Pistonheads Sunday Service at Prodrive

Posted on 19th February 2017 by Lewis

Prodrive are a company that I’ve admired for years – they ran the Subaru Impreza rally cars that Colin McRae drove in the ’90s. So I was excited to hear that Pistonheads were holding their first Sunday Service event of 2017 at Prodrive’s new HQ in Banbury.

Before I could go I had the small matter of finishing my winter jobs on the MR2; in summer it makes sense to put off these jobs until the winter, when the car isn’t being driven, but the reality of lying on a cold concrete floor is less appealing at the time! With all the jobs, and a brief shakedown completed yesterday – I was ready to join up with some friends early this morning for the drive down to Banbury. Via the country roads of course.

At Prodrive I met up with my Dad for a look around the factory – I was surprised to learn that they do some much more than building race and rally cars. What initially started as something to keep their motorsport engineers busy during the off season has evolved to 60% of their business! Motorsport is what I am interested in though, so seeing numerous Aston Martin GT cars in various states of build was a highlight. The workshop looked so much more appealing to work in than my garage too.

Their heritage collection brought back memories from my childhood, alongside a few Impreza WRC cars there were Honda Accord and Ford Mondeo BTCC cars and a Metro 6R4. My favourite however was the ’80s 911 Safari Rally car in Rothmans livery,

Being a Pistonheads event the car park also had some interesting cars, alongside the usual selection of Porsches, BMWs and Loti there was a lovely little Connaught sports car but it was another Porsche that I’d have loved to take home – a 356 Speedster. It was parked between a Cayman GT4 and a 911 GT3 RS, but they barely got a glance, to me the little Speedster is the coolest car ever.

Top five from 2016

Posted on 3rd January 2017 by Lewis

I have just posted my contribution to the “Your Top 5 From 2016” thread on PistonHeads.com photography forum. as with my top 5 from 2012 I thought it would make a good blog post.

Owen in Weymouth – this was taken, and processed on my iPhone and is the background on my phone.

Owen at home – Owen doesn’t always have his tongue out I promise! Part of the triptych I posted last week.

MR2 Sunday Drive – This photo just makes me want to get out and drive my MR2!

Rudbeckia – I only rediscovered this image whilst looking through Lightroom for my top 5 pictures. It was taken at Charlecote Park, when Jen and I hired a classic FIAT 500 for our first wedding anniversary.

Ryton Reflections – I blogged about this image last week, I really loved the winter light.

2017

Posted on 1st January 2017 by Lewis

Happy new year! 2017 is another year with lots for me to look forward to. I am most excited about taking April and May off work to spend time with Owen – thanks to the newish shared parental leave policy in the UK. Owen should be big enough to go in a forward facing child seat, meaning he can join me in the MR2. I also plan to get a trailer or child seat for my bike, so Owen will be able to get an introduction to cycling too. Even if Owen/reality don’t share my sportscar/cycling vision for our 9 weeks together, I’m sure it will be great father/son bonding time.

We already have a couple of trips away planned for 2017 – our usual trip to Croyde, which will be our first as a little family. Jen and I are looking forward to introducing Owen to our favourite places in North Devon. Then in October, we are going to Cyprus – which will be Owen’s first trip on an aeroplane!

The reason for our trip to Cyprus is that my best friend Partho is getting married and his fiancé is from Limassol. I will be best man at the wedding and will have my work cut out as Partho did such a good job of being my best man. Another good friend, Rich, is getting married in April, so that will be Owen’s first wedding. Two weddings also means two stag dos – I am especially looking forward to Partho’s, which I am organising.

Work is going to restart on the 119 Project, the plan is to restyle the garden and tidy up the back of the house. Hopefully this will get done whilst I am off work in the spring. I might even get phase 2 of my garage project finished…

Another task I have for 2017 is to redesign my website. I have already made a start on this and you will hopefully see some changes in the next few weeks.

