WWOOOOOOOAAAAAH, I'm back!

Holy shinkleficks everyone!

I am back and with a vengeance,
Since November - the last time that I wrote on this blog, I have been doing a shed load of exciting and awe inspiring things.

Hoorah!

Unfortunately, this means that this post may end up being quite long and backwardly relevant. Indeed, those of you that have actually spoken to me in any time in the last few months will probably know all about my exploits already.

Nevermind.

I proceed forthwith!

1st of all.

ETON FIVES TOURNAMENT IN LONDON

I went to my first senior tournament!

I was paired up witha  fine young player called Tony Baxter from St. Olaves School, we played pretty well and won a couple of games in our group. Unfortunately, we also came up against the eventual winning pair...and the outcome was not pretty.

Despite thinking that I was playing quite well, and believing that my partner was playing slightly better than myself, we succumbed to a 12-1 12-2 loss...We weren't even remotely close to having any impact on the game. I mean, our opponents didnt even take off their tracksuits...yeah....

This colourful gentleman was a member of the Eton fives club.

Basically, it seems that there are a few levels of Eton fives ability.

1 - BEGINNER - utterly useless, hides from the ball and loses with aplomb
2 - NOT SO BAD BEGINNER - Can actually hit the ball consistently with both hands, but doesnt have a clue what they are doing
3 - INTERMEDIATE - Capable of hitting the ball with conviction, can return the ball from the buttress with some skill, but for the most part loses because of poor shots selection
4 - DECENT PLAYER - Can cut well, hit some good shots and win points against better opponents, but the odd weak shot will leave him at a disadvantage as the rallies get longer and the game drags on
5 - GOOD PLAYER - Cuts well, good shot selection, plays with some guile and deception, targets holes in opponent pairs and will win most matches against similar opponents
6 - OBSCENELY GOOD - These are a rare brand of player, and no one knows where they come from or train, but they must have their own private training camps, where they congregate and become ridiculous volley machines, with reflexes like those of that annoying fly that has been buzzing around your room for the last 20 minutes, that you just cant hit with your rolled up copy of the tv guide. These pairings are largely unbeatable, and rare errors will be the main cause of defeat when they meet. For all other standards, damage limitation is the word of the day when coming into contact on court.

Anways, after we fell out of the group stages, we entered the 'A' Plate, which is really code for the grade 5 players and below. Fortunately, we kept our game together and won that competition, another victory to put under my belt, but sadly there was no trophy to take home.

Here is the short and shabby video that I made of the tournament.

http://vimeo.com/32919901


SWITZERLAND #1

We went to Switzerland in December and I crushed hard, that's right. I crushed like a fridge which not only produces ice cubes, but will also make those same cubes into smaller versions that melt quicker and therefore cool your drink more effectively! I was on fire! not literally of course, because then I would have been warm, and that - I was not.

Although the temperatures were slightly warmer than they were on our previous trip they were still not toasty. Indeed, we were beset upon by great clouds of snowy precipitation, that sought to waylay our advances from high on one side of the valley to high on the other side to Chironico.

Fortunately, we managed to get out and keep up a vague schedule of two days on and one day off.
Despite still carrying my gammy A4 pulley injury from the trip to font earlier in March, I was able to tape up and send most of the problems I attempted. Come to think of it, I dont think there was actually very much that I failed to succeed upon.

My ticklist for the trip ran to: -

Erm... I cant remember, and I dont think I really wrote it down anywhere.
I know I did a 7B and perhaps a 7B+ (that one is in dispute)
I did  bunch of 7A problems too.

Anyways, without further ado
I proudly present, my two hardest climbs from the holiday
YAY...CHEERS...APPLAUSE!

http://vimeo.com/34294475

After I got home, it was time to have a little rest and a series of food filled parties around the country.
Christmas,
Boxing day,
Jonny's wedding (crazy christian heebiejeebies but lots of wine)
New Years party (G&T all evening till it turned messy and we went to bed)

I think there was some climbing in there somewhere as well, but my memory fails me.

