Bike Check – Rebuilt Orange Four

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After what feels like the world’s slowest rebuild, I am finally back on an Orange Four mountain bike. Except that it is not my old one, well mostly not…

My last ride on the Four was on the 31st of December 2021 – a session at the pumptrack, it was feeling tired and in need of a full rebuild. The next day I swapped the wheels and brake pads onto my other bike and left the Four hanging in the garage for a few months. In what was to become the norm for this project, work was in fits and starts, the first bit of progress being after I struggled riding my hardtail at Woburn. At the time I thought that my difficulties were due to all of the roots across the trail and riding a hardtail, but I did also test positive for Covid the following week. At least it gave me some motivation, and the enforced time at home gave me the opportunity to strip the bike down. After the tedious job of removing the stickers, I could send the frame to the Orange factory for a repaint, and the suspension to Fox UK for a full service. The suspension came back quickly, but I had not heard anything from Orange. Until a large box unexpectedly arrived at the door, but it did not have my frame in, it was an updated warranty replacement, still painted the new colour I had asked for! I still do not know what was wrong with my old frame, but the new one looked great in the lighter “Norlando” grey colour.

The worst part of the build was fitting the headset cups, as the tool I have does not seem to play well with Hope headsets, which is all I use on my mountain bikes. Hitting setbacks like these seemed to put me off spending time in the garage and are probably the reason that the build took so long. As the wheels from what I am now calling my old Four, had been fitted to my hardtail I needed to build up some new wheels. I had one decent Hope rear hub from the hardtail, after an expensive trip to my local bike shop, Albany Cycles, I hard the remaining components to make my perfect wheelset for trail riding – Hope hubs, DT Swiss XM481 (30mm internal) rims and back DT Swiss spokes/nipples. The bike shop recommended using the Squorx nipples, which needed a special tool, but it made the build a lot easier. Unfortunately, the rear wheel of the hardtail (which was the wheel originally fitted to my old Four) died last autumn, and could not be repaired, so it seemed logical to pinch the new rear wheel that I had built up for the Four, and fit that to the hardtail to keep me riding. Meaning another expensive trip to Albany Cycles for the parts to build another wheel.

This took us into 2023, and realising I had been without my bike for a whole year motivated me to spend more time in the garage, and the bike slowly started to come together, until there were two main jobs left, both of which I had been dreading: servicing the dropper post and fitting the rear brake, which now had to be routed through the frame. As I stripped down the dropper post, I began to remember just how bad it had been the last few times I rode the bike, it needed a full service, including an oil cartridge – the parts for this came to over £100. The dropper post I had fitted on my hardtail had not even cost that. However, remembering that the dropper post on the hardtail was not great, I did the sensible thing and bought a One Up dropper post, more expensive but with better performance than either of my existing dropper posts. As the One Up post did not come with a remote lever, I also ordered a Wolf Tooth remote – I have one on the hardtail and it works well, spares are readily available and it can be mounted to brake levers directly, rather than adding another clamp on the handlebars. I did manage to resist the version with the purple anodised lever – it worked out as twice the price of the standard black version I bought. On the subject of purple bling, purple tubeless valves and a black/purple version of my go-to saddle (SDG Bel Air 3) also found their way onto the parts pile, along with the purple parts removed from the old Four. I also have some fresh DMR Deathgrips to fit, also in purple.

The dropper post and remote proved easy to fit, which gave me some hope for the rear brake. I decided to buy a new hose, as although the new frame was the same size as the old one, the hose routing was slightly longer, and this was one job I did not want to do twice! Routing the hose was not too tricky, but getting the rubber grommets to fit was an absolute nightmare, which I am dreading having to do again. I made a last-minute decision to fit the same brake pads as on the hardtail, which were originally on the Four, Shimano finned sintered pads, as I was fitting new brake discs – when it came to bedding in the brakes I was glad of this decision, as have bedded in nicely. Every mountain biker seems to swear by a particular brake pad, I have tried a few over the years, but keep coming back to Shimano pads for Shimano brakes.