This year I have got a few goals/resolutions, making them public should make them easier to meet:

Get my weight under 90kg – and keep it there. Jen bought me some brilliant Withings connected scales for my birthday, so this will be easy to track. This morning I weighed 90.8kg (down from 91.6kg a few weeks ago), so I haven’t got too far to go, keeping my weight down will be the harder bit.
Do a trackday at a new track in the MR2.
Ride my bike at a new trail centre.
Ride the full Follow The Dog and Monkey Trail loops at Cannock Chase in one ride.
Get out on my bike with my camera.
Make yoga a part of my weekly routine.

After seeing my 2016 cycling data infographic I’d like to clock 100 active days and get at least 1x Everest of climbing, after I missed by 5% last year – I can’t believe that some people can do as much climbing in one ride as I do in a whole year. To help with my cycling goals I am going to buy a new bike, as I’m still on the cheap bike I bought to see if I would regularly use a mountain bike – over 3,500km later I think it is safe to say it has had a lot of use.

Like the start of 2016, the weather has been rubbish today – we haven’t even left the house. We have managed to have a productive day, tidying and childproofing our front room. As Owen is going to be crawling any day soon I’ve had to pack away my surround sound system, which has speakers on little stands – perfect for little hands to pull over. I have replaced it with a Goodmans Soundbase, which sounds great considering the £75 price tag. I did manage to find time to take a silly selfie with Owen.

World Prematurity Day

Posted on 17th November 2016 by Lewis

Owen As today is about raising awareness of premature birth, I thought I’d post an update on how Owen is doing. He was born 6 weeks early, and as you can see from the photo, he was quite skinny. I’m pleased to say that over the last 5 months he has been drinking a lot of milk and is putting on weight. We dug out my old baby book, and at 5 months Owen is already heavier than I was at his age – not bad considering he had a lot of catching up to do!

Owen has also been learning lots of new tricks: he got smiling nailed a while back and has been doing a lot of practice! His latest skill is rolling over, he can roll over on to his front and is having a go at crawling, but isn’t quite there yet. He can also sit up in his highchair and joined us at the table for a family meal for the first time yesterday.

All of this wouldn’t have been possible without the great work of the doctors and nurses who looked after Owen at UCHW. Being born at 34 weeks, he was one of the bigger babies in the special care baby unit, but he still looked tiny compared to full term babies, especially as he was struggling to put on weight. It was hard having to go home each evening, leaving Owen at the hospital, but he was being cared for by the best people. We even managed to pick up some tips from the nursery nurses, which I’m sure helped us when we eventually got Owen home.

Baby Owen

Posted on 26th June 2016 by Lewis

Baby Owen in his blue hat

Owen Robert Craik was born at 23:27 on the 6th June 2016, he wasn’t due until the 12th July, so he was a bit small (2.59kg). He spent a few weeks under the excellent care of the neonatal team at University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire, with lots of visits from Mummy, Daddy and his grandparents.

He’s now at home, being cheeky and causing mischief at every opportunity – I think he will feature a lot on this blog in the future.

Leisure Lakes Demo Day 2016

Posted on 21st March 2016 by Lewis

As I had such a good time at the Leisure Lakes Demo Day last year, I made sure that I would be attending this year too! When I got there I went straight to the Orange stand, hoping to try a Four – seemingly along with everyone else! When I got the front of the queue all they had in my size was a Crush, keen to get out I took it for a spin. I enjoyed the bike and seemed to get a lot of PRs on Strava, although looking at the trace when I got home it seemed a bit fishy, skipping a few sections out. Dropping the Crush back I clocked a nice looking P7, which I didn’t realise Orange had brought back.

The next bike I wanted to try was a fat bike, I’d noticed Cube had some, but the person in front of me took the last one out. Gutted. I settled for a Stereo 140 Race, which is a potential next bike. The spec was good, full XT 2 x11 and a dropper post – my next bike will have one of those! This being only the second time I’ve ridden a full suss bike, it was a lot smoother than the hardtails, especially on braking bumps. There was one section, into and out of a dip where the Cube was the only bike I didn’t lose traction on and made it up the other side. The bad point was all the pedal strikes, I was on slightly chunky DMR V8 pedals, but the pedals were striking way too often. I didn’t notice strikes with the other bikes.

