Just before starting this post I decided to read what I wrote in this blog last year, I had an idea what I wanted to write this year. Well I could of simply just copied last years post over to this years and they would of said exactly what I wanted to say. The past year started badly got better in the middle and then fell over at the end. My diet has been non existence where I have just bounced around the same weight as I was at the start of the year (and the end of 2010). I am not going to blame anybody except me, I am a stress eater, when the stress mounts I eat and all boundaries become non-existent, if it is food I will eat it in copious amounts.

I was intending to go for a ride with our son this morning but it was bleak and showery all morning and he decided that he did not want to go riding in the wet. The daughter had gone out so I was left baby sitting our son so I was not able to go out on my own for a ride. Weather is not looking much better for tomorrow or Friday when I was hoping to go on a club ride. Tomorrow I might be able to coax our son out to Moors Valley but it does depend on the weather which is not looking wet and windy.

Well I am out of here for now, I will be back before the end of the year

Talking of eating into my will power, in Fridays post < a href="http://xendistar.co.uk/2495-sorting-things-out" target="_blank"> Sorting thing out I mentioned I was getting fed up with sticking my head above the parapet only to have someone knock it back down again. Well obviously somebody did not like me sticking my head above the parapet on Friday night, I only had to wait till Saturday morning before somebody tried to knock us back down again. Regardless of the reason or the outcome, it still eats away at you, making you wonder why you keep going.

Oh well Tuesday awaits…………..or is it a case of tomorrow never comes??

Do you give them a couple of weeks and if there no new posts stop visiting or do you give them longer??

Interested to hear your thoughts

This morning I went out for my fourth consecutive ride and boy did the top of my legs know it, they were aching before I had even done the first mile. It was a very hard slog, it soon became apparent that I would have to amend my plans for the ride as there was no way these legs were going accept any climbs. I finished doing the Moors Valley blue trail (I wanted a gps of the route) and then decided that I would just ride a few of the fire-roads and tracks and go from there. I got back to the visitor centre only to find out the rest of the family were back at the car as the son was not feeling very well, so my ride was cut short, by the time I had got the bike on the car it had started to rain so I doubt I would of stayed much longer. A total of 11.5 mile for the day, not as much as I had intended but I doubt it would of made any difference to the weigh in, at least it was better than not riding at all.

The eagled eyed amongst you may have noticed a few minor changes on the web site, just trying to generate a bit more traffic to the site, while it could be argued I am advertising (the Chain Reaction logo on the right) it is purely a link exchange to help generate some traffic. I changed the weather link as the Google one was just not working properly so I have added Met Office widget. I have also added the Moors Valley trail to the routes section (which is hosed via gpsies web site) to the route page.

One christmas tradition that I have recently started is falling of my bike on my christmas eve ride. Having got up really early and out to the supermarket for the fresh food shop and all the remaining shopping bits we were back home and finished by 9:30am. With only the family present delivery and collection to do I opted to go for a ride this morning, decided to ride the local heath again. Well the condition were much the same as they were last Saturday, sunny and cold. One thing that was different was the ice! where the snow had been trampled under foot it was now a sheet of ice, several inches thick, where the snow had started to melt, it was frozen solid ice complete with frozen foot prints and tyre tracks. In fact the only bits that were not ice was the snow under the trees or on the heather. It was a nightmare, I fell off and bashed my knee (which now seems to be the tradition on my christmas eve ride), in the end I had to give up and walk out of one section of the heath as I could not go further than 2 meters without the front wheel sliding away underneath me. Lets hope the thaw starts soon and I can start moaning about the mud fest……………..

As the big days approaches my thanks go to all my fellow blog writers and readers for your encouragement these past 12 months, your input has certainly helped.

