Minirolls Musings

ATV’s and Caves of Swiss Cheese

A short minibus ride from our hotel was an adventure camp, after succumbing to the sales pitch and purchasing some extra insurance (because I planned to drive like a nutter) we hit the trails on 450cc ATV’s. They were automatics and could pick up some speed if the instructor would get out of the way…

Pressure’s Off

Waking up this morning, I looked across at my bride to me, neck chubb bunched up under her chin as she flicked thru her phone. She turned to me and smiled with that smile I love, the one that she does with her eyes that wrinkles the bridge of her nose in embarrassment (And I’ll likely never see again after she reads this!)

Proposal

First day in Mexico and jetlag worked in my favour because naturally we woke up early, and Aimi suggested we go to watch the sunrise over the beach. This was awesome because today was the day and this would make the perfect moment.

The Holiday That Finally Came

Finally!

After rebooking and changing and checking and testing and hoping it would happen, the morning arrived for us to start our holiday.

Dyfi Bike Park

After a hard days ride uphill yesterday, today we were going to Dyfi bike park and getting an uplift. This is where you pay a chap to drive you and your mates up the hill in the back of a Landover, with the bikes in a trailer. You then spend 20 mins coming down the hill, back to the start, where you catch another Landy to the top again, rinse and repeat. So much easier than pedaling to the top, and before you say it’s cheating, I did enough uphill pedaling yesterday not to feel even slightly guilty about it!

Snowdon Struggle

Well that was equal parts exhilarating and exhausting!

It’s funny how the human mind has the capacity to ignore, and even forget, the suffering of the human body, when the suffering is in pursuit of a goal. For us, it was the summit of Snowdon. This was not the end goal, but actually the start of the reason we had travelled here; to descend on mountain bikes.

Snowdon Preparation

Oh god what have I agreed to…

Steve has been pushing me to come mountain bike down Snowdon for a while and finally I had relented.

Yamaha Offroad Experience ’21

I had forgotten how much I like the smell of two-stroke, pine forest and sweat.

The chap in front had brought his own bike which was just singing along. We blasted along the fire roads and every now and again he would give it a cheeky squeeze sending gravel shooting back at me. It wasn’t a race, we were heading to the next area of technical trail to tackle, so I just hung back and enjoyed the view, the smell and the experience of handling such a wonderful machine.

Home Sweet Home

We had spent the night in a Brecon car park with a Victorian river garden adjacent. We walked the promenade and around the quaint village and enjoyed a rare, warm and dry evening in Wales. Just because we were in a van in a carpark doesn’t mean it was all stodgy pasta and plasticky water. Oh no no!

The Tale Of The Ducati – Pt.5

The email to Ducati clung to my fingers as they reluctantly depressed the keyboard rhythmically…

I had to get another document that was identical to the one they had already supplied, apart from one, minor difference. I hated every moment of it, because I knew that the request was completely unreasonable and that the poor secretary who, until this point, had been very nice and helpful, would shortly think I was being ridiculous for the sake of annoying her…