I headed back to Orange to try my luck getting a Four, but settled on the P7 I’d spied earlier. Not having ridden a steel framed bike before, it was interesting to test one with almost the same geometry as the Crush I’d ridden earlier. The spec on the P7 was better though, SRAM 1×11 with Pikes and a dropper post. The SRAM shifter took some getting used to, but not enough that I’d rule out a bike because it had SRAM. The P7 felt more fun than the Crush and even had me thinking that an expensive hardtail would be a better bet than a cheap full suss for my next bike. It was also the only bike I took a picture of.

The event seemed better organised than last year, especially signing on. The route was better too, with less fire road, although the long rooty section was particularly energy sapping. I’m not any clearer on what my next bike should be an I didn’t intend on writing that much, but it was a fun day out.

Honeymoon Roadtrip Day 7: Driving to Las Vegas

Posted on 28th September 2015 by Lewis

This was another long day on the road, from Santa Monica, by the Pacific Ocean to Las Vegas in the Nevada desert. After a light breakfast I drove the first stint through Los Angeles and onto the i15. Leaving Los Angeles on Sunday morning worked well, the traffic on the freeway was flowing nicely and we reached our lunch stop near Barstow in about two and a half hours.

Barstow seemed like one of these forgotten desert towns, but I’d heard that Peggy Sue’s 50’s Diner was the best place to stop and it certainly lived up to its reputation. The food was good and it has also turned itself into a tourist attraction in its own right with a diner-saur park and gift shop.

After lunch Jen took over driving duties and got us across the state line to Nevada, where I resumed driving and took us on a detour to see Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam – which meant we also crossed into Arizona, so 3 states in one day!

Driving back from the dam towards Las Vegas we got more and more excited as each of the landmarks became visible on the horizon, but it was only when we turned onto the strip that we got the full effect and realised just how crazy this city is. We checked into our hotel – Paris – and decided to upgrade to a suite, it was expensive but the views over the Eiffel Tower and Bellagio fountains were worth it. I’m slightly concerned that Jen is getting a taste for hotel suites though!

One thing we learned early on is that you need to make a reservation for the popular dinner spots. We ended up doing an impromptu tour of the strip looking for somewhere to have dinner, eventually ending up at Gallagher’s in the New York New York casino. It was worth the walk – we both had huge steaks which were delicious.

Honeymoon Roadtrip Day 5: Los Angeles

Posted on 26th September 2015 by Lewis

Our last morning in Santa Barbara started with a light breakfast and a walk along the harbour. The reason for the light breakfast was that we had planned to call at In-n-Out burger for lunch. We’d chosen the In-n-Out burger on Sunset Boulevard, but also a diversion along Mulholland Drive. After a few wrong turns we eventually got the right road, which was suitably twisty with great views from between the mansions and our first glimpse of the famous Hollywood sign.

After our Double Double burgers, which were good, but I thought didn’t quite live up to the hype, we drove via Hollywood Boulevard to the Griffith Observatory for more views over Los Angeles, including the Hollywood sign. From this vantage point you can really see just how big the city is – we couldn’t even see the ocean, yet the city stretched out all around us.

By this point it was mid afternoon, and wary of the notorious Los Angeles traffic we set off for Santa Monica and the Georgian Hotel on the sea front. En-route we passed or drove on famous streets such as Santa Monica Boulevard, Wilshire and Rodeo Drive. Upon checking in we were told that our room had been upgraded to a suite after I’d tweeted the hotel letting them know it is our honeymoon – I will have to try that at other hotels!

We spent the evening hanging out around the hotel, Santa Monica pier is only a couple of blocks away and felt more like the piers I’m used to from the UK with arcades and amusements. We went on the big wheel for a view down the coast to Venice Beach and beyond.

We watched the sunset from the veranda at the hotel, drinking cocktails- a great way to end the day.

