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Now it is not the coldest it has been but for some reason -4 at 8:30 this morning went right through me as I rode of down the road. I had my normal riding gear on but my arms felt the cold, it was not a big problem as I soon warmed up.

It was quite nice riding along the river path this morning, the frozen grass cracking as I rode over it, just the occasional fisherman and dog walkers to be seen. Last time I rode along this path I had to ride along the top boundary of the field as the foot path was under 3 foot of water.

I came round the corner on one section and everything was white, there was a mist hovering over the river and this blended in to all the reeds that were covered in frost, bit surreal looking.

After yesterday ride this was a pretty mundane ride, half road, half off road, the only excitement during the ride was me falling through the ice, crossing a little stream (its about 10″ deep) in Hurn forest. It looked ok so I started to ride across then suddenly the back wheel goes through the ice, I put my foot down, which slipped from under me and then went through the ice. Ended up with my right foot and hand in the frozen water and my left foot and hand on the bike. Fortunately the waterproof boot and socks did there job as did the waterproof glove. Two hours and 16.4 miles later I was back home, this gave me a total of 31.2 miles for the weekend, not done over 30 miles over a weekend before and to be honest I felt as though I could of done more on both days. But I guess slowly building up the distance is the right way to do it.

The good thing with riding early in the day is that all the muddy areas are still frozen and so are easier to get through. Much of the off road section is muddy and would have been a hard slog on a warmer day.

Still having my pain in the butt problem, so I have ordered a new saddle, this has been recommended by several riders, so I will see what happens when I ride next week (assuming it get heres)

A day of two wows, the first is mine. Went out on the bike today for a proper ride and wow the bike feels like a completely difference the bike compared to the old bike. When you consider the only two (main) items that were changed was the frame and the front forks but the difference is immense. To start with the new front forks (Rock Shox Recon race single air) are a pound lighter than the old forks and they work so much better. Add that to a lighter frame it has made a great differences, peddling hard and I am lifting the front wheel (it is probably my bad technique but it certainly was not happening on the old version of the bike).

We went to the woods around Moors Valley Country Park and rode (in part) a route I found on the Internet. I downloaded the .gpx file and uploaded it into my GPS. Now this was the first real time that we had done this and I found it not as easy as I had expected. For example you reach a junction in the forest, the map you are looking at on the gps show 3 tracks and what you see in front of you is 5 tracks and trying to guess the correct one to follow, we failed on a couple and had to turn round but it was always within 50mtrs.

I also collected two punctures on the front wheel, the first I repaired checking the tyre for any offending puncture causing objects, found nothing. Fitted a new tube and cycled on for about 2 miles till I got another puncture on the front wheel, now I thought this was to much of a coincidence and took a much closer look at the tyre, I even turned the tyre inside out. I was just about to give up on checking the tyre when my finger felt something on the inside of the tyre, on closer inspection these was a very small slither of flint protruding through the inside of the tyre. Getting it out was fun and games, in the end I reverted to pushing it back through the tyre with an allen key hoping it did not break off and fortunately this worked. It was only when I pushed it back through I noticed that it had sliced one of the thread blocks as it cut into the tyre. I fitted another new tube (normally carry 4 two for each bike) and we were off, fortunately with no more punctures.

Stopped at the Welcome Centre for Moors Valley Country Park and had a tea and biscuit (it was supposed to be a chocolate muffin, purely for the energy factor, honest). Then it was a brief burst back into the woods and back to the car to end our 14.8 mile round the forest, I would of liked more distance but I am happy to have had one of my most enjoyable rides to date.

The second wow goes to Clive Chapman of Massive MTBer, have a look at his web site and decide for yourself if you think riding is doing him good?

I will leave you with a picture from todays ride, it was a glorious sunny day if a bit cold.

Yours truly fixing the first puncture

How does that work then?? While the early part of last week the diet went well, Friday night onwards thing started to drift a little off target (as they seem to do most weekends), add that to very little riding over the weekend and my expectation were not high for tonight’s weigh in. Well you could of knocked me down with a feather (albeit a big feather) when I got on the scales, a whole 3.5lbs loss, I was thinking more like a maintain, maybe half a pound off if I was lucky. I am now at my lowest body weight for along time (I can’t say with certainty how long as I never used to weigh myself, used to go by the waist size of my trousers).

Well I am not going to argue I am going to try and stay on course with the diet this week including the weekend, already have plans for next weekend ride if only to get out and try my rebuilt bike out properly.

You know those weekend that you can’t wait to arrive, one of those weekends where you have several things planned, you can’t wait for 5:00pm on Friday afternoon for the weekend to start, well that was my weekend up until about 4:59pm on Friday. Saturday’s failures are already documented in my previous post, Sunday did not get much better.

