xendistar.co.uk

That is how I see things at the moment, when you are at the bottom of the proverbial ladder the only way is up.

I will start with good news, the wife has got a new job and starts on Monday, she was told she had got the job on Tuesday but there was a bit more form filling and checking to do, but it was not confirmed 100% until nearly midday Friday. So thankfully that is one major issue out of the way.

After my cold laid me low last weekend I thought I had been getting better all week, that was until this morning when a sneezing attack followed by a runny nose (for the rest of the day) made it’s return. To go with the runny nose I also have heavy eye syndrome, you can liken it to how your eyes feel when you have been a wake for more that 24 hours and want to go to sleep but you are forcing yourself to stay awake. At least I am not alone with the cold this time as my son has it as well.

I was intending to go for a ride this morning but several factors put pay to that. I still had the front gear change to check after the chain suck problems I had at Cannock the other week. I got the bike out the shed and put it on the stand and was looking at the front gear change mechanism from the left side of the bike (based on you sitting on the bike) and I remembered something I read on the MBR Forum in the week about a guys problem with chain suck and checking the chain rings for hooked shaped shark finned teeth on the chain wheel. Sure enough I had those very same “hooked shaped shark finned teeth” on my middle chain ring. No amount of playing with the mechanism was going to solve that problem, so I dismantled the crank and chain ring so I could get the middle ring off and then put the bike back in the shed. With winds over 20mph all day today I don’t think I would of enjoyed riding today.

In need of a new chain ring I thought I try a new web site I heard about on the (previously mentioned) MBR Forum, Bike Discount, it is a German web site and they are more than happy to post to the UK. I have heard nothing but good things about this company so I thought I would give them a try and what is even better is the cost of a new chain ring and the postage was cheaper than I could buy it from any of the UK web sites, is that just stupid or what??

So another weeks goes by with no rides due to a case of bad bike servicing on my part, weather and illness and my weight loss program is non-existent at the moment which is not being helped by my eat anything and everything in sight mind set.

This is not the start to 2012 I wanted, the only way is up………………………….I hope

This cold has been a pig, Friday night it kicked in with a vengeance, laid me low all weekend, but I am left feeling a little better today (certainly better than the weekend). Unusually for me I took some medication in the form of Day and Night Nurse capsule, certainly stopped the worst of my nose and I got a couple of good nights sleeps after Friday nights restlessness. Hopefully it will be cleared up enough by the weekend and I can get out on the bike again.

Back on the 31st December I mentioned the ride (or should that be slide) around Badbury Rings and one particularly narrow section that had been cleared back but still only had a narrow trail down the middle of it. Well I found a picture of the path I took earlier last year.

wide lane narrow trail

As you can see it is a very narrow trail down the centre of the path, as it is only April it is not that overgrown yet, but it gets to the point in the summer where you can’t see the path for the long grass and you have to duck to avoid the overhanging thorny bushes.

The wife went to her interviews to day, she seemed positive about both but it is now down to the waiting game. She is off to another agency tomorrow to see about the possibility of another couple of jobs, still crossing my anatomy.

…for the control of my body, there is a microbiological battle going on in my body, the man flu has kicked in vengeance. I am moving from room to room accompanied by a box of tissues. Wife bought me a box of normal soft tissue yesterday, by mid morning today I had a lovely glowing nose so I am now the proud owner of a box of Kleenex Balsam Tissue which contain a protective balm. Certainly made my nose feel better, done nothing for the man flu though.

Well there won’t be any riding this weekend for sure which is a shame as it will be clear and sunny if a bit cold and frost for the next few days. Might try and sort my front gears out if I don’t fill to bad tomorrow.

The wife has two interviews on Monday which is a good, fingers and other part of my anatomy crossed for a positive outcome.

Just thought I would pop on here and talk to myself for 5 minutes. Thankfully the pains in my calf muscle from the weekend cramps has now gone, only to be replaced by headaches, snotty nose and sore throat, yes I have the onset of man flu, oh joy.

The wife has been told her last day will be the 31st Jan, not what we really wanted to hear but we needed to know so that we can start to sort a few things out. She had an interview last week and was told that she was second pick if the first girl declined the offer. For some reason I would prefer not to know, knowing you were second just make you feel worse.

Went to Cannock Chase yesterday with 4 other fellows riders from the Mountain Bike Rider (mbr) forum. These ride are nothing to do with mbr other than the fact that those riders that go on them are members of the mbr forum. All the ride are organised by fellow riders, it is normally a case of who want to ride at X on Y put your names below. Sometimes they are one days events (like yesterday) sometimes they are camping events. This is the second such ride I have been on but they do several over the course of the year at various location but to be honest mainly in the midlands and north of the country (there was one today at Hamsterley).

We arrived at Cannock at about 10:45am after our sat nav decided that we wanted to go to the local power station at Cannock, once we corrected that little error we were soon in the car park. Just on 11am we left the car park and headed to the woods. Its fair to say that this is probably the biggest forest trail centre I have been to so was a little unsure what to expect. One thing I was not expecting was how unfit I felt, any sniff of uphill and I was a wheezing gasping heap. Anybody that has been to Cannock will know there is a lot of ups so that did not bode well.

One thing I hate about new places is that they show you up so badly (well at least for me they do), I guess because there are no real trail centres around my ways I don’t get to practice on the narrow twist trails or the rock gardens. It is not that I find difficult but more frustrating when I don’t clear a particular obstacle and unfortunately there were a few of those.

About half way round the trail, my trail enemy turned up, cramps. Now I had filled my 3ltr Camelbak with plain water and had a 1ltr water bottle with SIS Energy drink in it. By the time I had got to 3/4 of the way round I ran out of all drink and the cramps were hitting me really badly. Thankfully one of my fellow riders gave me some of his drink he had left. At one stage the pain in my calf’s was so bad from the cramp that I could not stand up on the pedals. Despite all this, I was enjoying the ride but the cramps and the uphills were killing it for me. I was not alone in the cramps department, a fellow riders was suffering with cramps in the thighs.

I must thank my fellow riders, despite my slowness they were there waiting for me at the end of every section and allowed me time to recuperate before heading off to the next section. This made it a bloody long day and we only just got back with enough light to see where we were going, the last section in the tree was very dark.

Despite my discomfort it was a very enjoyable days riding with some very nice fellow riders.

Ready and eager for the off, yours truly 2nd from left

I have been looking into my cramping problem, I am a person that perspires a lot anyway so normally drink a lot, on one of my normal rides which is flat compared to Cannock I don’t normally have a problem. But when I do rides like Cannock, ride in a group (I do a lot of solo riding) or an organised ride I tend to push that bit harder, thus I sweat a bit more thus losing those vital electrolytes quicker (at least that is what I think is happening). I was hoping that I could keep my Camelbak just for plain water, but now it looks like I will be adding some form of energy drink to my Camelbak to help resolve my cramping problem.

One other problem I had which I did not mention was I was having chain suck problem, this did not hold me up to much as I found it was best to leave it in a low gear anyway. I had a play with the front mech on the bike a couple of rides ago so I think it might be to do with that. I had to fit a new chain to day as the other one had reached its limit so I will be doing a little adjust later in the week, it started to rain so had to pack up.

Finally Clive over at MassiveMTBer put me onto this this new blog , have a read and let me know what you think.

And absolutely finally because I told him I would, here is dear son doing what he does best

Drinking hot Chocolate