Matt's Blog

I seem to have fallen off the bike this morning. This was down Ride Lane, near Farely Green, Guildford. Most of the tracks were heavily rutted by 4x4s and then the centre line was churned up by horses. I'm glad it was fairly dry or I would have struggled even more. Bounced down the wet chalky steps was a bit of a nightmare; going up hill is so much easier. 

It was Frank's leaving do so we all trotted off down the Wetherspoons near work. The woman next to Frank (Sarah) reminded me of Mrs Doyle, off Father Ted, though I think I managed not to tell her that to her face!

They had Dark Star Expresso Stout on at the pub - yum. That nice kind wife of mine picked me up at the station afterwards. 

We all took a bit of a diversion to go and play in the mud.! 

Had a whale of a time today riding around Salisbury Plain with the Africa Twin set. There were about 17 of us in the end. A couple of people fell off in the mud but thanks to my stupidly knobbly tyres, I stayed on. At about 2pm, we all had to leave the plain - there was a fire and everybody was being chucked off. Still, I was completely covered in mud and dust by then so it was probably tine for home. Photos and comments from other people on the ride are at http://www.xrv.org.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=35258#35258

Not quite sure why I bothered cleaning the bike this morning as I came across a byway somewhere in Berkshire whilst I was out checking out the newly shortened windscreen :-) 

I've spent the morning sorting out the bike. The Ultraseal has now been installed, it's been cleaned, I've worked out how to unclip the topbox and I've chopped the windscreen down.

A few people over in www.advrider.com have done this already so it wasn't a total shot in the dark. It came away easily enough with a dremel and then I cleaned up the edges with a sharp(ish) chisel and some sandpaper. Looks pretty good even if I say so myself.

At last the dreadful buffetting has gone. I might be getting more air on my face but at least it's not turbulant noisy air. 

I've been around Frensham and Tilford this morning. The Byways aren't very well signed. It took me three attempts to find this one over Tilford Common. At one point I ended up at the bottom of a hill, with a locked gate in front of me and not enough space to turn around. I had to detour into the woods at the side to get around.

You'll all be pleased to know that I didn't fall over getting through this ford.

I've also updated my Surrey Byways map to include a few more photos. The link is off on the side somewhere.

The afternoon was spent sorting out Sue's PC as she's now got broadband. She now can now browse and email along with the rest of us. She's even got a blog (http://housemiss.blogspot.com/)

We went to Biddulph on Saturday to see the Oyster Band. I got chatting to some woman whilst I was there. She had a bit of a rant about the hypocritical middle class audience singing along and cheering the workclass songs.

I mentioned this to Lou afterwards. She seemed horrified that somebody would think her middle class, despite that fact that she's employed as a flower arranger for her local council!