your daily bicycle log

You are addicted, Nick!

Haha - several of us use www.endomondo.com to track our mileage via GPS, and it gets quite competitive. My main competitors are my brother in law, who's trainign for a marathon so not doing much cycling, and my boss, who's just done Land's End to John O'Groats, who I'm now 1,000 miles behind for the year. I'm trashing everyone this month bar him - I'm on 150, closest to me is on 80, but he's on 270 cos he finished LEJOG last Wednesday...

did a real nice 5:30 am ride up to top of shadow mtn loop (9000ft), about 5100 ft of climbing and 64 miles. after weeks of 90-100 deg sweltering, it was weird to be shivering cold at 50 deg before the sun really rose. probably my last real ride before deer creek challenge in two weeks, ~100mi, 12700 ft climbing.

a quick 20 before work. love riding across the bridge in the morning when it's completely fogged out.

19.8 miles in an hour and 14 minutes after work tonight, did my fastest ever single mile too, timed at 2:16.

http://sickmouthy.com/2011/08/08/608/

25 miles yesterday afternoon, to take me up to 200 for August so far. About 8 miles from home, on back lanes where I'd never been before, I got a quick flat. No idea how, didn't feel like I hit anything, the front tyre just went fssssssssst all of a sudden. At that moment. Realised that, though I had a spare tube and a multi tool on me, my pump was on the other bike. Literally the middle of nowhere, north of Exeter, on lanes I didn't know. Shit! So I walked, and round a bend about 150 yards away from where I'd stopped, there was a garage, and a guy who was just picking up is car who I'd seen earlier out on his bike with his son! They had a track pump, proper tyre levers, and sorted me out right there. I consider myself lucky!

I've bought a second pump (third if you include the track pump) to keep with this bike.

That is incredibly lucky.

Isn't it just!

Passed such a cute girl bunny hopping speedbumbs on a bmx today in London, I think I'm in love.

Fifty miles this afternoon, the sky thick with clouds and the air thick with flies.

28 miles this morning. Set a 20mph speed camera off.

Think I'm going to head over and check out the Olympic road race trial tomorrow, need to fix up my brakes first though. Was supposed to do it tonight but fell asleep while I was reading aidan's bedtime story :/

So went up to norfolk with my folks. Bought bikes there from LBS from a shop that sells fancy titanium bikes and sit up and beg town bikes, bought two of the latter and rode one of them home across the Ringstead downs

However, this weekend has has been mainly about travelling by Alvis:

http://images.instagram.com/media/2011/08/13/62fe575aad2b4281a608590bb67a8b34_7.jpg

Porkpie - you know you can't get onto Box Hill? They've completely fucked up the route for the Olympic road race by choosing to repeatedly go up a hill which is owned by the National Trust who will only let a handful of spectators onto a very limited part of the slopes (to avoid trashing orchids or something).

^this does seem to be a significant oversight, it'll look good on the telly, which is what is important.

yep, it's a SSSI isn't it? Should have done Ranmore common or any of the other 6 or 7 ass kickers round there if that was going to be a problem, but...... BH is the flagship.....

BBC is showing highlights next week I think, it'll be interesting to see.

Think I'll head over to Richmond Park though, if I can get up in time #whoamikidding

Dartmouth park hill on the ToB a few years back was good and I think could have been better.

A few short miles around Holmbury Hill. Discovered one new trail, hope we can find it again. My friend's crank arm fell off towards the end of the ride, apparently this was expected, only the tools to fix it were in the camelbak that he'd left at home by mistake. So he tried to force it back into place with sheer physical strength, then hitting it with a stick, then another stick, then a rock, then standing on it, then a bit more stick/rock action... amazingly this worked enough to get him down the last trail (Barry Knows Best, Surrey Hills fans), it fell off again right on the final berm.

documentary evidence:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6150/6041259074_35d04e8892.jpg

49 miles this morning around east Devon, over Woodbury and Stoke Hill.

didn't even fix brakes never mind get out on bike, stupid exhaustion.

I rode to Coventry this weekend, 75 miles on Friday (stopping overnight in a 14th century pilgrims' inn in Shipton under Wychwood, near Chipping Norton), then 45 miles to Cov on Saturday from where I took the train to Manchester. Man, it wore me the fuck out.

I did a 60-miler yesterday:
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/643174

Just back from 35 miles across east Devon again.

August has been a strange month: I did no cycling at all for the first 9 days, and have now done over 200 miles in the next 8 days (four rides: 43.5, 50.8, 60.0, 46.4).

52 miles in 3hrs 13mins, smashed my previous personal best for 50 miles.

Did 55 miles yesterday, about half of it in the New Forest where I saw this horse:
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r299/crunchydog_2006/horse.jpg
I was going past the airport at Bournemouth at about the time that Red Arrow must have come down as I was passed by about seven or eight fire engines and stuff with there sirens on.

