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!

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)!

    

Shoes glorious shoes ... we're anxious to try them

Yes dear reader it is finally time to move to the next level of cycling ... real cycling shoes that clip you into the pedals. These let you pull as well as push and in theory should result in a 25 - 30% gain in power, efficiency, general well being, and, improve your chance of a lottery win!  This all hinges on it becoming second nature to be able to "unclip" your shoe from the peddle to be able to put your foot down on the road in both planned and unplanned stopping manoeuvres. 

It is very important that the shoes are equally as stylish as the rest of the cycling wear, so as not to wreck the overall "sad git" image we have been building to-date.  The choice of shoes for women was proving to be a tad disappointing as my search had so far turned up models in either white (will get dirty) or Barbie pink and blue (better suited to Paris Hilton day wear).  And then .... I found these.  Are these sexy shoes or what - the cycle shoes are the ones on the right of the picture.

Everyone has said that with cleats you will fall off sooner or later - great .. looking forward to that NOT. Apparently it even happens to very experienced cyclists.  In fact, a very experienced cyclist I know recently found herself upside down in a deep ditch on the side of a country road with the bike on top of her and both feet still cleated into the peddles. It took about 20 minutes to free herself as she lay in the ditch with her dogs staring down at her and not a car in sight. More on our adventures into the joys of learning to use the new shoes and cleats later.

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 try and get insurance

Well, like any adventure into insurance land, we always knew this would be fun didn't we!!!  For starters you need a "U" lock that is saw proof, bomb proof and dog pee proof. Naturally, these locks are all tougher than the "immovable object" you must attach it and the bike to via the bike frame - even when indoors ...talk about trust the flatmates or the kids!!  I don't know if you've ever thought of this, but there's not much inside your apartment that qualifies as "immovable" in insurance terms" - suggestions anyone?

All this is of course necessary should any thief get through the Fort Knox approved locks that you naturally must have on every exterior door, especially with your "cost conscious" slum landlord in charge of that department. It's slowly dawning on me why Berbers, Laplanders and other nomadic types don't have bicycles ... well, that and the sand or snow I guess.

This U lock is an ABUS, as is the wheel loop, and they are from Germany, so clearly well designed and will do what it says on the label. The U lock has an electronic lock thingie that glows blue in the dark.

I am sure that will come in handy when we are lost in a forest somewhere on a long ride and need to lock the girls up ...  not that a tree qualifies as an "immovable object" in insurance terms you know!

and more ....

Now that your bike is looking good you have to start thinking about how you look on it and your comfort on that small squitty seat - yes padded undies time!

Remember you've not actually been on the road yet so your chances on being spotted by a "Britains Got Talent" (oxymoron) scout are still alive and kicking, as long as you look the part.
No really ... it quickly becomes apparent that you can't ride around in "trackies and a tee" for various health and safety reasons.  So you give in and start slowly (but picking up pace quickly) converting into the "looking like a sad git in cycling gear" genre cos, cos, well really for your own good & peace of mind

    ... and yes the Sudocrem is part of the deal apparently....