The gloves are off …. the shorts are on!

Well, to be specific, the glove (singular) supporting my broken left arm (and poorly wrist) is off for a few hours of the day now, and my padded shorts are on!

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Padding is the word of the moment, I have decided.  As my bike went in for a service a few days ago, I asked them to add some padding to my handlebars to help with the vibrations of the roads – which I hope have less potholes in France than they do in the UK.  And now my handlebars looks like they need to go to Weight Watchers as they are fat and squidgy and, so far, very comfortable!
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Regarding the shorts, I have decided that layers upon layers are needed to assist in avoidance of chaffing... and this will be assisted with the ever present, Sudocrem!  I invested in some very sexy women’s cycling underwear - with extra padding for those all important parts.  These arrived ready for my little training ride today.    Along with my new compression knee length socks, I decided that, for our dedicated readers, I would share this  vision of me in my newly purchased underwear.  If you want NO MORE (!!) pictures of my underwear (I can hear you all saying 'no more' en masse!) – we need a few more donations to our charity … the clock is ticking as we cycle to France in a couple of days’ time and reveal to the French this wonderful depiction of beautiful British bike fashion..!!

Enjoy!

A lucky break .. and I am not referring to the snooker world championships!

Well, I have been a little quiet the last week or so.  Falling off a bike onto hard concrete over Easter damaged my arm more than I initially thought.  It was probably not helped by my Kiwi cycling companion insisting I get back on the bike and continue to ride - yes, and this picture is how I felt ( dialogue went something like this - Kiwi fruit "get back on that bike now", poor Pomme A "but it hurts ....").  Oh, to have the support of your fellow cyclists ....

So, after a visit to A&E (some 4 days later, as I am very tough!) and the necessary x-rays, I was informed I had fractured the radius bone right by the elbow (now I know why I could not straighten my arm and why it hurt so much) and resting the arm in a sling was the only thing to do.

Yesterday I went to the fracture clinic at the Charing X hospital for a follow-up appointment – more x-rays – and was informed that I was very lucky with where the break was ('lucky' would not be the first word I would use ..)!  It had not displaced (despite me playing in a couple of gigs over the weekend!) and I no longer needed the sling.  Physio appointment was needed and moving the arm was now the thing to do. 

When I asked if I could do the ride ..the doctor say ‘No’ …so I insisted on a 2^nd opinion!  Finally his consultant (and boss) said I could ride, but I would have to keep popping the pain killers en route, try not to fall off again (as if that was on the top of my ‘to do’ list ..umm? No!) and stop if it got worse – as I could do more damage ..eeek!

So, the ride is back on for the Pomme Anglais .. yippee (I think!).  Just in major ‘catch-up’ mode as the fracture has scuppered my training plan and, unlike the Kiwi fruits, I have not cycled 90 miles so the ride on the 9^th May may well be my first ‘ test’ of a loooooong distance.

Lots more indoor riding and moaning – at least for the rest of this week – is on the agenda for me .. and – (a request for you, dear readers) .. please keep your fingers crossed for me to keep on mending so I make it to Paris sometime in May.. Thank you!

Falling off a bike .. now that’s very Bard

Had a wonderful ride in Richmond Park today, trying to get used to cleats for the first time.  And for some reason, I came over ‘all Shakespeare’.. being Anglais and all … enjoy .. (perchance) ..

To cleat, or not to cleat, that is the question:

Whether ‘tis Nobler in the mind to suffer

The Ridicule and Mockery of non-cleated cycling,

Or to take feet against a road of potholes,

And by cleating them: to panic, to fall

And to fall, and possibly dent my bike and pride

The heart-ache, and the thousand pieces of tarmac

That would imbed in my flesh?  ‘Tis a consummation

Devoutly not to be wished.  But to cleat, to look fabulous,

To fabulously ride faster in my Dreams; Ay, that saddle ..now

There’s the rub…  

        (But that is another story for another day in the Park…)

Is this an Eiffel Tower I see before me … or..?

Hello readers!  Firstly I have not been stewing in my own ‘pomme’ juices and forgetting about our wonderful blog, I started a new job this week so have been a little preoccupied. 

However, I have a little story I wanted to share with you all.  So, I hope you are sitting comfortably…?  Good, so I will begin..

I have spent this week being ‘induced’ .. well, going through the induction process with the new work.  I was with a group of disparate new hires and part of the course was the usual ‘tell us something interesting about yourself’ …

As the bike ride is so close to my heart I talked about this – the training programme, the new bike, the charity, my two Kiwi fruits that will be following me miles behind en route etc. etc. …

Over coffee we all ended up chatting about these new found interesting things about our colleagues and one of the guys – I shall call him ‘Pete’ to keep anonymity – shared with me that he too did the London to Paris charity ride a few years ago. 

I was so excited to meet someone that had done it and promptly started to ask him questions (how was it for him, did he stick to the training plan, what sort of bike did he have, did he use cleats or not, how was his bum (en route, not at the moment of course) … all of those ‘sad’ questions that have suddenly become so very important).  However Pete stopped me mid questioning and shared with me how it was for him.

Pete had cycled with his chums all the way to Dover, staying in some youth hostel where he told me there was a fight going on outside as they got there (but they were so tried it did not matter).  They crossed on the ferry in the morning and cycled (uphill) out of Calais.  He said the journey throughout France was great – pretty flat and interesting.  They entered into Paris on the final day and he and his friends cycled towards their final destination – the Eiffel Tower – with great great excitement.

He then said that the next memory he had was waking up in a French hospital.  Somehow along the final metres toward the Tour Eiffel he managed to fall off his bike and knock himself out.

He is now really envious about me doing the ride and wished me lots of luck. 

I guess the moral of the story is to keep pedalling – carefully – right to the end of the road.. I could not imagine doing 298.5 miles and falling on the last 0.5 mile, but talking to Pete, I now know this ‘could’ happen (especially if I do not get used to my cleats)!

    

Well they said it would happen ... and it did already

So ... it's simple to fit cleats and bung them into the pedals - yeah right!!! After a less than successful stint in the park by myself,  I  rode to Condor to get them fitted properly and my pedals tuned and everything greased and all the rest .... right back on the bike.  Day 1 was good, slow and cautious, but the sensation was good.

ok ok then I got a bit over confident and ignored what the little "uncleat, uncleat, be prepared for intersections, no matter how quiet, cos you are a day 2 novice" voices were saying in my cycle safely consciousness.  And then and unplanned stop ... and BAM... well more like "aagghh oh no" and down I went.  So, I have the kind of injuries you sustain when falling off at less than 1 km an hour - a scraped knee, a bruised shoulder, but no real blood, and it doesn't count if there's no blood according to my motorcyclist mate!!  In my own defence, it is not that intuitive (yet) clicking in and out of the cleats.

All that aside, I could feel in a short space of time the difference that real bike shoes with cleats will make to the ride.  However, the faster you go the colder your feet seem to get as well.  So naturally I have now bought my shoes some wet weather and keep warm "over shoes".  These have to be the saddest addition to the sad git wardrobe to-date.

I suspect that my experience is mild compared to some of the other crash stories I have heard ... I'd like to keep it that way if at all possible.