BEST BIKING GLOVES

Grub Line Rider (Leisure Historical Fiction)

The fury of the Wild West explodes in this thrilling dramatization of the Louis L'Amour classic Grub Line Rider. Most folks would call Kim Sartain an easygoing, peace-loving man. But the few who crossed the young drifter knew there was nothing he liked better than a good fight. When cattleman Jim Targ challenges Sartain's right to ride across an unclaimed stretch of meadow, Sartain decides he'll do better than ride through: He'll put down stakes there and homestead the land. Soon there's more at risk than land and pride when Targ hires a gunman to teach Sartain a permanent--and deadly--lesson.

If it were the kids getting this dirty they'd have been given a serious telling off... but given it was Daddy and it was a mountain bike race it was all OK !!

The conditions in Swinley Forest for the "Gorrick Enduro" were truly attrociuios, such a difference to the lovely dry trails of just a few days ago. It was a true quagmire. I was entered into the 3 lap (30 mile) race and even after 3/4 of the first lap I was knackered... it was so bad you were having to cycle down hill, the mud was really sapping.

I persevered and started the second lap but 1/2 way around there was just nothing left in the tank and a few guys overtook me. I stopped for 5 mins to get a mars bar inside me and then I was off again and relatively speaking was full of energy, I soon caught and overtook those that had overtaken me.

Coming into the finish area they announced my name over the tannoy as the 2nd person home in the 3 lap category until I apologetically explained I'd only done 2 laps and was binning it.

The conditions wer so bad that out of the 68 people entered for 3 laps only 12 made the full 3, a further 20+ riders pulled out after just one lap so I actually feel pretty good about doing 2 !! Some of the people entered into the 7 lap (70 mile race) were out for over 8 hours.

When I got home I let the kids hose me down in the garden, which they thought was great fun. I though it was cold and had forbidden them to go above the "plimsole line" if you know what I mean. I'm still finding bits of grit in places that shouldn;t have grit near them.

It's taken me about 2 hours to clean and lube my bike today and it's still a bit graunchy and gritty. I went through a set of brake pads yesterday too, despite hardly going fast enough to ever need them !!

Photography wise, this was taken by my 9 year old son and then created as a print to file jpg in Lightroom's print module from 2 seperate shots and reimported to LR then exported to flickr using Jeffrey Friedl's excellent plug in as always.

Jaroslav Kulhavy of Czech Republic crosses the finish line to take third place in the Men's under-23 (U23) Cross Country final during the 2007 UCI Mountain Bike & Trials World Championships in Fort William, Scotland, 07 September 2007. Staged in the UK for the first time in it's history, up to 40,000 spectators are expected throughout the main days of competition. During the event, more than 700 of the World's top riders from more than 50 nations will compete across the four mountain bike disciplines of Cross Country, Downhill, 4-Cross and Trials for a total of 19 World Championship titles.

Main Line Riders return with their second full length recording since their debut in 2007. This time around the band returns with a new attitude, a new vocalist and a new sound. With the electrifying opening notes of It all Ends Tonite you'll think that Bon Scott surely must have been resurrected and is now singing for Cliffy and his Main Line Riders. Unashamedly, Worldshaker is earnestly beholden to hard rock godfathers (Bon-era) AC/DC. The first three cuts, along with Rhythm-N-Blues could easily have been some lost AC/DC tracks! The album has everything classic rock requires. There are songs about rock-n-roll, slow sleazy blues, high-voltage boogie and the MONSTER RIFFS of Cliffy! So big and bold are these riffs that they bruise the listener upon contact! It's those catchy, infectious riffs -- that make your spine tingle and give the music its backbone! Worldshaker definitely delivers some high voltage by a band that steals from all the right places, rocks non-ironically -- even epically at times -- and sounds great blasting out of a car or on headphones!

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