it happened tonight

ok, only 20 odd miles but it was me on a bike riding offroad in the mud

sore throat inevitability

everyone at home has been ill so it was inevitable...

uneventful rides in and out of work, a day spent in meetings feeling ropey, nothing doing tonight..

this calls for desperate measures, or in my case a change of bike, the Jake the Snake cross bike has been returned to the quiver and the VooDoo Erzulie has been plucked from the cellar, a tyre change and some air pumped into the forks, lights fitted and a vague plan to go down the river on my own tomorrow night.

Friday will be bikeless and I'll do my once fortnightly drive into work taking clean clothes and stuff that will last me for the next 2 weks.

I'm away to Andy's after work to spend an evening learning about this here Mac thing, drinking beer and watching the Scott walker movie 30th century man, Saturdays plan is to get Andy out on his bike, we'll probably just head off up the hill to Gregs Hut and back, doesnt sound much but its a big old climb and gears will be required.

Witha bit of luck Simon will be there and Mr Mearns also I hope.

There's no chance of hitting 100 miles this week and next week I'm travelling to Germany, however there is a light at the end of..

4 days away in Wales with work mates and we are planning 3 days of riding and a long walk up Cadir Idris, should be calorie neutral after all the food and beer that will be inhaled.

another day lost to apathy

Kev lad ducked out on tonights ride due to getting a cold overnight, as soon as I saw him turn up at work in his civvies I knew I wouldnt be riding tonight ;-(

I did ride in the long way but the rain stayed all day, and the wind changed direction so that it was blowing me home, therefore it would be against me on the way out to the lanes, and a busy day sat in meetings all day meant that there was no chance of visiting the gym at lunch ime so the only thing left was to return home the long way.

Note - SKS raceguards do officially rock, they work really well, someones put some serious thought into these, easy to fit and effective.

On the good side though I did get home early enough to get to the music shop and pick up a nice 2nd hand acoustic guitar and more beer and wine :-)

Tomorrow nights night ride has already stalled due to Dave coming down with a cold also, so there's only one thing to do, a solo night ride down the river dodging the junkies and the doggers, oh joy and rapture :-/

it was a wet and windy day...

well, it was this morning, semi long (ish) way to work in the wind and rain, only 8 miles but that was enough, very few cars on the road at 0630hrs today, got to work with heavy legs despite not doing anything even resembling exercise all weekend,very uneventful.

Ride home was even more boring, no inspiration to ride anywhere other than home, 6 miles was all, 2 bottles of beer and a bottle of red purchased, tonight will be a relaxing evening doing nothing, mindful of my usual obsessivness when it comes to training, this time will be chilled and relaxed, no worrying abut dropping weight even though I know thats how to increase my fitness, the Strathpuffer will be so cold that some extra lard can only help ( I figure ?)

Have arranged an after work road ride tomorrow night, hopefully will get a good fast 40 miles in, must remember to fit race guards tonight.

Tinbred commuter build up is on hold for time being, money spent on this can be put to better use by buying an acoustic guitar, am determined to give it a better try this time around and between the Jake the Snake and the Langster theres plenty to be going on with for commuting.

Ordered a custom Timbuk 2 mesenger bag last night, T has my old one (and I hope she's using it) and I need one for this new laptop thing, with a bit of luck it'll also double up as a decent bag for carrying a small mount of camera gear when we go to Barcelona, be interested to see how much moola it costs with the dollar exchange rate right now, should work out at less than £100 I hope.

as predicted

as predicted

cock sucker in a BMW pulled out in front of me, found out that canti's really are shit, just manged to avoid him, he had to stop at the lights, I heard the doors lock as I pulled up on the drivers side, he had his face covered by his hand, I knocked on his window "you fooking cock sucker" says I "what" says he starting to move forward, "you nearly killed me back there" says I leaning into to him now, he puts foot down and nearly drives into back of car in front in panic

at that point I backed off as I realised he was going to try and get away at any cost

discobver that road bikes can go quite fast with the right incentive, but alas not fast enough to catch him again

close but no cigar


got to work, had a shower and a shave, cup of tea and all is calm again

legs are heavy from yesterdays ride (which was into the wind both way) so decided against the gym at lunch time

probably wont get to ride at weekend as I'm on call (one of the downsides of being a CCS)

so back into the fray on Monday, need to start upping the mileage in prep for Strathpuffer, aim is to do 100 miles next week on the fixie and then up the weekly mileage by 20 odd miles per week, I know I can do this as I've done it many times before, only difference now is that I'm doing it as the days are getting shorter rather than longer

Next plan is to build up a mudguarded commuter bike, the OnOne Tinbred will form the basis, project 2 forks, Deore groupset and skinny(ish) tyres and a computer for keeping tabs on the miles will be put together sometime next week

I'm only doing this because baby bear told me too

This will be an infrequent stream of bike related bile

today I rode to a meeting, I feel quite smug that I was the only one there who had done any exercise at all that day, however given my previous experience with smugness I fully expect to get carted sometime on tomorrows commute

thats all for now, more when it happens