MR2 Roadtrip Day 6: To Scarborough

Posted on 19th April 2015 by Lewis

Before we loaded up the MR2 for the first leg of our journey south, Jen wanted to take part in the Perth park run, a timed 5km race around the North Inch park, next to the River Tay. I went along to watch, and Jen put in a decent time.

After all that running (and watching) a treat was required, so our first stop was at S Luca’s ice cream parlour in Musselburgh- a favourite of my Dad from his youth, which is still great today! As ever, the detour was worth it!

Jen drive the second stint from Musselburgh, down the east coast on the A1 and across the border to England. This part of the country is often skipped by more direct routes, but looked absolutely stunning in the sunshine. I then took over for a double stint to get us to Scarborough, via the Tyne Tunnel, Teeside and the North York Moors, where the photo above was taken. Although not quite as impressive as the Scottish Moors, it was great to see the moors in the glorious weather we had yesterday. Much better than our previous visit in the MR2, where we could just about see the end of the bonnet. It was slightly disconcerting to see the sheer drop to the side of the road, which we hadn’t been able to see in the fog last time!

In Scarborough we met up with Jen’s family and celebrated her cousin’s 50th birthday at the local cricket club.

Distance so far: 1182 miles.

MR2 Roadtrip days 4 and 5: Back to Perth

Posted on 17th April 2015 by Lewis

After breakfast on day four we packed up the MR2 to return to Perth, on our way out of Wester Ross we stopped at Plockton, which despite being on the west of Scotland faces east, the sheltered location actually means that palm trees can grow and there were quite a few dotted around the village.

From Plockton we joined the A87 then A82, which we followed down to the Nevis Range near Fort William, the only Scottish ski hill I’d not previously visited. I was very impressed with the mountain bike facilities they offer, the lift served, red graded XC trail sounded particularly interesting – I need to bring my bike to Scotland in the future!

Next we met one of Jen’s friends for lunch before hitting the so called Scotsburgring around Loch Leven. The road around the loch used to be the main road, but has now been bypassed by a bridge, so I practically had the twisty road to myself. I was enjoying the road so much I didn’t get a chance to stop for a photo, somehow Jen managed to sleep through most of the lap too. If you’re even on the A82 between Glencoe and Fort William it is well worth taking the old road around the loch, if you enjoy driving you won’t be disappointed!

The traffic gods were on our side for the next bit of road, up Glencoe and over Rannoch Moor, we had a clear road and stunning views in front of us. We seemed to have used up all our luck with the traffic on the prettiest bit of road, as when we turned onto the A85 towards Perth we got stuck behind a succession of slow moving vehicles all the way to Perth, which was especially agonising as we knew there was a haggis supper waiting for us on arrival! It had been a long day on the road, and I’d even managed to get sunburnt, in Scotland, in April, but the haggis supper, washed down with a can of Irn Bru was a perfect end to the day!

Day five was a rest day in Perth, to spend time with my parents. The morning was pretty chilled out, we had a mooch around town, with tea and cakes at a new cafe in a furniture shop – much better than it sounds. After lunch, which was smoked salmon we’d brought back from Shieldaig, we all got into my Dad’s Mercedes convertible and went to a trip to the Falkirk Wheel. At least the MR2 was having a rest! The Falkirk Wheel was worth the journey, it is a rotating boat lift, linking two canals, which were previously linked with a flight of eleven locks. The structure itself is an impressive feat of engineering, standing 35m tall, meeting an aqueduct jutting out from the hillside. The land around the basin at the bottom of the lift has also benefited from redevelopment and was full of people enjoying the sunshine. Of course, they were offering boat trips to experience the lift and as we’d gone all the way there it would have been rude not to go on one! Going up the lift was good, but on the return journey it was surreal to be going along the aqueduct into what looked like thin air! Fortunately we didn’t sail over the edge and the lift deposited us safely back in the lower basin.

Total (MR2) distance: 920 miles.

Lewis Craik

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