Had a lovely ride on Sunday. Marple over to Alderley Edge for a coffee and back again. New tyres and they are a dream! Continental GP4000s and without pushing, my average speed was 2-3mph quicker. I like these! :)

Went with my friend Kate to collect her new bike on Monday. A Cannondale carbon road bike and it is a bit yummy! I picked up a new saddlebag, a new Cateye rear light and some chain lube. (exciting eh?)

Unfortunately on the way home had rather a nasty car accident. Got pushed into the central reservation by a wandering tanker. So the car is off the road for a while to get it repaired and the suspension and steering checked out. I was lucky to walk away from it without a scratch although typing is a bit painful because my wrists took a hammering. When I hit the central reservation it blew out both offside tyres and thankfully I had both hands on the wheel so I managed to control the car, but both wrists got wrenched quite a bit.

Anyway, back to the bike...... I'll be off the bike for most of this week thanks to the above incident and letting my wrists and neck settle down so I spent some time yesterday doing some bike maintainance. Both of them cleaned top to bottom, chains scrubbed and freshly lubed.....almost a shame to go out and get them dirty...........nahhhhh! Can't wait to get back out there. :)

This is Tank, my old mountain bike. He gets used for local running around and riding Middlewood Way :)

 

 

 

Back in the saddle

36.5 miles on Sunday. Was quite a slow ride with a new rider but you go as slow as the slowest rider. We ride out together and ride in together, that's just how we work :)

Had my first close call on Sunday, I honestly thought I was coming off. Not going too quickly at around 10-12 mph on a country lane and riding behind Gary I hit a pothole, nasty deep pothole.......and another straight after. The first one was bad enough but it threw my front wheel at such an angle it meant I didn't hit the second one straight. I thought that was it and prepared to hit the deck.....but somehow I managed to stay upright, all over the place but upright. Got the bike back on line and everything seemed ok.

Until I got up on the pedals to put some power down and I could feel the front wheel hit the rims. Puncture time. Blew it up and it held ok but was flat as a pancake again the next morning. new inner tube time.

Just ordered two new tyres for her. GP4000's with new tubes. Should transform how she rides with a much lower rolling resistance. Got them in Wiggles sale at £27 each so well worth picking a couple up even if I wait till March time to fit them. May as well get the last of the miles out the current tyres over the last of the winter months.

Other significant thing to report is the saddle setup :) it was set to about 2 deg backward tilt and it was not comfortable at all. So thanks to the advice from the boys on how to adjust it, I got out the spirit level and with the bike clamped on the turbo set about adjusting the tilt to 1 deg forwards.

I spent 4 1/2 hours in the saddle on Sunday and........ohhhhhh that's better! ;)

Happy New Year!

Ok, I'm not one for New Year resolutions. I figure if you are going to change something in your life you need to get on and change it regardless of the date!

But I had already set the start of January as "lets address the diet" date so my task for the next few days is to research some top tips for shedding almost a stone while maintaining the energy levels required to so some quite intensive training.

It's a rest day for me today having completed a rather punishing 2 hour session on the turbo yesterday. Averaged 13.5 mph over a 2 hour session and with the resistance alternating between 4 and 5 on the turbo. A setting of 4 gives me what I feel on a flat section of road and 5 feels like either pushing into a headwind or cranking uphill. In other words....hard work and I feel it where it counts!

These are still quite basic workouts at this stage. I still have 4 months of work ahead of me but some basic muscle building at this stage is fine. I'll alternate that with road riding and MTB riding where i can. January is not the most forgiving time to ride in the UK.

My other piece of research will be to see if I can find a reasonably priced week abroad, around the end of March so i can go and get a load of miles in a week, somewhere warm. That would be awesome, just need to sell the camper first!