Commute

Yesterday was my birthday. Now whether this is a coincidence or not (I really couldn;t give a shit about getting older so I’m not sure), I was under a black cloud. I provided as much enthusiasm as I could for present opening but really couldn’t muster the energy for eating so just grunted about not feeling up to it. Went to bed about ten. Woke up about four and the black cloud was like a swarm of flies around me. I dragged myself out of bed and got ready but I felt so low. I’ve not had any real depressive phases since I left my old job 9 months ago but this just swept over me.

By the time I was riding out of my town I was looking for lorries to ride under. I have rarely felt so low as this, even in the old days of madness. I continued on my way and willed anyone else to try and start anything but nothing. Most of the ride is a blur to be honest and I can only really remember things from around dinner time when I started perking up a bit.In fact my recovery very quick and by about 2-3pm I started feeling quite happy again. Very bizarre,

I rode home with Rick who needs to sort out his drive chain. He had a puncture too and we just meandered our way home but it was nice to ride back with someone for a change. Hope he’s up for it a few more times. One cock got angry because we were riding double file and while I agree that this is sometimes annoying, it was a big fuck off wide road with no traffic on it and I was right in the cycle lane with Rick right up alongside me. Bell end.

Rick has a bell, I want one.

Commute. Legs felt a little heavy after the weekend’s riding but still pretty good. Lovely weather both ways although it chucked it down in the middle of the day making it a bit muddy and splashy on the way home. Good fun though. No major incidents of note other than taken one of my sons riding shirts to work instead of one of my own. I had no alternative when I got ready to come home since the shirt I’d ridden in in had been festering all day in a carrier bag with my shorts and socks so I had to put it on.

It’s testminony to the amount of weight I;ve lost recently that I could actually get into the thing but once I had it was snug indeed. Spray on springs to mind.

I got more than one whistle on the way home. Off ladies too.

Kielder 100.

Finished! Yay! Bloody hard though. General consensus it was a few miles more than a hundred and I think I heard about 13000ft of climbing being bandied about. Proper top notch race though, great course although there were somenasty, nasty sections of singletrack that were made of large raock stick to the ground, climbing up those was soul destroying.

My back held out ok I guess. No pain till about 30 miles and then it started aching. By about 50 miles it was screaming but I found I could make it go away by changing my riding position. Standing up straight when pedalling up hills seemed to help. Plus my saddlebag broke 5 miles into the race so I had to carry all my stuff in my short pockets which probably didn’t help.

I thought I was doing really well as very few people passed me except when I stopped at feed/water stops and I was passing people all the time but I guess that must be because all the quick people left in front of me and I never saw them again.  I got to the 80 mile feed station and realised then that I was going to definately finish which gave me a big moral and physical boost so I charged along for the next 15 miles overtaking about 20 or 30 people. Then on the last horrible rocky climb I bonked and burned. Spent ten minutes slumped over my bike just pushing sweets and cerial bars in till I felt I could move again but pretty much pushed up all the hills from that point onwards. Seeing Kielder down in the valley on the last stretch of singletrack was awesome, very emotional.

Great track, great atmosphere, it was really good to meet so many people, especially those I rarely do get chance to see like Donk, Trio, Mikeactually, Drac, Deano, Biff etc. etc. Splendid. Less rocky climbs and definately less midges please.

I came 173th with a time of 11:38 and something like 55th in the Veterans class both of which I’m extremely happy about, I just wanted to finish and ended doing better than mid pack which is just fine by me. Although looking at the results there seem to be quite a few people who were quite fast and apparently missed a timing point so they either cheated or it’s just an accident in which case I did worse than stated above.

Thanks very much to Nick for the entry, hope I did you proud.

Commute. Last ride before Kielder and it’s not looking good. My back has been aching all week, no idea why it’s started hurting all the time. Shit, shit, shit. And when I got into work this morning some cunt has stolen my chair which was just right for me, not one of the usual ones. If I find out who it was they’ll be experiencing multiple issues with their internet connection for some time to come. Now I’ve got one that’s not comfy and creaks all the time.

Anyway, commute was lovely, little wind, nice and sunny, dryish trails. Plus I found Horace here had taken up residence in my shoe so I had to evict him which he wasn’t happy about.

Right, so I’m sat here at work waiting for 12:00 when I’ll be leaving to head up north. The car is fully packed and hopefully I’ve got everything. The only thing I know for a fact I’ve forgotten is some decent footwear but I can live with the trainers I’ve got on now I think. Hopefully there will be nothing else that I really need.

Last mountain bike ride before Keilder. This was the last bug out point for my back. Luckily everything seemed to go reasonably well with me and the bike. I’ve actually had to transplant my handjob wheel across because the hub on the original wheel has died (again), this time I dunno what it is at the moment. The chain tug is pressing the bearing cover/axle end piece against the freehub bearings so hard it doesn’t allow the freehub to turn, this is with a new freehub in. Can’t see where the problem is or what is different but after a few hours trying to work it out yesterday I’ve given up. This wheel works fine with the SS kit on it.

Anyway, today was a race trim ride. No camelbak, no camera, GPS or other non-essentials. Just a saddle bag with tubes and tools in, my pump in my back pocket and no coat. For the actual race I’ll fix my pump to the frame and use a bungee cord to attach my coat to the seatpost.