The final step was fitting the tyres and setting them up tubeless. I made the decision early on in the build process that I would use the Maxxis Minion DHR/DHF tyre combination. For years it was almost the defacto choice for mountain bikers without a tyre sponsor (and occasionally even riders sponsored by their competitions rode DHF/DHR tyres with the Maxxis logos Sharpie’d out), Continental and Michelin seem to have caught up with Maxxis, but their tyres are only available in a 2.4″ width, which I fear may be a bit too wide for the rear end on the Four, so I have stuck with 2.3″ Maxxis tyres. The front, DHF, tyre is the only part of the build that I am unhappy with – it has a wobble. I noticed on the first ride, just up and down the road to bed in the brakes, and worried that I had messed up the wheel build somehow. Putting the wheel back on the wheel-building stand vindicated my skills, the rim was perfectly true, it was just the tyre that was deformed. Online research has indicated that this is a fairly common issue with some models of Maxxis tyres.

Spec

Parts in italics are carried over from my old Four:

  • Frame: 2019 Orange Four, size medium.
  • Fork: Fox 34 130mm travel
  • Shock: Fox DPS
  • Wheels: Custom build, DT Swiss XM481 laced onto Hope Pro4 hubs. DT Swiss spokes, nipples and washers and Muc-Off valves.
  • Tyres: Maxxis Minion DHF/DHRII set up tubeless.
  • Brakes: Shimano XT M785 levers and calipers. Shimano RT-76 180mm discs. Shimano J04C pads.
  • Drivetrain: Shimano M785 11 speed mech and shifter. Sunrace 11-46T cassette. Blackspire 32T chainring. KMC chain. Shimano XT BB-800 bottom bracket. Race Face Aeffect cranks. Crank Brothers Stamp 7 pedals.
  • Cockpit: Renthal Fatbar Lite. DMR Deathgrips. BrandX 50mm stem (temporarily to confirm size). Wolftooth ReMote dropper post remote. One Up v2.1 150mm dropper post. Ride Works seat clamp (made in Coventry!). SDG Bel Air 3 saddle.

The First Ride

After all of that work, what was it like to ride? Bloody awesome!!! The suspension is not quite fully set up to my liking, but on my first proper ride, at the Forest of Dean, it felt super fast, to the point I was carrying too much speed into some corners, after being used to a bumpy ride on the hardtail for the last sixteen months. Fortunately, the new brakes and grippy tyres allowed me to reign in the speed and make the corner safely. I hit a variety of trails – starting on the blue-graded Verderers Trail, then switching to the new red-graded Adit Trail, which is more natural (read as muddy) with a fun final descent. Then after a short stop for lunch, some suspension tweaks and swapping to my full-face helmet, I hit the downhill trails. After the long ride/push up the hill I hit the Countdown and Launchpad trails – both fast, flowy and seriously fun trails. I was really tempted to hit them again, but on the push back to the top, I decided that as fun as they would be, I would get more benefit from riding the last sections of the Verderers Trail, which are not quite as fast, but still flowy and fun. I felt like a bit of a wally riding down the blue-graded trail with a full-face helmet and goggles, but re-riding some of the sections from the morning let me confirm my updated suspension settings. And it was good to ride the longer, slightly rougher, Verderers Final descent to get experience with the bike on a different trail. As you can see from the muddy image below, the Four has been suitably christened!

The ride was split into three Strava sections, as my Apple Watch was running low on battery, so I had to switch to recording on my phone, then a third for the downhill session after lunch.

War Memorial Park Sunrise Photo Walk

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I am not a morning person, or should I say, I am not a getting-out-of-bed person. On the rare occasion, I do get up early, I love it. And today was one of those days. The Coventry Photography Meetup group had arranged a sunrise photo walk in the War Memorial Park – starting at 6:00, and as the forecast was due to be nice first thing, I set my alarm clock and joined them. Unfortunately, the weather forecast lied – it was a grey morning, but not quite misty enough to be atmospheric.

