Hopp Rider’s training at Cadwell follows a structured programme of tutorage in the morning and three free sessions in the afternoon. You are broken into groups A, B and C and then have a twenty minute session each hour. I was in group C for the beginners. The first time around we [...]

After only getting three hours of sleep before Folembray this time I really wanted to leave work by about four so that I would get up to Louth (a town 5 miles from Cadwell) while it was still light. In the end I couldn’t get away from work until five and didn’t get onto [...]

The reason that I signed up for two track days this summer is when I went back to New Zealand, Nigel who so kindly lent me his bike to ride from Christchurch up to the Bay of Islands, who has been riding for twenty years said that he had improved his riding immensely by doing [...]

On Monday I headed off on my bike for another 150 mile ride to the south coast of England to Chisel Beach near Waymouth to do a days shore diving to test my resealed dry suit before the boat dive the following weekend. Unfortunately my dive buddy had the seals go on his dive [...]

Sunday we had lovely weather and spent most of the day body boarding in the waves and going for a cliff walk in the early evening before heading to see the band at the pub were we had a beautiful view of the sunset.

On Saturday I had lovely weather for my ride to Crackington Haven in north Cornwell near Bude. I was staying with a friend in his family chalet (in New Zealand it would be called a batch). I got there about two in the afternoon and managed to enjoy half an hour of sun [...]

There is a band that I have been following for a few years and occasionally I get emails from the drummer asking me when I am going to come along to a gig. So I went to their Tribute to Lee Hazelwood night and it was pretty cool as we ended up talking to [...]

If my riding ability around France for the rest of the weekend was any indication of whether I learnt how to ride better on the track day then I failed. On Saturday morning I headed off towards the coast from St. Quentin where we were staying. All I wanted was a summer swim. [...]

I am not into speed. Occasionally it is nice to unwind it on the motorway but mostly I am pretty happy just tootling along at the speed limit. But I do want to be able to ride my bike well and safely and that includes being able to go around corners. It [...]

I am setting off this afternoon for my bike group’s track day in Folembray, France. Trying to sell my V Festival Ticket has been a right palaver as it has gone missing in the post. Then it turned out it was in a different campground than the one I was told, so the [...]

You just can’t get away from your roots. One of the vendors took us to the horse racing tonight at Sandown Park and they were having a down under night with a group doing the haka. We only got there for the last two races so I didn’t loose too much money.

I had my last of my four weeks of climbing lessons tonight because I am off on the club track day next week (so I am only doing three lessons). I was a bit disappointed as it seemed that I was going to miss the last session where they abseil from the top wall [...]

Another fun filled night at my www.sociallyspeaking.com) Spanish class. Learning conversational languages in a bar is a brilliant idea. The embarrassment of being so bad is a real motivator to learn. I have even found a couple of websites that help you practice. www.spaleon.com/index.php and http://iteslj.org/v/s/. Though it was great [...]

Last night I attended the ELAM club night and we had someone from Michelin come and talk about motorcycle tyres. Before you think how sad I am attending a talk on tyres it was actually quite interesting. We learnt a little bit about the history of the company which is:
‘Two brothers, Édouard and [...]

After my three disastrous dates in one weekend I decided to concentrate on anything else instead of dating but didn’t remove my profile from one of the dating sites so when a cute guy emailed me and asked me out (rather than just babble on by email), who am I to say no. We [...]