Deadwater MTB trail - Kielder Forest

A post to commemorate taking the afternoon off last Thursday, and taking my bike up to Kielder. As per my tweet:

First piece of Leave this year - taking the pm off, & the MTB up to Kielder

Named after Deadwater Fell, part of Kielder Forest, and more about which is here. Most of the trail has been built by Kielder Trail Reavers, supported by The Bike Place.

Learning points

The trail is bearing up well, but has become quite uneven, with lots of stones, where the surface has been worn away.

• My fantastic Marzocchi Bomber fork needs pumping up – it was slightly hairy going off large rocks / bumps and the forks compressing more than I’d have liked. Where is that shock pump?! Gah
• My skills & stamina definitely need a big improvement!
• Also, my brakes needs sorting / bleeding & new brake pads installed

btw, if you double-click on the photo of my bike and the associated gear, you will open a browser window at Flickr, as I have annotated the photo (and the next couple…).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike license.

Podcasts to Listen to on the Beach?

Folks

Rather than a Tweet, a quick post to request some suggestions re interesting things to listen to on the beach.

I usually read books like The Tipping Point, Emergence, Synthetic Worlds; I've lined up The Big Switch, The Black Swan and even Mycelium Running for this year (not that I'll have time for them all / more than one...).

I was looking for suggestions for what I could listen to on my MP3 player. Thoughts I've had include:

• Harvard Business Review IdeaCast
• Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
• Seven Habits of Highly Effective people
• David Maister on Professional Services Firms etc.

Not exactly racy, perhaps plain dull - but I have to be myself! I'm not a big fan of novels, unless it's something like Snow Crash or Neuromancer. Can't recommend two these highly enough.

So maybe something self-improving, or of interesting from work / business arena perhaps?

I did a quick Google search, and came up with a similar post, and potential link. Unfortunately, this latter site seems to be defunct.

UPDATE: Still trying to get Disqus comments right! I need to sort out the Blogger template to allow the Disqus system to work properly. :-s

Technorati Tags: podcast,suggestions,holiday,boring

Espléndido Hotel

Quick post to celebrate this fantastic hotel we stayed at in Mallorca.

It's on the seafront in Port de Sóller / Puerto Sóller - depending on whether you speak the Mallorcan dialect of Catalan, or Spanish.

Things to note:

• Fantastic staff
• Funky decor and ambiance, we loved it
• Good facilities - we both had excellent massages, a real indulgence
• Restaurant was v. good - I had a top entrecote steak on the night we arrived
• Just a really good vibe.
  

It's owned by a Swedish couple, who have another hotel in Palma. Therefore, there was a mix of staff - Swedes, Mallorquin, Spanish etc. The guests were mainly professional people, with & without children. Swedes, Dutch, Brits, some Germans.

Wholeheartedly recommended. Not cheap, but fantastic value. We had a Seaview balcony, which was just the job.

We were really lucky with the weather, but there seemed to be quite a lot to do in the hotel if the elements weren't favourable.