For my birthday we cycled over to Hillier Gardens through Ampfield Woods and had lunch there. Christine had the hard job of pulling the cycle chariot containing Duncan which she prefers to having Emma on the seat on the back. I think she was just glad that we don’t live somewhere with real hills! Having the chariot inside Hilliers meant we could cover more ground than when Emma is walking so we actually got to see some of the gardens (in particular the colourful display of rhodies) in addition to the usual tour round the magic carpet and the tree house. At the latter Duncan was showing off, climbing up the 8ft scramble net single-handed. It certainly tired him out – he slept all the way home.

I had last week booked off work and, as we were at Longleat on the Sunday, we thought we’d look at the option of staying on at the adjacent Center Parcs. Mid-week term-time the prices are pretty reasonable. Sadly though, it’s Monday to Friday and, having decided we couldn’t face packing the car for a week on the Sunday morning, we actually ended up driving back to Southampton for Sunday night! That wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if we hadn’t spent much of the journey back up north again sat in a traffic jam approaching Salisbury. It was, however, pretty wet on Monday anyway. Thankfully things cleared up for the rest of the week and we were treated to blue skies for the next couple of days.

We took our bikes (including Emma’s) and the cycle chariot, and much of the week was spent out and about at one of the many playgrounds or in the pool. We only booked a few activities. I had more cycling, going to a spin class (I’ve never sweated so much in 40 minutes!). Emma went to ‘Tennis Tots’ but it was all a bit too much for her and she got the most enjoyment from just running around after the ball. When asked to pick from a selection of activities at the start of the week she had opted for ‘none of the above’ and wanted to do face painting. By Thursday she was still adamant and we relented. It may have been overpriced but Emma’s tiger face kept her amused for the rest of the day. Cousin Megan, who’d come to stay for a night, was less sure about the tiger roars! Christine’s exercise class was sadly cancelled. And Duncan? His favourite activity was watching the ducks that waddled past the window of the villa!

Ever since we borrowed the Broderick’s cycle chariot back at Easter we’ve been umming and ahhing about getting one ourselves. The big question was, given that prices range from around £60 to £800, how much would we actually use it? Finally caved in last week and bought a Phillips Cleveland on eBay last week for £90 (about half price). It has the benefit of having a hard base but no fancy suspension or add-ons to turn it in to a running buggy or such-like. We picked it up yesterday and took it for a quick spin around the cycleways of Valley Park. The attachment to the bike isn’t as robust as the axle hitch on the Chariot as it just clamps on to the frame. It’s a fine line between attaching it far enough forward that the frame is thick enough and having it not catch on my heel.

More of an issue was the sibling rivalry going on in the back. At one point Duncan was banging Emma over the head with a spade (of the bucket and spade variety I hasten to add! Today Emma insisted that I took her to the supermarket in the trailer (and that Duncan didn’t come.) In the end it was just as well that Duncan wasn’t there as we got a bit carried away with the shopping. Thankfully there aren’t too many hills on the way home!

All things considered, I think it was a good move. The trailer makes less difference to cycling than having a seat on the back and I’m sure Duncan will appreciate it for his ride to nursery when the weather takes a turn for the worse. Most importantly, it means one of us can take both the kids out (providing they learn to get on a bit better!).

Neil and Alice are off on the other side of the world for the next week or two and have kindly lent us their cycle chariot. Emma was certainly keen to give it a go as she was sat in the seat with the cover over whilst I finished assembling it! Unfortunately Saturday wasn’t really the best day for venturing out on a bicycle as it was drizzling from dawn ’til dusk. By mid-afternoon we had to get out of the house to maintain sanity and a bike ride round the local playgrounds seemed as good an idea as any. As you can see from the photo, Duncan was slightly less keen about the whole idea but then he did go off to sleep shortly after we set off! I certainly found it an easier ride towing two rather than having Emma in the rear seat although there’s not much in the way of hills around us to really provide a test. Given its size, it remains to be seen whether we take it away with us on holiday and, given the price (now about £800 for this model), even more so whether we decide to buy one for ourselves.

For some reason I decided to enter the ‘Military Challenge’ Mountain Bike Orienteering event yesterday. This was despite not even owning a mountain bike (I borrowed one from the cycle club at work). What I hadn’t bargained on at the time I entered was that there would be lots of snow on the ground! Things started to go wrong even before the start. I had not brought my normal cycle jacket (well, it’s Christine’s actually) as the zip broke but what I had forgotten was that my cycle gloves were in the rear pocket. Luckily I did at least have another pair of gloves with me.

I pedalled off to the start and was a bit surprised to be given 6 maps (I had rather rashly entered the 25km medium course after some goading from Christine). The start was on top of a spur and I’ll freely admit that I wheeled my bike down the steep snow covered single-track path that weaved through the small conifers. Once I did get going I then managed to drop my compass (it was tucked in the side of the Heath Robinson map holder that I had constructed to attach to my handlebars). I saw it go but despite only having a 5 metre section of track to search it still took me about five minutes to find it again in the snow. The navigation was easy enough not to need a compass – I just didn’t want to lose it!

I managed to get through the first three controls without too much difficulty. I did briefly wonder what the high wall on the route to number three was all about until I passed a road called ‘Broadmoor Drive’. I was a bit indecisive on the route from 3 to 4. The maps consisted of a mixture of orienteering and OS maps and I wasn’t sure whether we were permitted to use the footpaths on the OS maps. It was whilst I was making a detour back to the road that things went drastically wrong: the left crank fell off! I found the screw but the small toolkit I was carrying wasn’t going to help me re-attach it. I walked my bike out to the road and asked a passing family for assistance. They directed me to a bike shop just 10 minutes walk away!

Thanks go to the guys at Berkshire Cycles who put the crank back on but they warned me that it was deformed by this point and I shouldn’t ride on. They were right and I made it back as far as Upper Star Posts before it fell off again despite my attempts to only use the left pedal lightly. This time the screw was lost to the snow and I just ran back with the bike with the crank in my hand. (Running with a bike is considerably easier when there is no pedal to get in the way!)

So, my first MTBO event was not exactly a great success but it was a lovely day to be out with the sun shining on the snow. Getting ready for the event was a bit of a faff – all the usual orienteering gear plus everything for the bike as well. My makeshift map board worked reasonably well although I think you really do need one that rotates. Trying to work out which path to take at one of the massive Star Posts junctions is very difficult when the map isn’t orientated. At £35+ that’s not something I’m going to buy in a hurry though so perhaps I should just stick to two legs in future!

GPX files for these runs but don’t yet have a good way of displaying them. If your running Internet Explorer then you can

view it on some MS Virtual Earth imagery and try and spot the ponds! You can always use GPSBabel if you want some other format.

As part of Christine’s birthday celebration we hired bikes from Lyndhurst in the New Forest along with Christine’s parents, her brother and his girlfriend. For novelty value, we took a tandem mountain bike. The fact that the front and rear pedals are fixed relative to one another meant getting started took a bit of practice (I have the scars on my shins to prove it) but once you got going it was quite easy to out-pace the individual riders.