Daves Random Ramblings

When I spend time with Keegan, more often than not now he tells be about the drama's that are happening at school with his friends or if he likes a girl and she likes him etc.  It does make me smile and I'm please to say that he does make friends much easier than I ever did when I was at school and probably even today. I did a post a while ago about unsocial media and how I think its done more harm than I believe it ever was intended.  Not that I believe it was created to ever mess things up.  But then again, if someone was to create a computer game that proved to be massively successful, then odds on people would be addicted to it and therein it would have a negative effect in getting that person out into the fresh air and meeting new people etc. So Keegan said that when he gets to being 13 that he wants to have a Facebook account.  Of course I told him that he would need to be careful and gave him the short talk on how online, anybody can be anybody they cho...

Hello friends... what a year 2019 was for me! It literally had been the highest of highs and quite frankly some real low points in there also. The cycling did continue even to the point where I became a ride leader with Woking Cycling Club.  I'd made huge gains on my fitness and even did 4 organised rides over 100 miles each.  So now my longest ride is approx 130 miles. Keegan and I enjoyed another week in Austria.  Weather-wise it was absolutely brilliant with sunny days the majority of the time.  Although the down side to that is the limited (non-existent) snow fall meant conditions were deteriorating over the course of the week we were there. But we went to more places this time than the previous time.  The village lifts were walking distance from the hotel so we occasionally used them as a bit of a warm up.  The picture below was taken from the very top of the village lifts with the typical weather we had for the week. The year starting of...

Yes yes I know, another sabbatical taken since the last post.  Quite a few months have elapsed since the Tour Of Cambridgeshire during which I have had a knee injury, done the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 mile (in which I managed a sub 5 hour time!) and did my last sportive of the year which was the Orro Magnificat. But lets press ahead to the current day.  It now seems like my life has come full circle, and yet, not.  I'm trying to make a concerted effort to find that balance in my two main activities which I have always talked about and yet not managed to find.  Cycling and snowboarding.  So to that end I have started going to the Tuesday "Skills development" sessions once more.  The cycling is still present, but I'm taking a bit of a step back with that as I've not quite figured things out a bit with me. I cannot be bothered to scroll back through all the other blog posts I've ever written to see if I'm about to repeat myself so please do forg...

I think another entry is long overdue in my blog. Yes I've been epically quiet for several months, not to say there hasn't been much going on.  Oh no far from it.  I've had up's, down's, progressions and set backs.  But thats everybodys life in general. Cycling really has taken over now, so much for finding balance like I put in a previous post.  Keegan and I went to Kaprun in the February half term.  It had its moments for sure however 2019 in my opinion wasn't as good as the 2018 holiday we had. Maybe 2018 was better because I'd never had a winter sports break before.  But a second holiday doesn't exactly fall into the realms of something becoming "old hat", not already? The weight is still bouncing between 12 stone and 12.5 stone.  A little while ago I stepped on the scales and was extremely surprised to see that I had gone under 170lbs.  169.40 which is 12 stone 1.4 lbs.  For you metric lot thats 76.8kgs Tour Of Cambridgeshire T...

358 days ago I put down the deposit for Keegan and me to head right back to Kaprun.  The excitement had barely subsided and I was missing those bluebird skies and subzero temperatures. Since Sunday I have been preparing the snowboards for their journey.  For those of you that know me and how I prepare a snowboard, its a bit of a "rinse and repeat" method except theres not too much rinsing and more repeating.  Base wax ironed on, base wax scraped off (getting my karate kid on) then zardoz (liquid teflon), then more wax ironed on, then more zardoz ironed in, then more zardoz ironed in (repeat about 5 times).  The wax starts becoming a bit difficult to work with, but I know the board is going to absolutely fly down those slopes.  The only time I've ever used more zardoz was in the great zardoz spillage of 2018 (or was it 2017 Matt?).  Anyway, the finished products are here to see (and you can see the reflection of the curtains on their surfaces too)... ...

Hi all!  Well after what seemingly was / is a large break from blogging, but there is now "the blog that never was" and some of you will know what that means. Here is the next entry in my oh so random collection of thoughts. Its that time of the year again where winter isn't sure when its coming or going, but I would like to think that it is now going as the temperatures are picking up slowly, snow and ice are also vanishing (well, ok, vanished from where I bobble about in). Kaprun Keegan and I are now only 9 days away from heading back to Kaprun.  Seems weird that Kaprun has been a thing on the radar for 352 days so far.  9 days away from views like this that have been my computer background for the lions share of the year... Keegan has done incredibly well saving his pocket money for the trip.  OK in reality he's been banned from spending it so I do wonder how he will be with the money he has accrued over the course of the year. The Prudential RideLon...

Granted that I'm a guy that is a software developer and these days primarily focused in the online world I am happy to say that I haven't ever contributed towards what I am now calling unsocial media.  Yes its a bit of a whinge, OK you got me, its a lot of a whinge but its only recently that I'm realising, at least for myself, the world of social media is having quite the opposite effect to which I believe it was intended to be. The internet I would say has done equal amounts of good and harm.  Its brought people closer together, we can share things, ideologies, pictures, message relatives on the other side of this planet in seconds and maybe that is just where the problem starts.  It's as casual and easy as showing your relatives in Australia what you're having for breakfast that morning so we don't give it a second thought.  We're no longer invested in the bigger picture as we're now in an on-demand age that a five minute wait for things is n...

So two weekends ago I went and tried something new. I stepped up a group on the WCC main club ride and went from intermediates to intermediate / fast.  Yes they are similar in the names with "/ fast" added onto the end of the title of the new group but this group were really not messing about when it came to the speed.  A really nice, friendly bunch of guys that made this look far too easy but I suppose if that's what they normally go at then it is par for the course for them. Being the newbie in the group I was happy enough riding at the back and drafting behind them.  Moving up the pack sometimes and only once at the front which I found a tad hard because I was trying to replicate the same effort / speed as well as having to deal with the wind resistance that you dont get as much when drafting / slip streaming / hiding behind another cyclist. I did feel a little bit unsociable as they were chatting away to one another and there was the "getting to know the ...

The next big ride has now been completed and I am so happy! It was a long day / weekend for sure, but thanks to Claire F (my sportive entourage) I was able to get to Dover on Saturday evening for my very temporary lodgings.  The room itself was basic and yet nice, although the temperature when I first arrived there just would not do: So I was able to get that rectified very quickly.  That's the advantage of a small room is it doesn't take long at all to heat up: ... so much better.  Unfortunately too hot as later on as I woke up after only 2 hours, laying on top of the bed covers like it was summer time again and I was absolutely melting. The alarm went off at 3:30am (why do I do this to myself?).  I had my liquid fuel breakfast and proceeded to get ready It goes without saying that it was pitch black outside and not at all warm.  The hotel had let us (as there were a few of us staying there the night before) store our bikes in a secure roo...