It just leave me to wish you all a very merry christmas

On longer or more strenuous rides I have found I need to have more than just water (I normally carry 2.5ltr of water with me) to fuel\hydrate myself. I have tired those “Dextrose” type tablets but they don’t seem to do a lot, I can’t stand the smell of Banana’s let alone eat one. I have tried those commercial energy bars and drinks (some of which are bearable) and not to mention flap jacks, jam sandwich and Jelly Babies (which I love), they are not exactly diet friendly. I know there is an argument which say the calories you put on eating\drinking these energy fuels you will burn of, but my thinking goes if I can limit the calories going in and still fuel my body then there will be a greater benefit to me by the end of the ride.

Any thoughts??

Before I go, if anybody likes my blog enough there is now a subscribe button over there on the right hand side, so now there is no need to miss any of my ramblings

It seems as though everybody is moving to using the WordPress blogging software, you can either go to WordPress.com for WordPress to host the blog for you or WordPress.org for the software to host the blog yourself (you will need a hosting package from an Internet service provider if you want to do it yourself). Three of the sites I follow Massive MTBer, Welsh Cyclist and Lezz (the moon walking bear) (there is probably more) have recently moved over to WordPress (not sure who using hosted or self hosting). I have been using WordPress for around 8 months now and once you have your feet under the table it is so simple to use.

Todays entertainment, well today started early about 6am in fact when I bashed the alarm clock for going off when I am on holiday. When I eventually dragged myself out of bed it was *issing down, option one early morning ride out the window. The daughter was working this evening so we stayed local today and drove to Poole and then walked down to the old town, along the quay and around the shopping centre, funny while we were out it never rained.

I had to go the the local bike shop this afternoon which is over the other side of Bournemouth so once we were all back in the car I headed for the other side of Bournemouth. About half way along to the shop my daughter tells me that she need to catch the early bus to get to work on time and with going to the shop and the wife wanting to do some more shopping for one item (make note) she would miss her bus and be late for work, so I had to turn round and head back towards home, oh hum.

A quick visit to the cycle shop (a long visit can get expensive) and I was on my way out the door but this caught my eye Team Sky Replica road bike, it looks lovely but look at the price !!!

Anyway as I mentioned earlier the wife wanted to go to one shop for one item, why then did we come out with 8 items, if I had gone into the bike shop for one item and come out with 8……….well either I would not have got out the shop door alive or told not to come home!!

When we got home, the daughter was still there, apparently lunch took longer to cook and she will get a later bus!!

As the rain had cleared off I decide to finish the bike clean I gave up on on Sunday due to the rain, got the bike out the shed and it started to rain again, I just can’t win. The bike is now already for the off tomorrow, the GPS has the map and route downloaded ready. I have done part of tomorrows route in the past but that involved driving some 8 miles to a country pub, starting and finishing the ride there. Tomorrow I will be riding from home. A little apprehensive over my back but a little peddle down the road tonight seemed to be OK.

And finally (a curve ball), how many 50 years olds do you know that like Pendulum?? Currently listening to Pendulum Live at the Brixton Academy, already listen to their latest Album (there showing my age, CD), Immersion

Currently sat here trying to work out where to go tomorrow as a family where I don’t have to forfeit two arms and a leg as payment. I have 6 days off including the weekend & bank holiday Monday and tomorrow is the only day we can all go out as a family for the whole day, Thursday the daughter has to start work late afternoon, Friday the wife getting her hair done, Saturday and Sunday the daughter is working during the day, Monday you just don’t want to travel anywhere on a bank holiday. Now add in the rain factor, the wife can’t walk to far my bad back and the fun really starts. The kids have been to all the local attractions so were now looking further a field and drawing a blank, one suggestion was Legoland, £127.80 for 4 (3 adults and 1 child) for a day pass, they must be having a giraffe!! Beginning to think it is cheaper to go back to work…………………

Last night was a good night for weight loss as such, I lost the weight I put on last week, so I am not dis-pleased but then I am not over the moon either. I just do not seem to be able to get a handle on this weight loss thing at the moment, well to be honest for the past two years. I am losing, I have a good week then I put on what I lost, then I lose what I put on, then I put on again then lose that………………………….and on and on it goes.

