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!

                            =

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!
=

                        

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!

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…)

Farcical … is that really a long bicycle ride ..?

Today, after a whole days rain with zero let up, I decided to get my lovingly loaned Munoura ‘Hypermag’ set-up in the lounge (thank you Uncle John for the loan!).  For those of you not acquainted with the joys of cycle training devices, the Hypermag ‘has been developed as the most silent indoor bicycle trainer in the world with adopting Minoura’s special technical knowledge for over 12 years such as thicker plastic material, alloy die-casting outer case and high-level machined unique full-circle magnet’ (yes, this is lifted straight from the poorly translated instruction manual from Japan). 

Choosing a day when my partner was away (as the only place to install said machine was in the lounge by the dining table – hence making the dining experience in the house with more than 2 of us a little intimate (unless you have a ‘thing’ about bicycle trainers)), I decided to install my old Trek mountain bike on the trainer so I had something to train on on days like today when the weather was really too bad to go ‘proper’ road cycling (ie. 10% possibility of rain upwards ..) and leaving my beautiful ‘Pearly E White’ Condor Italia for those fair weathered rides…

What looked like a simple installation turned out to be very challenging, to put it mildly.    Despite my Master’s Degree (OK OK in computing .. which proved to be useless when it came to cycle trainers) and a detailed diagram of how to assemble the trainer, the combination of the M6 bolt, Knob bolt, flat washer, hub clamping handle, load level adjusting dial, drive roller, flywheel, U-leg etc etc ..got me very perplexed.  I got to a stage where I was questioning if I had the thing turned around the right way to start with, whether it should actually be attached to the front wheel and not the back and whether it should actually be hung from the ceiling.  After a few hours of deliberation I did manage to work 80% of it out (without phoning my Uncle which was going to be the last resort as I can hear him chuckle now!) and installed the bike on the training machine.  By this time my partner had arrived home and I assured her that this was ‘the most silent indoor bicycle trainer in the world’ (blah blah from the manual) and she would not even notice it was there.  To reassure her I sat on the bike and proceeded to peddle and the noise .. well, it made my very old washing machine sound like the hum of butterflies wings.   I think the neighbours started banging on the wall ..  I then realised that the machine was not adjusted properly. 

Now I have sorted it out, although we cannot invite anyone around to eat at the table, all is well.. and the hot dinner plates, now on our laps at night in lieu of the table, have – as I said to my partner – actually helped save us on our heating bills.  Every cloud and all that ….. 

What do you for punctures then ...???

... well in the words of Tina, "the famous hedge cyclist" ... "Men - they live for punctures". So we took her advice and decided to find some to show us how to deal with punctures and basic maintenance stuff.  I must say however, that my workmate Brian actually volunteered before I could ask.  I think it was the look of anguish on my face when he said "so do you know how to change a tyre then" that made him take pity on me. We did that thing you do when you are having a maintenance tryst at work .. and went to the car park  ...and got Brian's bike out of his car, plus a spare wheel, and took them into the foyer so the lesson could commence.

Needless to say I learnt a huge amount of the key stuff you need to know from Brian, which was absolutely invaluable.  The most important first step is apparently to stare intensely at the tyre so it knows it needs to change!!! Other helpful hints included Brian trying to blow up my brain by explaining to me gear sets and ratios, and how everything is a calculation based on the size of the Penny Farthing front wheel.

The next night Suzanne and I went to an Evan Cycles maintenance course which we had pre-booked a long time ago. Ryan took us through the basic paces really well with some good tips and all for free!!. The ubiquitous "multi tool" seems to be the perfect advertising vehicle cos every cyclist needs one. We also got to look at and fondle some very nice bikes and see a chain de-greasing device in operation.  I thought it was fabulous!! Then I looked at the bright pink de-greaser stuff you put into it and was reminded of the time Mal's sister Gaylene was working in a restaurant and got the pink floor cleaner mixed up with the raspberry cordial flavouring and 13 people finished up in hospital ... hey why were they all in the same cupboard I ask!!  But I digress .. yes punctures ... DON'T bring em on!!!
Oh and a tip from Brian (so basic when you know it, but really embarrassing when you don't) ... when taking off your pedals, the left pedal has a left hand thread!

The most important part of the challenge .. new bikes

We have all committed ourselves to the ride from London to Paris, and sealed the deal by spitting on our palms and shaking hands.  Well actually more like clinking our wine glasses together ... Then the thought occurs to us - we can't do this on our current bikes.  A trek mountain bike, a road bike whose twin must still be on the Ark (weren't there 2 of everything on the Ark) and a Boris bike/tank. New bikes were required, and soon!

It was surprising to find that the quoted cost of the bike was actually just the frame and the "finishing kit" included wheels, seat, gear sets, handle bars and peddles.  As the money mounted it up it was tempting to consider just carrying the frame to Paris.

After much looking we chose our steeds - 2 Condor Italias - one in All Black colours, one white in surrender colours, and a Giant in go fast colours. Here's a picture of one of the Condors with her first test riders on board.