Nick Wallis has ridden all of the Mountain Mayhem 24hr races. Hat’s off to him it’s a top effort and he deserved to be on the podium this year for his award. Just wish I could have been there to get all wet and muddy with every one else. Maybe next year I’ll make it.

That said if I don’t recover from what ever it is that is clogging up my head soon the rest of the summer is going to be over before I get any proper riding in!

Perhaps typically just as I indicate that I’d been keen in getting some (not just riding but) racing into my plans, my body decideds it’s had enough and I end up with a horrible sinus and throat infection. Lots of horrid stuff being produced, bunged up headaches and aching joints. A fairly regular dosage of the winning combination of honey, lemon and laphroaig hot toddie and Neurofen Plus and decongestants, have over the course of five days with lots of sleep and sofa lounging helped shift it and I’m on the road to recovery. ‘Cross racing will have to wait for a bit longer.

In the time spent getting better one of the ways to pass the time has been to hook up to xBox Live for a bit of Halo 3 action. I was never a massive person for computer games, but I had a first generation Playstation, before moving to an xBox and then a 360 a couple of years ago. Predominantly I play Halo 3 (H3) at the moment with occasionally a bit of Forza Motorsport 2. H3 for me is a social thing, There’s people I know who I play with either on the same console, or friends in Manchester who are a great laugh to have online or a random number of players from all over the world.

Yours truly wielding the rather useful shotgun

The thing with H3 is not just the xBox live gameplay which pits you either individually or in teams against others, but the amazing graphics which continue to amaze me even now and the simplicity of the xBox Live matchmaking setup. I think even Apple would have a difficult job of simplifying what Microsoft and Bungie have achieved. Outside the game there’s a whole web community element that has driven development, broadened awareness and appeal through machinema like Red vs Blue and led to the implementation of games like Griffball, which quite frankly is hilarious.

Still it’s not the same as being outthere riding bikes…

Manchester Mountain Bikers. Perhaps that should read Manchester Stockport Mountain Bikers. Anyway, one of the guys in Harry Halls gave me a card for these guys last time I was in. It’s a bloody good idea actually - the number of times we used to get people in asking for information about local clubs and had little to give out meant this was a definite opportunity that has been taken. Anyway these are some of the people behind the efforts in Reddish Vale and there’s a cyclocross race this Wednesday night…

I upgraded to Firefox 3 at work on release day (although not at home) and one thing that has iritated me today is that the Spell Checker in the browser no longer seems to work with Wordpress. It’s been discussed here.

Why is it that Fox use a different type of anodising on rear shock body shafts and fork stanchion surfaces. They both do the same job, they’re both supposed to be hard wearing, low friction coatings on aluminium. So why aren’t they both the same colour? Let’s consult the experts and see the responses…

Pushed the Harry Hall into a roundabout too fast today and discovered that aluminium doesn’t grip too well once you start trying to corner on the rim. What happened next had all the characteristics of a tank slapper stack in the making, but some how getting the wait of the back of the saddle and a bit of opposite lock some how kept it all together and I managed to ride it out. Freaky moment though. Wanted to ride at Penmachno, ended up riding to B&Q instead. It was shut. Rode home.