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

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.

This past week has been a strange week, a sort of lull before the storm, although I am not sure when the storm is going to hit. Work has been those sort of days when you are busy all day and then look back at the end of the day and nothing has been accomplished, you just spend the whole day dealing with lots of minor dead end problems. I am on holiday for the second part of next week and the first part of the following week but it looks at the moment that I am going to have to work on Saturday (the one in the middle of my holiday) again, work that one out!

I am living in a house of bugs, we had a phone call on Monday asking us to collect our son from school as he was unwell. Fortunately I was able to leave work and go and collect him, since then is has had a hacking cough. I was feeling below par earlier in the week. The wife felt under the weather in the middle of the week. The only one who has not been ill is the daughter and she been working long hours and overnight so she been temperamental because she is tired.

Virgin Media are really peeing me off, the internet problem I complained about back in May and contacted them again at the end of September and early October which they complete ignored is still on going. I have not contacted them yet as I know it won’t be a pleasant call to them. I am planning on doing it one day next week when I am on holiday but I will be more angry when I come off the phone than when I start……

I have done no riding this week, I had planned to go out one night this past week but forgot to put my light on charge (it takes over 18 hour to charge). Then I decided not to ride the following night as the weather forecast was iffy and it turned out to be a lovely night………well would of been had I gone out for a ride.

I am not happy with the bike at the moment, it has a creak and I can’t find it and I hate the sound of that creak as I pedal along. I spent this morning and the early part of the afternoon trying to find the creak to no avail. I popped into my local bike shop for some (creak resolution) advice, his advice was to go over everything I have done again. I picked up a few useful tips on the Mountain Bike Forum so I have a lot to do tomorrow and my son want to go for a ride although that will depend on how bad his cough is.

I think I am getting to that age when all you do is moan……………

For the past week or so I have been suffering with my right ear, I am prone to getting the small tube that runs between my nose and ear blocked, normally with snot when I have a bit of a head\nose cold. When it is blocked (like now) everything is muffled in my right ear along with a popping sound, particularly if I cough, sneeze or burp. Well today it got worse, I now have a dull ache in my ear and being a bank holiday weekend I can’t get to the doctors till Tuesday and it will have to be Tuesday evening as I have an important meeting to go to first thing Tuesday morning which I arranged and I can’t tell those attending not to turn up.

With the second of the four day bank holiday weekend upon us I was intending to ride the same as I did last week, 3 out of the 4 days. So wanting to avoid the media frenzy over the wedding yesterday I set off before 9am for the New Forest, judging by the amount of cyclist I past on the way (and counted while riding), I was not the only one avoiding the wedding. I had decided to ride from Burley out to Linwood and back in a round about way. It is a ride that I have done several times but I have never been happy with the end of the route so I have been looking for some alternative ending. Well yesterday final section was the best I found to date and I also cleared two of the hills for the first time and reasonably comfortably at that (for me). I was even happier when I got back to the car and realised I had done the 19.8 mile ride in 2hrs 14min, OK not fast by many peoples standards but fast by mine, I am a slow rider.

Today I decided to ride with the local mountain bike club Dorset Rough Riders, it was only a easy ride but I did this for two reason, first I wanted to find some new local trails that I had missed and secondly to see how I got on riding in a group (mainly keeping up, see above). Unfortunately thing did not start to well, last night I fitted a set on new disc pads on the Cannondale rear brake and they were a mare to fit, don’t know why as I have fitted them before without a problem. Well this morning as I rode to the meeting point I could not get any speed up. When I arrived at the meeting point I found the back brake was dragging and no amount of adjusting the calliper resolved the issue (it was alright when I went I put the bike way), not only that but I noticed some liquid on the reservoir. The brake was working, a bit sharp but I decided to carry on with the ride. At the end of the day all I can say is, “it was not worth it”. I was having to use double the effort to keep up and just not enjoying the ride (despite going over new routes). I did a paltry 10 miles before leaving the group and heading for home, to be fair they were about to head back to the start point and I would only of had to ride all the way back again to get home (about 6 miles from where I left). So now I have to get the brake sorted out on the bike which is going to cost, so all in all I am not a happy bunny………..

While we were out I popped into the LBS to find out what was happening with my suspension bearings, apparently the two carriers and the bearings have been send back to the distributor for them to give them the once over. Out of the 8 bearings the shop recommended 5 to be changed. Will have to see what the distributors have to say next week.

Well if I can’t ride I will have to go for a walk, got to get some exercise some how

Right I am all for free stuff but lets be honest a lot of the free stuff now a day is just naff. Well take a look at Sintel and download the video. There is a huge choice from 120mb right up to 500+mb for the HD version. It is only a short film but it has been made using completely free software that many hundreds of people have contributed to designing and then programming. Then using this free software they produce a quality piece of animation. This is why I like Linux and all that it stand for (anyone geeky enough to be reading this please don’t starting preaching to me about Linux, gpl and fos, I am talking to the unconverted here and I don’t intend to confuse or scare them off).

