First Post!

So here we are at the first instalment of Laight As Usual, a collection of photos and thoughts from a first-time blogger. I'll do my best to keep you interested as I ramble about the goings-on of day-to-day life, ranging from (but not limited to) my efforts to improve as a cyclist, past my always growing interest in photography and through to my half-completed journey from Idiot to Engineer.

Here are some of the things that would have made it to this blog had it existed before today:

Saturday 9th July

JB roars through Copse corner on his way to 5th on the grid for Sunday's race

Managed to land myself a free pass (as a pretend 'contractor') to Silverstone for the Santander British Grand Prix Qualifying and all the accompanying fun that is involved, including performing a front-right tyre change on Button's old McLaren in 3.93 seconds with two of my favourite people - TT and KW, being left with bleeding ears and then seeing my dad's band (whose name nobody is quite sure of, even the man himself) play for the Marshalls at the end of the day.

Friday 15th July

The bikes taking a well-earned break. We didn't need one of course...

Posing at the head of the trails

Got up early, pulled on shorts and biking jersey, velcro'd myself into my cycling shoes and wheeled a very slightly ill Marin from the garage to go to Cannock Chase with TT! After a slightly confusing journey there, we set up the bikes and went on to have a full day of amazing riding. An exploding derailleur was the only mechanical failure of the day and despite many near misses, no injuries were sustained and we finished riding just in time to have an even more confusing drive home. We will definitely be returning there, assuming we can find it again!

Saturday 16th July

Innards of one of the Alternative Power Source cars. This one uses Hydrogen fuel cells to generate electricity

Another early start to head to Silverstone for the second Saturday in a row, this time to cheer on Team Bath Racing at the Formula Student competition. After getting utterly drenched while snooping around the garages and pits for the whole morning, we jumped at the opportunity given to us by a break in the clouds to sit on the old pit wall and pretend to be race engineers while watching Bath blast loudly to 3rd place in the sprint event. I wasn't the only one of us to be hugely excited to work on this team next year as a 3rd year Automotive Engineering student! So, fingers crossed...