At least I am staying positive and still going to Slimming World, to be honest it the only thing that keeps me motivated.

Never made it to the Air Show on Sunday as the weather was lousy, heavy rain showers, low cloud and strong gusty winds. We live a couple of miles from the local airport which is used as a staging post for the air show, I heard half a dozen planes take off, never saw one of them fly over head, the cloud was down to about 200ft. I did start cleaning the bike in the gazebo but the rain started to seep through the gazebo so had to pack up and head indoors.

My back is not to bad at the moment, feeling a bit better, still hoping to throw my leg over my bike on Friday (back and weather permitting).

Finally a message to Clive , STOP LAUGHING IT HURTS! and hello to Keiron at Welsh Cyclist

That is what my blog has been saying to me for the past 36 hours. Seem as though there was some file corruption in the section that controls the logins etc. After some help from the guys at WordPress Support I have been able to get access to my blog again. What I like most about this is that the WordPress software that this web site\blog is built on is free, the Theme I uploaded a couple of weeks ago is free and the support I have had over the past 36 hours has been free, that my friends is the joy of Open Source Software or OSS for short. The company I work for have just invested in a web site which has CMS (Content Management System, well technically it is WCM but I am not going into that here), which is what WordPress is, well suffice to say my solution is a hell of a lot cheaper than theirs is.

Apart from Monday night success (I lost another 3lb) there has not been a lot to write about this week which under the circumstances is just as well. No ride yesterday as it was raining and I had to get the shed cleared out so I could get all the bikes in the shed. Five hours later the shed had been cleared with enough space to park all the bikes in the shed and be able to get them out again without to much of a problem.

Went out for my customary Sunday morning Throop Loop, another two and three quarters ride time. Met Mr Grumpy on my way back along the river complaining about Mountain Bikes on the path, well I never heard him complain about the dogs that run around which are not under the owners control, causing havoc and a danger to walkers, runners and cyclists alike, leaving their deposits all over the path for other to enjoys……..NOT! Maybe Mr Grumpy should stop being a miserable old git and start enjoying the scenery.

Saw my first KingFisher today, it was only a common Kingfisher, a couple of weeks ago in the same area I saw a guy land a large 18lb-ish Pike. If had not taken up cycling I may never had seen any of this. I have seen a host of wildlife since I have started riding, ridden area that I never knew existed and I feel a lot better for all this.

Have a busy week coming up, my car is into the body shop tomorrow, I am all over the place on Tuesday, Thursday night we are going to the evening events for the Bournemouth Air Show, Saturday I am off to the wilds of Hampshire (better known as Liphook) for a cycle ride and then on Sunday were back to Bournemouth beach to see the Air Show. Better not forgets tomorrow nights weigh in and food tasting session at Slimming World , better make sure I get weighed first before I start the food tasting!!

After lasts week no show by the insurance engineer the insurance company decided that they don’t need to inspect the car now. So this afternoon I go to book the car in to the body-shop and was informed that the insurance company have not notified the body-shop so I had to phone the insurance company up again, “Oh we thought you were going to pay”!!!!!! The car was damaged by a third party and is a company car, why would I be paying? The insurance company were going to contact the body shop so hopefully I will get a call from the body-shop tomorrow\Monday to book the car in.

Clive from Massive MTBer left a link to the blog he write for Bike Radar. His latest blog inspired an interesting comment from a reader regarding the genetics of being fat. Click here to read the articles. While interesting to read and understanding why you get the urge to eat, it still boils down to will power to block out the voice on the hunger monster within.

I have missed the opportunity to do an evening ride this week for one reason or another, just hope the weather holds for the weekend so I can ride, not sure where but might try the Purbeck’s again. The evening and morning are now starting to get get darker, better start making to most of these opportunities.

