Skate and Bike

If you look hard enough, Cornwall is pretty good for minority sports,. There's The Track, a bmx and bike jump park that must rival the best the UK has to offer (Portreath). And then there's Mount Hawke, a huge warehouse in the middle of nowhere (nr Aggie) that is stacked full of skate ramps including a massive new vert ramp. It's insane. Spent yesterday running between the two - makes for a good day out.

Billyman heading for the foam pit!

Fin takes on the jump track

Great to have the Senior team assembled back on the beach yesterday - Wail, Mikey and JD. The start of the season is only just around the corner - we'll be ready.

Not sure what's going on with the BSA - the surfing governing body. It's been in a bit of a mess for a while now. One minute you think all is good and then the next it's all doom and gloom again. With the 2012 Olympics just around the corner we have the perfect opportunity to promote Cornwall to the rest of the world. The BSA should spearhead this drive. We should invite the World Tour to Cornwall for an Olympic exhibition event. If it's not organised now, it won't happen - what a missed opportunity that would be.

dad, what are you doing?

"Dad. What are you doing?" Billy asked yesterday morning."What do you mean?" I answered somewhat impatiently. We'd all been up since 4am suffering with jet lag.

"You're tucked-in!" he stated.

It was true. It's amazing how quickly your kids pick up on their old folks ageing. There was a chill in the air and I'd tucked my t-shirt into my jeans! No big deal in the safety of my own walls, but a big enough faux pas to cause Billy concern. We laughed and I untucked. It had followed a question the previous night. "What are Pillocks?" Janey and I both laughed. He expected them to be things. So I went on Wiki to find out the definition. Turns out it was used many years ago to described, probably in a derogatory fashion, someone who only had one ball. Again much hilarity ensued. His swim coach had used the expression to describe some of the assembled club swimmers, this was after using a stick to hit some of them (albeit gently) on the head as they swam. I wonder what that Mrs. Pratt would have made of that!?

So we're back! Back to an amazingly clean and tidy house (Jane's Mum and Dad house sat whilst we were away tending the pets! big thanks to them) as it goes. Slightly disappointed that the cold weather we left behind, is still here. I'd promised the kids the trip of a lifetime and Bali delivered. 1 -2ft on the beach in front of the hotel, perfect for Billy and Fin. And head high sets at Nusa Dua and Froggies, perfect for moi! I doubt very much that you have a real interest in our holiday so there's little need for me to bang on about it. Except to say that when you go away you have certain expectations - we ticked all the boxes on this one. It is a truly fantastic place to go and visit and a great destination for a family.

Billy at Legian - he was surfing really well.

Wailin had already been there for a few weeks running the Surf's Up! Bali surf camp - which sounded as if that'd all gone really well. We had a few dawnies together and got some great sessions pretty much to ourselves. I even scored a couple of grinding barrels, or as Wailin described them, 'Head dips'! For some reason he always took me to where the 'rights' were. Funny that, him being a regular footer an all! In protest I managed to backdoor a right point (which was fine until the lip decided to give me a quick tour of the reef at close quarters). I'd never been to Froggies before, Billy came on the first dawney (5am start). A walk of some 300 steps down a cliff, then a wade across a lagoon to the, yes, 'right' point break - but what a spot!

White water rafting, Fire Dance, Water Park, Padang Padang, Ullus, Serangan, Kuta ... and then there's the people, the culture, the heat, the food, the traders, the scooters, the temples, the monkeys, the surf shops, the bakery, the back streets. It's an experience overload and I love everything about it as did Janey and the boys. Happy, happy days.

What was almost as remarkable as the trip itself was the fact the myself and Janey hardly spoke about Surf's Up! We're married to each other and seemingly the business, it's a 24 hour love affair. It's definitely healthy from time to time to fully switch off and just enjoy each others company. And I don't think we've ever achieved that to this extent in the past 16 years! Knowing that Mikey and JD were fully on top of operations back at Polzeath, we could go about the business of enjoying the moment. That was really cool.

And we were right to place our faith in Mike and JD. Together, they manned the ship with real integrity and care, particularly when there were a few very cold snaps for suiting and booting. A big thanks to them both. And again to Silv and Evan for the continuous work they do behind the scenes.

Whilst we've been away bookings for the coming season have been coming through thick and fast. Very strong indications that this is going to be a cracking year!

Bali - happy Days

Jet-lagged .. but expect little sympathy! Bali was just brilliant. Best family holiday ever! Report tomorrow!

