Cyco-logical.. those hills, it’s all in the mind!

Well, today dear readers, I decided it was time for me to up the time I am spending in the saddle and the miles I am putting on the clock to get my head down and do a ‘real’  40 mile cycle ride.

I decided on Richmond Park again, and worked out that if I pedalled 4 times around the park, with the miles to and from home there, I should clock up the 40 miles I should have achieved last week, if I change a habit of a lifetime and follow a training plan (and the wet weather ride to Watford was more like 32 miles for me – whatever would we do without cycle computers)... 

So, off I set.  The morning weather was lovely – not too hot but not too cold and I ‘cyched’ myself up to the fact I could get over those lovely undulations in the Park (again, ‘undulations’ have a more positive impact on ones ‘cyche’ than that dreaded word ‘hills’).  The fact I had only cycled round the Park twice before was a little unnerving ..

However, the Park looked lovely.  Very quiet in the early mornings, apart from the mostly male cycling lycra brigade who all look over 7ft high and ultra-trim and fit as they speed past me at a rate of knots (but I keep telling myself that I will be like that soon .. OK, maybe not the 7ft bit, or the male bit or indeed the ultra-trim bit, or the speeding bit .. but I digress..).

The cycling down the hills was, as ever, ex-hill-arating..

wind at my face and the ability to click to the far extreme of my gears to keep the speed up.

But, as we all know, what goes up, must come down – or in this case – vice versa – and those hills kicked in, and again, am I pleased to have 20 gears to choose from and maybe one day I will hit the right one in time for the right hill..

But anyway readers, that is the short blog for today.  After the ride I have sore elbows and my little fingers are numb (if anyone has any constructive ideas how to resolve this for subsequent rides, please let me know!) and, although I am somewhat anxious that the Paris ride is around the corner, and, of that, Day 1 will be over double what I did today (yet alone that being followed by a further 3 days of more miles than I did today) the fact I have just peddled 40 miles have not yet got me running to the hills, more like singing from the hills ..  

(And Dame Julie says ' please sponsor us if you have not already done so ..'!  Thanks Julie, Pomme Ed.) ..

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!