Headed down to Plymouth

We took the train out of Oxford along with what seemed like hundreds of our new favorite people: drunken football fans. Oxford United had won its match, and gave local youth a good reason to get drunk and insult our train conductor. I can only imagine what would have happened if Oxford had lost. That would have given the local youth a good reason to get drunk and insult our train conductor.

 

Who likes pygmy ponies?

Dartmoor has herds of pygmy ponies running rampant along with all of the sheep and cows. Apparently national parks are also generally free grazing land in the UK. Hence, poop everywhere.

 

Obligatory Chimney Shot

We lunched at a mediocre little cafe in the town of Princetown, a quaint scrabbly little place in the center of Dartmoor national park. The ride up to the town was really splendid, though both of us were wishing for MUCH lower gearing. At the 15 and 20% grades we'd chug and puff up the hill until the call of "WALKIES!!" went out and then we hoof it up the rest. I would have loved to have an altimeter on this day.

 

Sheep amongst the rocks

 

On the march for the Tors of Dartmoor

 
Jennifer heading to one of the tors, outcroppings of granite on top of the hills of Dartmoor.

Plymouth at sunset

 

I'll call that a good view

After spending 2 days in the Devon and Cornwall area, we took the train up to the land of many consonants: WALES! We spent our time on the north coast of wales, which is dominated by massive hills and bluffs that lead to the sea, and some splendid little coastal towns, right near some not at all splendid coastal towns. The first day we spent tootling around on our Brommies, and the second day we took the train, then the bus and then our feet up into the heart of the Snowdownia National Park, home to the highest peaks in Britain outside of North Scotland.



Wales is scenic as heck. The highway around the north side of the Great Orme.

Conwy Castle

 
We turned around at Conwy and went across the peninsula back to Colwyn Bay.

Walking in

 
The walk in to the mountains was nice as well.

Scrambling to the top of Tyrfan

 
Mt. Tyrfan is in the next ridgeline north from Snowdon. It's a heck of a scramble with broken boulders of limestone all over the place. Jennifer sailed through the rough part of the hike here.

Lush and green

 
Wales is, like the rest of Britain, extremely lush and green. They take advantage of this by grazing sheep everywhere!

Mount Snowdon

 
This was the view that greeted us as we crested the saddle on the ridge just to the north of Snowdon.

Our buddies, the mountain goats

 
These guys watched us eat lunch on the moutntain.

The Picture House

 
This was the inside of The Picture House, in Colwyn Bay, Wales. The town was cute and the pub was great. They had an excellent selection of beers and the food was cheap and satisfying. Not really gourmet, but they did have a killer curry night on Thursdays that really brought the folks out.

Better luck THIS TIME!!

So, the folding dragon has been slain. Despite feeling crappy, coughy, jet-laggy and otherwise non-fit at the starting line, Jennifer was right. I had a pretty good run. The worst part is that I let 2nd place slip through my fingers by being too much of a gentleman and being too lackadaisical on the finishing straight. At any rate, I think that I have done my Brompton thing quite well this year.

My real regret is not packing a smaller chain ring for the tootling around after the race. I'm now a consummate master of the 50 rpm grind up hills and my arms are actually tired from riding around these past 3 days. Overall, my claim from last year still stands: Britain in the sunshine is hard to beat. More pictures soon.

Crossing the Pond, Redux

I've packed sealant this time.

Fabulously informative

Got this email from the IT staff here at the City.

City issued Blackberry devices are currently experiencing latency due to the legacy perimeter security controls. We are currently working on resolving this matter. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Fortunately, my latency was set to stun, and the Klingons were incapacitated before boarding the good ship Municipal Services Building.

A singular treat

 
I had the unique joy of riding in to work on a bike lane that I helped plan on Monday. We've repainted a buffered bike lane along 13th street from South to Market streets. Next week they'll be painting the street north to Spring Garden. I have been using 13th street for the past 6 months since it is simply calmer and nicer to ride on than any of the other alternatives. With the addition of a couple thousand bucks worth of paint, it has become AWESOME. Drivers on the left, bikers on the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you.

Tig Burn

So, despite Jennifer's worries that I'd set the basement on fire with the welder, the only thing that I've burned so far is my skin. TIG welding kicks off some SERIOUS UV rays and I've got the sunburn to show for it.

Crazier than I am

 

Some times it's truly great to have friends who are crazier than you are. My teammate Brett happened to have a TIG welder that he got on a great deal and had never used. Now that same welder is sitting in my happily re-ordered basement waiting for a project!