xendistar.co.uk

What ever it is that gives you your “get up and go” has left the building in my case. This morning the only thing that got me out of bed was the fact that I had to take my bike to the LBS for the frame swap. The drive to take the wife to work was slower than normal at that time of day as everybody was out early anticipating the delays on the A338. It did not make a lot of difference though as there was an accident actually in the single carriage way section on the A338 this morning which closed it north bound and once again brought the entire area to a standstill.

Having dropped the wife off at work I had to double back on myself and drop the bike at the LBS. Then I had to turn round and double back on myself again to make my way to the companies (I work for) local branch, spent a couple of hours there before doubling back on myself again to go home as I was spending the rest of the day working from home.

While I was at the LBS I never got to speak to the manager at the shop but there were a lot of Canondale boxes in the shop that looked as though they had been recently delivered, hopefully one of those was my new frame. With the new frame and the new forks I am having fitted at the same time and hopefully the gears sorted out, it will be like getting a new bike, can’t wait to try it at the weekend.

Tomorrow, I am (supposed to be) up early to go to head office, 05:15am is a struggle for me at the best of times, I think tomorrow will be no exceptions. To some extent I am glad that I don’t cycle to work as I would seriously struggle like Clive at “The Massive MTBer” does. I remember when I was younger and car free, I hated riding to work, I would have to ride to work on those cold wet mornings with the wind in my face and then ride home again with the wind in my face. The reason I don’t ride to work now is head office is 140 miles away. I don’t go there everyday but I do travel to many of our other sites and they are equally as far to travel and on a bike I think it would about a week (by the time I have plotted an off road route so I avoid those main roads), mind you would be an epic ride…………..

Weigh in tonight and it was a good one, 2lb loss. I am happy with that, if I can keep on with a loss every week I will be happy, three weeks in and 3lb closer to my target. You can keep an eye on my progress by looking at the “the count down” page.

It maybe a New year, but it is the same old road works and traffic delays, yes the A338 dual carriageway road works (road works is a very loose term) are back. The county council so kindly stopped them for the Xmas period and then they were unable to restart them due to the cold weather. But at 6:00am this morning they were back 2 miles of carriageway closed off so they can……………………..cut some tree and bushes down. This 2 miles of single carriageway left nearly 5 miles of tail backs in the morning rush hour, I should imagine it was similar tonight’s rush hour. I just can’t believe there is not an easier way for the worked to be carried out. It would not be so bad but the tailbacks from the road works block one of the alternative routes for me to take to work so from the three possible routes I have an option of 1

It is D day tomorrow for my bike, its back to the local bike shop to have a frame swap, can somebody tell me why I feel a little apprehensive??

Yesterdays bike ride was mud and rain, todays bike ride was mud and flood waters, mind you todays ride was dryer and warmer, I had to stop and take me coat off I was so warm.

I should of taken the hint when the second field I rode into along the river was 3/4 flooded, I had to ride through the water along the edge of the field to the hedge at the top of the field and ride along the top path. I made it back to the river bank path but several short section were under water and at another stage I had to take to the high path again. Even here I got bogged down in mud and had to walk out. I should of realised this was a prelude of what was to come.

My thoughts were on the field I had to ride through on the other side of the river by Throop water mill, last couple of times through there it has been a mud wallowing hole, but as strange as it was when I got to the field it was not as bad as I had expected. I managed to make it to the airport without any mishap.

Just to add a little extra to the distance I decided to do a small loop around Sopley forest This is where I found a puddle where I don’t normally see a puddle, not a problem was ride through it, bad move, I rolled into it and flew over the handlebar out of it!! It was actually a ditch with a vertical side. The rest of this route was a swamp, I was actually glad to get out and back onto the road.

I quickly made my way out of Sopley and headed for Hurn Forest and then down to Oakdene Caravan park, now I should of known that if I am 200yds from the bridge over the river and the entire path is flooded then riding closer to the bridge through the flood water is not going to improve the situation, queue a 180 degree turn and me riding back the way I came, I did not fancy the gravel paths of Hurn forest again so it was the pavements of the A31 via Parley Cross and home for me.

