A special contribution!

This is some of the very special contribution made by our equine friends at Rock HQ. Jobslist tomorrow dictates that their daily doings are moved from one end of the smallholding to the other, so the piles going to get a whole lot bigger. I love weekends.

The appliance of science

 As yours truly decided in early 2012 (pre Bradley) to enjoy the simpler things in life and cycle as much as possible several things have happened since my new found allegiance to Lycra. First off the bike I had chosen to become a fully fledged MAMIL on proved to be too big for someone of such short stature and thanks to the Governments cycle to work scheme I managed to acquire an all new racing steed that was brilliant. Say was as it was far superior to anything I had ever ridden and everso fast, even with me piloting it. So I happily did some 4500 miles on it in 18 months and that's when things went a bit pear shaped. The bike I rode began to suffer, bits, serious bits had to be replaced due to excessive wear and tear (wheels, chain, cogs, in fact most of it) and still things were not right. The main reason for this was that the bike is an off the peg racer suited to an off the peg rider. Excessive wear and tear began to show on its pilot, at one stage I couldn't sit down, walk, stand without feeling like I was being knifed repeatedly in the abdomen. Lots of tests, all seemed to point to cycling, so an enforced month off where I only rode my mountain bike honest doc began. No pain. Verdict. Get some science into the hobby, hence yours truly sat in a bike laboratory pedalling like a mad man and having every action/reaction videoed and scrutinised by the white coat brigade. They were more used to having pristine triatheletes and their machinery to analyse so me in my riding shoes the dogs had chewed and both shoes and bike covered in mud raised an eyebrow or too.  

 And so we began, heres my steed as we go through the process, firstly the saddle was measured after it was found my hip bones were flailing around at odd angles (apparently they should be still) and after sitting on several gel things to give an accurate measure of my backside a wider saddle was fitted. My previous saddle was too narrow and all my weight was being carried by the front of the saddle hence no feeling in the men's department. After saddle and saddle height pedals were adjusted, on the rights a 1mm shim on the left a 2mm shim reduced the erratic pedal stroke and then the addition of shoe inserts and an additional 2mm spacer in my left shoe stopped me hitting the frame with my heel and improved things even more. So much so that the power I was now driving through the bike was causing the frame to flex. Then the front end was sorted, new head spacer at the top, angle of the bars changed, advice given on new geometry required to make bars fit me and a riser put on the left side due to my shorter left arm. In all, nothing was right about the bike I had been riding, it was set for a 6 foot 4 inch rider with short arms, whereas I am 5 foot 10 on a good day and have a modified reach due to carelessness on a ladder.

The end result of me making their laboratory look like pigs had trampled through it was the above. This is my almost perfect fit bike which will be ready for final fitting early next week. This is what I am going to use for next years mega man test, a three day event covering 480 miles by bike, 28 miles up and down mountains and all in 72 hours.
Watch this space :)

You've made your bed...

..now lie in it!

Apollo taking advantage of the newly filled feed ring by pulling the hay out and making a nice cosy bed.

A little ray of sunshine

 Only in autumn

 do you get

 colours like this

at Rock HQ

Dog gone!

 Those who own Bernese Mountain Dogs know that when left alone these lovely but dim dogs can create havoc, and any beast who has a bladder the size of a spaceman's helmet should not be left home alone if you value soft furnishings and oak floors. So our dirty dozen, yes there are now 12 (at least) are secreted at various locations around Rock HQ when we go to fetch essential supplies like today's home made fudge and pink lemonade. Bliss and WooZah get to share the annex, a purpose built room on the side of the cottage with leather arm chairs and radio 4. Now imagine my surprise today when on my return I opened the annex door to get Bliss and WooZah to patrol the perimeter fence and found one dog gone. WooZah bounded out, but Bliss, Dolyhir clan 2IC female was definitely missing. Fearing the worst I went inside to find two empty chairs, clean bowls and the shipping forecast. No dog.

 Back outside and a quick recount, one, two missing. Sudden frantic barking from inside the annex gave a clue that all was not well in Bliss' world. Now me being a champion hoarder found it impossible to throw away the old conservatory so its stored, flat pack style against the far wall, the wall that yours truly put up some while ago partitioning the annex from the black hole and the workshop. The day I need a knackered rotten wooden conservatory then I won't be found wanting, no sir, not me!
 Due to the length of the stored pieces and a breeze block supporting column thing there is an 18 inch gap at the back, meaning that there is a six foot deep, 18 inch wide 30 inch long hole between all the bits stored and the wall. This was now half full of a very frantic Berner called Bliss who, for reasons known only to herself had climbed up onto the wood and glass jigsaw and fell tuther side.
As can be seen from the pics there was no easy way out, and shifting a ton or so of wood and glass by myself was not an option. Neither was pulling her out as she is a tad on the weighty side (like me) which meant only one optimal plan.
Climb down to her.

