day18

a follow-my-nose exploraride tonight. east out of town before picking up the path to drinkbetween (no really!). just a farm track, so doubled back and followed the green sign down to kinghorn - more farm track all the way down through the golf course to town.

had a wee nosey at the harbour and the beach, back up and over the hill again for a wheech down the loch road back into B to the I.

took at run at the localsteps of death, but pulled up at the steep bit as i got bounced about by the deeper ones up top. bah!

day17

off work to recover today, long-ish dozy lie in, then up for a non-fried breakfast for the first time in three days. try to resurrect old laptop without success, so hopes of new mtb frame dashed.

head out for a braefoot scoot and forget the made in bed plan to aim east to explore some RoWs to the east of town. along to aberdour and remember about the trail which runs from the flower pots at the foot of the muur van humbie back into unknown territory. turns out to be a wee gem which climbs back up onto the cliff high over the railway/coastal path. east end of it drops very steeply back down to FCP, so it's an out and back before heading to braefoot to have a wee play amongst the remains of the WWII gun emplacements, then down to the old pier, up and out towards home again.

day16

a lie in. up at 0700. feel like i've done a 24 hour race. one where we've actually tried...

sweep car park for litter (mainly historic - glass lucozade bottle! - rather than demo related).

breakfast and handshakes.

into last of riding kit and off round the trails to collect tape, and litter. then a lap for luck before heading home.

day15

up at a wee bit past 0500 to feed the gennies keeping the specialized tent up. diesel generator immediately starts throwing a hissy fit. fucking great. fire up the spare gennie, swop plugs and off to breakfast for four cooked on a single gas burner as niall's petrol stove/bomb veers straight towards bomb.

first aid and caterers turn up on time (yay!) and i go off to tape off the rest of the demo loop and take down signs from eas dubh (the bike companies want a shorter loop to keep things moving).

do a bit of car park marshalling, then head up to the foot of cannonball run to marshal and take some photos. on with cycling gear for 3 hours of slow roving marshalling - nowt to do but wonder at the lack of skill and fitness of folks trying out £2k bikes. trails riding well, but in need of a wee bit of TLC (need to get our maintenance permission sorted properly).

main demo ends at about 1730 and bike companies want to break down tonight, so i hoon around collecting road signs and head back to the top of cannonball run to direct folks during the lupine demo. briefly open car doors and blast sabbath, but riders look a wee bit scared, so i revert to being a human direction arrow.

down hill for 2100 after collecting course signs and wave last of the trucks away at 2200.

bbq and two beers. knackered and freezing in an unwelcome easterly. in sleeping bag by 2300.

day14

up early (0630) to drop su off at work before heading up to carron valley for the specialized/giant demo day (well weekend for us...). set up roadsigns on approaches in the morning (only to hear that some wee fuckers in denny had been tearing them to wee bits later), then rode out to mark the course. 2 laps of the course lugging course tape and direction arrows, then a lap for good luck - 2.5 hours of riding.

meanwhile the expo area goes up. specialized have brought the BIGGEST inflatable thingy i've seen and a super-pro set up. giant are rolling with fancy vans and SRAM leave a bunch of kit out in their e-z-up overnight (fortunately security are on hand all night).

meanwhile CVDG set up their gazebo and tents next to the remains of Andy's office and soon-to-be site of the new "temporary" deer larder. beer and bbq ensue - two fish courses later and we're onto the main course. logs are chucked into the bbq and we got a proper fire a goin' to fight off the chilly night and the rumoured CV big cat.

day13

too much to do tonight, so only time for a roller session. scampered up from station, on with bibs and into the roller room.

was planning on watching a sunday in hell (again), but think i've lent it out as part of an outreach programme. only bike related dvd i could see was restless natives, a classic scottish film of the mid-1980. on with the dvd, onto the rollers, on with the big country soundtrack. braw.

next up is three days living in a forest, helping out with the specialized/giant demo at carron valley. taking two bikes to ensure that i can ride everyday, no matter what those fcking dropouts on the voodoo, er, do.

day12

bribed.

was slightly lacking in motivation tonight, so bribed by myself with my own beer, bought with my own money to do a ride. pathetic.

one beer for an indoor ride, two for an outdoor one. so it was a chilly, windy ride round the local loop (31km, +660m) for two beers. was going to head up round loch leven, but a struggle up the col meant cloth was cut accordingly. next time...

beers are by the atlas brewery in kinlochleven. one latitude and one nimbus. mmmmm.

day11

late(ish) home from work, so an hour on the rollers with a bit of the old fastandslow to get me working a bit harder.

inspired by jon's boasts of tricking up his roller sessions, i tried a few tonight - one footed was a piece of piss (although trying to clip back into look pedals was interesting). nae hands was sorted a few weeks back. nearly got started without holding on, but lost balance and rammed myself off the stem. not trying that one again...

been fairly easy up 'til now, although my left knee is a bit grumpy. when will the crunch come?

day10

took advantage of a brief respite in the shitty weather we've been enjoying to take a quick roadie spinout this evening to do day4's route the other way round.

bit grotty and drizzly on the initial climb out of town on the col de montquey, but drier to the north making for quite a nice ride on quietish roads

good - found a tenner in a jersey pocket that i though i'd dropped last week.
bad - breaking the mount for my light and riding the near 2 mile hill back down into town with light rammed in my gob.

day9

down at traquair forest today to help with the alistair lees memorial mountain bike time trial. 100ish riders taking on a beast of a climb to the top of the dh course, then a plunge down the tunnel, the luge, some braw old/new skool stuff and the bottom bit of caddon bank.

today's counter was a lap of the course, a wee bit of forest road extension and the first section of the climb again. wish i'd more time to do at least another lap. managed to forget the memory card for my wee camera, so photo is of a racer - digging the white gear.