Told You So - Fuji Sportif 2.1 Road Bike

There was always a chance this would happen, after spending hours researching bike makes that I was familiar with, the decision was finally made. Which means, somewhat to my surprise, I am now the proud owner of a Fuji bike.

I am still not entirely sure what swayed me into buying a make that did not originally make my manufacturer based shortlist. Maybe the specification, or discovering that they are better known than I first thought, or perhaps the understated colour. Whatever it was though I am very happy with the bike, it turned up on time and well packed from Evans Cycles, everything works perfectly, the size and riding position are spot on for me and although the pedals will need to be replaced with clip less versions at some stage, it seems to be very good value for money overall.

What had not occurred to me was just how fast a good road bike was going to be in comparison with my battered old mountain bike. The same amount of effort on the pedals has the wind whistling past your ears on the Fuji, which is fantastic, but slightly disconcerting initially. Obviously this was the point of buying it in the first place and I am sure that given a few weeks it will seem completely normal.

So part two of the triathlon plan is now in place and in fact the training has commenced. Well when I refer to training it means that my sporadic running has now been increased to everyday and a few rides have taken place, although not at any stunning pace so far, while my fitness levels increase.

Unfortunately this does not allow me to be completely smug yet as the speedo swimming goggles that arrived on my fiftieth birthday have still not been immersed in water of any type. One thing at a time though, the goggles will get an outing soon, in the mean time the gradually push back to a reasonable fitness level continues and appears to be going well so far.

Andy

Buying a Road Bike - £500 Budget - Choices and Decisions

Preparations are afoot to progress along the training path to complete a Triathlon in my fiftieth year. As mentioned in my previous ramblings on this decision, I already run and have appropriate kit to use on and off road. However the battered mountain bike, while still good fun, is not going to be suitable for the task ahead.

Therefore a road bike is required, the choice of which is quite frankly a minefield. When I was young any bike with drop handlebars was a racer, read road bike, and professionals had frames made out of Reynolds 531 tubing, apparently the options are now somewhat more complicated. Then there is the price, it seems that you can spend more on a bicycle now than a small car costs. Now I am sure that the technology is fantastic on the expensive bikes and that they are extremely light, but they are also way outside the budget of £500 that I have in place. Also my suspicion is that while the latest components might make a difference to a professional cyclist, actually being fit and completing the required training is more likely to be the best solution to covering the required distance in a reasonable time.

So what can you get for five hundred quid, well quite a lot it would seem, alloy frame, carbon forks, Shimano gear sets and a weight under 10kgs. Interestingly though these are not all bikes from budget manufacturers, Dawes and Raleigh have plenty of machines in this bracket and some companies associated with the more expensive end of the spectrum, such as Specialized and Trek, also have entry level bikes around this price.

To be fair you are quite likely to get what you pay for at this price, so my feeling is to go close to the budget level and choose something from a manufacturer that I am familiar with. Personally I know very little about Norco, Pinnacle and Fuji, actually I was not even aware that Fuji even made bikes as my association with them is more on the electronic side of things. I am naturally drawn to Dawes, although I suspect this is because a Galaxy Tourer to ride around Europe on was high on my list for some years, Specialized bikes have always appealed and discovering that Trek make something within my budget has just made the choice even more complicated.

Obviously I have to make a choice over the next few weeks, currently my shortlist contains the Secialized Allez, Dawes Giro 500 and the Cannondale Synapse Alloy Claris, although there is a temptation to spend a little bit more for the Trek 1.1 or 1.2. The odds are with one of these, but there is certainly a chance of going with something else entirely, the problem being that specifications are very similar on all bikes of this price, maybe I should just pick a nice colour.

Andy

LuminAID PackLite 12 - A Pleasantly Bright Surprise.

A recent trip away camping gave us the opportunity for review to test out a little lantern that my wife had for review purposes. Normally I would not give my views on a product that she was testing, however as this was relevant to my usual subject matter and also something of a revelation, I decided this should be an exception to the rule.

Basically what we have here is a small inflatable, solar powered lantern, which struck me as a recipe for disaster, however I was in for a shock. Possibly my lack of enthusiasm could be put down to experiences of solar powered lights of a few years ago, apparently though things have advanced rapidly.

