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It was weigh in night tonight and as you can guess from the title it was not a good weigh in. I gained, only a pound but I can’t understand why? I am eating more sensibly, I’m eating less, I am riding 30 + plus miles over a weekend and I’m still putting “bleep” weight on, sorry I am so wound up over this I am scaring myself. I spent years not giving a toss about my weight or my health but now I am becoming dam paranoid about my weight loss or more to the point the lack off.

At the moment I am at a loss with what to do, I’m really struggling to understand why and with life as it is at the moment I am getting to the stage I am beginning to wonder if the weight loss is worth it?

Now add in the fact I did not have a good evening yesterday and had a very late night, work started harassing me early, well they would of done if I was awake, the alarm went off and as I was working from home today I turned the alarm off, bad move. By the time I awoke a second time, got up (I felt like a zombie) and then found my mobile (which was not hard really as it was flashing like a hazard light), I had a three answer phone messages, three text messages telling me I had three answer phone messages as well as a list of three missed calls on my phone, all from work. They only wanted to tell me a phone system had died and wanted to know what was I going to do about it? Well despite the fact that I had sent the manager the relevant contact details of whom to phone in an event like this in the past, despite the fact that the contact details are on the front of the phone system box on the wall, they still phone me (and a director to tell him they have a dead phone system, who then phones me) to tell me they don’t know who to phone! I knew I should of stayed in bed.

Seem as though I have said yes to doing a charity bike ride for the British Heart Foundation. I am doing the Dorset Bike Ride, as I have only just started this riding lark and the ride is on April 25th (so not much time to practice) I am only doing the 25 mile ride, my current longest ride is only 21.4 miles so need a little bit more distance practice. So as ever with these things I am going to be annoying you all for sponsorship for the event, I have a “JustGiving” page set-up so you can do all your donating online, go to my JustGiving page. Please donate as much or as little as you like, but please donate.

Unusually the wife decided to come for a ride this morning, she normally only does one ride over the weekend and she rode with me yesterday. So we decided to try somewhere new, well there was me scratching my head exactly where, the terrain and the distance late last night, the wife comes up with these idea but then leaves it to me to fill in the blanks. Anyway eventually settled on Wareham Forest after I found a route on-line and then modified it slightly.

I had intended an early-ish morning start, but we awoke a little bleary eyed after the daughter who was (supposed to be) staying at a friends overnight, but after (the friend) had an asthma attack and a visit to A&E, woke me at 3:00am this morning to let me know she was home and not staying at her friends, so kind of her!!

After a breakfast of scrambled egg on toast we soon on our way towards Wareham, we soon found a lay-by to park-in and were soon kitted up and pedalling of in to the distance. After several false starts trying to find the correct bridleway (the imported gps route did not overlay exactly on my gps map) we were travelling along bridleway and woodland paths I never even knew existed. We had to cut one section of the ride out as it showed up as marsh land on the map and looking down the trail it was certainly living up to its name. It was also starting to spot with rain so we decided to head back a different way and pick up the path we came in on. By the time we had returned to the car the sun was shining brightly overhead, sods law. We had notched up 14 miles, there was only one hill the wife could not master and to be fair it had me wheezing a bit, well a lot at the top. We both agreed that we will work out a new route around the forest which will include a new parking\starting spot.

It is weigh in night tomorrow night, I feel good about this past week, which is no measure of anything but I hope the 34.9 miles from this weekends riding add up to a good loss (Tim crosses his fingers)

Please sponsor me on the Bristish Heart Foundation Dorset Bike Ride

Apart from a broken spoke this mornings ride was a good ride, did the route I normally do on Sunday (have plans for tomorrow), wife normally comes with me on Saturday and she was happy to go round the Throop loop.

I must remember to sort myself out before I leave in future, I had stopped three times before we even did a mile. First was to pull the polar buff over my ears, then it was to adjust my saddle height, and then it was to put headband on (my forehead was freezing).

