Out riding today you could forgiven for thinking that spring had arrived. I saw lambs, snowdrops, catkins, and some daffs. I know spring is really a long way off, but just for today it was nice to pretend. The only thing that was missing from my three hour tour of the lanes was my training partner Carla, who is still chained to the tiolet by her arse. Get well soon lover.

Today was the last of the planned training rides from Pearce Cycles, and what a wet day. Only three of us turned up, there would have been four, but Carla, who hadn’t missed one so far, was struck down with a bad case of the trots, and couldn’t afford to be too far away from the loo. It rained so much, and it was so mucky she needn’t have worried, ‘cos the rain would have washed it off, uuurrggh! ;-).Anyway, wet it was, but cold it was not, and we had a great two hour ride in the pouring rain. I rode a Santa Cruz Superlight! Very expensive test bike!

Carla, my lover, friend, life-partner, significant other, training partner, co-driver, manager, consultant, massuese, celebrates her birthday today. Now what do you get a beautiful woman in the prime of her life for her birthday? Well, ‘plan A’ fell through because the thing I ordered, which has to come halfway around the world, won’t be here until next week. Why didn’t I order it earlier? Because that was not possible, it didn’t exist before I ordered it, there was no way to order it earlier than I did. I suppose I could save it for a Valentines Day gift.

Anyway, ‘plan B’ ain’t so bad. I’ll go to the lingerie shop and buy her some nice underwear. Add a bottle of champers, a bar of chocolate, and some effort to let her know how much I love her, what more could a girl want?

It’s now six months since a spontaneous random dismount (crash) from my mountainbike left me with a badly broken shoulder. I remember lying on the ground next to my bike. I knew I had broken something ‘cos your arm just cannot go where mine had just been. I remember cursing, that I would be in plaster for six weeks, which is the usual amount of time it takes for a break to heal. Later when I arrived at hospital, they told me that I had dislocated it. Great, I thought, pop it back in, and away we go. But they went on to explain to me that it was very badly broken as well, and would never be the same again!… Continue reading →

Friday is fast approaching, and I have a four day weekend too look forward to (fri/sat/sun/mon). That means a fest of biking, boozing, and more biking. I’ve got it all planned out, 3hrs around the lanes and Kinver Tommorrow, 3hrs off-road at Ludlow on Saturday, 3hrs somewhere good on Sunday, then a couple of hours over Kinver on Monday.

That’s the plan, but I also have a physio session on Monday with the lovely Miss Hesketh for my ‘still recovering’ shoulder, which could leave me a little sore. Then I have an appointment with my consultant Mr Cool, for the same injury, that might leave me sore, and depressed. Still, that’s Monday and I’ll have had the best part of my long weekend by then.

Thursday lunchtime now, and I’m wishing my life away like a little kid. Roll on tonight, let the partying begin!

When I woke up and saw the weather this morning I didn’t think anyone would turn up, but they did! Just after we set off the rain stopped, the skies cleared, and we had a great big dirty ride.

On our return Lindsey had hot soup, hot mince pies, and hot tea waiting for us!

Thanks to everyone who came along, thanks to Lindsey for the refreshments, and thanks to Dave for letting me ride the Enduro test bike.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

At last, I’m back on my bike, and it’s official. No more furtive forrays felling guilty. It’s allowed, but there are conditions, like not falling off, or overdoing it (as if!).

So I’m born again as a cyclist, but this time into the ranks of the Singlespeeders. It’s a purer form of cycling more Zen like, more ‘at one on one’ so to speak. Just man and machine in flowing harmony, feeling more with less, effortless, efficient. Or to quote Supawal, a man ahead of his time if there ever was one, “A journey of deliverance of the second time in a child’s innocence!”.

More importantly, riding a Singlespeed stops me from slapping it in a big gear and winding it up on the descents, and tailwind bits. Having only one gear means having to work hard uphill, wrestling the bike with arms and legs. And, when it’s just too steep to climb, getting off and pushing ensures a more thorough work out. I was thinking of fitting some suspension forks, having no suspension means feeling every bump. But, this is a good thing, it stops me form going downhill fast. Maybe you should try it…you know…like if your’e goin’ downhill fast.

rallenta e amerai a lungo,

I went back to work last week. This was my first week back in the office since the end of July, and it hit me hard. Monday was fine, I’d cleared hundreds of spurious emails from my mailbox, and had my first meeting by lunchtime, it was good to be back. But as the week went on, I went downhill, backache, sore shoulders, hands, and a thumping headache combined with an overwhelming desire to sleep. By Thursday my shoulder had swollen up. I took Friday off!

On Friday I went out for a gentle bike ride along the canal towpath on my Kona singlespeed. The autumn colours against the clear blue sky were fabulous. Within 10 minutes I started to feel so much better, and by the time I reached Kinver I had completely regenerated. Why do I need to work?

Last weekend I went along to watch some of my friends and rivals competing in a League of Veteran Racing Cyclists road race. The LVRC caters for racers who are over 40 yrs old. In fact you cannot hold an LVRC licence, or take part in their races until you have had your 40th birthday! Now don’t get the wrong idea, a load of old codgers, making a spectacle of themselves in ridicolous lycra, this aint. Far from it, with ‘ex pros’, former international, and national champions riding it is intensely competitive. With the luxury of semi-retirement or even retirement some of these riders train harder now than when they were ‘pros’. Furthermore, although some of them can’t remember where they parked the car, they can remember exactly who crossed the finish line in front of who, and by how much.

Anyway, while I was taking a few pictures of the action, and shouting words of encourgement to the riders I began to notice that there was a superabundance of attractive women in the vicinity of the race finish area, and the race headquarters. Now I’ve been to veteran races before, and on sunny days before, but never noticed this phenomenon before. I started thinking that it maybe a function of me not racing. This being the case I might have to consider ‘not racing’ again ‘cos it surely beats looking at the lycra clad arses of the lads in the bunch!

see ya out there soon,