The first frame I took was of these daffodils in front of the war memorial, the flowers added a well-needed splash of colour. Moving down towards the skatepark, I switched to my 55-200mm lens, as there are usually plenty of squirrels there. I got a few photos of them, but 200mm is not really long enough for wildlife photography – I feel like it is a good jack-of-all-trades lens, but not really great at anything.

However, when the sun eventually popped out from behind the clouds, my eyes were drawn to the backlit tree at the edge of the park, and the 55-200 was definitely the right lens for the job. To make the image I knew I would just have to wait for someone to walk (or ideally ride their bike!) along the path into the frame. Even better was a jogger, his visible breath showing how cold it was, adding to the story. I knew straight away that this would be my favourite shot of the day (and is the shot at the top of this post). A few minutes later a cyclist rode past but the light had already gone.

Easter Holiday Ride at Cannock Chase

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Today I took the day off work as the boys are on their school Easter holidays – my plan was to ride with Owen, but we had not decided where, until my friend Sam mentioned that he also had the day off and would be riding at Cannock with his son. The boys got along well when they rode together at 417 Bikepark last year, so a plan was formed. Then it rained, so a new plan was made and the ride rescheduled for the afternoon – which meant Owen and I got to spend the morning together building a “Super Mario” game in JavaScript, which was really fun.

When we got to Cannock Chase, the weather was cold but sunny, and thankfully, not raining. I still opted to wear a waterproof jacket though. It has been a while since Owen last rode his bike, I think it was our trip to Llandegla, and his kit is starting to look small on him (again). We rode the first five sections of the blue-graded Perry’s Trail, which Owen has ridden loads and enjoys, before diverting away from the blue-graded trail and riding up the fire road to pick up the red-graded Follow the Dog trail, which Owen had not yet ridden. In fact, he was yet to ride any red-graded trails.

Owen was cautious through the first section, the newly resurfaced “Bombhole”, walking down the first rockgarden, but I would rather he be cautious, rather than sending it off everything. However, after that he started to find his groove and began to enjoy the trail. After a short stop at the Marquis Drive playground where it seemed that small boys have a separate energy store for running around a playground after declaring they are too tired to pedal, we crossed the road to Takeroo and the boys enjoyed messing around in the bomb hole section, seeing to could make the biggest splash through puddles. I had been expecting the “Son of Chainslapper” section to be closed, as it is next on the list for the Forestry England contractors to work on – but it was still open, and Owen flew down it! The Takeroo side of the road seemed much wetter than the main side, with some particularly big puddles – especially for Owen on his 20″ wheeled Orbea. “Snow White”, “The Seven Dwarves” and “Let Loose” are some of the most technical trails that Owen has ever ridden, especially in the wet, but he made some good line choices and gathered things up on the few occasions when he unexpectedly pinged off a rock etc. As we rode through the last few sections of the trail: “Are we nearly there yet?” and “Snakes and Adders”, which are smoother and more in his comfort zone he seemed to be particularly enjoying himself and keeping a good pace.

At the end of “Snakes and Adders”, I asked if wanted to repeat the last section, and was surprised when he declined – but only because he wanted to do a full lap of Perry’s Trail, then hit the skills area instead. I have no idea where he gets the energy from! I was not going to deny him the opportunity to ride another lap, especially as it had turned into a lovely sunny evening, so we set off for another lap of Perry’s Trail. Owen was definitely in his element back on familiar trails. I am sure it was our fastest lap together – although my Apple Watch had run out of battery so I do not have an accurate time for the full loop (and why I have embedded two Strava files below). Owen managed to stay awake for the drive back to Coventry, but I could tell he was tired – he was not chattering away like he usually does, but it was a good tired as it had been a great day together!

Henry’s February Half-Term Holiday 2023

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At the end each term, Henry’s nursery set him (us) homework, to share a few photographs of what he has been up to over the holiday. Owen also had this homework when he was at nursery, but I did not think to share the photos on my blog. As it is a nice recap, I have decided to share them.

This picture is from our family ride at Hicks Lodge – Henry did so well riding the blue trail.

Photo: Bob Craik

The boys stayed with my mum and dad in the Cotswolds, and took a trip to Cogges historic farm.

