your daily bicycle log

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Did about an hour and a quarter of mountain biking with my chunky tyres on the cyclocross - good fun but scary!

27 miles today, down the estuary to Dawlish and back through country lanes. Glad of my winter tyres; autumn leaf mulch, cow pats, puddles, gravel-strewn estuary trails... I'd have died on slicks given what I did the other week.

Inspection brewing at work, so have worked right through the weekend :-(
No cycling, no fun

went via a new take on the usual route out to the hilly stuff. rain opened up right as i hooked around the hairpin to start the hard bit on mt pleasant rd - had to stop to put rain vest on at highest point, no strava PB for me. dried out after a coffee and went back towards city, some on road, some on dirt paths. ended up going south of city on flat roads and down to bayside nouveau-riche suburb to get some extra distance in, ate some calamari rings on the shore and watched the storm clouds build again. 67mi all up, 4900ft climbing (p much all in first half).

got a text on saturday that read "i've nicked your bike"

turns out my neighbour had nicked it to give it a good seeing to. truing, brakes, hub thing was on it's way out apparently. WHAT A HERO

Woah! That's kind, but unsolicited it's a bit... invasive? Also, giving hubs a good seeing to isn't exactly a quick superficial fix!

On the other hand, yay generous neighbour! Does it run like a dream now?

I'm not usually crazy about late autumn, but bugger me, riding conditions have been blissful the last few days.

28 miles today, first time on the bike in 12 days (due to work pressures, rather than reluctance to ride), was huffing and puffing a bit - surely I can't have lost my fitness that quickly? Maybe it's Heavy Bike Syndrome. I'm going to get the mudguards replaced in a bid to stop the endless rubbing.

34 miles this morning, first semi-big ride since I knackered my shoulder, which is now back to about 90% health. Have lost about 2-3mph on average speeds due to chunky winter tyres, wet roads, leaf mulch, and wind.

91 miles, 5k feet of climbing, 18.1 mph... with a possibly toxic blood/alcohol content from the events of the night previous...

frisky!

You're a machine.

37 miles this morning.

So..................

I did a ride in thick fog - this seemed worth mentioning the day ILX died, but much less so now. Not that it's stopped me. I did a couple of 50-mile rides with a chaingang and suffered - mentally (and physically) I've been in hibernation mode and just wanted to do some gentle miles to keep ticking over, whereas these guys were averaging 18.5mph. I could cope with that in June, but not in December - on both rides I turned back on my own after 30 miles and left them to it.

This Christmas break I've done a few 20ish-mile rides on country lanes that are inches deep in mud in places. My bike got so filthy that today I bought loads of cleaning products and actually gave it a good going over (a real rarity for me). I visited my brother, who is now temporarily based in Gloucester, and went for a ride round there with him doing sprints - he won the flat ones and I won the climbs, but he won his more convincingly than I did. I don't seem to have much of a sprint.

absolutely destroyed my PR on my morning hill climb today - in fact, achieved my goal for the year 2012! the lesson is really that i need to set more aggressive goals, but for now i'm just going to enjoy it.

Had a dentist appointment at 9am so cycled down to Dawlish (never transferred to an Exeter dentist when we moved) first thing. Had taken the rest of the day off so instead of coming straight back, 13 miles in 50 minutes up the river (as I'd done on the route out) I went up over the big hills at the back of my parents' house instead, and took a 2-hour, 20-mile, 2,000 feet of climbing journey back. Blue skies, cold air, rolling gorse bushes, forests, amazing views of Devon. Brilliant.

And then I bought 3 Lindt chocolate Father Christmases on sale for 89p each in Sainsburys because I'd earnt the calories.

Out on a clubrun this morning (not my club's one - my club does a far more 'social' one "at the pace of the slowest rider", not terribly useful for preparing for races, so two or three of us gatecrash the ride of a bigger club from the same area). There was a decent sized group (13 riders, I think) - we organised into two lines, moving up on the right and back on the left with everyone doing about three minutes or so on the front. It was working well (and meant you got to talk to lots of different people as you were next to a different person every few minutes) and we were going about 18.5mph. After about 25 miles I dropped off the group - not because I was dropped, but because I had to get home in time to see the Man Utd v Man City match on TV. I actually felt much better today (though the last 10-15 miles of the journey back on my own were a bit of a grind). Final distance 51.5 miles, average speed 17.2mph.

i put away 450km in the week after christmas. including the one legit HC mountain close to melbourne!

You should have done the Rapha 500!