Two Sleeps

The great thing about Bali is that you pack light. A few tees and boardies, some flip flops and suncream, that's about it! We're taking three boards, so I'll have to sort them out, but apart from that we're good to go. No holiday has been as keenly anticipated by the boys. Let's hope we get some good surf for them.

The Quiksilver World Junior Championships has just finished in NZ. Australia took the title which is fantastic. Martin Dunne is their coach, and he works with our own Elite Coach Kelly O'Toole. It's great to know that the training methods that Kelly gleens from Martin, and uses with our juniors is cutting edge. I'll write a full report on how our riders got on once I get the low down.

Well there were a few balls on the line today! No, not the Federer / Tsonga match - but the Blair trial on telly! I watched most of it. I have to be honest and say as a clearly very informed a bright young surf school owner with his finger directly on the pulse of world affairs (ie what do I know!), pretty much everything Tony Blair said seemed reasonable to me - or am I just very naive?

There were a few things missing - I'd have liked to have seen more discussion and acknowledgement and sorrow from Blair about the number of people dead, killed, tortured etc; it's a solemn subject. Perhaps that will come later? The figure of 100,000 who have died was mentioned in passing, which I guess is less than the mentioned figure of a million people killed in the Iraq / Iran war - i.e. maybe less than the amount of people that would have died if Saddam had been left in power? Was the war the lesser of two evils?

For my part I did support the invasion at the time. But on different grounds to WMD. On the simplistic grounds that if a bad man somewhere on the planet is killing and persecuting 100,000's of people and we have the means to do something to stop it, then we should, shouldn't we? Or do we bury our heads in the sand and pretend it isn't happening? Of course on that reasoning there are plenty of other places we should be taking a good look at! And where do you begin and when does it end? I don't profess to have any answers. But history tells us that somewhere with oil will normally get a look in!

(Sorry if you expected a surf report! But these things are important even to us down here on the beach. Oh okay, if you really want to know, it's blowing a hoolie, the surf is very big, it's raining and it's cold! Wished you hadn't checked in?!)

So my summary of the days events. Blair returned well, kept the ball firmly up the other end, made very few unforced errors, and left the arena probably thinking that it could have been a much tougher encounter. Which is a pretty similar day to Federer's.

Onto other matters - over the last couple of days we've been visiting the accountants for the end of year thingys. Accountants live in a different world to mine but I believe that our chosen fellow has a sense of humour - he sports Allsorts cuff links! A sure sign! All signed, sealed and sent off today - yes Mr Taxman you have ripped out our very sole once again. Please spend it wisely and please not a penny more to all those stupid Quangos!The Lesbians can stick up for themselves!

Five sleeps 'til Bali! It was 100 degrees there today - I might slap some sunscreen on right now, just to get in the mood!

It's all uphill

Did a 100 miler on the bike yesterday - there's lots of hills in Devon and Cornwall! And they all go up! Around every corner there's a nice little surprise - or that's what it feels like. Perhaps I'll have to go the other way around next time!

How good is Murray? Brilliant! Hope he wins on Sunday. Very exciting.

Kitesurfers and Windsurfers all frothing for a good day at Daymer Bay.

Fin had his birthday on Wednesday - he's seven. Where does the time go?

Cadbury Concern

If you've ever eaten a bar of Hershey's, you'll understand why all chocolate lovers across the land will be bitterly disappointed if Cadbury's sold to Kraft. Americans do not understand chocolate. Their's tastes rubbish. And here's what I never get - when you go into a supermarket in America, you expect the chocolate department to be massive, much like the Americans themselves! And the bars to be supersized. But they're not. It's really weird. You'd think that after a supersized mega burger, they'd want a choccy snack just to take away the taste! But no. I guess they're just not into it, like us Europeans.

Cadbury's make fantastic chocolate. Long may it stay that way. Long live the mini egg is what I say - although I have my doubts whether the mini egg is in fact made to the original recipe of a few years back? Not quite as morish as they used to be. But this takes me back to the Lindt Bunny - you see that Lindt Bunny just cannot be beaten. Hm, food for thought.

Sun!

What a wonderful weekend! Fin had his birthday party on Saturday - a joint affair with his mate Ben, who has his on the same week. We took a crew down to Mount Hawke for some skateboarding and scooting. That was fun and injury free - always a bonus.

And then on Sunday, I cycled to Tavistock. Janey and boys drove up and we headed off on a bike ride across the Moor. I'd heard of this ride from Princetown that heads down to Burrator Reservoir. You go around the Dam and then return using a track across Dartmoor. Two hours I thought was all we needed. Four hours later we rolled back into the car park! It was dark and cold! But spirits were high. I wish I'd taken my camera - it was spectacular, an amazing route. We'd given Fin his birthday present early - (a new bike) - so that he could use it for the ride. He was stoked.