So for me, the blog came first, I thought it would be a good idea to start a blog so I set up a blog with Blogger.com which I did in June 2009, but then my interest faded, till late last year when I was moving to a new web host. I moved to TSO Host where I could host several web sites and had simple a WordPress installation process (you have an option, install the hard way or the easy way, you are going to choose the easy way aren’t you?). So once the hosting was setup and running I moved my blog to its current home here and started using WordPress to write my blog. Although this was around the same time as I got my bike the blog still did not have a theme, it just ambled on.

I read a couple of other blogs over the Xmas holidays which were written by those who are (were) overweight like me and had started cycling as a means to help with the weight loss and were blogging their progress. So I thought yes that is a good idea and moved the main theme of my blog to my diet, weight loss and mountain bike riding. I felt that talking through my blog about how my weight loss was going would help me in my efforts to lose the weight I needed to. I will still post about anything else I like from time to time, after all its my blog and I can write what I like, it is not like you are being made to read this.

As for the cycling, well that was just going to be an aid to help loose weight, but once I threw my leg over the bike I started to remember all the fun I had when I was a youngster. I had what was commonly known as a “Tracker” bike (no not the bike Raleigh manufactured), homebuilt from bits, based on 26″ wheel with a dropped cross bar frame (curved from the steering head to the seat tube), cow horn handle bars, one brake (normally the rear), single gear, (although mine had a 3 speed hub). I was happy riding anywhere where there was no tarmac including the sea!! Normally I had bald tyres, buckled wheels, wheel bearing, chain and gears that were shot and no lights (sound like a modern day BMX-er). But as I got older the lure disappeared, I remember seeing the first mountain bikes and wondering why the hell you needed front suspension and there were no mountains around here (Poole, Dorset).

So coming back on topic (sorry I wandered of into nostalgia), I love cycling now. In the past 9 months I have seen corners of Dorset I never knew existed many of them a couple of miles from my home. It is something both the wife and I can do together (although she is off the bike injured at the moment) and sometimes we even ride as a family.

As for blogging I do it because I want to, I only write about what I want to (mainly dieting and mountain bike riding). I have found it interesting reading some of the comments I wrote 12 months ago (and cringing over my spelling and grammar!). I have found morale support for my weight loss from the writes of other related blogs and if comments I post helps others else then great.

My Links page has a list of some of the blogs I read.

This post seemed to have waffled and wandered on long enough, so I am out of here

Woke early this morning, the alarm went off and the duvet fairy turned up, I was nice and cosy there lying in bed and it became a battle of wills whether to get up and go for a ride or stay in bed. after about 30 minutes the bike ride won so I got up. I did my customary Sunday morning Throop Loop ride, when I first started riding this loop it was a 21 mile loop and took me 3.5 hours, the loop is now a 28 miles ride and this morning I set a personal best of 2hrs 45 min. I don’t normally worry about the time as I am not racing but I felt this morning achievement was a good marker of how I have improved over the past 9 months.

I think I may have spoken to soon yesterday about the creak, it still there this morning, going to spend some time over the next few weeks going through various components and checking they are lubricated and tight, it is just a process of elimination.

You will have noticed that a new page has popped up, it is called “Targets”, I am not going to go into what it is here as I do that on the Target page, so pop in and have a look.

While most of the ride was flat I was concerned that I really struggled on the little upward slopes, the only thing I can think of is that I never locked out the rear shock and that was because I never viewed any of the slopes as a hill or would cause me a problem.

I rode on my own this morning as the wife is sidelined on doctors orders. Having spent many weeks perfecting the art of falling of her bike and landing on her knee, it seem as thought the knee has now called time on this. She has to go for an X-ray and maybe an MRI Scan and wait for an appointment from Orthopaedic department to see what is wrong with the knee. My suggestion of fitting a couple of grease nipple either side of the knee did not go down to well…………

I had the Whyte into CycleFix, nothing was wrong with the bike apart from an annoying squeak, but I wanted a qualified once overs as the limited warranty I had on the bike runs out next week. Thankfully they found nothing wrong and sorted the annoying squeak as well.