Didn’t take long for us to warm up, once we hit the first field along the river, churning through all that mud, soon it was clinging to the wheel like the proverbial to a blanket making the bike feel twice as heavy. When we hit the gravel path sections the mud was flying off the wheel in all directions, had to remember to keep my mouth shut for fear of swallowing a lump of mud.

At one point of the ride we go along a narrow path, it is probably not much over 3 feet wide, with a tall wire fence on one and side bushes, trees and bramble on the other. Half way along there a tree stump at handlebar height that sticks out a bit into the already narrow path and it draws you in. Well I shouted at the wife as I went past it to remind her, next thing I here is a scream from behind me. I didn’t have to look round to guess what had happened, once I stopped and got off the bike (which is no mean feat in such a narrow area) I see the wife’s bike is horizontal on the floor, her left leg between the bike and the floor and the wife sat on the frame, in essence she could not get up. It took several minutes to extricate her from the frame.

I also found that my seat height had slipped since I had adjusted it at the start of the ride, so a quick tighten and a re-adjust and boy what a difference!! Up until then my knee was starting to hurt, but once I reset the seat height the ride was a whole lot different and the pain I had been feeling started to go. My butt is becoming accustomed to the new saddle (a Charge Spoon).

When we got back to the Hurn road, the wife headed for home and I headed for my second lap around Throop, I had just got into the first field and I heard a distinct ping from the front of the bike. I stopped and found there was a broken spoke on the front wheel my 4th spoke to break since the end of December. I took it steady for the rest of the ride. Fortunately I was able to get the wheel over to CycleFix who fixed it while I waited.

At the end of the day it was a good ride, a tad under 21 miles. Hoping for another good distance tomorrow so that Mondays weigh in is a good one. I have been pretty good eating wise this week so looking to get back on target ( see the Count Down page).

Not sure where we are riding tomorrow, have a few options and as daughter is taking the son out for the day and then he is staying over at the in-laws tomorrow night we don’t have to rush home.

Apparently there is something special about tomorrow that the wife says I better not forget or else???

Work should be banned it is bad for your health. I had to drop a laptop of to our Hampshire branch today so it could be taken to our Devon branch and work out why a tape drive would not eject a backup tape. Nothing to taxing there so I decided to drive up after the rush hour this morning. I spent the first hour or so writing a report (the curse of modern working practices) at home. So at 9:30am I left home and returned 10 minutes later after realising I had left my tool box at home. On my second drive down the road I received a phone call about 200mtr further than I had got about 20 minutes earlier. Apparently the driver from Devon was not going to our Hampshire branch he was going to our Dorset branch, the opposite direction I was heading.

I eventually arrived at our Hampshire branch 2.5 hours after leaving home, not bad for a 60 minute drive…………

Turns out the tape drive is knackered, got the tape out but when you try to get it to record data, it tells the software it is working ok while putting on a Christmas light display on the front of the tape drive for anybody that is watching and when you check the tape there is nothing on it. So I spent the afternoon ordering a new tape drive. It is not the first time it has failed, it is just not reliable, funny thing was it was in my report I was writing earlier to be replaced in the future.

Tuesday I spent an hour writing some basic instructions for a non computer person on how to use a laptop (the one going to Devon, it got there). So why did I spend 30 minutes this evening on the phone talking him through how to use a laptop!! might have been better if I had taught him how to read.

Ironing out the bugs that is, come to think of it don’t like the other type of ironing either.

Well a new look for the site and I like this one the most of those that I have tried, so I might be staying with this for a while.

Not much else to report really, work and lack of interest are there in equal amounts. Arguing with the insurance company that insure the mountain bikes, apparently they are classifying the new forks I fitted as an accessory like you would a bike rack or pannier bags.

It is cold with the occasional snow flurry and it looks like it will at least be sunny but cold for the weekend, not sure where I will be riding accept I will be riding.

Well I am out of here, see you later