On the way back (sort of!) from collecting the boys from my parents house we called in at 417 Bike Park for Henry’s first visit to “the barn of dreams”.

Photo: Jennifer Craik

Whilst I was photographing the Cannock Chase Winter Classic mountain bike race, Jen and the boys rode their bikes up to the playground at the local park.

Llandegla with Owen

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Owen and I were meant to go for a long ride at Sherwood Pines today, as Owen’s goal for 2023 was to better his previous longest ride (16km). We had decided that Sherwood Pines would be the sweet spot of fun, but without too many hills. However, plans changed, and I needed to collect a Facebook Marketplace purchase from near Stafford, which is in the opposite direction for us, we could have gone to Cannock Chase, but fancied somewhere new for Owen, so we decided to continue northwest to Llandegla. After a long drive we arrived at Llandegla around lunch time, so had a quick ride around the skills area, green trail and pump track before getting lunch at their excellent cafe – bacon sandwich for Owen and a burger for me.

Photo: Owen Craik

The real fun started after lunch – we headed back up the climb past the skills area, and where we had turned off for the green trail. As Llandegla starts with a long climb, we took it easy with plenty of stops, to admire the view and take photos, such as the one above that Owen took on my iPhone. A highlight was when we were able to watch a forester machine chopping down trees and cutting the logs to size – the impressiveness of the machine was only surpassed by the obvious skill of the operator, stacking the logs by size as they went. Each giant tree took no more than a couple of minutes to cut, process and stack. What really struck me on the climb was how different everything looked from my last visit in 2019, it is a working forest, so some areas of trees had been felled, and in others, the trees had grown loads, it gave the ride a completely different feel.

At the top of the climb (519 metres above sea level, having started at around 350 metres above sea level) we treated ourselves to Creme Eggs – we had earned them! However they were quite hard to eat, as although it was sunny, it was a cold day and they had gone hard in my bag. Then we dropped in to the “Rollercoaster” traverse, which is shared with the main red-graded trail, before turning off down “True Blue”, what was already one of my favourite bits of trail anywhere was further improved by being lined with “Christmas trees”, Owen said it felt like we were in a video! It is safe to say that he also enjoyed this section of trail!

I felt a bit guilty after the next few sections of trail, as I had forgotten that there were more climbs, after the long initial climb – I always get caught out by this when visiting Llandegla, but Owen coped really well. As we made our way back to the van it felt like we were climbing more than descending, but as we were drinking our hot chocolates at the cafe after our ride, Owen told me that it was one of his favourite days on the bike ever! I was so proud of how he had ridden, not only on the climbs, but also on the fairly rocky downhill sections, which could not have been east on 20” wheels. As a bonus, it was also his first 18km ride, even though we had not set out for him to do his longest ride, and despite the climbing, he smashed his 2023 cycling goal!

Henry’s First Trip to 417 Bike Park

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417 Bike Park in Gloucestershire is one of the best places to ride with kids – Owen especially loves their indoor pump track (aka “The Barn of Dreams”), even after smashing his chin there a few years ago. However, Henry had never ridden there, even on his balance bike, so as we had a free afternoon in the Cotswolds, I decided to remedy that.

Henry was nervous at first – it was his first pump track experience on his pedal bike, but after an initial tantrum, and a few laps with me running behind him he started to get the hang of it, eventually completing full laps without putting his feet down. He particularly loved chasing me or Owen around the track. He wanted me on my bike, not taking photos, so I only had a brief opportunity to grab a few shots. Henry was also keen to ride some of the outdoor trails, but we will have to return another day for that…

Owen joined us too – he loves the barn! He just got on with riding laps, and other than one small tumble after carrying too much speed into a berm he had a great time! I also took the opportunity to look at some of the 24″ kids bikes being ridden, but I think that Owen still has a bit more growing to do before his trusty Orbea MX20 needs to be upgraded.

