On Friday I rode the Welwyn Hilly 26 mile. The course starts in Codicote, and takes in 5 notable lumps in a long loop through the Hertfordshire countryside. My aim was to put over three and a half minutes into my time from last year, and manage a 1:15:00 or faster (and make sure I still beat Richard Marriott – he was the place behind me last year). As it transpired I managed 1:13:07, only 1 second behind Roger Porter who beat me by 4 minutes two weeks ago! If anyone has/sees any photos from the event do let me know.

The following day, meant the drive to Oxford for the BUCS 10 mile time trial. Held on the fastest course I’ve ridden, I had to beat my PB. I managed it by 1:01, with a 24:29, friday’s effort and some poor timing preventing me achieving my aim of a sub 24 ride. The weather was perfect for fast times, but the heat and humidity made it feel like breathing air thrown out of a jet engine!

Here’s some photos, check out the new kit! And here’s some more. Pain Face!

In fact, coming into today’s race it didn’t look like I had much chance of beating my 1h23m PB. I’d only ridden once in the last 2 weeks, and apart from that one time I hadn’t been on my TT bike for at least 6 months. Still, I was going to give it all I’d got. Being given the number 1 by Don Andrews (Verulam President) meant that I had extra pressure to perform!

My basic plan was to wind it up during the first lap, blast the second lap and then try to hang on for the third. Each lap was 9 hilly miles long. As it turned out, I went out a little fast (that didn’t stop Steve Kay, who went off after me, catching me within half a lap), and did a 26 minute first lap. Nearing the end of that first lap my saddle shook loose, and I had to stop at the end of the lap to readjust it loosing one and a half minutes! I’d blame my mechanic, but I’m the mechanic.

Been as I’d ridden faster than I hoped for my first lap and was still feeling “ok”, I won’t say good, because the pain started about 2 miles in, I decided to modify my tactics on the fly. The second lap I’d try to ride a similar pace but not push it too hard, trying to get into a rhythm and then I’d try and go even faster on the last lap. As it turns out I did just over 26 minutes for both those laps, and that coupled with the stop meant I crossed the line with a 1:20:17, breaking my PB by 3 minutes.

The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father, took Man’s nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance: so that two whole and perfect Natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man; who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men.

Article 2

Wow. There’s more than enough there to fill multiple books! Let’s try to unpack some of the wonderful truths. To start with, how amazing is it that the Lord of the Universe should stoop to become man, or in the words of John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” I think Philippians 2 helps to grasp in some way how great an event it is.

[5] Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, [6] who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, [7] but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. [8] And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. [9] Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, [10] so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, [11] and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:5-11 ESV

Jesus Christ, who deserves everything he gets in verses 9-11, took the form of a servant! Why? “To seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10). The immortal creator became man, for me. For me, the wretched sinner that I am and, I hasten to add, it wasn’t because of anything I’ve done.

And what’s more, he came to accomplish my salvation, by dying on a Roman cross. We’ll come to it later in the articles, but Christ was a sacrifice, a propitiatory sacrifice (Romans 3:23-25) if you will, taking on himself the just wrath of God that should be focused on me. The truth that Christ’s death took the punishment I deserve, in order to reconcile me to God, is central to the christian faith.

There are two main truths here and both are under attack in different ways. Firstly, the incarnation, that Christ, who was fully God, a member of the Godhead in the mystery that is the trinity became man without losing any of his Godness but truly being a man. This is so important for us to truly understand the Cross. As CJ Mahaney puts it “sin has been committed by man and therefore only man can atone for that sin.” The problem is, I can’t atone for my own sin, no man can, that’s why we need a perfect man, and not just a perfect man (as he could only atone for one man’s sin), but God himself. If Christ is not very God and very Man then the Cross will not save me.

An obvious attack on this is the Jehovah’s Witnesses, to them Christ is a created being, “a God” but not God himself. There is no real hope in this belief, there is no-one but God himself who can bridge the infinite gap between God and man created by our sin which is an infinite insult to an infinite God. If Christ is not God then my sin isn’t as serious as it is. I assure you, your sin is serious, an infinite insult against the Almighty Holy God.

Secondly, the doctrine of penal substitution, meaning that, on the Cross, Christ paid the penalty (penal) for my sin in my place (substitutionary). And the penalty I deserve is eternal judgement of God in hell. This is not “cosmic child abuse”, as men like Steve Chalke will maintain, to say that is to completely misunderstand the nature of the trinity, our sin and God’s love for us. It is because he loves us that he sent his son to die.

This doctrine is of primary importance, one cannot offer salvation without Christ’s atoning blood. Oh Church, hold fast to this truth.

There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts or passions; of infinite power, wisdom and goodness; the Maker and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible. And in the unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Article 1

The anglican articles of religion start where they should, with the doctrine of God. Or maybe they shouldn’t, the Westminster Confession of Faith begins with the doctrine of scripture and probably rightly so, been as one can only understand God (albeit an incomplete understanding) through his word in which he has revealed himself. So perhaps we should go and read Article 6 before starting back here, or maybe just keep reading and get to article 6 in a couple of weeks time.

So, as I’ve already mentioned, this is a very good place to start. Understanding the nature of the triune eternal God goes a long way towards having a right view of him and consequently ourselves and especially our sin. It may be a little like stating the obvious to suggest that upon this truth everything rests (even, I dare say, scripture), but I thought I might explain a little of how this is true.

If God is not infinitely powerful, wise or good then we are doomed because he either cannot, does not know how or will not save us. If God is not triune then how could the divine Christ take the punishment of a Holy God? If God is not triune, we cannot pray, because Christ and the Father are in heaven, and not here to hear us. If God does not preserve all things then man is able by his own strength to do some things good (otherwise this world would be much much worse). If God is not the living and true God then we have no reason to trust his word. The list goes on…

Let’s go to Colossians 1 to see the doctrine of the trinity. We already know that the Father & the Spirit were at work in creation, from Genesis 1, or you will know now that you’ve gone and read it.