It was early Sunday morning before my eye lids registered closed, which then meant that it was late morning before they opened again and when they did open they brought along a friend called head ache and no it was no drink induced, I have not had any alcohol since New Years eve before you ask (or accuse). On the up side it was dry and clear-ish out, having sorted the gps last night it was looking like a decent ride was on the cards if only I could get a clear head.

One very large cup of tea ( Ikea tea cups, hold about three normal cups) and scrambled eggs on toast, the bike rack is fitted and the car loaded with 3 bikes (son is with us today) and we are off, heading for Moors Valley Country Park. It is only a short drive but by the time we get there I still have a stinking head ache. While it is only up the road from us this is the first time I have ever been to the Country Park (wife and son have both been as part of organised visits in the past). As a bonus the sun was now coming out to play as well.

Having downloaded a cycle route from the Internet for Moors Valley and having resolved the GPS issues I am soon ready for the off. The wife has been kitted out with a copy of the Parks family cycle routes for her and the son but it soon becomes apparent that if I head off on my route and the wife heads off on the parks family cycle routes they may never be seen again. See the cycle routes all start from the visitors centre and well the wife was about to cycle off in the opposite direction!! It turns out that my route follows the family route to start with so we head out has one happy family having a day cycling. It soon becomes apparent that I am not going to get off on my own ride and am soon pootling round after my son and wife.

After several near misses (a lake, a tree, a bridge and a dog) the son starts to complain that his legs ache, now I am pretty sure this is the same with most families that this always happens at a point furthest away from the start point and the son expects to be beamed back (Star Trek style) to the starting point to save his legs. After much convincing that he was going to cycle back we started to head back.

No sooner are we back at the visitors centre than the sons legs are soon carrying him to the play grounds and then the steam train ( wish I could bottle that recovery potion). So I am left holding the bikes while the wife and son go off on a little train journey. By the time they get back I am resigned to the fact that we are going home.

The drive home went via a local craft shop so the son could get some more items for his school project where I am left to mind the bikes again in the car park while the wife and son go shopping. Its not all bad, I did get some time to myself…………………………………..when I was left to wash, clean, oil and put the bikes away, no surprise there then!

Just over two miles yesterday, 6.8 miles today gives me a total of 9 miles for the weekend, not impressed. Wonder if the boss would let me have another two days off as I had such a miserable weekend??

Somebody let the “Lets *uck it up troll” out this week.

As I mentioned in an earlier post the bike went to the LBS on Tuesday for a frame swap, I was expecting it back on Thursday but got told it was rebuilt but they wanted to road test it based on the rebuild and the problems I have had with it. I was out of the office for much of Friday and intend to call the LBS late in the day if I had not heard anything. So 5:00pm comes and go and I am still munching my way through my mountain of work e-mails, just answer this one and I will give the LBS a call I think to myself. One e-mail became two phones calls as they do and the next thing I know it is 6:00 and I have an e-mail asking me to call them tomorrow (Saturday at 9:30am).

So I called the LBS this morning and everything is done, bikes is working well, come and collect it. So I head of to the LBS and collect the bike. The bike is now sporting a new American Cannondale F2 frame (mine was a UK spec F5 which is not longer available), a new set of front air forks (which I supplied), a new cassette, new chain rings(3), a new chain and a pair of front brake pads. I am more than happy and head home to get my cycling bits and go for a ride.

We had decided to try a new route but as it is close to a river and with all the rain we have had this week we did not know whether it would be flooded and did not want to drive 20 miles to find it un-rideable. So we decided on a different route. So I spend the next hour trying to get the new route downloaded to the GPS, in the end I gave up in frustration as it now heading towards midday. So we load the car and head for Burley the New Forest. After having a quick spin around the car park I decided that the front forks are to soft and I would add some air to the front forks. But there is a problem, I can’t get any air into the forks, after much trying I give up and decide to ride (forks locked out) back to the village and try the bike shop there (they hire out bikes etc.) to see if they can help, unfortunately they don’t have an air shock pump. So I have to ride back to the car then load the car and drive back to the LBS (not the one that did the frame swap but a different one as they did not supply the forks).

I got back to the LBS and a quick check revealed that the shock pump I bought from flea bay was *ucked. After passing the LBS my credit card details I am the owner of a working shock pump. It is now to late in the day to head back to the New Forest so we head for a local woods which we have never tried but know there are routes through the woods. We start off by going the wrong way and end up dragging the bikes up a very steep hill only to reach the top and find that there are no routes accept for the way we have just come up, riding down the hill was fun though.

At the bottom of the hill there is a little ditch\stream to get over, I had no problem clearing it, wife has a go and ends up in a heap on the floor. Turns out she has hurt her ankle and can’t ride any more so it is back to the car, load up and go home. I managed about 2 miles riding today, not what I wanted