Winnersaint

Have no idea why but Darren Gough was on our club social ride this am.

It would leave us with a stadium two thirds full.

Guy from the Sun also said that we'd be the club most likely to emulate Leicester next season. Cundy amazed at our recruitment following Adkins how lucky we'd got with Pochettino and Koeman. They just don't get it!

This made me laugh. "In human body terms Southampton are the appendix. It's there but no one knows what it does and no one would miss it if it's yanked out. Imagine being Koeman and having to manage a club supported by a fanbase that's the equivalent of the Inbetweeners on cocaine. The cringey bastards trying to banter you every week, and the all round scruffy nature of the "city" of Southampon and its people. They're a tragic bunch of humourless titheads who no one is arsed about. We're Everton, Liverpool is our city. There's no debate to be had really. The cruise ships know it. The outside tourists choose it and so will their Eskimo eyed freckle of a bee stung featured manager. If he wink at him he will crawl over broken glass to have the honour of managing Everton and to put distance between him and their mouth breathing southern coast mutants. End of chat."

Good luck with that WSS. Hope it works out, if not it's a trip to the LBS for you. With regards to the Conti GP4000S tyres, I cannot fault them I run them on both road going bikes (as opposed to turbo bike) 23s on one and 25s GP4000S IIs on the other.

Having enjoyed The Last of Us for a week or so as an hors d'oeuvre it finally flopped onto the doormat today courtesy of a pre-order from Amazon. Grown up stuff like teaching children, meant that I had to wait until late afternoon before firing the PS4 up and loading it. I don't want to give any spoilers away but my first impressions are favourable. Be good to hear what others think. Meanwhile it's back to Nathan Drake.

Get well soon.

Bet he turns up in his kit though!

House prices were always cheaper than most parts of Berkshire I would say, but I'm not sure that's going to last much longer and the price differentials have never been that huge. £237000 for a modern 2 bed flat in Easthampstead and £300000 for three bed terraced house in Great Hollands for example. I've worked in the town for the best part of a quarter of a century so it's a place that is oddly close to my heart. A sizeable number of the population under the age 40 may well have been taught by me, and I'm well into the second generation kids now. I've seen it change over the years. When I first started work there it was still very much a New Town with a new town population. A lot of people moved out of south west London and as ever in Berkshire a shed loads of settled travellers. A lot of the kids support Chelsea (inevitably but always been a strong core of Chelsea fans in the same way Stevenage has strong links to Tottenham and Arsenal), QPR and Brentford. Being a bit cheaper has attracted more professional people getting on the housing ladder and socio-economically it is much more 'grown-up' and diverse place than it was 25 years ago, when I encountered very few children from any ethnic minority or from what might be termed 'middle class' backgrounds.

Daft route coming up. If it were me I'd be inclined to go as far as I could up the M3. Come off at Hook and go along the A30 through Hartley Wintney, past Blackbushe to Blackwater, then towards Sandhurst at The Meadows and straight into Bracknell via the A3095 as Napalm suggests. The alternative is indeed more convoluted. At the top of Star Hill out of Hartley Wintney is a one way slip road to Reading which brings you out onto the A327. If you go through Eversley and turn up through Finchampstead Village on the B3348 at the Tally Ho you can follow that through Crowthorne and into Bracknell. A work colleague who currently lives in Southampton and drives daily to Bracknell uses that route.

Upside down shooting in Bill's Town is fun!

Good advice. I also use the same Conti tubes. Schwalbe OK, but occasionally have dodgy valve cores.

The most amusing thing is this thread has gone on for this length of time. M***board gold!

Just left Tess in Capitol Building. Intense and atmospheric stuff. Slightly disconcerted by Nathan Drake's voice being Joel's.

Dembele out for weekend!

Got bored waiting for Uncharted 4 so needing a Naughty Dog fix I bought the remastered version for PS4, finally! Quite brilliant so far.

Lescott is Villa's whipping boy, that much we know., but Martin Keown did an analysis on MOTD which suggested Lescott's shortcomings yesterday were more the product of a collective failure rather than him routinely performing badly. He is slow though!

Kudos just given. Keep going!

Ahh well the relegation fight could make for a different type of entertainment.

Just occurred to me that a few of us are doing sportives, event rides and cycling abroad over the summer, so it would be good to have reports of how the things went and what it was like. My next one I think is the Evans Ride It Reading next month 60 not 90 mile so I will post a report on that. I want to do the Wiggle New Forest 100 to end the season in September.

Fingers crossed. Hope it all goes well. Enjoy.

So Sunday saw the Guide Dogs Tour of Berkshire. Initially I entered for the Epic 125K but half expected to only do the Classic 85K. All my training had been for the shorter distance but got in with my club group who were all doing the longer ride. I've ridden in West Berks before so knew some of the course.The first part from Burghfield Common around Sulhamstead I didn't know but we were soon on familiar territory with three stiff climbs through Bradfield and under the M4. The drag up towards Ashampstead and Compton was assisted by a tail wind before dropping down into Theo Walcott's home village via Applepie Hill. The next bit is known as the Ilsley Rollercoaster, passing through the home another famous ex-Saint Mick Channon in West Ilsley. From here we headed along the Lambourne Valley and having gone through the home of horse racing in the area we climbed out towards a large mast on the top of the hill. It was here that I got a sense of how far out we'd come as it was the huge radio/telecoms mast by Membury Services. The climb out of Lambourne towards Membury was a bit a pig. It was like a short alp at around 7-9%, but there was no respite at the top as we turned into a headwind which was there for the next 60K or so. I was on unfamiliar roads back eastwards and there were a few spiteful climbs particularly around Peasemore. After negotiating Chievely it was then negotiating traffic getting into Newbury Showground before grinding out of Hermitage and on to Mrs Cambridge's home village of Bucklebury. So by now I pretty much knew where I was. I was expecting a drop back down to the A4 but didn't reckon on the climb in Chapel Row which although short, topped out at nearly 17%. It was a ***** after 65 miles. Eventually we dropped down to the A4 near Midgham where I was able to hoover up a few more Jaffa Cakes at the last feed station, before heading up another climb to Brimpton. The climbs weren't over yet. Kicks out of Aldermaston village and by the perimeter of AWE had me chewing the handlebars once more and even then on the flat there was the ever present headwind. One more descent and 9% ascent before the finish and I was done in just over five and a half hours. Not fast, but with around 5000 feet of climbing it was a good first long ride of the season. Particular thanks to Team Boutique. Anyone looking for a cycling club in north Hampshire/Berkshire that has good riders, but really doesn't take itself too seriously should come and take part in the Saturday social rides. 14 -16 mph no-one left behind. Rides start from shop just off the A30 at Murrell Green, between Hook and Hartley Wintney.

You able to do AG or is that it?

Enjoy, at least you won't have cobbles to contend with this year. On a more mundane level I'm doing the Guide Dogs Tour of Berkshire next Sunday.