Family Ride at Hicks Lodge

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Henry has been riding his pedal bike for a few months now, but in the last week, his confidence has really grown, especially after he had “wheelie day” at nursery on Thursday. He was a bit reluctant to take his pedal bike, and I am glad he did because, after a full day of riding it at nursery, he kept asking to ride it. Building on this enthusiasm, I decided it was time for another family bike ride to Hicks Lodge.

Hicks Lodge, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire is perfect for new mountain bikers, the trail is relatively short, and mostly flat, but has lots of features like berms and rollers to keep the enjoyment factor high. For the littlest riders, it is possible to ride the last two sections of the trail without committing to the entire loop. This was where Owen got his first taste of mountain biking.

The plan was that Owen would ride a lap with Jen, whilst Henry and I did laps of the last section of trail, then we would swap and I would ride a lap with Owen. However, even just riding out of the car park it was clear to me that Henry had made some serious progress. So we joined Jen and Owen for the ride to the trailhead – with Henry confidently leading the way! After leaving the others to ride the full blue-graded loop, Henry and I joined the last two sections of the trail – Henry loved it and coped so well with the rollers and berms. At the end of the trail Henry did not stop riding, he wanted to do it again! We had a stop for a biscuit and a selfie, but only briefly, as Henry wanted to get back on the trail.

On the second lap, Henry was even more confident, although I could tell he was getting tired. He took some convincing to stop and let me take a photo, but I am really pleased with the photo at the top of the post. After the photo Henry carried on, whilst I packed the camera away, I could still see him through the trees, but thought it was good that he was confident enough to ride off. I had to sprint to catch up, but found him waiting for me, because he needed a wee. As Henry was relieving himself by the side of the trail, Owen and Jen whizzed past and I managed to grab my iPhone in time to get photos of them. Henry was most put out that they had not stopped for him, and pedalled his little legs off to catch them up!

The plan had been for me to do a full lap of the blue trail with Owen, but he did not fancy it, so Jen rode back to the van/playground with the boys, whilst I did a solo lap. It has been a while since I rode at Hicks Lodge on my own, so I enjoyed blasting around the trails, setting a lot of Strava PRs in the process, including for the full lap!

Even though we barely rode together, it was a good family trip out, and I think that Henry’s riding has come on enough that maybe next time we will all be able to ride the full lap together!

Cannock Chase with Partho

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One of my goals for 2023 is to get out for more bike rides with Partho – we are aiming for at least one a month. Yesterday we got out for another ride at Cannock Chase, and it could not have been any different to the wet and muddy ride we did there last month. The sun was out and the trails were unseasonably dry – we had a great time!

Rather than pushing ourselves to do the full Monkey Trail red-graded loop, we cherry-picked some of our favourite sections and hit them a few times – including Lower Cliff. On our second run down we both got caught by a faster rider, so when I pulled over to let him pass I grabbed my phone from my pocket and captured this photo of Partho on the way down – his smile sums up what a fun ride we had!

Top Five from 2022

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As is now customary, the PistonHeads.com Photography Forum had a thread to share your top five photos from the previous year, in this case, 2022. As I had selected my five photos I also decided to share them on my blog, as I have done in previous years.

I borrowed a Fuji X100V over the Easter weekend, and this was my favourite photo of the weekend, and also my favourite photo of Henry from 2022 – and there were a lot of choose from! I feel like it captures his personality well – he always wants to be dressing up, in this case Jen’s sunglasses from when she was a little girl.

After trying out the X100V, it did not take me long to buy one – the main reason being that I can easily fiti it into my regular hydration pack to bring along on bike rides. It came along with Owen and I when we hit two trail centres on the hottest day of the year. I love the colours on this photo, applying the Fuji “Classic Neg” profile to the raw file faded the background greens and blues out and made the orange on Owen’s jersey pop. The photo also reminds me of a great day out with Owen, and has probably been my most shared photo of the year.

Another great day out was when I photographed the British Downhill Series mountain bike race in Wales. This photo of Ethan Craik (no relation) was my faviourite of the day, as he was on a different line to everyone else (riders right, down the grass). Unfortunately he had a crash further down the track, which was a shame, as he was on course to set a good time. I was pleased to see him placed seventh is the Canadian MTB World Cup round later in the year.

