again


4. Tuesday: Dubbs Lane/Latrigg Road loop

The riding was all superb, though a bit too rocky to ride in places on Garburn Road, which is actually open to 4x4 use and so very eroded in places. After the first ride, I was thinking the track should be resurfaced, but by the third time I was riding up it I'd got better at making line choices and rode much more of it. My bike was a revelation; for local riding the front end has always seems a bit too high and wide for me, but it was fantastic for the rocky riding in the Lakes, which is probably quite similar to the riding in Todmorden, where the designer of the bike lives. I still feel like I need to lower the front end for my usual riding though. The 2.25" tyres were excellent, providing loads of grip.

more photos

Unbelievably, people used to ride over Garburn Pass in the 40s, on fixed gear bikes according to Cycling Before Lycra. And I thought I was 'core for riding it with rigid forks!

Global Rich List

Every year The Times produce a rich list, showing the richest people in the UK, the richest footballers, the richest actors, how much J.K. Rowling made from this book...

But where would you come on the Global Rich List? I am in the top 4.78% richest people in the world. There are 5,712,613,565 people poorer than me. I am the 287,386,435 richest person in the world.

It's enough to make you Flip Out Like a Ninja!

A vacation

Mactually is away.

London Bomb Blasts

For anyone looking for details, here are some useful online resources:

1. Flickr - London Bomb Blasts pool photos


2. Wikipedia - 2005 London Bombing


3. BBC News - London Blasts: At a glance


4. Guardian News Blog

[Update] Chris' parents were in london today, but they're ok.

Make Poverty History

30,000 children die per day because of extreme poverty

That statistic in itself should make us want to do something, because it's pretty shocking, but sometimes it's hard to visualise numbers like that. Ann did some calculating:

I wanted to get a scale of how many children that really is... I thought grains of rice might make like a couple of handful sized heaps..... So I counted out 500 which weighed 1/4 an ounce....... multiply that up and if I am not mistaken that is 15 ounces of rice...... that is a LOT of rice. If I knew how to post pictures, I would. That’s a pint glass full of rice….. It’s something like 5 portions of rice, each grain being a child that will die each day.

I'm going to get my digital camera, calculator, scales and some rice out when I get home...

[Update]Didn't get chance to get the camera out last night; will do soon.

Stage one

Fantastic opening to this year's Tour de France, with Armstrong passing Ullrich, who started a minute ahead of him. Absolutely fantastic to watch.

Tour de France 2005

3,584 km (2,227 miles), 21 stages, three mountaintop finishes, 74 km of individual time trials, a 67.5-km team time trial, and 20 Category 2, Category 1, and Hors Categorie climbs. "The Marathon, chess and NASCAR combined". Le Tour starts tomorrow...

(Update (16/03/2006): Comments closed, bacause it was attracting loads of pr0n link comments. Apparently Tour de France is a slang term in some countries...)