Not a bad week's cycling...

https://p.twimg.com/AXZQd_uCQAA2l6x.jpg

There = their (above)

Just 25 miles today, no horses or aeroplanes

Only 12 miles, but it included the yoghurt pots and Barry Knows Best.

Got out to the trailhead, and apparently it rained hard out there but not here. Not enough to make the trails impassable/susceptible to damage, but plenty to make then greasssssssy. Bailed after a half hour :(

Tomorrow they should be fast as heck tho

Today I rode a total of 120.7 mi, 8 hrs and 20 mins, 11,859 ft of climbing.

god yr old

*puts bike up for sale, considers becoming a philatelist, weeps*

dont think id make a convincing cardie/pipe/slippers kind of dad, but a less strenuous more contemplative dotage is seeming appealing atm.

so, tell me about philately?

actual quote-

"if you don't feel well enough to get up off the floor, you should just go back up to bed and lie down and go to sleep."

Shed-derived shoulder injury has me off the bike for five days. Sad face.

Another 30 miles yesterday, making about 110 in three days and 216 in eight days. Rain today and holiday nearly over.

Back in the saddle this morning, and did my 27-mile-round route to the parents and back for bacon and eggs. 6.30am starts = I need arm warmers and 3/4 bibs soon. It was chilly.

I kind of refuse to buy either until it's officially September, though.

I've had a crash. Much blood. Will tell all in the racing thread tomorrow.

no bueno amigo. heal up soon.

Oh no! Hope you're ok.

26 miles in 1hr 35mins this morning.

Actually, forget the racing thread, I'll put it here.

Yesterday was my first proper race for more than two months after an unintended break due to work / family things / foreign holiday. I went to the Hillingdon circuit for the second time (I raced there in April and finished in the bunch). It was a 4th cats only race, for one hour + 5 laps (each lap is a mile long). It's not the most technical circuit and it's reasonably flat, so even though it was raining for about 10 minutes the conditions were safe enough, but there were one or two riders who kept wobbling erratically.

We'd been going for about 18 miles at an average of 25mph and I was feeling OK. I was keeping in the pack with the intention of moving up towards the front when they announced five to go (breaks never seem to stay clear here, so I wasn't worried about missing a move). We were on a fairly straight section, so there didn't seem to be any reason for what happened, but to the front and left of me someone swerved - suddenly the rider in front of me fell to his right and took down the guy to his right as well. There was a sickening split second where I knew I was going to crash because there was nothing I could to avoid them, then I was tumbling and I don't really know what happened but I seemed to land on my face.

The next thing I remember the three of us had clambered to the grass at the side of the circuit. I was lying down because I couldn't stand up: although I'd landed face first, I only seemed to have a few scratches and a fat lip from the impact, the real problem was my left leg which had been sliced up in several places by somebody's chain ring. There was blood all over the place, mingled with oil, but in my dazed state I thought the blood had come from one of the other riders (he was missing a large chunk of skin from his leg/hip). Eventually a first aider came to us armed with little more than wipes to clean us up. It didn't seem like anyone had broken any bones. I hobbled back to the HQ and got bandaged up.

The sensible thing at this point would have been to go to a hospital to get the wounds properly cleaned out and to get myself checked out in case I had concussion or something. Instead I drove home for more than an hour through central London, had a bath and tried to clean things up myself, and then got ready to go out: one of my best mates, who now lives in Spain, was back in England for one night only so I felt I had to make the effort to get to see him. We didn't have any bandages at home, and plasters were completely inadequate, so I had to improvise by sticking some pantyliners to my legs! This initially seemed to have done the job, but I realised later on in the evening that my left trainer was covered in blood (and is maybe ruined) as was the left leg of my jeans. When I got back home from the pub, my leg looked like this:
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r299/crunchydog_2006/leg.jpg

Today I can scarcely walk. Everything feels stiff and achey and tender, but at least the bleeding has stopped. I had been planning to race again next weekend, but I can't see that happening now.

Oddly, my bike seems to have come out of it largely unscathed (though I say that without actually having tried to ride it yet). The handlebars need adjusting as they're about 30 degress out of line of the front wheel, but that's easy enough to sort out. The only thing I'm not sure about is some damage to the rim of my front wheel:
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r299/crunchydog_2006/rim.jpg
Is that still safe to ride? I imagine it would cut up the brake pads pretty quickly. Is there anything that can be done to it, or do I basically need a new wheel? If the latter, is there any point trying to get someone to build me a wheel with a new rim put onto the old hub, or will it be easier and cheaper to just start from scratch?

Ouch man, here's wishing you a speedy recovery.