Decided that I am going to change the way this blog looks, also going to add a new section, you will have to pop back and see what the section will be about as I am not saying. I don’t have any particular theme in mind for the site yet, I will spend some time looking for a new theme I like and testing it to see what it looks like so you may find the site is changing on a regular basis over the next few weeks.

I want to congratulate Clive at Massive MTBer on hitting the 5 stone weight loss marker, well done mate your an inspiration to all us large cyclist.

As for the title of this blog, I could not come up with a title, simple

Just doing some basic tidying up on the site, I doubt you will see any changes as it is mainly minor little points. Biggest change is adding the gallery link in the header I am still putting off the big change or rather upgrade, moving this site onto WordPress 3.0, currently running on WordPress 2.9.2 Still quite a few people running into problems with their upgrades so I will wait a little longer till they have ironed out a few more bugs and then look at doing the upgrade. I will probably change the layout of the site at the same time (part of the upgrade process is you have to revert the site page back to the basic wordpress), seeing as the current decoration has not started peeling off the walls yet I will wait a bit longer.

The car went for its MOT, what a cock-up. The car was serviced about 6 weeks ago and I was told then that the front brake discs need changing but there was still life in the pads, but seeing as I needed to have an MOT soon they would leave doing the front brake until the MOT. So I booked the MOT for the 12th and reminded the garage that it need new front discs and pads.

Car dropped off at 8:30am, phone call 11:00am cars failed MOT on faulty rear light (bulb blown), front brakes and binding rear brakes, told them I was in no hurry for the car and would collect it at 5:00pm. Phone call from garage at 3:00pm, car has only just come back into the workshop might not be ready until late tonight, not to bothered as I had their roller skate to drive………………I mean Renault Twingo. So I said I would pick the car up sometime after midday Tuesday depending when I get a free 5 minutes to collect it. Phone call from garage Tuesday 4:00pm, car still not finished, now have to order new parts for the brakes, parts won’t be here till Wednesday, explain that I won’t be here on Wednesday either and that I need my car for a trip up country, am told that the car is currently sat in the workshop with no wheels or brakes on it. Concede I have to take the roller skate on a 280 mile round trip. Finally collected the car early Thursday morning.

Friday afternoon I get the normal customer service call I get after every visit to the garage asking if everything was OK, so I explained the above I am promised a call from the service manager. 6:15pm I get a call from the service manager, explain the whole story again, he concedes they could of handle it better but that is about as far as it goes.

Fortunately for me it is a company car so I don’t have to foot the bill for the repair, I just have to put up with the inconvenience.

Just noticed I have not posted since Sunday, well Monday night being the customary weigh in night, it was another good night for me with another loss, can’t remember how much and don’t have my book to hand. No mid week ride this week due to the weather

That is enough waffle from me, will post more on Monday……………….hopefully

Yesterday we (the wife and I) were up early for our ride as the daughter was on the rota to be called into work early if it got busy (local carnival) so we did not want to have to rush home to relief her of baby sitting duties. A bonus point was that at least it was cool when we started the ride at 6:45am. We did the route we rode earlier in the year at Horton Tower. Last time we rode parts of the route were a mud fest but after this hot spell most of the mud was baked hard. So hard in fact that one section we could not ride last time as it was full of sunken hoof prints was now like riding over cobbles except rather than having to ride over raised cobbled, you had to ride across sunken hoof prints. I’m pleased with myself that I managed to ride the full length of it (about half a mile up a steady gradient). Not happy with myself as I fluffed another hill which I got completely wrong and I know I should of cleared it without a problem. The wife had a visit from the puncture fairy, quite easy to find, there was a bloody great big thorn stuck in her tyre! As it was only a short ride we were were back home by 10:30am and best of all we missed most of the heat.