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Colossians 1:13-20 (ESV)

We see that all things were created for and through Christ in verse 16. But in fact we see an even bigger pointer in verse 19, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell“, Christ is fully God (we’ll look at how that’s under attack next post) and there is only one God, as I’m sure you remember from reciting your 10 commandments.

Finally, the truth under attack. There are the obvious ways this truth is under attack, Unitarianism, Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the very self-centred beliefs of the world we live in, but I think that there are probably two major attacks on this in the church at the moment.

The first is Open Theism. This suggests that God not only does not know the future, but that he can be thwarted in his attempts to carry his plan to fruition. I may be grossly simplifying and I know that open theists will still contend that God is powerful, just not infinitely so, and not sovereign over the things he has created. Believing this would rob me of any certainty of my future glorification on the last day, and leaves me clinging to rags. How can I look to the future of Philippians 3:20-21 if I cannot be certain it will happen, or contain me?

Secondly, something that many who call themselves christian seem to want to do is change the character of God to fit how they want to see him. Perhaps the way I said it is a little harsh, it’s more like wanting to make God more socially acceptable. Among these are Rob Bell and Brian Maclaren who both try to move away from the idea of a powerful God who’s goodness is inextricably linked to his judgement and vengeance to an inanely nice God who sounds like limp handshake. I would urge the reader who is persuaded by these men to heed Paul’s words in 2 Timothy and “not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord” (2 Tim 1:8) and also realise that it is a sign of the times that people turn away from the truth (2 Tim 4:3-4).

In a recent article, the prominent atheist Christopher Hitchins claimed that atheism was morally superior because it makes conclusions following the evidence despite not necessarily liking them. I would like to suggest that as a christian I do not believe article 1 because I like it (though I do) or because it’s the Church’s stance or what I was taught from a young age but because it is true and the earth and scripture testify to it.

So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.

2 Thessalonians 2:15 (ESV)

The Amazon Kindle platform (buy a kindle here, or download the app for mac/pc/iPhone (for free!)…) brings a whole new opportunity for the publishing of content. It’s incredibly easy to use, I managed to publish two sermons by Hugh Latimer as a book to the store with only an hour of work (it took my twice as long to read them). The only problem at the moment is that one cannot ‘sell’ books for free on the Kindle Store, and with what I had published being a public domain work (and only available courtesy of Project Canterbury), it would be lacking integrity to sell it.

Hopefully, I can use this as a proof of concept in a way, to support the publication on Kindle of good christian books that are currently out of print.

And oh, if you have a kindle, or you downloaded the app, here’s Before the Convocation of Clergy by Hugh Latimer

Anyway, what happened was that the roads were a little damp, making them a little greasy. I was second wheel going round a roundabout, and Andy in front of me suddenly hit the deck (later road examination suggested some diesel on the surface). This left me nowhere to go but to attempt to go inside him (I had another rider to my left), and the combination of greasy road, very very slick tyre, braking and tightening of corner conspired to dump me on the ground before I knew what was happening. Lesson learned, buy new tyres.

So, just when I thought I was getting over the sprained wrist from 3 months ago…

Cyclocross

A form of bicycle racing consisting of many laps of a short course featuring pavement, wooded trails, grass, steep hills and obstacles and requiring the rider to quickly dismount, carry the bike whilst navigating the obstruction and remount in one motion

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cyclocross

So, yesterday, I rode my first cyclocross race. I won’t pretend it was glorious, or that I truly embodied the hard man in riding it. But it was fun – at least, when looking back on it now. The first thing of note, is that I was riding a mountain bike. Which was heavy – not brilliant for carrying it up barely navigable walls of mud. If I’m ever to ride it again, I’ll need a cross bike, something I can’t afford. Anyway, I did pretty well, 29/42 in a discipline I’ve never ridden before, and 3rd MTBer (losing out to the other two in the closing laps). My greatest triumph of the day however was earning the respect of our much beloved Durham University – AURA Cycles mountain bikers, by providing the most flair riding of the day, “I’m a roadie, I can’t do a skid!” notwithstanding.

Photos after the jump

So, this post will only interest a small group of [very special] people, and I’m pretty sure none of them actually read this. Well, my dad might…!

You will have noticed, maybe not with comprehension, that the typeface I’ve used on this website is Georgia. Why have I used it? Well, apart from the fact that it came out number 1 in the .net magazine top 20 fonts for the web, despite it being a lowly system font. The fact is, I like it. There’s a certain majesty to a serif face that one doesn’t get with the sans-serif, Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica, that seem to come out top at the moment.

Besides that, the fact that it’s a system font actually has advantages for web design. It means that I can use it freely and expect it to display in Georgia on 99.9% of people’s computers, without the use of the sporadically supported @font-face attribute or the creation of image files containing the text.

So with that, here’s Georgia in all her majesty

the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog

the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog

the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog

Today, we rode our last ride on our training camp in the Costa Blanca. Obviously we came to the right place, because all the professionals did too. Alexander Kolobnev, Robert Gesink & Sylvain Chavanel being some of the big names we’ve seen. Plus a large bunch of Garmin-Cervelo riders (sadly, no world champion stripes of Thor Hushovd)… anyway, I think I get the I-Spy badge for Pro-Riders

I’m out here for a bit more than a week with the guys from DUCC for some winter training, in the sun. The tan lines are being cultivated as per Rule 7, and a healthy amount of pro spotting has been done. Alexandre Kolobnev in his full Russian champions kit along with Yuri Tropimov. And a large group of riders including new Movistar & HTC jerseys. All in all, good day.