A Nice Cup of Tea

That's the first thing I have when I get back from holiday. Not very exciting, but a necessary evil when you've been drinking coffee in California for 10 days.

So my holiday to the SingleSpeed World Champs in Napa California was great fun - great friends, great wine, great conversation, great laughs, great beer, great whisky sour, great trails, great weather and the most amazing food I have ever, ever eaten!

I'll write more and put some pictures up on my adventures page when I get some more time. Due to flight delays and time differences it was a full 28 hours between leaving San Jose aeroport and arriving home Friday afternoon. A 4.30am start this morning has plunged my body clock into meltdown.

For now, just to show you how awful the weather was so you're not too jealous, here's a picture of us riding in Wilder Ranch, Santa Cruz on Tuesday.

That's Chris's backside, Jessica, Laura Bontrager, me and Raquel.

You see, the sun was so bright we could barely see the Pacific ocean in the background because of the glare! It was so hot I kept having to stop to reapply factor 30 sunscreen, and the dust was really getting in my throat as well. Damn NorCal trails...

SSWC 07 - leaving town

So the World Champs are over for another year (the real world champs, not that rubbish that's going on in Fort William this weekend). Beer, riding, friends, derbys, crashes, dancing, beer, mickey taking, heckling and endless story telling, perfect. Sat in Cafe Mambo in Aviemore, drinking great coffee with C.G. an American friend I only see once or twice a year, and Ricky/Chris, the random Canadian guy we picked up last night and has decided to hang out with us for a while. We're on first name terms with the baristas and practically have seats with our names on. We have no plans, just a big van full of bikes and stuff. This is what singlespeeding is all about.

Browsing the interent to find all the photos, posts, threads and things being said about the event is proving interesting. The photos tell the best stories, everything else seems a little distorted. It always fascinates me the amount of comments that are made by people that weren't even here! It was legendary, you missed it, get over it.

Adam Craig and Kellie Emmett won with true style, the course was amazing, not that I rode it, there was some world class heckling, lots of beer and I think Billy Spaceman won the ass slapping contest. We went for a walk, skimmed stones in the loch, drank coffee, ate cake and ice cream and laughed, lots! (I think we may have ridden our bikes at some point too, but that was only to get to the cake shop.)

Another plate of nachos and we'll be off to Pitlochry, making sure we stop by the Cairngorm brewery to stock up. We're passing (meaning, dropping by) some distilleries on the way too. I think this mornings vows to not drink any more this week aren't going to last very long, another few minutes maybe...

If you want to see any photos Garrison's, aka Baby Bear, are on flickr. And yes, the in-jokes are going to continue for many years to come. And no, it's unlikely you'll ever get most of them...