We had a good trip to Staithes in North Yorkshire, staying in our friend’s holiday house – I really need to finish my blog post about it! This is the quintesential Staithes photo, taken from the viewpoint on Cowbar headland. I had taken the same photo earlier in the week, on my X100V, but I felt like the light was better on this one, which was taken on my Fuji X-T2.

Another from the Easter weekend, with the X100V, but everyone loves a sausage dog. This was particularly evident as Partho, Otto and I walked around Birmingham, we had to stop every few minutes as someone wanted to fuss over Otto. This was another photo that brings back memories of a good day. And if you thought Otto is cute – later in the year he got a little brother, Leo. The boys love Partho’s dogs and we spent a lot of time with them in 2022.

2023

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Happy New Year!

2023 did not get off to a good start for me – being woken up by Henry before 8:00, then getting punched in the eye for not being his favourite parent – it was Jen’s turn to have a lie-in, which Henry did not appreciate. After that Hen went back to bed in a sulk to wait for Jen to get up.

Once again, Jen and I saw it the new year at home, but this year Owen managed to stay up for midnight with us! Owen and I have been working our way through the Star Wars movies, so watched Return of the Jedi – I was impressed at how he was able to stay awake and pay attention to such a long film. The film got us most of the way to midnight, and although Owen wanted to go to bed just before the clock struck twelve, we managed to keep him up to see in the new year and watch the fireworks on TV.

After the initial commotion, we had a quiet morning at home, even managing to get a few jobs done around the house and garden. After lunch we drove to Leamington Spa, to meet my parents. We parked at Newbold Comyn, and walked into town, via Jephson Gardens. Then my dad treated us to ice creams. After walking back to Newbold Comyn, the boys had a roll around the skatepark. Owen said that he had had a “lovely walk and a lovely ice cream”, which pretty much summed up our afternoon. We also had a quick peek at the new mountain bike trails under construction. The trails looked good and are one of the things I am most excited about this year – great trails within a thirty minute drive means that Owen and I will have a new regular riding spot.

We have not got much planned for the year – we had been thinking about a road trip to France, but with the new Entry/Exit System for the EU looking like it will cause chaos at the channel crossing, so we will wait and see how that pans out. We have got a few shorter trips pencilled in – Lego Land, a VW Show in Weston-super-Mare and hopefully a visit to my brother’s house in Kent. But before all that, we have a new sofa arriving next week! Something that I am not looking forward to quite so much is turning 40 in December!

As in previous years, I have set myself some goals for the year ahead:

Pass the AWS Certified Developer Associate exam

A recycled goal from 2022 – as although I did a lot of studying I did not take the exam. I need to pass the exam in the next few months, as my AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certification from 2020 will lapse. And I promised myself a Fuji X100V when I passed – I have already bought it…

Rebuild my Orange Four

Another recycled goal from 2022, although I do not know if it is still a rebuild, given that the frame was replaced under warranty, so I am technically building up a new bike. Fortunately, I am most of the way there! I am waiting for my Four to be built up to ride the new red-graded trail at the Forest of Dean.

Once the Four is back on the trails, the Clockwork Evo is probably due a thorough service, after hard year in 2022.

Refresh my photography portfolio website

I have been using a Bootswatch theme on my homepage, which still needs a backend refresh, and I would like to carry that theme over to my photography portfolio website, which is hosted on Adobe Portfolio to tie them together. I could also do with updating the images, to include some more recent ones.

Photograph more bike races

Photographing the British Downhill Series mountain bike race was one of my highlights of 2022, and I would like to do some more this year.

Take a wildlife photo I am happy with

This was a failed goal in 2021, and one that has been in the back of mind since. My plan is to borrow a long lens from Fuji and spend the day at a nature reserve.

Complete at least three 50km bike rides

Rather than setting myself a year long cycling goal, I have decided to switch things up and target some longer rides. My longest ride to date is 48km, so 50km is achievable, but multiple rides should make it more of a challenge. I have got a few ideas for routes and hopefully my friend Partho will accompany me for some of the rides.