Halfway around we stopped to ask two middle aged cyclists the way. They pointed us in the right direction, but questioned our ability to make it before night fall. To be fair it was a close call, the moonlight providing us with enough light to make out the track for the last couple of miles. We saw the couple again in the pub - they said they'd been keeping an eye out for us! A great adventure. The boys slept all the way home - we put Fin straight to bed, he didn't wake up until this morning!

Road Trip

Did I say no new projects for this year?! Well that could be all set to change (as is the Surf's Up! way!) A chance meeting got us thinking and it could just be that a bit of luck and timing may well take us down a route that we've wanted to go down for ages, but just haven't quite got our heads around how to do it. Until now. We'll mull things over for a couple of days and come up with a plan. It's the next natural step for us.

I gathered the boys together for a road trip on Thursday of a different kind! All over 40 (!), we went mountain biking up at Gawton Woods near Tavistock. They've got three man made downhill tracks that are amazing! We stuck to the one marked as 'difficult' (which is the easiest) - we left the 'Extreme' and 'Very Extreme' routes to the young lads who presumably had spent their college grants on serious bits of kit! They were getting big air!

Poor Old Mikey - I have yet to go on a ride where he hasn't had a puncture (I think he does it on purpose). The HSD trail took about 4 minutes to go down and about 20 minutes to get back up again! Nick's main bike was out of action so he brought along an old one - but he was seriously under-gunned. You really can't be taking on these trails without brakes! You need brakes! Three spills later, Nick made it to the bottom - alive but bruised! We did some bike swapping and I got my dirt bike out as an experiment. Turned out it was just the ticket - the perfect machine. Except that it's a single speed ie no gears, and it's heavy. This made for a big push back up to the top! Anyway despite some initial bike and tyre failures we had a great time. we headed home pretty shot!

I went back up again there yesterday on my own. There's another wood nearby that has loads of tracks some of which were super extreme. Being the only one there was bit intimidating! And going nervously down trails is not the way to do it! On one run, the track drops off steeply into a banking turn. Half way through the turn I was surprised to see another drop off. I got it all completely wrong and the front wheel dug in, at which point I made the amateur mistake of reaching for the brake .. the front one. I went flying through the air, my feet fully clearing the handle bars - it was like slow motion running in the air. Fortunately the landing, a good distance further down the slope was soft and the only damage was to my self esteem! In the past there's no question that an accident such as this would have resulted in a pulled hamstring and that's what was going through my mind before hitting the ground. I've done it so many times and each time really gets me down. I'm hoping that all this cycling has actually strengthened all the bits that need strengthening and maybe, just maybe this achilles heel will be a bit more resilient. Fingers crossed. I dusted myself off and headed back to Gawton Woods, a couple of miles away to the HSD track. Great, great fun ... and a great work out.

Soggy Bottom

The last time I raced on a mountain bike was some 20 years ago in the Quantocks - and I did really badly! I led up the first hill and then slipped and fell off, rejoining at the back of the field. I can't say it got any better after that! Yesterday, I lined up in the Vets category for my first race since 1989! And remembering my one and only previous mountain bike racing experience, I made a plan to start last! It was obvious that these boys were seasoned racers and were here to 'race' - I just wanted to see if I could finish it and in doing so, keep out of their way.

The first hill was wet and muddy and pretty impossible. Everyone was off their bikes and pushing their machines (some very expensive machines at that!). At the top it went into single track. I was following this old chap who was taking it pretty easy, and I could see the rest of the pack moving clear. When I did eventually get passed, the pack had disappeared into the distance. So the chase was on! Pedal to the metal, I went as fast as I could, testing out my new biking fitness gained from hours and hours out on the road and on the turbo at home! The course itself was challenging. There were tricky bits - one very steep grassy bank had me flying over the handlebars on two consecutive laps! And mud in one place came up to the knees (that was a get off and carry bit!). On the single track there were slippery wet roots, and trees tight to the side leaving little room for error. But overall it was a fun route.

I crossed the line in 16th place - totally stoked. Having started at the back and battled through the traffic (about 100 of us all went off at the same time) - I was really, really pleased with that.

So it was a vast improvement on 20 years ago! I'm going to train even harder now and come the next race I'll start near the front and see what happens! You can't beat a bit of competition to light the fire!

ps. doubly stoked this morning. Entries to the Dragon Ride Sportive are like gold dust but this morning they released 300 additional places..... and I lucked out and got one!

Surf looks great today - 3ft clean, a few people in. The sun is out - what a lovely day!