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I can sit down as long as I don’t move about, I can stand up, but the transition between the two is bloody painful. I was riding in the Evans Cycles Ride It event at Liphook in Hampshire this morning and I fell backward off my bike and landed on the small of my back. Went down a slope with a slope up the other side, just got to the top of the up slope when I hit a bump which turned me towards the bank and a large bramble bush. I managed to apply the brakes and stop but it was at that moment that I realised that due to the uneven terrain my feet were about two feet above the ground and I fell backwards off the bike and down the slope. While I got back on my bike and continued to ride I was in pain and had to cut my ride short. I was intending to ride the medium route but decided I did not want to get caught out in the middle of the ride unable to continue so I ended up doing the short ride (17miles).

Unfortunately it was not the only fall of the day although the only thing hurt on this fall was my pride, a few miles earlier I narrowly avoided a full face plant in the mud, the front wheel went one way I went the other, ended up laying on the bike in the mud, the right hand side of the handle bars were buried up to the stem in the mud. Also managed to rip the seam on my cycling shorts from the crutch to the bottom of the leg, so I had plenty of ventilation on the ride!!

I had intended to take the GPS with me but it suddenly dawned on me at 10:30pm last night that the GPS did not have the map for the ride, I managed to download the map to the PC, but failed to get it onto the GPS. As we were leaving at 6:30am I gave up and went to bed, only to lay there for a couple of hours unable to fall a sleep. All in all I enjoyed the ride it would of been a much better day had been better prepared and the ride had been without the wind, rain and humidity……………..The joys of muddy bikes!

Short week next week as I am on holiday from Tuesday, had planned a couple of rides during the week but that is debatable. One day going will be a family day out, just not sure where yet, another day will be a local day out and the wife having a hair cut and doing the boys school cloths shopping (one of my ride days), then its the weekend.

I was supposed to be taking the family to the Bournemouth Air Festival tomorrow, but spending 8 hours sat on a rain soaked beach is not my idea of fun, apparently today’s flying events were called of due to low cloud cover. The Bournemouth weather forecast for tomorrow is much the same as today.

Trying to be a really good boy this week with the eating, last Monday was a dismal failure. I have had a good week up to today where I have eaten some flapjack for it riding nutrition it provides, just have to see what tomorrow and Monday brings.

It has been a tough week, being dragged around the country side for work while I have a load of work to do in the office (if I had an office…………but that is another story).

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.

I ended the last blog with comment regarding the weigh night and watch this space, well from the absence of a blog (until now) you can gather it was not good news, I gained again. I am getting sick of the see saw weight. Weeks when I know I have not had my best week I lose, weeks when I think I have done well I put on and I am still cycling three times a week for about 50+ miles, I am becoming very dishearten by it all at the moment.

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.