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Saturdays afternoon ride never happened, by the time I had got back home from work and shopping my get up had go got up and gone. I was not impressed with my own lack of enthusiasm, I was so up for going for a ride on the Cannondale after fixing the bike Friday night, yet Saturday afternoon I could not be bothered, what is wrong with me?

Sunday morning dawned and I was up and out for a ride, did my normal loop around Throop and Hurn and went up to Ashley Heath Country Park and tried a few new bits up there. I did not have the gps with me but I would guess the ride was about 27 miles in all.

Having seen the weather forecast for the rest of the week yesterday I decided to finish early (to compensate for working Saturday morning) and go for a ride yesterday afternoon. I headed for the local heath as I had not been over there for a few weeks and it showed. There was one section of heathland that had been burnt and new greenery was well and truly growing through the black burnt earth already, last time I was over there that area was green heathland. An enjoyable 2hr ride, nothing exciting, just enjoyable.

Last night was weigh in night, I did not go last week as we were supposed to have been returning from a short break (on the Monday), although we did not go away in the end I still decided not to go last week weigh in. So it was with a little trepidation that I got on the scales last night and I was happy to see a pound loss. I need to get something sorted on my weight loss because I just can’t get my head\full commitment into my weight loss at the moment despite wanting to loose more weight.

…..return to work week, you know the first week back after a holiday. You have a lack of enthusiasm, you have a pile of work to catch up with because nobody has been doing your job while you have been away, you have your normal weeks work to do and on top of that you have to sort out problems for other departments because they don’t know how to them, oh the joy!!

Tomorrow will be my third day of working from home and I am starting to get cabin fever, Thursday I have to go out for work but fortunately it is not to far away and then on Friday I have the hospital apponitment and then I have a meeting near Southampton.

While my shoulder is getting better, I now have a fairly full range of movement of my right arm now without pain (until I try to either push, pull or carry anything) trying to sleep is a nightmare. The only position I can lie in without pain is on my back but I can’t sleep on my back. Lying on my left side is reasonably comfortable but the position I rest my right arm in soon become uncomfortable and I have to turn over. Well I would turn over if I could, I can’t lie on my right side as my shoulder is still to painful. I have tired lying in various new positions but they feel so alien I can’t get to sleep. Then when I do fall asleep I will turn over in my sleep and then wake up in pain as I turn on to my right side.

We won’t go into Monday nights weigh-in the weight loss went out the window which based on what I ate after Wednesday crash is hardly surprising, just got to try and keep the food intake sensible this week and hope I can get back on the bike Saturday.

For once I have something good to say about the Monday night weigh-in, last night I reached a milestone that has been long overdue, I broke the 16 stone mark, 16st 12.5lb to be exact, a loss of 5lbs. I was expecting a loss but not that much, the down side I have now is I have to ensure that I stay on the straight and narrow this week so I don’t put weight on this week and lose the gain I have had (which is what I am prone to do after a big weight loss. I guess making a pig of myself last night was not the best idea then, at least I have a week to work it off.

I have just swapped the rear wheel over from the Cannondale to the Whyte (fortunately they are both Mavic 717 rims with Hope Pro2 hubs). To be honest the Whyte wheel is not looking to good, I found a another broken spoke (a third) and this one had broken the shoulder off the nipple, it was still stuck in the hole in the rim and it was only when I was checking each spoke that it came away in my hand. Several other spokes felt loose but that maybe because the wheel is out of true, have to wait till see what the LBS says.

In my very infrequent “what dead animal have you seen when riding” column, on Sunday I saw a dead Otter, to be honest I have never seen a live Otter in the wild only in zoo etc. It was at Parley Cross roads a busy local junction, about half a mile from the river. It had obviously had been run over and either crawled of was picked up and dropped onto the grass verge. To be honest I did not know that we had Otters in the area.

Finally another picture from my gallery

Kite buggy racing at Westward Ho!

Just a few lines to say that I did ride this morning, had a total lack of balance for some unknown reason and nearly lost it twice at speed on a couple of downhill runs. I rode over the local heath as I had not come up with a better route by the time I left the house this morning. While I never measured the ride, the last time I did it was 23 miles, so that will put me close to 70 miles for the three days

It was weigh-in night tonight and when I got on the scales they showed a loss, not a big loss but a loss non the less. I was a little disappointed as I had expected a bigger loss having ridden the last three days, I have had no easter eggs or hot cross buns, but hey a loss off any amount is better than a gain.

Last Thursday was the first bike ride for 10 days, with 5 o’clock chimes ringing in my ears I was pedalling off down the road en-route for the local heath. It was glorious sunshine, warm but not hot with a nice cooling (stiff) breeze. For the first time in several weeks I was on the Cannondale with its newly acquired Frankenstein crank. Why is it called Frankenstein I hear you ask? simple, the bearings, crank and pedal arms are Shimano XT, the granny ring is new Shimano XT, the middle ring is 9mth old Shimano SLX and the outer ring is 18mth old Turvativ and I can honestly say that it has not changed so sweetly since I have had the bike.

I rode through the golf club car park and stopped at the top of the trail, removed my cycle helmet, switched the Veho on and then hit the trail, I then spent a couple of hours riding around the heath dodging the fire engines. Apparently the local chavs had tried to set the heath on fire (which they do with regular occurrence), I could smell it but never actually saw the fire (or smoke). I actually managed to cycle through the clay pit (a small section of muddy\clay area along side a pond) where the Fire Brigade Landrover was being winched out after getting stuck much to the amusement of the Firemen.

Here a video of the early part of the ride, I have more including the above Clay bit section still to edit.

Saturday was another great days and another great ride again on the Cannondale, more XC this time as I crossed the local heath, crossed the main road into Delph woods and then on to the Castleman trail to Upton House and back. Not sure of the exact distances as I was using my phone GPS and it said that the signal had been interrupted several times but it recorded a total of 20.3miles. Along with the 12 or so miles on Thursday my butt was letting me know that it did not like the unsprung rear end of the Cannondale.

Sunday sort of fell apart. I had intended to get up early go for a ride and then get back in time to watch the start of the Formula 1, well as I never got out of bed early enough, so I decided to watch the F1 and then go riding when it finished. As I am watching the F1 wife decides that she needs to go to Poole so I postpone the ride to take the wife to Poole. Unfortunately we only got about 50yds down the road before I found the car had a flat tyre. Now have you ever tried find an open tyre centre on a Sunday?? Thankfully the third tyre depot we tried was open, unfortunately it also seemed to be the most popular tyre centre in the area, we left 2.5hrs later. After returning from Poole it was case of eating lunch, it was now a bit warm for a ride so I opted for a late afternoon ride. From a heat point of view the timing was perfect, it was lovely and cool, but from a fly catching point of view it was a nightmare. every time I opened my mouth to gasp for air I was swallowing midges & flies. While my butt was ok with the ride (I took the Whyte, my legs felt quite heavy by the end of the ride.

Tonight was weigh-in night and tonight was a loss night, now just have to stick to the straight and narrow till next Monday.