30/11/2020
Did a weigh in again this morning and I am now up to 105.8kgs so I have put on about 2kgs over the last month.
Need to get back riding as my back is also starting to hurt again.
28/11/2020
I haven’t been on the bike again since my ride on the 23/11. I’m feeling really fat and unhealthy again so need to start riding again.
I bought a set of wahoo speed and cadence sensors and I am going to set them up on my road bike and then I will be able to use my bike and rollers to train on zwift over the winter as I’m totally over riding in the cold and wet.
24/11/2020
I finally got around to swapping out the rear wheel on my race cruiser today. I also swapped the brake lever as it was bent and dialled in the brake as well so it is ready to go.
I wasn’t able to ride today apart from riding to the bank and back as I was waiting for a delivery all day. So I had a lazy day instead.
Going to ride to Bristol and back in the morning to make up for today and then go to the track in the afternoon to test out the new cruiser.
23/11/2020
Did a weigh in and was not super happy with the result 😭. Back up to 105.2kgs which I guess is to be expected as I haven’t done any exercise for almost 10 days.
Starting to feel better so I am going to get back to it and try and get my weight moving in the right direction again.
Did a quick ride along the Two Tunnels to Wellow and back and I have just got back now. It is getting really cold and slippery and the dirt part between Modford and Wellow is getting really muddy! The bike path is also really busy at this time in the morning which doesn’t help the average speed at all 🙁
The ride was 10.62 miles and it took exactly 40 minutes and my average speed was a lowly 15.9mph and I only got a top 3 time for 1 segment this morning.
On a positive note my body felt great and I am feeling much better for having a ride too.
I am planning to do a ride to Bristol tomorrow morning early which will be the first ride on the smaller bike which will be interesting and its also the first time I have ridden to Bristol in months as I have been doing more hilly rides recently.
This morning I am going to get my BMX fully built up as I really want to start doing sprints a couple times a week on it to get used to it and I am also missing the track as I haven’t really been there on a BMX for months. To be honest I hadn’t been missing the BMX at all but this last few days I have really wanted to ride again.
15-23/11/2020
Rested the ankle so haven’t been on the bike for ages.
Feeling fat and lazy and have been drinking too much Coca Cola and eating badly! All in all not the best couple of weeks really.
14/11/2020
Rode from Bath to Mells this morning. I was planning to ride to my parents in Wanstrow but I managed to twist my ankle at the start of the ride slipping on leaves coming onto the 2 tunnels and when I tried to unclip I twisted my ankle. I rode through it for as long as possible the had to get a lift from Mells.
Apart from the ankle I was feeling pretty rested and fresh. I was able to climb the hills ok as the ankle only started to hurt once the pain in the rest of my body climbing subsided 🤣
I rode 15.60miles in 1:24:40 for an average speed of 11.1mph which wasn’t so bad considering that it was really wet and really windy all the way. I also climbed 813ft.
I also got a couple of second fastest times for segments and also a third best time for the Radstock to Mells cyclepath.
11/11/2020
Did a quick lunchtime ride to Midford and back to try and get rid of my sore back and get the legs moving.
I did 7.43 miles in 23:22 minutes with an average speed of 19.1mph. Not my fastest ride mut far from my slowest too.
09/11/2020
Just got up and did a weigh in and my weight is up a bit from last week at 104.0kgs. My legs are shot today so I am most likely going to do an easy ride to spin out my legs. At the moment I am thinking that the Bath to Bristol cycle path is the best option.
In the end I decided to have a rest day and leaned the flat instead and also cleaned my son’s road bike as well.
08/11/2020
Met my friend at the Odd Down cycle track this morning and did 20 miles on the track after riding up the hill to get there and then riding back.
The hill killed me but I took a minute off of my pb due to the lack of granny gears on the 1x setup.
While riding the track I concentrated on spinning as much as possible as that is the way that I am going to get faster in the long run.
All in all I rode 22.09 miles gained 1039ft in elevation and rode for 1:42:03 hours and had an average speed of 13mpg.
I am going to use this route more at the moment as the cycle paths are crazy busy due to lock down and are unusable at the moment and the lanes are too muddy and wet at the moment.
This also means that I can have the option to either ride my BMX or the road bike as the BMX track is behind the road track.
I am going to finish building up my cruiser today and then take it to the track tomorrow and leave it and my helmet there so that I can ride the road bike there and then ride the BMX when I get to the track.