Ride 20km with Owen

This is more Owen’s goal, as he wants to beat his longest ride to date, which stands at 16km. I have no doubt that Owen will be able to beat this – I just need to find the right route. He rode 15km, on some of the toughest trails he has ever ridden at Coed y Brenin last year, but I do not want to make it too hard (hilly) or boring (riding along a straight/flat disused railway) for him. So I am thinking a return visit to Sherwood Pines may be in order – Owen has ridden the 14km blue-graded “Adventure Trail” there, so I am sure we could add in some loops of their red-graded trail to bring it up to 20km easily.

Ride at Bike Park Wales with Owen

Bike Park Wales is the biggest bike park in the UK, but well set up for kids. Owen and I have watched a few videos from there, and the trails look fun. Annoyingly we have missed the last few Little Rippers MTB group rides there. After our North Wales trip last year, I thought that a South Wales trip, with a possibly making a weekend of it with a return visit to Dare Valley Country Park to ride the main trails, as it looked like a good set up when we called in on the way to Bluestone in 2021.

Ride at Bwlch Nant yr Arian

Bwlch Nant yr Arian in Mid Wales has some great looking trails, and is also known for their daily Red Kite feeding – which is enough of an excuse for me to go for a ride. And may help with my wildlife photography goal. It also seems like somewhere that might be worth visiting with Jen and the boys as part of a Mid Wales trip.

Ride some more of the “10 of the best XC trails in the UK” with Partho

My best friend Partho shared an article with me called “10 of the best XC trails in the UK“. I have ridden a couple of the trails, and parts of a few more, but we have decided to try to ride a few more together.

Tidy my office

I spend most days working in my office, and other than what can be seen by my webcam, it is a complete tip. I still have my old iMac set up on my desk – it did not even get switched on last year, so I need to clear it down and get rid of it. I also need to move the artwork I hung on the dining room wall when I had my desk there a few years ago. As an incentive, I am going to treat myself to a mechanical keyboard when it is done, as I have been using the same keyboard at home since 2008.

Tidy my garage

As above, my garage is also a bit of a mess, with bike parts all over the place and not enough room to work on my MR2 Roadster.

MR2 jobs

This year marks ten years since I bought my MR2 Roadster, for the most part it has been cheap motoring, and very reliable, but I have neglected those little jobs that will prolong it’s life, things like cleaning the drain holes. The wheels could also do with a thorough clean and a good coat of wax. However, I’ll need to get the garage tidied first… There are also a few blemishes on the paintwork that I would like to get addressed.

Van upgrades

It is hard to believe that I bought my van three years ago – my plan had been to run it for a year to see how I got on with it, then make the interior a bit nicer, with carpet and insulation etc. The van has proved itself, and fits into our family life perfectly, so the interior upgrades are well overdue. It could also do with new tyres, possibly on bigger wheels, and I would also like to fit an awning rail to the side, so we can have some shelter when we park up. Family days out in the van are something that we want to do more of as a family.

Monthly blog posts

I feel like I have not been blogging as much as I would like the last few years, so in 2023 I plan to post at least once a month. Even if they end up being shorter posts, just sharing a photo and a few words.

Flagged emails

I currently have 536 flagged emails in my inbox, spanning the last ten years. At somepoint I have thought that there is something I need to do as a result of these emails, but either have not done, or at least have not subsequently unflagged the email. I am going to try to get this down to a list of tasks I genuinely need to do. I will attack it from both the top of the list, and the ten year old tasks at the bottom of the list, which I hope were not too urgent…

Get my weight down to 85kg

I have had this as a goal for many years, but never seem to make much progress on it, despite feeling like I am making more sensible choices when it comes to food. I am going to try to get a decent midweek bike ride in every week this year – working from home gives me the flexibility to take a long lunchbreak, so I am going to try to use that for bike rides, to hopefully help towards this goal.

Based on all these goals, it looks like 2023 is going to be a busy year for me, which should hopefully give me plenty to post about on here! Given my poor success rate last year, I have set up a document to keep track of them.