Sidelined

I'm pretty sure that the last post I wrote was a whole pile of moaning about how I've not been comfortable riding the bike. Little did I realise how much more that was to become. I never thought I'd be an athlete, doing those things that athletes do, like stretching, and eating exercise food, drinking protein powder - and I certainly never thought I'd be seeing a sports doctor to get steroid injections to address physical injuries arising from the stress of what I've been putting myself through. Around 300 days ago (not that I'm counting)...

27 Jul 2016 No comments

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Free your mind

I don't ride with others as often as I would like to think I should. My commute is fairly solitary with the occasional ad hoc bunch forming, although I've noticed that people are generally happy to go their own pace when commuting, probably because they are all going to different places so are burning fuel at different rates. As I am often adding in extra hills on the commute - a grand departure from my original fear of not riding straight to work - it makes it hard to organise anything with anyone. Plus most of my friends are sensible...

29 May 2016 No comments

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You just go faster

The challenges I've been facing so far in my preparation for Taupo have been physical and, to a point, intellectual. Hills that never end. Headwinds that suck your soul and then demand more. Fridges that never hold enough food. Things that can be solved by observing our honourable Rule 5. I've also had to research into everything from bike fits, to components, to nutrition; filtering through endless opinions, points of views, advertising and, when it comes to nutrition; pop-science - debunked or otherwise. It's relatively hard gaff, can...

26 May 2016 No comments

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Bike Fit

Cycling isn't inherently comfortable. There are so many things that can hurt when riding, and as one accumulates years, so one accumulates... 'aches and pains'. But there is pain, and then there is pain. (There is also the other pain - the feeling of parts of your body that have had their structural integrity compromised... but I think our imaginations have this one covered, and I'm going to leave this one out so I don't tempt fate.) There is what I would consider to be fairly normal pain. The post-training-week bruised feeling of thighs that...

20 Apr 2016 No comments

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Itchy Legs

It's hard being off the bike. At first I felt great, like my legs just got to the weekend and don't have to get up in the morning. Nice and relaxed and, well... lazy. But then my legs start to itch. This week I've been sick. It's just a cold, a tickle at the back of my throat and a snuffly nose. I can't breathe properly and I've been feeling pretty rotten, so that means time off the bike to ensure I don't wear myself out and make it all worse. When you ride 14+ hours a week it takes up a certain amount of time, including the extra time outside...

11 Apr 2016 No comments

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No surprises

I went for a mountain bike ride on the weekend. I love my mountain bike. It's a Giant XTC, a bit more cross-country than the full-suspension bikes that my riding buddies are all throwing around, but from my experience it's about the closest thing that you can get to a BMX and still be riding a mountain bike. A sweet, sweet ride. Even though it was technically a training ride I didn't see the problem with inviting a few extra people along, so The Lawyer and I started off with a nice ride down the Hutt River Trail to get warmed up, before heading...

28 Mar 2016 1 comment

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Keeping it ticking over

It seems to be the month for it! 3000km have come and gone since I purchased my bike and it's time for some scheduled maintenance. I'm relatively happy about this. It's not going to be overly cheap, but apparently this isn't a cheap hobby (although a quick Google for 'expensive hobbies' returns plenty of lists which 'cycling' is not mentioned in. Perhaps I should take up Aviation?) Throughout the rigmarole with the strange noises coming from my bike I've become more conscious about the wear and tear on the bike. The idea of losing brakes,...

21 Mar 2016 No comments

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