Oh yes, I went to TCA for a climb, and then afterwards I went out to try my first 8a sport route with Tris and G. Parry.

I managed to do the bottom crux, but the top was too hard for me in my fatigued state and I settled for taking some photos of Gaz.

After all this, I eventually went back to work, and have started climbing a lot at the school wall, setting all sorts of mean and evil problems for the kiddies and myself.
They must have been having some sort of effect, as I have been placing noticeably higher in all the competitions I have started to attend in the start of this year.


I placed 6th in the Reading round of SIBL (However, I am first to admit that the usual crowd of ultra strong wads was not there to show me up for once, but I drew with a chap who has climbed 8a+ before, and for me that is a great achievement in itself.)

Pfft, Reading boulders? Easy.
Credit to Mateuz (sp?) for the great pics.

I placed 1st at a local Craggy2 competition and won some vouchers for free climbing along with the other two winners of the easier categories who were both Cranleigh school kids!
(Again, there were stronger climbers present, who didnt hand in their cards... but you cant win if you dont put in your card, and I certainly beat them at doing that.)

Crushing the Craggy boulders

I then came 6th at the TCA competition, which was a decent showing since it was the 3rd competition in 6 days and the standard of climbing at those competitions is always high.
Unfortunately, I looked at the results and found that I had infact been beaten by the little scroat Laurie SE who mere months ago was certainly not capable of competing with me.
Of course, the fact that he is on the TCA boulder squad with Hamish Potokar and James Squire, and that his father owns the centre may have something to do with the whole thing.

So, I suppose that brings us up to about now.
And right now I am in

SWIZZY #2

Only this time I am going to attempt to stand on a slidey sideways deathboard of terror.

I understand that those in the know also call this  a'snowboard', but I think they are really just showing off.
Since I have managed to stand on a slackline, and walk backwards and forwards and twist around, I have faith in my ability to eventually grasp the damned concept of moving sideways , but if my last attempt aobut 3 years ago is anything to go by, I shouldn't hold out much hope.

Deathboarding lessons start on Monday, but that still leaves a whole day tomorrow for me to get to grips with learning to stand up after I fall over. I hope I wont be too bruised to learn form the teacher :-/

I have my camera with me, and we are right under the Eiger, so I shall attempt to take a moody black and white shot extolling the power of nature and the feebleness of man. In all likelihood, I expect this to look like a distinctly average black and white picture of the Eiger with some clouds, the caption will attempt to add the dark brooding sense of foreboding.

Anyways, staying true to form, it is now 10 to 1 in the mornings here, so I had best be off to bed, lest I fail to rise in the morning.

Wish me luck!

I want to walk around spanish cities at night.

Sitting at my desk, listening to Bon Iver.

Some days are busy, others - like this - are empty, and I just sit here trying to think of something to do.

Yesterday, I solved a rubiks cube in under 30s after a few attempts.
I know how to play 'Where is my mind?' on ukulele.
I played fives with the Brigands.
I did an AS chemistry unit 1 paper.
I solved a crossword.

Maybe I should start learning a language while I am here...


I met Gaz Parry the other day at SSP and had a chat, considering getting him to come to the school to do some setting/coaching.
After that I flashed a few of his new routes; a 6a+ a 6c and up to the last move of his tufa 6b+ problem.

All I really learnt from the experience was that my stamina is thoroughly up the shitter, I was pumped out of my mind after one route! I am heavily missing out on having a multitude of well set circuits at TCA, I might actually go back for a couple of weekends just for that training facility. It is a pretty long trip over, but considering it costs £7.50 for entry to Craggy Island, it probably works out to be only about 10-20 pounds more, and I get to see my friends in the west country again.

I made a video of myself doing some fives training the other evening


Eton Fives trailer from Archie CB on Vimeo.


As it says on the vimeo page - I would like to make a longer video that explains some of the rules, and since there is a large tournament in London at the end of this month - I think that would make a nice centre piece.

Just need to find a partner now.
And sort out my complete and utter inability to return cut.

Another week gone!

So here we are - another week has disappeared into the sands of time.