Tomorrow the car is in for a service, lets hope they do better than the four day it took for the last service. Then it is of to Southampton in the roller skate (as my kids call them, small hatchback type car) I get as a courtesy car for the day, bet it will have no fuel in like every other car I have had from them. I have to collect one of those basic all in one printer, scanner copier things that refuse to work from the local branch. Then all I have to do is get it to work oh the joy, at least it is Friday.

Finally well done to the Chile for the rescue of the trapped miners, 2 months ago very few people gave the miner a chance of being alive let alone a chance of getting all 33 out alive after so long.

Not sure what day I cut my shin, but I know was stood astride my bike and brushed my shin across the pedal ( DMR V8′s, those little spike are quite sharp) which caused a small cut, a little scab formed and I never thought anymore about it. Tuesday morning my shin felt a bit funny and when I touched it it was red hot and glowing. By 2:00pm I wanted to scratch my shin to the bone. Wife had a doctors appointment that evening so when I dropped her off I asked if I could see the doctor, apparently I have an infection in my shin and I am now on a course on anti biotic. Mind you here I am complaining about my minor infection, the guy at Lost Sheep blog has a major collar bone injury, give you something to think about.

In the past I have always scoffed at the parents that built models for the kids school project, or spend a small fortune for them to dress up for their part in the project or school play. So why have I just spend the evening constructing Mount Everest and part of the Himalayas mountain range for the sons school project? I cut the cardboard and stuck it together and have left him to paint and decorate it. Left to my own device I think I would of ended up doing the whole building project for him. Never had to do that for the daughter, as she went to mother in-law after school and all her school projects were done at their house and yes I believe they did it\helped her do it as well.

Last night I made some soup, only the second time I have made soup, the first was a bit of a failure, French onion soup which turned out more like onion gravy. Thankfully this attempt was a success, it was a recipe from a Slimming World book. I had a bowl of the soup last night, took some to work today and I think there maybe a fight as to who has the remain portion tomorrow, the wife or me.

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

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.

OK so I will have a lie in on Sunday, did not go to bed till nearly 1:00am, that should make me sleep and it did, until 7:20am when I woke up, completely wide awake, I got up at 8:00am. At least today it was nice, sunny and warm.

On Friday night, in the vain hope that I might just ride this weekend I decided to fix the puncture I found on Tuesday morning. That was easy enough, as I was about to put the wheel back on the bike I noticed, well felt, that the front wheel was not spinning smoothly, a quick loosening of the axle indicated orange grease…………that orange rusty coloured grease. I picked up some grease on Saturday but due to one thing and another I did not do the hub bearings until Sunday morning. Unfortunately once I had cleaned, greased and reassembled the hub it did not feel much better than when I took it apart, will have to keep an eye on that. The only riding I did was a couple of short runs up and down the pavement just to make sure things felt alright on the bike. I think had I done a short ride to day I may not have been to bad, my cold seem to be going but then I thought that around Thursday but it still here.

I have now got a pair of tyres for the sponsored ride at the end of April, got a second hand pair of Continental Sport Contact. these have hardly been worn so should serve me well for the one ride.

I decided to make the most of my enforced lay off and the good weather this morning to do a little gardening. There were a couple of large bushes that were slowly encroaching on to the drive so it was about time for a short back and sides for them. Spent an hours cutting them down to size and a further hour clearing up the mess. We could not go anywhere as I was waiting for the above mentioned tyres to be dropped off so at least I put the time to good use.

We had been promising the son that we would take him to Throop Mill to feed the ducks for a few weeks, so having an hour to spare once the tyres had been dropped off this afternoon we thought it was a good time to feed the ducks. Now for the past couple of months I have cycled past this mill on my Sunday morning ride there has been loads of ducks there. We got there late afternoon and it looked more like a duck feeding massacre had taken place. There were more pieces of bread floating on the water and laying of the bank side than there were ducks, even the seagulls were not interested. I can’t remember the last time we threw the bread in the bin on the way back to the car. We past a dad with his young son on the way to feed the ducks, I did not have the heart to tell him the ducks were not interested.

Not a lot more I can say really, I’m bit like a bear with a sore head at the moment with everybody pushing my button for fun. Think I might just stay in bed all day tomorrow………..

On a serious note, my head is spinning, my nose is running like the angel falls, my eye feel like there is large shutter door trying to close. I have a total lack of energy and tomorrow I have to get up before the sun does, drive 140 miles sit through two meetings and then drive 140 miles back home when what I really want to do is curl up in bed and sleep………

Hopefully my ill health will be clear by the weekend and I can go out riding but then again I have seen the weather forecast, Saturday heavy rain and Sunday showers but we all know how good they are at forecasting the weather don’t we.

Somebody pass me a tissue……………