Dave Haygarth, family and friends…
Another lovely day in Buile Hill on Saturday brings the cyclo-cross season for me and Elsie to a close.
The third year running that this event has been dry, fast, and the death-by-a-thousand-corners course finally gave me the ride I’d waited for here, with a sweet end to my cyclo-cross season riding the v50 and then the Elite race cats.
Continue reading “Another year in paradise”
How apt. More on that later.
This was the second year of the UCI Gravel series and the first time a round had been held in the UK. The Gralloch was going to be exciting, star-studded, and a proper decent race. That it took place 3 hrs drive from home was a luxury and a lure. Plus, loads of the ‘cross people were there, too. It’s always a small world in off road cycling.
Continue reading “Gralloched”
Not sure what to make of my cyclo-cross at the moment. On the one hand, I have great times and love the company, scene, people and racing. It’s pure, it’s serious, but it’s fun and friendly. But I’m fighting some proper demons at the moment with injury. I’ve had injuries before and worked out a way through or round them. But the latest thing (knee, totally out of the blue) really feels like a proper blocker.
Continue reading “Cross at cyclo-cross – I’m on my knees”
I shouldn’t let the 3 Peaks Cyclo-cross get to me like this. I should know better. I’ve had my day in many ways and know that I’m never going to have another belter of a result in this beautiful race after 22 times around those hills. But this is what the race does to you. It gets inside you and niggles away.
Continue reading “3 Ups and 3 downs”
A big day out. A big and hard day out. But its done with now. I knew the day would come when i was satisfied to just ”finish” something. I guess this comes with age.
The 2020 stuff seemed tame. We somehow managed last year to get to Anglsey and Scotland amidst what we then thought was chaos. Surely 2021 would be easier as restrictions eased.
Continue reading “The second summer of COVID-complication holidays”
Never really sure what the trend is with ‘coming of age’ these days. It’s all academic in one sense – 18 has it, really – there’s not much left in statute that you need to be aged 21 to do. But 18 seems so young… especially when it’s your own ‘child’ that becomes 18.
Continue reading “One child left: Lily’s 18th”
In the strangest of years, the simplest of lovely holidays. When we’d originally planned to go to Portugal for the summer hols and meet up there for a spell with Sally and Simon & family, the idea of a COVID compromise of a trip to Scotland seemed a bit of a poor cousin. And in the run-up to that trip, it seemed like even that might be a stretch, too.
Continue reading “Summer in Scotland – COVID calls for last minute panic holiday plans”
Strange times. We all agree. And like everybody, Coronavirus-compromises have been made, and good times put on hold.
Amongst the irritations for me this spring was the 50th birthday party I had planned for 100 or so friends on Easter Saturday.
Part of the evening’s fun was to get some music friends together to play some of my favourite songs. People who had never played in the same band or together, but all of whom had played music with me at some time in my 50 years.
Continue reading “A Lockdown story – Getting the band together for a party.”
The North West Cyclocross awards evening is always a good evening out. Seeing people who you almost always see in dirty lycra / helmets / bobble hats / waterproofs etc. Eeeh they do scrub up well.
Continue reading “An Outstanding Friday”
I always saw ‘winter sun’ holidays as being something involving the Canary Islands or such like. But with the winter we’ve had, I came to realise that even plonking your weary winter body 6000 feet up in the snowy mountains provided more than enough vitamin D to cheer up the winter blues. Our holiday certainly did the trick of topping up the cheer.
Continue reading “Ski holiday in Champagny en Vanoise Feb 2020”
I turned a corner last year in the 3 Peaks cyclocross. Getting my hand smashed in by a car door less than a couple of weeks prior to the 2018 race forced me to make peace with the race, and get round it at a much more manageable pace. It was the first time that I allowed people to ride past me and just allowed myself to absorb the race and the atmosphere that bit more that I had done in the previous 19 editions I’d finished.
Continue reading “2019 3 Peaks cyclocross – coming of age”