I had my first 'neds wielding improvised projectiles' incident of the new year last night. It was just an empty plastic juice bottle, so no harm done, except to the moral fabric of society.

30 mile daybreak route north of Exeter, vaguely inspired by the piece with Tom Staniford in this week's Cycling Weekly (he's a student at the uni where I work, and seriously inspirational paracyclist). Did the 30 in just shy of 2 hours, doing some roads I know well but backwards, and some new roads I'd never done before. It was beautiful.

ha krakow, i got in 60km on the friday before, that put me over!

Cold first proper ride of the year. 50km despite not putting on ear band, freaky warm weather is good. All my lycra feels tight after xmas though.

Fantastic haitch, well done!

A friend of mine actually got into Rapha's picks for the best of the Festive 500's!

35 miles for breakfast.

I had bacon and eggs

Paceline riding through the valley. 85 miles. Didn't blow up for once.

22 miles for breakfast. Next weekend I hope I can do a nice long ride with company.

I'm still getting over a cold I've had since Tuesday, but dragged myself out this morning. The group was about half the size of last week's (just 7 of us), probably due to the much lower temperature. We stuck to main roads on the way out to avoid any ice. Me and another guy who needed to be home by 12 peeled off after 20 miles and came back via the lanes. 44 miles at an average of 17mph and my toes are completely numb. Gorgeous sunshine today, even though it is cold.

140km over the weekend, two rides on the trainer. I know it doesn't count but its alternating between snowing and raining at the moment.

Doesn't count

GET WET!

was too wimpy to go out on a 36f/2c morning ride today

Rode about a mile to yoga and back before work. Got whistled at (which never happens to me, like, ever) by Occidental students and a woman unlocking her front door said "HI I like your CAR" (?). Is this a common bike thing?

Biking

Enjoy it! Most of the heckles around these parts are a lot less positive.

No work today. Cycled into London to the Condor shop as I had a £30 gift voucher to use there from Xmas. Ended up spending well over £300 on a new helmet, shoes and pedals.

Good work.

I had a cheery "Respect you for riding in this", as I rode through the snow on my way to work this morning. Still going to ride indoors this weekend.

been playing around with trainerroad and sufferfest. the hunted is fun, fight club is diabolical imo.

That looks like fun

yeah, i have a kurt trainer, i think it does seem consistent enough to provide accurate benchmarking even without accurate power numbers.

that said i have no program this year, no objectives, and i just basically get on there and beat the shit out of myself if i feel like it.

what are you guys talking about

there's a website called trainerroad that takes speed information from your indoor trainer, extrapolates power data, and provides an online workout profile for you to do. it's like a computerized, workload-quantified spinning class you do at home.

40 miles over hills and along rivers in very windy conditions.

Threw my chain on a fast downhill yesterday!

I thankfully managed to control the resulting skid (I'm on fixed gear) and not deck it.

The chain had popped a link before getting too tangled up, so I was able to push that back together and ride home. Took it to the LBS and got a new chainring and cog fitted, as it was old worn ones which had caused the jump, I think.

Then today I get a puncture 5 miles from home, find my handheld pump doesn't work, so had to run home pushing the bike, as I would have been late for a photo job otherwise and didn't have money spare for a taxi!

Going to try and fix the puncture now, but I might not even try to ride tomorrow, it feels like tempting fate...

Perhaps best wait until the new week!

I need a second bike!

wait did the chain get caught up or something? because ime a thrown chain on a fixed gear = oh shit no brakes

My experience is that most often the chain is thrown off at the chainring, as there is more scope for slack there and then wraps itself around the rear cog, locking the rear wheel up and generally mangling things to all hell (cog, hub, wheel, dropouts, chain...). Last time it happened my rear drive-side drop out got all twisted up. Luckily this time everything locked up quite quickly and no significant damage is immediately obvious.

I've had this happen 3-5 times of varying severity in the last 3-4 years, but then I ride A LOT and don't keep everything that shipshape.

Fixed-gear doesn't necessarily mean brakeless. I'm an exception in that I have both front & rear brakes on mine, but a front brake is both common and, strictly, a legal necessity.

I'd rather the chain were thrown free of the cogs, which I've had happen a couple of times. The feeling of suddenly losing all tension and spinning the cranks into thin air and with no resistance is very weird, but you can at least use the hand brake(s) to come to a stop without damaging anything.

The chain wrapping round the rear cog is in my personal experience and expectation the more likely and potentially damaging outcome of a fixed-gear chain jump though.

Not fun whatever happens! But I didn't die, so all is good!

this is true