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!

90 miles is a long way you know

... and if you are from the New World, in real money, it's actually 145 kms ... With Pomme Anglais still all broken and arm in a sling and thus restricted to indoor pedalling, accompanied by indoor moaning of course, it was left to Tulip and I to attempt the "on road" version of a 90 mile ride. Tulip suggested that I stay "at hers" (very Anglais lingo there)on Friday night so we could set out early on Saturday morning. 

I headed off with Lara to the station at around 6pm.When I got to the station I was then told by a man in an ill fitting national rail uniform that I couldn't take "that bike" on any train until after 7pm.  Naturally, I duly ignored him and got on a train.  I got one stop up the line where I had to change and another man in an equally ill fitting national rail uniform told me the same thing and then proceeded to take me hostage by standing next to me for 40 minutes to ensure that I didn't board any train before the magical hour.

The last 2 weeks of such typical spring weather (read monsoon downpour from a clear blue sky) accompanied by an at least 7 degrees celsius drop in temperature, has meant the Pomme Anglais on her indoor machine has ridden much more often and further than Tulip or I have managed .. so it was nervous times.  I will not subject you to a blow by blow of our ride to Cambridge (almost) and back, suffice to say it was a journey of reassurance and we will make it through the first day and we will make the ferry.

We were very lucky with the weather really only getting rained on twice. The biggest hazards were the baby bunnies running in our path on the most gorgeous of country lanes (ohhh noooice..) larks singing, other little birds dipping into our path and flying with us, grouse running alongside us, and field after field of serious hay fever sneezing and eye watering bright yellow canola plants in flower  ... and then there were the bugs!!  I have a honeycomb helmet to stop my gigantic brain from over heating and now I have realised that this means that going into the country means my helmet will become at least a 3 bugs per mile catcher (thank goodness I grew up on a farm!!!).

Oh yeah then there was the 3 mile stretch on a dual carriage way - for New Zealander's read major highway with like 7 lanes, and just as many drivers who couldn't wait a nano second for a cyclist to pass before pulling out!!.

Anyway ... T has a hill scale ... it's called the "B*@$ .." hill scale and it goes from 1 to 5.  Newgate Hill is the first one out and the last one back and it's a triple B ... and we made it!!!  So there .....

... and Mt Everest is a 15 B apparently!!!

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 ….. 

and now we save our head and our hands

Believe it or not, wearing a helmet while riding a bicycle is NOT compulsory in the UK!!!  Most sensible cyclists (ie the ones in "sad git" fluro gear) do wear helmets ... and gloves.  This one has been pimped up with a bit of attitude - which is why it will have to be replaced soon with something that looks aerodynamic and protects your head.  While of course not making you look like someone who has a very funny shaped head and even funnier hair sticking out at odd angles from underneath it.

Truly sometimes you take your helmet off and wonder who the person with the weird hairdo is that's passing in the shop window, with those with the funny iPhone enabled gloves on.