My legs and the bike were fine, could have ridden for days. my back though, . I stretched every half hour or so, stretched when I was rolling along and tried to be gentle but it just felt stiffer and stiffer as time went on. Not actually painful, just stiff. It’s really pissing me off. Thinking back I know of 4 races where I’ve given up because of my back, I really should get a professional to look at it I think.

Too late for Keilder though. I’ll do the race, take it nice and easy, carry a lot of painkillers and just try and finish. Really pisses me off because I’m confident my fitness is high enough to make me reasonably competitive, I was churning up the hills today and was barely out of breath at the top of them, even the lead mine clough climb was a cinch. Bah!

Just the same cycling weekly route but this time fast, no stops, no messing about. It was really windy in places so quite hard at times but I did it 3.5 hours. 15.7mph average which might *seem* slow but don’t forget, it’s almost 1300m climbing.

My legs were properly goosed afterwards, don’t know if it’s because I’m a bit unfit or because I’ve been overdoing it, I have done 216 miles in the last week, but that’s just what normal people do. Fat people who eat nothing but Macdonalds probably ride 216 miles a week, all the time. Anyway, it screwed me up for any ride Saturday, when I did spot a gap in the rain I really couldn’t be arsed.

Hopefully I’ll get a ride in tomorrow and Monday , maybe commute in on Wednesday, I really should give a rest then till the race on Saturday though. I’m hoping I can try out my no camelbak on a mountain bike theory tomorrow, see if that helps my back, I’ll do some stretches too.

YAY! Mountain bike ride! I thought I should get a few in before I do Keilder 100 next weekend. I’m still worried about my back, even after this ride it was giving me quite a bit of pain.

Anyway, I set off and headed for Rivington, up to the tops where I met Matt, no doubt churning out a 50 at warp speed. His legs look like Chris Hoy’s whereas the rest of him is skinny. We chatted for a short while but I was cold and wanted to get going so we split and I headed up to Winter Hill. Very, very windy on the top there, properly hard work riding up to the mast.

Then I had a banana and some porn sweets.

Then I completed the smoothest and cleanest run I have ever done of San Marino. It was virtually flawless, I probably only touched the ground twice. Brilliant. Then I climbed back up to the top but forgot to check my time at the top, it wasn’t fast though. Over to the Hordern Stoops descent which is the only descent up Rivington where I would ever drop my saddle. However, bouyed up on my previous run and the relatively painless climb, I decided to leave it up. This would bite me.

Now I did the hard bit no problem, but then I reached the bridge at the bottom. Here’s the approach.

Nothing a riding god like me can’t handle, eh? Well there’s a drop that’s bigger than it looks followed by one of those slats on the bridge which caught my front wheel, all my weight was forwards so when the wheel flew sideways, I flew over the bars and landed head first in some of the oldest, stagnetest, stinky water I have ever come across.

My head was in the water where that wooden plank is on the top right! How the hell did I get that far? I was absolutely drenched in this stuff and spent a few minutes trying to wipe as much of it off as I could on the grass. URRGH!

Then I carried on riding, godlike, down the ICR, past the barns, past simon’s and matt’s houses and took the canal home to Hindley followed by MX trails to ours. Good ride but I’m properly bothered about my back. My camelbak was heavier than I thought it would be, I might try and forgoe it altogether for Keilder, fit a saddle bag and just carry my coat in my back pocket.

“We’re going out riding today whether it’s raining or not!”. And it didn;t rain and it was ace!

Me and my son went out on the cycling weekly route from last weeks copy around Bury, Bolton, Darwen and Ramsbottom. Very good route, lots of hills and my son handled themn admirably. 1276 metres of climbing, I’m well proud of him. He even put a a spurt on near the end in an attempt to drop me, bless.

I really enjoyed it too, I’ve ridden a good part of this ride a number of times in various sections before but it did show me some new stuff which was quite nice, especially the road from Darwen to Edgerton, that’s a good ride.

Exactly the same ride I did last month. Over to Ramsbottom, up over the tops to Blackburn, back via Preston, Bamber Bridge, Anglezarke, home.

It’s a good ride and this one felt a lot easier than last time, rain threatened a couple of times but nothing worth getting my coat on for.

Hopefully I can coax my son out for a couple of days touring tomorrow and Tuesday. My wife is looking after her neice’s spawn of satan kids for the next couple of days so I’m buggered if I’m hanging around to watch the mayhem. These children could best be described as ‘feral’ and despite being only 2 years old (I think), have already displayed alarming theft and vandalism skills. We saw the lad prize open a locked cupboard at his own home with a screwdriver that he no doubt keeps down his nappy for such events and it was like watching a master burglar at work.

Just a quick, easy road ride to loosen my legs up after two weeks of inactivity. I say inactivity, we’ve just got back from holiday in Devon and while the hills round there are always small, they’re often very steep so any walking usually involves some real effort. My calves were killing me for the first couple of days, but no bike riding for two weeks. It’s good to be back on a bike. Now I need to dig deep to get rid of the defecit that’s built up, not to mention get some last minute training in for Keilder 100 in a few weeks which I’m woefully unprepared for.