All in all an eventful ride of 18.6 miles which give me a total of 28.9 miles for the weekend riding, here hoping it will help with the weigh in tomorrow night.

I am on Facebook now, I’m trying to get a group going Overweight Mountain Biker pop over join in and say hello

The Saturday weather forecast was for rain till midday and then clearing through the afternoon. So I decided that I would do some things around the house and go riding after midday. I made one trip to the tip in light drizzle and then made my way to my LBS to see about booking my bike in for a major transplant (see below) and then back home to get ready for my ride. So why was I sat at home looking out the window watching the rain pour down at 1:00 pm?

Once it had eased off I saddled up and was off to the local heath, decided if the weather was this inclement then I would do the short route (although of the two routes I regularly ride around here it is the tougher of the two). Everything was ok until I started riding on the first bit of dirt, or should I say mud, my bike almost came to a stand still. The first bit of the ride is always quite difficult as they have just dug up the path to lay a water pipe, but with the thaw of the last few days and 24 hours of rain it was like a swamp and to make matter worse the heavens opened again. Was it really muddy I hear you ask, well I had to cycle down a hill as it was that muddy!!

It would be fair to say I struggled but I only walked one bit (if you don’t include the bits where I paddled through the mud when I ground to a halt). By the time I got home I was soaked, not sure if it was due to rain or my not so breathing waterproof jacket, at least I clocked 10 miles toward my 25 to 28 mile target for the weekend.

I mentioned earlier my visit to the LBS to book the bike in for a major repair, well that repair is a frame swap. Where I have had the problem with the front gears and the chain jumping off and jamming between the chain ring and frame it has gouged the chainstay arm very badly. Took it to the LBS where I bought it and with Cannondale they have agreed to swap the frame and will be looking at the front gearset as well with the possibility of replacing that as well.

Not only that while they have my bike in bits they are going to fit my new forks I bought just after Xmas, so by next weekend I will have virtually a new bike

I must admit I did lose faith with the LBS at one stage as the bike went back to the shop a couple of time for repair but the problem persisted. I send them a couple of e-mails about the problems and got no replies. After that I tried an independent cycle repair shop, who sorted out the rears gears by changing the cable (something was dragging on the cable in the casing) which I paid for. Unfortunately changing the front chain rings was going to cost me as well. I tried to speak to Cannondale who said I had to go back to the dealer (which I had expected). This was at the same time as I broke the spoke over Christmas period so I bit the bullet and went to the LBS and spoke to the manager. He agreed certain aspect of collecting the bike (when new) and work done to the bike since had not been up to (their) standard, as for the e-mails it turns out that he never received them (we don’t know why). So all in all it looking all rosy again. I can’t wait till next weekend when I can get out on my new (rebuilt) bike.

When I looked on the Interweb this morning I found that this web site was unavailable, in fact it was blocked by Google. It seems after I made some mods (well asked for them to be done and were done within 10 minutes of requesting it at 22:50 last night) to the domain records so that I could hook up with Google, they saw fit to claim I was in “Violation of their Policy” and blocked my site (I was following their instructions). So I left it to see if it was just a time thing for the changes to propergate through the Interweb but by this evening it was still the same so I had to get the changes undone and now wait to see what Google have to say for themselves (I have appealed as they put it).

Unfortunately this was only the start of a bad day, I had to take the son to school and the wife to the doctor as she was not well. Fortunately I was working from home today and for the first hour or so this morning I kept losing the connection to work. Now if my laptop had been on wireless I could of accepted there was possibly a new wireless in the area interfering with mine by I was wired to the router. Then I got no end of grief and problems from work which stopped me from doing what I had planned, this continued throughout the day and ended with my e-mails disappearing into the ether everytime I sent one to my mailing list, 5 o’clock could not come soon enough.

Just changed the pedals on the bike ready for tomorrow, I bought them just after Xmas and have had them for a couple of weeks but I have been waiting for some work which is supposed to being done to my bike, but as there no sign of the work starting and it will be fairly muddy tomorrow what with the thaw and the rain so I decided to fit the DMR V8 peddles and damm are the pins sharp on your hands (had to hold them while tightening them)!

I am out of here for tonight just about to sink my teeth into a large Orange and no late night messing with the domain settings