Today’s ride was the normal Sunday morning loop, there is a new section which I have only been riding about 4 weeks and for the first time today I managed to clear a part of it, in the past I have always had to walk two bits of it. But today I knew what I had to do in those two bit and got it right and sailed through. Still got some route planning to do as there is one area you have to walk as it is deep sand, apart from the fact it is not good for the bike, I would rather find alternative route I could ride.

The third (mid week) ride is normally over the local heath, I either do this early morning pre work or early evening after work, slowly expanding this ride in distance as I explore new areas to ride on the heath.

The local bike repair shop sorted out the gears on the bike, it was only a minor adjustment front and rear and all is running well again.

My computer problems continue, I had to reboot my PC (not a normal occurrence as it runs 24\7) and when it rebooted it failed to start properly. Not a 100% sure what caused the problem but by installing some default settings from the boot CD I had the PC backup and running and was left to sort out KVM box which refused to see the mouse, it has a habit of doing this when one of the two PC’s crash.

Hoping to have a weeks holiday in the next 4 weeks, not sure exactly what week yet as I have a project at work that needs to go live before I can have my holiday, just know I am looking forward to a week off.

Can anybody help? I have a pain which I can’t figure out what it is or how to shift it, just wondering if there are any wise sages out there that maybe able suggest what it is (yes I have heard of doctors!! It is in the back of my right heel, it feels like I have hit my heel and bruised it. It feels worse first thing in the morning, it makes wearing shoe (well any closed in heel footwear) when walking or driving uncomfortable although riding a bike does not seem to affect it. I can wear open heeled footwear (Croc’s, Flip flops) without to much of a problem. I have tried taking Ibuprofen but that does not seem to have much of an affect on it. any thoughts anybody?

And finally, plonker of the week goes to a local Wilts and Dorset Bus driver, here is the situation. I am driving along a main single carriage way road which has a row of parked car on my side of the road but the white line down the middle of the road is set well to the (my) right to compensate for the parked cars and thus the lane on that side of the road is a bit narrow for anything other than a car. So I want to turn right on to a shop forecourt, so I stop opposite the shop indicating to turn right, there are three buses coming toward me. I decide not to pull sharply across in front of the bus as I don’t have a lot of room on the forecourt to brake. As I wait a coach pulls up behind my car and being that bit wider than a car he is on the white line ready to go around the line of parked cars. The bus driver coming towards me can clearly see that he can’t get past the coach without mounting the narrow pavement so he pulls up along side me and then waits for the coach behind me to move but where is he going to go, he can’t go forward as I am there, he can’t go back as there is traffic behind him and I can’t move now as there a bus along side me. Fortunately the driver of the following bus (different company) saw what was happening and allowed me to pull forward and onto another shops forecourt which then allowed the coach to move over and allow the bus to pass, but honestly, that Wilts and Dorset bus driver must have been blind not to see what was happening in front of him, had he let me cross onto the forecourt the coach would of been able to move and everybody would of been happy.

While much of the present blog looks at my cycling and dieting I still drop in the odd random subject like the A338 in Bournemouth and the miles of tail back caused as they cleared the drainage ditches in preparation to the major rebuild that was planned and now won’t be going ahead till 2011 as the County Council are £24 million short in the budget to carry out the work ( more here.

My hate of idiot on the road, work and life, there all in the archive for you to read. What does the next 12 month hold, well if I knew that I would not be sat here writing blog’s, that for sure. But what ever happens I will add it here and you are welcome to comment as you like.

Me I am going to go back to suffering with the sore throat from hell……………………

Thing 2) Never believe what is written in a book, all weather route it said?? Since when has all weather routes included thick claggy clay that stick to your tyres like the proverbial to a blanket.

Thing 3) Your wife will ride down a long muddy hill with deep ruts at speed without a problem, but give her a piece of flat trial and she will fall of the bike and land in the mud.

Thing 4) Cut price Organic Grapes are not a good deal, especially if you don’t like grapes with pips in.

Thing 5) When your wife says we don’t need any shopping, what she really means is we need to go shopping.

