bike maintainance

If it wasn't for Carl and Eric at the Lodge I wouldn't have been riding as much as I have recently. Over the last few weeks I have learned how to change my bottom bracket and gear cable, have re-greased the bearings on my back wheel, changed both sets of brake pads and ajusted the break blocks, put a new chain on and re-greased the head set. My bike has survived quite a long time with very little TLC but now I'm learning how to do all this stuff, and my bike is still rideable which is great!

Coaching

All this open boating has got me quite excited about being a more highly qualified open boat coach. I'm working towards my L2 at the moment which is generic - I have to coach both open boat and kayak- but then I can specialise for level 3. I have been coaching James who is a domestic at the Lodge wanting to do his 2* and L1, and friends Wendy and Kes in Kayak and open boat . I am really enjoying coaching and have learned loads from working with these guys. Im hoping to volunteer on some sessions with Abernethy Nethybridge and local club Speyside Paddlers to get some more varied coaching hours in. Instructors at the Lodge have been really supportive too, helping me with lesson plans and reviews etc which I'm really grateful for.

Biking

my shoulder seems to be coping well with biking so I'm doing lots. A guy called Andreas came into the lodge a while back and we ended up doin a ride round Torridon together last week. It turned out to e a long day.. I drive to Garve from Aviemore then we drive to Torridon. The ride was 46km mainly off road in the mountains. Spectacular scenery, despite the cloud covering the mountain tops. we cycled past Liathach, Ben Eigh (I think), alomg Glen Torridon, then towards achnashellach then an absolute epic of a climb back over the mountains. I have to admit I did walk/push/carry quite a lot of this section as it was fairly technically sustained and VERY VERY WET. I can't describe to you how wet it was - given that the forecast said it was going to be the dryest place in the country - There were loads of drainage channels directing water down off the hill to the main river, some of which I would never have cleared (and some which I tried but didn't clear :/). The streams were very full. Initially I tried to stay dry then gave up and ended up wading calf deep though some big bits of water... it reminded me of ML training, I kind of felt like I should be turning round in circles or something , ha ha ha. What an adventure! The final down hill was awesome - about 7km of continuous red grade down hill, my wrists were aching for days afterwards. We both took some comedy falls along the way - Andreas managed to land with his head in a bog and came up looking like a monster with mud all over his face. Then a drive back to Garve, tea at Andreas's house then drive back to Aviemore.

Unfortunately we encountered midgies in egyptian plague quantities which meant we didn't stop for long, except half way round at a really cool bothy, which was amazing, and allowed Andreas to fix his bike without being eaten alive. It didn't spoil our ride though.

Over the last couple weeks I have also done the ride up Glen Einich which was suprisingly easy on the uphill and very quick on the down hill, a great ride in the mountains. Andreas and I also did a ride a bit closer to home - up the Burma road - up a MASSIVE hill then down the brilliant black descent back to aviemore. Managed to ride quite a lot of it and both of us took some more comedy falls off - big bruises on my legs.

I also went over to Badaguish, where there was a guy from Bothy bikes doing repairs on some of the track - in preparation for the competition (this weekend?), don't think I'm quite fast enough yet...it's good to have some quality stuff to play on locally, and going back to do the same technical climbs helps me see how much I've improved, or not!

Boating

I'm not going to apologise for this but you wont find many climbing posts on here at the moment as I've injured my shoulder and off climbing till next season. HOWEVER... remember all that rain we had??

I have been doing lots of paddling. Friends from Edale Andy Waring, Andy Mac, Dan, Neil Pope, Tom and new boy Robin came up to go open boating and we Paddled the Dochart and the Dee (the one in Deeside in the east) together. The Dochart was worth while and had a meaty grade 3 about half way down which Robin managed to swim on. When we had rescued him he had badly hurt his thumb and we also realised he had a big hole in his boat, which we managed to patch up with various things! (50% gaffer tape). The Dee was also well worth it. We just did the lower section, about 11 km from Potarch to Banchory. The get in has a good grade 2 rapid just below it then a fairly flat section. the last few kms are continuous grade 2, which was fantastic, not that scary, but fun, and I didn't have to worry about putting a hole in a Glenmore Lodge Boat :/ The water levels were good - in fact it continued to rain solidly for another 24 hours or so I think. the roads were flooded on the way back. The metro coped admirably though... it has put in some serious miles with the open boat on now!