5 days to go....

Have been mega, uber, super busy past few weeks, flat out like a lizard drinking as our strine cousins would say, what with training on the bike, organising and running Bike Knowledge classes, working full time and helping run Scottish XC series. Oh, and working a day job too. My house has become a giant storage area for bikes, tires, bits of bikes, SXC t-shirts, camping gear, dirty dishes and clothes that haven't been ironed. And bits of paper for Bike Knowledge. And invoices for the SXC. And the odd dead thing that Ramona brings in (my cat) hope I have found all of those...

This is a picture of what my flat is supposed to look like (tho not normally that dark)

2 big pieces of news:

1. I managed to scrape a qualification to ride XC races at World Cup level. And before anybody gets excited (Mother and Winton !) that doesn't mean I'm coming to Rotorua in august. Cycling is a professional sport, but to race at international level for your team you have to meet a minimum standard. I had to get a top 10 finish in the Elite category at a British National race. This is all because I fancied riding in the World Cup series race at Fort William at the end of may. So anyway I managed to get 10th at a British race down in Nottingham a few weekends ago, (by 14 seconds can't say I wasted any effort there) so have entered to ride in the race at Fort William next weekend. I have no ambitions to impress anybody, I will be happy to not come last !! I am doing this for the pure thrill and excitement of riding with 100 odd of the worlds best, world and olympic champions. I think I will enjoy the race more than any I have done, no pressure on me to do anything except try and not crash, and 10,000 spectators to cheer me on.

2. We held our launch party at the weekend for Bike Knowledge. It went extremely well, as have the classes so far. I think we are on to a winner here, you should have seen the faces on our customers when we taught them some basic biking techniques, thrilled as and keen for more !! Will post photo from that once it's emailed to me.

Really looking forward to the weekend, once the race is over can get down to the serious business of partying in Fort Bill, and watching the Downhill on the sunday. Have taken a long weekend to will swing by Laggan on monday the way back.

Work still kinda sucks, but I think any day job would be shit boring at the moment, too much else going on. The financial holocaust continues, now the Edinburgh City Council are after me for council tax I don't owe them. Am thinking more and more that I will have to sell my flat. It is getting more expensive living on my own in inner city like this, and I just can't afford it. Didn't envisage living on my own for this long, the council tax just goes up and up as do all the other bills, esp when its always your turn to pay (same goes for the dishes !) So anyway once the job situation has settled in that I find one that doesn't suck, will start looking at moving out of Edinburgh, maybe Mid-Lothian or towards the Borders somewhere. Would be nice to have a garden too, for Ramona especially. I can then settle down to my middle-aged librarian Spinsterhood properly and start recruiting larger numbers of cats. Or maybe I'll just throw everything in the back of the van and move to France...

Have had to restrict myself and not buy a new bike this year, just some nice 165mm XTR cranks for the Santa Cruz. But as those cost more than most peoples bikes do, can't really take too much credit for rationing there.

Interestingly, this riding in the World Cup thing has proved to be a bit of a bloke magnet. Nothing serious to report so don't get excited anybody (Mother and Winton !) but lets just say I'm enjoying the attention. Unexpected side-effect !!

Full report from Fort William next week.