Since the last post I haven't done a great deal except play a single game of fives on Thursday evening.

I received a callup from Richard Black (whom I had never met) to play for the 'Lancing Fives Club' - Which is a rather grand name for the 4 old men that the team appears to be comprised of. I think someone mentioned to Richard that I was around in the area and keen for a game, and I am glad that they did because the game I played in was excellent. 

After turning up and playing a few points so they could gauge my ability, I was placed placed in first pair to play a best-of-five match against the top charterhouse pairing.

Naturally, as befits any game I have played in recently, the first thing we did was go behind by about 7 points and then struggle our way back into the game. Our opponents were very fast cutting, and made cunning use of the angle, such that I found myself pinned into the buttress a fair few times before finding some form.

Once I did however, we started to play some very good fives, with some long volleying rallies. One even got up to around 20 shots in length, which left me panting up against the wall.

One of the odd things about fives, and fives courts, is that each court seems to be a little bit different. 

Westway has nice even bouncing courts, fairly similar to Eton in size and shape.

Eton has very shiny courts which dont seem to allow for a great deal of spin

Cranleigh has fairly wide courts with grippy plaster on the walls

St John's is just awful.

And Charterhouse has slanty floors.

These slanty floors threw me off for ages during the match, until I worked out where I needed to stand to be in the right position for my favourite shot into the buttress. Unfortunately, because the ball takes a much narrower angle to the floor when it is slanted, it also meant that I was having to hit it much closer to the ground. Which resulted in my 'killer' shot, not only being telegraphed from the back of the court, but also going a great deal slower than usual.

Nevertheless, we pulled ourselves back into the first game and won in good fashion. The second game was equally close, before we finished them off comfortably in the final game.

Fortunately, next week isnt anywhere near as manic on the fives front, and hopefully I will be able to get my heels back to fighting fitness (they get bruised when I play for a long time) Perhaps I need new shoes.

In other news - I went climbing the other day, and since I have been taping my finger during sessions, my pulley has stopped protesting so much - and today it is even feeling good! I'm not sure how long there is till SIBL now, but I might put in a showing at the first round, just because I can. :-D

Hoorah.

Finger Woes

Good day to all,

Another long break since the last post, but no excuses for me except for laziness.

I have been very busy though - Having started my job, and successfully avoided being fired for 5(?) weeks - I can say that I really feel very happy with where I am at the moment.

I work in the chemistry department at Cranleigh school, which is the same place that I went to school. Fortunately for me though, they have built a shiny new centre for sciences and modern languages and this means that I do not have to work in the old, dingy, draughty and dusty department :-)

Added to that, is the fact that the girl I replaced has done a stirling job of setting up the department, such that my only real requirement is to keep things moving in the right direction. I haven't burnt down the department yet, but we have been exploding some hydrogen balloons to great effect.

I am also heavily involved with the sporting side of things - both on my own, and with the students.

A couple of weeks ago I was able to compete with my old fives partner, Phil Roper, in the U25 Fives Nationals. Despite having a 3 year hiatus from playing fives, Phil was still as good as he ever was and we settled into a groove by the end of the tournament that saw us walk out with the 'A plate'.

Phil and Myself with the overall winners trophy (there was no plate available for photos)

Phil, Myself and the Cambridge based Illingworth Brothers

I have to give full credit to the runners up, who were good sports throughout the match. We came very close to losing after we let a close first game slip away, and then proceeded to gift 6 points at the start of the second.
Fortunately after that I found the right state of mind for cut returning and our service games became very competitive. Eventually we came from behind to win another close game and go into the deciding game at 1-1.
My good form with returning continued and we really dominated the final game, running out 12-2 victors at the end.

I have also been playing a lot of fives with the school, as I am in charge of running two sessions on both Tuesday and Thursday with a single session on Wednesday for the new students at the school.
Last night was our first fixture of the season against a roving fives club made up of grey haired, cunning men. Overall, I think that our team looks quite strong at the moment, with potential for some real competition at the school nationals if I can convince them to come down for some training.