The lantern itself is about 10cms square on the top and around 12cms high when inflated, pull out the plug and it packs flat for transport. As the picture shows it comes with a hanging strap and a small solar panel on the top.  It weighs about 100g which combined with its small size would make it ideal for backpacking, although on this occasion it was being used in the family tent.

The real question is though, how well does it work. Embarrassingly, considering my preconceptions, it is brilliant.

The lantern was charged during the day and supplied a bright light throughout the evening, due to being inflatable it is also quite robust, ideal for carrying around at a festival or out in the wilds. It is easy to inflate, although tricky to get the stopper in without losing some air, not a problem that impacts on its use at all though. We did find that the switch could be a bit hit and miss on occasions, but generally speaking it was fine.

Would I recommend it, absolutely, in fact this little lantern has made me a real convert, it can obviously be used for camping, great for fishing and I suspect you could float it in the bath if the electric was out, not that I tested that however. It seems very robust, light and is ideal for keeping in a rucksack or jacket once charged, smashing little bit of kit quite frankly.

Andy

Camp Bestival - Fantastic As Always

A great event as it always seems to be, for us Camp Bestival never seems to disappoint, although I must say that it seemed even busier than normal this year. Anyway, rather than ramble on I thought I would use the old adage that a picture tells a thousand words, so here goes.

Giant letters were a hit with the children.

Volvo rocked up with some cars, a wooden horse and coffee, which was nice.

The Pimms was flowing, which certainly pleased Zoe.

The family bear seemed quite interested as well.

A very important sign.

The fabulous Farmers Market.

The main stage, before it opened obviously.

Barefoot Walking.

A very slim Panda.

Dark and busy at night.

Even darker, although the music was good.

And rather cold.

The famous DJ Barbecue in full swing.

Better prepared for the cold on Saturday night.

The best coffee.

A giant screen, which is useful if you cannot see the stage because of the bloody great merchandising stall as normal.

Wouldn't be complete without the castle.

So overall a great weekend, was it as good as last year, not really. Certainly the bands were high profile, but it just seemed very busy and some of the smaller stalls seem to have disappeared over the past few years.

Andy

Running, Cycling and Swimming - Maybe it is time for a bit of commitment.

Approaching a milestone age tends to give one thought for what should be achieved in the following decade. In my case there is a constant reminder that I will be fifty in less than a month, due to the flow of 'interesting' life insurance mail that has been arriving for the past few weeks.

However I am approaching this birthday with a sense of purpose, viewing it as an opportunity to make some commitment to my random fitness regime. Fortunately my natural build allows me to stay in shape quite easily, it also causes people to inform me that they were like this until twenty, or thirty, or even forty. Well I am about to be fifty and there is still no sign of me putting on any weight, so it seems to be genetic. 

The point about this is that I look like a long distance runner and have indeed dome some half marathons in the distant past, but none in the past twenty five years or so. I do get out and run sometimes, but it is intermittent, a couple of five kilometre days, then nothing for a week. My intention has been to put this right and start a proper schedule for a while and I am determined that this will happen.

I have also always been quite a keen cyclist, although the tatty mountain bike that gets used at present is probably not ideal for what I have in mind. You see training for and completing a triathlon has always appealed to me, there is one point which worries me though, swimming. It shouldn't really, I can swim, it just does not seem to come naturally. Obviously my genetic gains did not stretch this far as my parents were both fine swimmers, unlike me. However it may be that practice and training could me the key, when analysing my swimming it becomes clear that lazyness is the main problem.

So I shall make the effort, firstly by getting my running back on track, as it comes easily to me and will improve my fitness levels. The mountain bike will start to get a lot more use and I will venture down to the local pool and try and improve my distance and technique. There is no intention here of breaking any records, just the feeling that this could be a great personal achievement if I can manage to complete the challenge. Also my stock of excuses as to why I have never taken part in a triathlon has run out, so know is the time, probably.

Andy

Balancing Freedom Against Parental Control Syndrome.

This is the big one if like me you have children approaching their later teenage years. It is that period where your natural instinct to control and protect your children has to be tempered by the fact they they are closing fast on the time when the decisions they make will be theirs alone. 