Thing 6) The mobile phone will stop ringing the split second you pick it up and when you phone the person back they will be trying to phone your wife (who also can’t get to answer her phone quick enough). When you eventually get through to said person phoning you they will ask you what you want!!

As you can see I have had a fun filled day, a dull overcast day dawned at least that bit of the forecast was correct. The sun did try to break through but it was never for more than 10 -15 minutes worth of sun and then an hour or so before it popped out again.

We decided to do one of the rides from a book we bought a few month ago Mountain Bike Guide Dorset by Colin Dennis. It is a small book which gives details of 33 mountain bike ride across Dorset (they do other area’s as well), these range from 5 miles to 23 mile routes listed in 4 different difficulty levels. We (I say we but it was the wife who chose) decided on route 10 Badbury Rings and Kingston Lacy. It was only a short route, with no hills of any significant and an all weather route. Well there was a couple of small hills, long drag if you like, but what made them difficult was the deep covering of wheel hugging clay based mud from the bottom to the top. At one point on the second hill I stopped half way up but was then unable to get going again as I could not get any traction. I had to push my bike a few meters up the track to where it level out slightly and start the climb again.

The wife took a nice tumble from her bike (not from her point of view though), riding past Badbury Rings itself her back wheel spun out sideways on a patch of clay throwing her to the floor. Fortunately no more damage than a bruised arm and ego. Mind you she is lucky to have made it that far, we had only just left the car park at Pamphill and ridding down the very narrow road when a car cames round the corner towards her forcing the wife to swerve into the bank where she got caught up in some large pot holes (read craters).

On the whole it was a nice ride, the mud made it difficult. When I was plotting the route out last night I thought maybe do two laps or maybe half the loop the second time round. But by the time I got back to the car I had had enough. I think if I knew what the route was like I would of been alright, I would of known what to expect.

I am out riding again tomorrow, not sure what route to do yet (might even do Badbury rings again). I am currently in two minds at the moment, I want to up my miles I do over a weekend, but I don’t want to do it to quickly encase it cause injury or slow my weight loss. I also want to get some mid week rides in, be it early morning or late evening while it is still daylight. With the day getting longer this won’t be so much of a problem, but I don’t want to do to much to quick.

A quick question, what sort of blog do you prefer, one that is a:

• Daily Blog
• Several times a week Blog
• Weekly Blog
• Once a month Blog

No particular reason just wondering

Well a new look for the site and I like this one the most of those that I have tried, so I might be staying with this for a while.

Not much else to report really, work and lack of interest are there in equal amounts. Arguing with the insurance company that insure the mountain bikes, apparently they are classifying the new forks I fitted as an accessory like you would a bike rack or pannier bags.

It is cold with the occasional snow flurry and it looks like it will at least be sunny but cold for the weekend, not sure where I will be riding accept I will be riding.

Well I am out of here, see you later

Well tonight was weigh in night and I went to the weigh in with more than a little trepidation. Because of lousy hand life dealt us last week, the diet went out the windows for two days. I managed to wrestle control back until the weekend when a lack of will power got the better of me. So when I stepped on the scales and found I was 2.5lb lighter than I was last week I was…………………….not impressed!

Let me explain, last week I put 5lb on, so this week while I lost 2.5lbs, I am only losing what I have already lost, so yes 2.5lbs is a good loss (especially under the circumstances) but I am not hanging any flags out.

I think a good portion of that loss came from the cycling over the weekend, how much would it of been had I eaten properly during the week? Maybe I am being harsh with myself but I have to be, I have to beat myself up about it otherwise I will just shrug my shoulders and carry on like nothing has happened which is exactly what I used to do when I found my trousers no longer fitted. I shrugged my shoulders and went and bought a larger pair which is why I am where I am today. Clive at The Massive MTBer blog, has changed the title of his blog. I am not going to tell you what it is, go and have a look for yourself but I agree whole heartedly.