Monday, March 31, 2008

BMX and Napa Valley, CA

Ok, it's been another week, but only because I've been on my hols, or vacation as my American friends call it.

Vacation started early for me, about 10.30 on friday morning when we lost all comms in our building and we were buggered! Engineers didn't fix it until wednesday, but by then I was enjoying a little sun in the Napa Valley.

So, taking full advantage of not being able to work and a lovely spring day, my boss allowed us all to go home early. I grabbed the new bike to hit the track for an hour. 5 hours later and I was still there! Turns out every 30+ rider in Maryland decided the best place to be was Severn BMX track on Good Friday (21st March). There must have been about 40 riders at the track - hardtail mtb's, full suspension mtb's, cruisers, 20" - it was a damn good session, met a bunch of new people and thrashed the new bike. Most importantly my worries about riding chromo again were put aside, S&M have built an awesome bike and although, the first crank or two are a little slower from the gate, due to Ali being so stiff, the speed on the rest of the track is well worth it. I am stoked, thank you Jamie. (www.groovemerchants.net)


To the vacation. My wife and I, and good friends Amit and Jacey, headed out to Napa Valley, in lovely California, for a well deserved break for the mrs..(I am too much of a slacker to really deserve a break). We stayed in Calistoga at the Eurospa I believe it was called. Fantastic little place, lovely views, right on the edge of town so only a couple of minutes walk for anything we needed, friendly people (NSA Matt never shut up!), all in all a great place and perfectly suited to wine tasting trips all over the valley.

We met up with Amits friends, Dov and Laura. Great people. Dov, or David if you want to know his real name, is the manager of a reggae band. Dov, also happens to be a short, hysterically funny Jewish guy, so not in the slightest Rasta then! We had a great day with them, Dov introduced me to reggae big time and kindly gave me a bunch of CD's to listen to. Groundnation is his band and they are awesome. I am now a confirmed fan and will be hitting up iTunes for more at some point soon. Laura works for Gallo Vineyards so she took us to some great places for food and wine and showed us a good time. They are moving back to MD soon so thats pretty cool.

If you are in the Calistoga area hit up Sterling Wineries. You take a cable car to the tasting rooms and they have a wonderful little tour around the premises with stunning views and even better wines. We tasted many and bought several bottles, which turned out to be an indication of the coming days.

Having spent a nice few days in Calistoge, including a great cycling and tasting trip and visti to the Geyser, we headed for Bodega Bay. This was about an hour away through beautiful countryside, until we hit a place called Russian River Valley. It was like walking on to the set of Deliverance! It was a little scary. Without sounding like a biggot, it was 'trailer park' all the way! It was poor and run down and I guess short on work too. It was so surreal to find a place like this in the middle of such beautiful and prosperous countryside.

Bodega Bay is a little seaside resort, approx 400 houses and a 1000 people at the most. The Bodega Bay Lodge was right on the coast, with great views of the sea. We took some - windy - walks and pottered around for a few days, finding some great local wineries now that we were kind of in the Sonoma Valley area.

Well I dont want to go on too much more, other than to say we had a fantastic time, I got my wife to myself for a week which was wonderful and the Napa Valley was all that it was cracked up to be. I'll post some pics later hopefully.

oops, its 10:57 and I have a meeting at 11. Ta ta for now..

Thursday, March 20, 2008

the new bike!


Here we go, a little pic for all you BMXers and Cider drinkers our there... I think they are fairly synonomous with each other...

38 Special

If you're a West Country boy you are probably thinking thats a rival cider to White Lightning, but alas its not. Nope, its my new BMX, - like I needed one of course - an S&M 38 Special frame and its bloody lovely let me tell you. I was in a bit of a dither about going to a chromo frame after 8 yrs on an aluminium frame, but I am glad I made the choice. Its about 5oz heavier than my old One frame, but now I can crash 'til my hearts content at the trails without fear of snapping it.

So why the new bike? Well my good friend Jason Morgan rides for a local bike shop team (http://www.groovemerchants.net/) out in West Virginia and Jason asked Jamie, the owner, if he was looking for another rider. Thankfully Jamie was and he hooked me up. Let me say this Jamie rules, - he has cool tattoo's, is obsessed with bmx and skateboarding and loves old classic english motorbikes! He's a guy doing something that he cares about and loves, and is helping bmx grow in West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia and supporting young riders. Thoroughly upstanding in my book.

So it's taken 2 weeks to write my second post, probably closer to 3, so I am crap at this stuff it turns out! I wasn't likely to change my spots over night. I have loads of good ideas and kept thinking about getting them on here, just forget to do it.

Ok, well I'm off to a meeting for a wee while, so I'll come back and add a little more later.

S&M rules
.. jog on! :)