Without doubt this is a learning process, possibly more for the parent than the child in many respects, and is one that will be littered with mistakes as both parties search for that crucial balance. Parties are a prime example where you either have to collect them late in the evening or trust them to behave if they stay over and of course there is always the alcohol factor. Lets be honest there is no doubt that sixteen year olds are going to have a couple of beers at these events if they feel like it, they will get hold of it somehow anyway so is it better for parents to control what they are drinking be providing a limited amount, or is there a blanket ban, in which case they will drink it outside or before arrival. 

Actually there is probably no real one size fits all answer to this problem, some children will not drink and others will, all parents will have different ideas and solutions to dealing with these things. I am under no illusion that knowing where my older children are, is any guarantee as to what they are getting up to, this is the time when they start to push the boundaries of the parental bubble, which is disturbing but inevitable.

We were treated to a prime example of this yesterday, receiving a late call from one of our boys to inform us that he would be staying over, rather than getting a lift home as promised. This is a no win situation as a parent, either you say no, pull jeans on over your pyjamas and head out to bring them home, or you let them stay and deal with it the following day, by which time they will have though of a watertight, in their mind, excuse of why they stayed out.

In this particular instance no real harm was done, but at this post GCSE pre A level age there are still rules in place, in my mind at least. The fact that this two month break before starting sixth form is being viewed as some kind of mini gap year is not really helping my sanity actually, trying to find that mysterious balance, does it really exist I wonder, between a bit more freedom or letting them run wild seems even more difficult as the holiday goes on. 

I suppose that trust is really at the centre of this, how much do you trust them to behave as young adults. It has been mentioned to me by the older children about the amount of freedom that I had at this age, unfortunately for them while I remember having quite a bit actually, there is no way that I would trust my sixteen year old self now. However that does not mean that they are not far more responsible than I ever was and therefore why should they not be allowed to explore their freedom a bit more.

There is, for me at least, no absolute answer as to how this should be dealt with, maybe a combination of going with the flow, but not to fast. In the mean time I shall flex my dad muscles and ground him for the week I think, just to get a bit more thinking time if nothing else.

Andy

Camp Bestival - Where To Camp

The map has now been released on the official site, which gives you a good idea of where everything will be set up this year and a chance to plan some of your time at the festival. In all honesty most of the attractions are fairly close together, once you have walked in from your tent.

Where to actually camp though always presents a bit of a dilemma. I am only talking about bringing your own tent here, although there are other options with yurts, teepee's and other solutions offered on site.

This gives you two options, either the main camp site or Camping Plus, which costs an additional amount, but is much closer to the festival attractions. Dealing with the main camp site first, it is obviously large and not entirely flat. In fact the first thing you will see from the car park is a hill in front of you. This is in fact relatively level on top and a popular place to set up camp, if you walk further across this it leads to a steep down hill slope, at the bottom of which you pass into the remainder of the camping area, for the sake of argument I will call this the 2nd area.

There are a number of factors that influence where to camp, if you are arriving late on Thursday it will be a matter of fitting in where ever you can find a gap as most areas will be pretty well populated by then. The primary choice to be made is how far you want to carry all of the camping gear against how far you want to walk into the festival each day. If you are happy to do the long walk with all of the gear, then the second area is my advice. Turning left into after coming down the steep hill leads you to a flat area which is close to the toilets and showers, top tip with the showers is to use them in the afternoon when there are small or no queues. There are also normally food and drink stalls here which is very handy after a long day. Camping in this area also leaves you with a much easier daily walk, making it easier to pop back for an afternoon siesta if required.

Camping in the first area, closer to the car park, means that you have a shorter distance to carry all your equipment, it does mean a longer walk in each day though. Also to get a good pitch, flat if possible, then you need to have arrived early, the car park opens before the gates and there was a queue of campers last year waiting to get in.

Alternatively as I mentioned you can pay for Camping Plus which gives you a guaranteed pitch and is much closer to the festival being located in the area behind the Freesports Park. Unfortunately I think this is all booked for next week, but worth remembering for next year, because you will be back.

Andy