I found out yesterday when I put the chain on the BMX that the o ring for the driver on the rear hub has an issue and is stopping the rear wheel spinning properly. Luckily I have an identical wheel on my park bike that I will swap while I get a new o ring ordered.
I can’t wait to try the new bike out at the track as it feels really fast and is surprisingly light even compared to my Yess type ex frame.
I want to do the hill to the track more to get much faster as I looked at the KOM for the hill and they did it in just over 2 minutes compared to my time of just over 8 minutes!!! My friend also has a pb of just over 4 minutes so that gives me something to aim for although I know that he has already climbed an even bigger hill before he gets to this one which I didn’t!
07/11/2020
I was chatting to a friend in Cornwall last night and it got me thinking that I would like to do a longer bike ride next year and I think that I am going to maybe try and plan a 2 week bike packing trio to Cornwall to visit my friends depending on lockdowns of course.
It’s only about 180 miles to my friend’s place so it could comfortably be done in 3-4 days of slow paced riding. My son was not impressed with the idea but I will talk him into it by the summer 😁
I also ride my 4x bike to the BMX track and met some friends and borrowed a chain ring bolt tool as I needed one to swap cranks on my road bikes as the cranks on the new one (52cm) are too short for me at 170mm.
I have now swapped the cranks over so I will test the new bike out again tomorrow. The new bottom bracket will arrive tomorrow too 😁
06/11/2020
Was super busy at work all night and had a major issue that meant I didn’t finish until 10 am so put in a 14.5 hr shift last night! I then couldn’t sleep so I didn’t wake up until it was dark again. This meant that I didn’t get a chance to ride at all.
I’d get around to swapping over the cranks on the bikes apart from the fact each crank had one chain ring bolt seized that I couldn’t free so I have bought a chain ring bolt tool to get them free. The tool will not be here until Monday so I have had to bodge the bikes together for us to use this weekend.
The fact that my bike can only use the top gears at the moment as the chain angle is too tight as the chain ring is in the wrong position as it is on the outside ring and needs to be on the inside ring as my bike is set up with a 1x setup at the moment. My sons bike only has the 1x setup on it at the moment so he is without the use of his front durelia at the moment.
All this means that we will have to stick to the bike paths this weekend to avoid hills that we wouldn’t be able to climb with the current limited setups.
The bike parks will be fine as you only use a few gears on them anyway.
I also cleaned the headset bearings on my son’s bike but they are too far gone to save so I will have to buy new bearings.
I also have a new Shimano bottom bracket for my bike coming as the one on there is a bit creaky.
I have been looking online and I think next month I will convert the new bike back to a 2x configuration as it will only cost about £35 for a 105 durelia and a cable and will bake the bike way more flexible for all the different types of terrain my routes cover. I will also need to get a 52t chain ring as the 1x setup uses a 44t front ring I think.
Apart from this both bikes are good although they both need to be cleaned and my bike needs the mudguards fitting that I bought for it to make it my winter bike.
05/11/2020
Didn’t ride today as I was feeling really bad from being on night shift and the after effects of the migraine and being super busy at work this week.
04/11/2020
Got out gain today and rode to Wellow and back today to ride away the soreness of working all night last night again.
Took it really easy as I had what I think was my first migraine but managed to ride 10.63 miles in 37:39 minutes with an average speed of 16.9mph.
As I said I took it easy 🤣 although it’s getting more dangerous to go faster too as there are lots of leaves on the floor that are starting to go mushy and make it really slippery.
I’m really liking the smaller frame although I definitely have to put on longer cranks at the weekend.
03/11/2020
Managed to get out on the new bike today and must say it feels much better size wise at least. The cranks feel really short and the gearing feels a bit low so I am going to sort that out at the weekend by swapping it cranks off of the bigger bike onto this one and out these cranks onto the bigger bike for my son.
The ride went OK apart from the fact I had asthma pretty much the whole way. It was a short ride also as I just went to Midford and back so I rode 7.33 miles in 24.28 minutes with an Average speed of 18mph which is 3mph below my best average.
Still not bad for having asthma.
01/11/2020
Weigh in today was 103.8 kgs so not lost any weight but not put a lot on either.
My friend dropped off my new (to me) specialized Allez pro this afternoon so I am going to go for a long ride tomorrow morning to test it out. I am thinking of a ride to Bristol and back as it is flatter than my usual route so will be a bit easier.
The bike is basically a smaller version of the bike I have been riding for the past 2 months which I love but it was a bit too big for me. The new bike is a 52cm frame and the old bike was a 54cm frame. The new bike also has upgraded wheels and groupset so should last me a while.
