Decided to do some hills today and also to try and concentrate on effort, giving myself a mental kick if I found myself bimbling (I often find my mind wanders and my effort goes with it when I’m riding on my own). Read the rest of this entry »

Was keen to see what my new mudguards were like so while our visitors for the weekend were getting up I squeezed in a quickie. Unusually I got overtaken by another cyclist – a grey haired chap of later years but with calve muscles like melons. I’ve decided I want to get older like that rather than older like the way I was heading. I say unusually not because I’m like a speeding bullet, but because it’s rather quiet round here and being overtaken by anything is quite unusual.

The Edge said: 12.75mi / 49:28 / 15.5 mph avg.

If you’re interested in the mudguards, I’ve updated the original post.

My Crud Roadracers have arrived, purchased online from All Terrain Cycles. These are a brand new product, only in the shops this week, and as such this is probably one of the first, if not the first, consumer review about them! Read the rest of this entry »

A comment from Gaz made me think back to my first “proper” adult road bike with gears, a Raleigh Winner. Read the rest of this entry »

Cycled home from work tonight and it was windy and wet. I also had no energy or enthusiasm, and at one point I got the shakes for some reason (possibly diet which was a bit different today, but I don’t really know). A magic gel didn’t help with any of it I guess all cyclists feel like that from time to time though, except maybe Mad John! Read the rest of this entry »

Went out for a very pleasent ride this morning with my neighbour Jon, went via my new house to make sure the renovations were coming on okay. Pleased to say it’s looking good (click on the pin for a map):

The route took in lots of Oxfordshire villages, including Brize Norton, which even if you’re not local you’ve probably heard of as it’s where all the significant military air traffic comes from/to.

The Edge said: 35.04 miles / 2:16:00 / 15.4 mph avg.

Oh, the upgraded bike was a joy to ride in case you were wondering!

I fitted all my new goodies today.

First I stripped the bike right back…

Then I stuck all the new bits on… Read the rest of this entry »

Bikes / LaaLaa / Land Rovers pages have all been updated with some proper content. Enjoy!

Was an extremely windy evening, but with a pleasant blue sky and some sunshine.

Cycled from work to meet up with Matt (a fellow follower of Gaz’s blog who by bizarre co-incidence lives quite near me) in a little village called Denchworth. Hadn’t met before but we had a good ride of 10 miles or so, with Matt managing a couple of firsts (check his blog out for more info). After that I had to finish my cycle home, which was still some 15 miles away!

The Edge said: 30.26 miles / 2:00:00 / 15 mph avg.

When I got home there was the last major bit for bike build waiting! Spoke to ChainReactionCycles yesterday who were very helpful and a 12t sprocket is apparently in the post so hopefully will get that tomorrow. That’d be good because I’m running out of time to get the bike built and bedded in before the Man100.

The only thing I failed to source was brake levers as everywhere is out of stock until the end of September That said, I’m not convinced I’ll tell the difference let alone need them, it’s just they’re a nice shade of grey to go with the rest of the new stuff! If I still think that way in Oct I’ll order them then

Gaz’s latest post “Chunal Hill + Fatty + Wind + Rain + Livestrong” reminded me of the spur-of-the-moment ride I did a few weeks back (before I blogged)…

Coming back from a short break, the wife and I stopped off in Marlborough for a bit of lunch and a mooch round this pretty little market town. Over lunch I had an idea that I could cycle home from there; the bike & stuff was in the car and it’d d be a nice little ride.

Back then I only had an Edge 205 which doesn’t have fancy mapping (unless you did something in advance), but not to worry as I also had my trusty iPhone. Quick look on Google Maps and I’d planned a route on a serviette that avoided the nasty main roads. Unfortunately, after about 10 miles the road shown on Google Maps turned into a byway. Normally these unsurfaced (and often unmaintained) roads are omitted from road maps because of their (un)suitability but as they have the same legal status as a “normal” road , they sometimes sneak on (there’s loads of stories on the internet and anecdotal from greenlaning friends of mine of people following their satnav down them and getting very very stuck).

I’ve driven (in LaaLaa) and cycled (on MTB) loads of byways in my time and I knew instantly that I was on one rather than a “road”. The condition of this one seemed okay (compacted gravel), I’d gone too far to turn back practically and was convinced it wasn’t too long, so even though I was on the road bike I elected to just take it steady.

But then it met another byway and turned into a mudfest so I had no choice but to get off and push (with a bit of carrying). I can tell you that carbon soled shoes with cleats don’t work well in gravel & mud and scratch/scuff very easily I was right in that it wasn’t long though and within half a mile or so I came across tarmac again, at which point I had to use my multi-tool to declog the shoes/brakes before I could carry on.

Oh well, marked my posh shoes, damaged the cleats a bit but added another little adventure to the memories, and isn’t that what life is all about?