Well you, son of T de F Rider...

People who know me well, will know that it only takes me to have a sleep and I will have forgotten what happened the day before. However, there is one event en grained into my memory from last October which is hard to forget.  The 2011 Etape Cymru. I was sort of goaded into riding last year by a former colleague of mine, but sneakily he only challenged me with 7 weeks notice of the event.  I went into a panicked training frenzy to ensure I could at least get round.  The event itself was eventful.  This is why I can still remember the experience so vividly. After a good start, I went off course, crashed and punctured, all before the famous Horse Shoe Pass.  Despite all that, the feeling of accomplishment was worth it.  There is no denying, the course is brutal, but the scenery is fantastic and to ride that far on closed roads is such a rare experience. Even though I have hardly looked at my bike since that day last October, I feel drawn to...

I discovered from Twitter, I think, that racing is returning to Birkenhead Park this year.  This prompted me to writing a little blog on my experiences through the 80's and early 90's of my all time favourite course. I actually raced around the park on 44 separate occasions and won there 6 times. Before I get into the story of my times racing round the park, I will give a little background history, on the park itself. (Oh blimey, I'm almost writing an informative blog!) For the uncultured of you reading this, Birkenhead Park was opened in 1847 and was the first park built with public money, after the town of Birkenhead asked Parliament for the powers to use the money to build a municipal park.  More famously though, the designer of New York's Central Park  Freddy Olmsted visited Birkenhead Park and used some of the features from it in his design for Central Park. Birkenhead Park has recently been the subject of an £11.5 million renovation, fund...