That was the plan, I actioned it quicker than I intended but had a reasonably soft landing that having stopped barking was very pleased to see me. This is us almost seeing eye to eye. I gave her a helping hand to escape, which she did, leaving me to puzzle out what she had tried to solve for several hours previously. Finally I hauled myself out, assisted by swearing and the knowledge that effort is always better than embarrassment caused by phoning for help and soon the two of us were reunited in the cottage, her on the sofa, me on the floor.
 I know my place.

Take the hint

Training opportunities are few and far between at the moment (rug rats, work, lergy) so after last nights success of getting out on mountain bike for 45 minutes for the first time in at least 3 weeks yours truly decided to do the same but different and take racing steed out on same route. Reasons for this were convoluted and part of a mix it up training schedule but mainly because last nights ride was on a mountain bike with slipping gears and as I am to bicycle repair as Ed Milliband is to male modelling it was best left to an expert who was not available once the evening routine had been done and children were safely up the wooden hill.
Torrential rain was not going to put me off. I went out and changed the lights from the MTB to the racing steed. In doing so find that rear light fitted means no emergency saddle pack can be fitted. Look for hi viz rucksack. Find it in workshop.  Remembered that road cycling shoes were missing. Look for shoes. Give up. Find damaged shoes. Better than nothing. Rain heavier.
Decide to get wet weather riding gear sorted. Back in house find gear. Out to bike, only one over shoe. Back in house finally find left overshoe behind sofa (don't ask) Back out to bike. Decide tyres are a bit soft. Look for stirrup pump. Find it at same time as Bernese Mountain Dog who is quicker than me and runs off with it. Chase dog. Persuade dog to swap pump for bottle of horse spray. Back to bike. Pump up rear tyre but cannot read pressure gauge due to glasses steaming up. Wipe glasses clean. Four times. rear tyre solid. Move to front. Same routine with glasses. Tyre solid. Stand back and mentally check everything is in place for bike ride.
Sudden deflation of front tyre. Clean glasses. Find the tyre wall has blown out, cannot replace tube as tyre blown as well. Look at MTB, decide not to ride that due to gears. Rain gets heavier.
Salvation!
 Use front wheel of spare bike waiting to be clipped into turbo trainer. Tyre flat. Pump it up following glasses cleaning routine. Tyre solid. Simple task now of replacing wheel only nut missing from quick release skewer, never mind use skewer in original wheel.
Remove skewer.
Try to remove skewer from replacement wheel and find that it won't budge due to it being bent over like a hook thanks to some previous mishandling. Lose temper, hit skewer with large spanner that doubles as a hammer but due to glasses problem hit thumb making it bleed.
Stand.
Count to ten.
Note that rain is now Biblical.
Decide there are enough signs that a quick bike ride is not going to happen. Spend evening sulking eating biscuits.

Look closer

Sitting on the sofa feeling sorry for myself due to persistent lergy, PC issues, working evenings and injured rug rats have all meant that there has been a break from the steady stream of updates of the chaos at Rock HQ, however yesterday was a better day (save for the apprentice nearly knocking his brains out on a car park concrete bollard) which saw yours truly able to get out and about and enjoy the autumn sun on the pretence pretext of working.

Part of my job involves seeing how people are and what better way to see how everyone is than by persuading them to go for a long walk in the countryside looking for treasure, or geo-caching as it is commonly known as. First horde was found swiftly by this very old gateway, several others were found after a lot of searching and two were given up as lost causes but the best one was find three, the clue Rocky 2 and co-ordinates found us scrabbling around a gateway looking for a geo cache horde. A long time passed and no treasure, spirits waned but we kept looking. I kept picking up a small boulder convinced treasure was under it. Finally it dawned on me that what we were looking for might be the rock and sure enough it turned out to have a geo cache sticker on its bottom and was hollow!

I also got to see two pups from the KGB litter, here are Diesel and Skye. Diesel on the right here is 8 months old and growing into the biggest Berner I have ever seen. Good job he's so well behaved!

Having fifty million poultry waiting to be fox food at Rock HQ its quite easy to miss the fact that one of the number is missing as was the case yesterday morning when I was feeding the critters. Rippers, a very bouncy Berner kept bouncing up to a large cardboard box that yours truly had walked past at least 11 times that morning. Finally she got her nose under it and flipped it over to discover the young male peacock trapped, or rather ready to fly straight at her as she released him. Seems the idiot bird had perched on the edge of the box, it tipped over on top of him and he could not get out until a very curious dog helped him with his VTOL technique.

You did it all for us.....

 Lergy lifted substantially in yours truly today so time was spent wiping runny noses on other bipeds and putting together the furniture that finally arrived in the right sized lorry late last week.For a few moments the new conservatory and new furniture looked great.

 Then reality struck and two very happy soggy doggies thanked us for all our hard work and made themself very comfortable.

 Then their was the lesson learned over cake. Never leave a Christmas cake unattended by the open kitchen window when there are hungry peacocks about the place.

As they are pet status they cannot be eaten in revenge.