Climbing is still taking a bit of a backseat until my finger is where it needs to be for me to pull on it properly. I think this may mean that I will have to miss the first SIBL round to ensure that I can perform properly at the remaining rounds, but so be it.
I did manage to get out to Stone Farm during the recent spell of delightful weather we have been treated too. Unfortunately, the blazing sun also reduced friction horribly and I walked away from a 3 hour session having only achieved a  an obscenely hard '6b+' - difficult to tell given the conditions, but given that both myself and my mate (who has climbed multiple 7b problems) thought that it was nails, it perhaps needs looking at. Video to come.

Anyways, it is about time for lunch now - so toodleoo.

Seems to have been a while since the last update again. Sorry :-/

I haven't written a post in a while,

And once again I don't really have a good excuse.
However, I have started work at the school which, at the moment, involves getting up far too early and then drinking coffee to keep myself awake. However, I am enjoying the opportunity to dress smartly and then play with chemicals when no one is looking. In fact, I have a rather fun looking experiment to try out at some point:



(Just try to ignore the fact that he sounds like the guy from the Saw movies)

Hopefully I will manage to stay afloat on the wave of chemical organisation that is going to be required in my job. I havent started too badly, but still a bit all over the place in terms of working out what tthe hell I am actually supposed to be doing half the time.

So far it has been pretty quiet, so I have been able to do some extra stuff around the school in the form of climbing, setting and grading routes, choosing sofas, meeting all my old teachers again (some of whom have even attempted to looked pleased about my return), and drawing this pretty picture of the school wall so that  we can now mark up all the problems on the circuits in a simple and effective manner.


Personally, I think it looks very pretty and does a great job of displaying the problems in a veriety of grades.

Finally - I have been getting back on the climbing and bit more, but also some of that good old fashioned photography. So on a recent trip to my mate's home training wall it was only natural that my camera should follow.

Here are a few of the resulting shots:










One thing I think I can say for sure is that if I continue to climb here, and get my fingers back up to full grip strength, then I will be in a very pretty place for this series of SIBL competition. I'm very excited for what might go down this winter if I can get my body and act together.

Looks like it is time for beddy byes for the newly inducted worker bee.
Please don't let me become an automaton...

I went to find a picture of Marvin - and instead found this.
I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have done

Phew, Long day (relatively speaking)

Relative to the short wimpy ones I have been doing recently I mean.

I went up to the school today to hit a fives ball around and regain some fitness and finesse. I'm amazed by just how tired I feel after a few minutes of play, I guess is has something to do with using a set of muscles that I am not used to using.

So after about an hour of hitting up on my own I stopped and went home for about 20 minutes before heading out to craggy to climb with Ed till 7. When Ed left, I stayed and climbed with two of my other friends until 10.

I tried to climb easy problems today with my ring finger taped and buddy strapped to my right middle finger. Fortunately my finger didnt hurt too much, and today even feels a little better now that I have finished the session.
However, it still sucks and as such, I have managed to obtain a referral to a hand specialist. So once that is organised I will hopefully have a fit and healthy hand!

Anyways, back to icing and Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
(2 more episodes of series one to go, what a programme)

http://www.youtube.com/user/ravecrocker#p/c/5BCD5AF587A902AF/0/eWnTILu4Al8

Finally

Hey up,

Well, after finally overcoming the levy of distractions that have been imposed upon me from such activities as: Climbing, Cycling, Rugby Ball Kicking, Shopping, Redditing, Film Watching, Icing and general procrastinatinging - Here it is!

The long awaited (and much requested) log of our seige of the ventoux.
Before I start; I apologise in advance for the low quality of the pictures in this post. Due the the new plan requiring that I carry all of my gear in a rucksack, the option of taking my DSLR and all of my lenses turned out to be less than attractive. Thus, the only photos I have are from my phone, and hastily taken at that.

With that disclaimer over and done with - Let's start the story!

To give the challenge some context; the well known, and well respected multiple tour de France winning Lance Armstrong referred to the Ventoux as “the hardest climb on the Tour, bar none.” - Unfortunately I only found this out when I had returned back home otherwise I might have put in a few more hours on the pitiful hills of Surrey.

