I get 'cross

My journal of cyclocross
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The Specialized fairy came to visit, ahead of the cyclo cross season. He brought me a sick patent styled S Works shoe and a couple pairs of womens ridge glove.
The Ridge is a simple but excellent. Thin upper mesh, comfy, nice pink gripper accets and a bit of padding on the palm not too bulky for rapid hand position changes.












Andy Waterman showed me the Rick Ross vid, I think that is probably my favourite with the tailor vid coming a very close second because of the little guy saying boom at the end. BOOM!





Got me a nickname - tis 'BOOM' dunno how it came about but I like it.
Those evil people at Nike who I happen to like, as they make good running vests and shorts that are cheaper than most cycling. Which, is stuff probably made by the same poor little kid.
Soooooo, they just released the Boom High Top, and mine are already in the post.

BOOM - TIME
I read about these people who take a photo a day for a year. I couldn't really be bothered with that, I'll probably get bored, forget and then its half done and I hate that. So I decided just to do it for the cross season which works out to be roughly 140 days.
After a week its becoming difficult to be imaginative. I might have to catch the X68 bus everyday where weird things happen and that will give me some content.

The Rules for Project Cross 140 are:
1. Post no more than one photo representing each day. Regardless if you take 3 or 30 or 300 photos in a single day, each photo you post must have been taken on a different day.
2. Backlogs are acceptable, as long as #1 is satisfied. You can only upload 3 photos a day from the backlog
3. To make life easier I'm using my iphone to take pictures and I now only use this low, lack of creativity, lack adjustment camera for the season. Also allows me to upload direct to flickr without too much faff.


I read a study
regarding our ability to lie
and how it showcases an accelerated aptitude
the younger it takes hold.

Children who lie and get away with it
are rewarded as they lie with a direct goal in mind.
Children who lie and don’t get away with it
are punished
and learn to lie better and more effectively next time.

Thus we are left to raise a flock
of fast-paced liars
rewarded every time they fleece an honest soul.

The questions not asked in this study :
Why do we surround our children
with goals worth lying for?
And moreover, why do they feel their
role models are worth deceiving?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
We had plans for a long ride out to the peaks. But deicded to change our plans once we knew there was a possibility of riding with Rapha Condor Sharp and sampling the delightful cooking of Masterchef John Herety.
We up sticks changed our route and decided to see what the cakes shops where the pro team ride are like. Bad times were that one of their stops was closed so we had a rubbish cake in another place. But it was on this route we did visit the Peak View Tea Room. That was an AWESOME cake. I want to drive 3 hours up the M1 just for that.

Day 3 - Peak View tea rooms on the Cat & Fiddle Surrounded by teapots. Table of cakes down the middle of the room.


Humingbird Cake
Peacan, banana, pineapple, butter icing, 2 layers.
Pineapple is lower layer which has a crystalised texture

Claire & Curley
Cake - 5/5 full of flavour, moist, not too much. Curley fan of crystalised pineapple
Service - 5/5 classic tea room, plenty of choice, good setting, service with a smile. ( free gummy bears)
Price - £2.50 5/5

Knutsford Wine Bar
Curley and Dan

Chocolate Fondu £5.95
Honeycomb, doughnuts 2x variety, choc brownies, fruit skewers.

Cake - 3/5 not as good as humingbird, different but wouldn't ever order it again
Service - 3/5 had a bit of a wait, but the man was friendly and he offered more honeycomb to soak up chocolate
Price - 2/5

Claire
Rum, mango Pavlova £5.95
Cake - 4/5 pushing the limited of cake. Nice taste, easy to eat and lovely coconut foam
Service -3/5 slow
Price - 3/5 reasonable

Petit Delice - Wilmslow
Curley - £1.85
Almond Crossiant
Cake - 2/5 bit disappointed, too crispy and dry
Service - 2/5 waiter walked off
Price - 2/5

Claire- Tarte de Cherise £1.95
Cake - 3/5
Service - 2/5 forgot to bring water
Price - 3/5 fair price

Benji - Almond Pain Chocolate £1.95
Cake - 3/5 because it's not carrot cake
Service - 2/5 bit on slow side, and no French people and didn't get a basket. Lots of negatives
Price - 3/5 not too bad, bit nor is it free

Dan Craven
Toasted Almond Crossiant £1.95
Cake - 1/5 didn't like it toasted would rather it googey, went too flakey
ervice - 1/5 should have gone to starbucks. Messed up the order
Price - 3/5 not too bad

It was a hard day in the saddle, headwind was vicious. There was wind and rain we switched the rides about and headed south to Barton Marina and then looped round the Breedon.
The headwind was constant and we couldn't hide from it even on the way back. We did spend quite a bit of time in Barton Marina talking to old people. They wanted to know alot about where we'd ridden and what we were up to.
They then kept coming up with suggestions of tea rooms which was appreciated.
There was a problem with a slice of cake served to me at the Marina my slice was significantly thinner than and cost me more than Curleys so I complained. The problem was sorted they probably spat in my icing though.

I had a terrible slice of Lemon Drizzle cake so disappointed was I that I smashed my fist into it. In hinde sight I should have got up and bought another slice of something else but the queue had become massive.

Barton Marina -
Weather - drizzly, headwind, cooler temps
Ginger and Lemon with butter icing.
Butter icing sweet,
Sponge gingery and moist
Lemon curd - good but fluro -

Basically 2 cakes in one -

Extra layer of sponge.

Claire
Cake - 4/5 - didnt like fluro and maybe sponge alittle dry
Service - 3/5 had some issues but was sorted straigt away
Price - 3/5 ambience, setting very nice and you get a decent portio

£5.15 incl cap

Curley
Cake - 3/5 - lacking moistness
Service - 4/5 less price and got more cake
Price - 3/5 had the same for less elsewhere

Breedon
Sun finally out but very gusty

Curley - caramel slice £1.75
Cake - 5/5 alot of good cake for your money
Service - 3/5
Price - 5/5 for £1.75 you can't go wrong

Claire - lemon drizzle £1.75
Cake - 1/5 not a hint of lemon, huge let down basically plain sponge. Should have offered cream or something with it
Service - 3/5 usual tea room ladies
Price - fair bit of sponge at not a bad price



A good start to the first day. I scored 2nd in a prime in the race but didn't manage to make the podium on the final sprint. Kinda annoying though least I had some fine cake eating to look forward to.

Firstly it was over to Denstone and the 9 miles wasn't too bad on the legs. Met up with Chris Sidwells from Cycling Weekly and Curley and I explained to him about the ride.

Below are the cake highlights
Day 1

Weather on and off, sunny with strong headwind to end
Denstone
Curley
Courgette Cake
Cake - 4/5 juicy raisins through the sponge
ervice - 3/5 got it brought out to us
Price - 4/5 £4 incl cap

Claire
Orange and Raspberry
Cake - 3/5 went down well, interesting combo, good flavour
Service -4/5
Price - 4/5

Chris- rocky road with espessro