August - A quick update

Its been a while since I blogged but that's because not much cycling has happened.  August was a rubbish month for my cycling!

I missed a couple of days whilst spending some time enjoying a trip to Bruge.... which was glorious and great fun.

A bike in Bruge

On our return, as usual the weather played its role in keeping me off the bike. It was either far too hot and muggy to ride, so I'd wait to go on an evening ride, but then get too engrossed in watching the Olympics. Then on every day off it would be absolutely bucketing it down with rain (and as I'd thrown my mudguards off in temper due to them rattling too much) so riding was postponed.

By the 19th of August I still hadn't ridden a bike..... Ooops!  On realising this I quickly grabbed my bike and did a 25miler.  Sadly, then the weather and a hideous week at work stopped me in my tracks again and only 2.5miles were ridden the following week, when we had a quick jaunt down to the beach when Ali and Amy arrived in Cornwall.

Thankfully their arrival injected some enthusiasm back and we did a fair bit of riding; a very WET ride to a cafe, a little jaunt out to christen Mikey's new Belgian jersey (his birthday pressie which finally made an appearance), and a ride to Mousehole, via Penzance where we had lunch in the park.

Anyway, by the end of the month I'd managed 6 rides.... and a grand total of 62.4miles.

Not the best of months for riding, but life and the weather really did get in the way. I can only hope that this month is better.

Bikes and Geocaches

Last week saw Amy and Ali join us in Cornwall for a weeks holiday.  As I hadn't attempted too many rides in the run up to their visit, my knees were feeling a tad stronger. The first ride with them was an easy 12 mile pootle over to Penzance to meet Mikey at work whilst taking in a few geocaches. My knees felt a little shakey but there was nothing too strenuous and no bad after effects.

However, I was glad that the next day didn't involve any riding. Instead it involved lots of walking -

Good friends and Geocaches.

We had our friends, Amy (Trio25) and Ali visiting over the bank holiday weekend which was ace! It involved lots of cake (obviously) lots of riding and lots of fun!

They arrived Saturday lunchtime and after a large slice of my home-made chocolate cake, we went for a walk down to our local beach for a paddle, some kite-flying, some lunch, some more cake and a tickle off a 'ickle foal. 

The last bit of my home-made choc cake.

We then went for a quick bike ride down the coast path to meet Mikey for his commute home.  On this ride they introduced us to the exciting world of Geocaching.

"Geocaching is a real-world outdoor treasure hunting game. Players try to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, using GPS-enabled devices."

www.geocaching.com/

Day Two involved more Geocaching. My goodness, its addictive! (Now I want a GPS!) This time it was on foot along the rocky coastal footpath. Four or five more caches found; we all found at least one each, which made it exciting. On our return more cake was consumed followed by a BBQ and Champagne. Another great day!

Team VeloCake on the hunt.

Day Three (Bank holiday Monday) and it was time to ride. The plan was to ride to Hayle for ice-cream and find a few caches.  The first Cache was only a few minutes from our village but despite finding the spot quickly it took quite some time to find the cache itself. Ali found it! It was in a film canister tucked into a crevice of an old stone wall. We thought that one was tricky, but the next one was even smaller.  The only way I can describe it is like a very old style dog tag, where you open it up to reveal a paper phone number. It was tiny wee! So small that Mikey eventually found it in a place that all three of us had checked already.

It wasn't until Cache three that I wished I'd given more consideration to what bike to ride. I'd opted for the road bike, as usually the ride into Hayle is on the road.  Unfortunately I hadn't taken into account the location of the Geocaches along the way. We were now off-road on little dirt tracks, full of rocks, roots and lotsa deep muddy puddles. On a mountain bike it would have been great, on a cross bike it would have been good, but being on Paddy's slick tyres and with his mudguards clogging constantly, I was finding it really tricky. I spent lotsa time walking - my shiney white shoes are now neither shiney or white. Anyway a great deal of fun was had finding the next few caches; finding little tracks that we would never have thought of going down before.

I was shocked to discover that the local Alpacas were also guarding a cache, so whilst everyone else found that, I stood chatting to them. Amazingly, Ali found that she had a special talent and could talk Alpaca'ese and they came trotting over. It took a while to gain their trust but then we had lotsa tickles. I've never stroked one before and their fur was gorgeous.

Ali's new friends

When we finally got to Hayle scrummy ice creams were consumed before heading homewards. We found a few more caches on our way and also introduced Ali and Amy to our friends Donkey and Cow. They were both out of stroking distance but we did find out Donkeys real name, he's called Whimpy, which made the trip well worthwhile. We were also shocked to discover he is well into his 20's. He's a wise old donkey!

A little further along and it was time to introduce them to the pair of young and little highland cows. "Och aye da moOOo!" Then it was time to take the long way home to squeeze in another Cache. Obsessed, us? Never! ;-)

Despite very tired legs, no sooner as we arrived home, we jumped back on our bikes (after finding some warmer clothes and more layers) and then set back down to the beach for tea at the cafe. Mmmmm... freshly made pizza's.  Then it was back up the hill and one more cache to get before heading home again. A splendid day!

It was back to work for me on Tuesday. I missed out on the ride to Lands End (not that I minded, my legs were shattered after the long walk on Sunday and even longer ride on Monday.) I also missed out on the early Wednesday frolics when Mikey, Ali and Amy went down to the beach for a swim in the sea. Sounds like a great time was had. When I finally re-joined them we had time for a quick bike ride down to Marazion for a pasty and their final cream tea of their holiday and one final cache (which incidentally we couldn't get to without drawing attention to it, as there were hoardes of people) before they set off on their long journey back up North.

Their visit went far too quickly! Normally when people stay I get a bit tetchy as I like my space, etc and in such a small cottage that is quite difficult, but their visit was different, I wanted them to stay! We'd had so much fun, I didn't want it to end. I really hope they'll come back soon.

It was my ideal holiday. Good food, good friends, lots of laughter, lots of cake and to top it off plenty of riding and plenty of nice animals to talk to along the way. PERFECT!