In one of the previous posts I suggested that we were to take a lift down to Grenoble with a blokey from UKC and then cycle about 200 miles to my friends house.

My Main Man Mike's Very Voluminous Van


However, we hit a stumbling block when, two days before we left, I found that the fine steed that I was to ride upon, was not capable of carrying panniers (bags which attach to the bike). Naturally, the prospect of riding 200 miles through hilly terrain with a heavy rucksack was not high on my list of desirable activities. Instead, we altered our plans such that the journey from Grenoble to Dave's would be largely completed by train.
We crossed the Channel to Dunkirk and snatched a scant 4 hours sleep before continuing down to Grenoble with a smile on our lips and a song in our heart. Unfortunately there was not a great deal in our bellies, so when we finally arrived in Orange for the final 20+ mile cycle to Dave's house we were hardly in the fittest of states.

You see that pointy thing?

For much of the cycle we were pedalling into a light headwind under the descending Provençal sun, which poured down its bronzing rays upon us until we eventually arrived amongst the vineyards of Faucon.

This was to be our base of operation for the following week while we recuperated from our short ride and diligently prepared ourselves with hours of backbreaking labour for the ride to come.


Training hard with isotonic sports drink in hand

After a couple of days rest in the beautiful surroundings, eating well and filling the hours with time spent in the pool, on the croquet field and on the boules court.
In the evenings we competed fiercely in such fine and noble passtimes as chess, trivial pursuits and cleudo.
And we ate like kings, with our hosts feeding us: meatballs, fajitas, cheese, sausages, barbecues, pizzas, croissants, apples, nectarines, biscuits, oranges, and all under the ever present eye of the Ventoux.

It may be hard to see, but there is a white patch on the top of the middle hill...That is the peak of the ventoux, and on that peak is a great white tower which overlooks the valleys all around.

With this view haunting each and every one of our waking hours at Dave's, it was a tempered rest and before long we found ourselves making our plans for the ascent.
We decided to start the day with a 5:30am start, two long-last pain au chocolat for breakfast, and a 30 mile ride as a brief warm up to get to the start of the climb in Bedoin.

How to climb the Ventoux - easy really.


We stopped just outside of the village and I made the rather foolish decision to continue on up the ride without further refueling my body with food. And as I found out later on the ride, I also had no food for the ride, and therefore no energy for the top. On the other hand, the frequent rests I took provided me with some quality time to take in the superb vista that spread out below me.

There is a larger version of this picture on Flickr if you click through.

It seems that there is a magical aspect to this peak in that no matter how far you pedal towards it, it seems to stay at least the same distance away - and sometimes becomes further.



After about 2.5/3 hours I eventually rolled my way over the top, collapsed, and took a short lived break while I gorged myself on some life giving chocolate and cola. I had been pedalling in the lowest possible gear for 2 hours at about 5mph, and if that wasn't enough to break me mentally then the addition of the freezing 40mph gusts of the mistral, and the rising Provençal sun were more than enough to finish me off. By the time I reached the top there was little I could do besides take a picture and roll back down to Bedoin.

And I look so happy about it!

The descent of the mountain was good fun, one might even go as far as to say that it was worth the ascent!

I was a little zealous with the brakes since it was my first real descent, but I still achieved 40mph for long sections and even overtook a car!
But the most pleasant thing about getting down towards the valley was the warmth that finally filled my body after shivering for the majority of my time in the top third of the climb.

We eventually got back to Dave's after retracing our 30 mile approach.
The total for the day was about 109km in about 6 hours of cycling with about 2000m of height gained.
Each of these figures far exceeds anything I have ever come close to before and once I returned to Dave's my legs did their best to point this out to me by groaning in resentment of every move I made. Eventually however, even this subsided and I was able to enjoy the last few days of our stay at chez Dave.

It is now very late, and there is still a great deal to mention.
Unfortunately I have run out of mental juice and I need to sleep.
I hope this has been of some interest to you few readers, or at least that someone should read it and make my time writing this worthwhile.

G'night.