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Well the lesson from my last ride was quickly forgotten, went for a ride out in the New Forest this morning and left my sun glasses behind again. Started from Lyndhurst and went on an 18.2 mile loop out as far as Beaulieu Heath (I could see Fawley oil refinery a couple of miles away) and then headed back to Lyndhurst. Started in drizzly rain which then turned to muggy grey overcast skies with occasional sunshine and boy was it hot and muggy when the sun came out. I was actually glad when it clouded back over. Having left my sun glasses behind I was fortunate not to need them to keep the insect population out of my eyes as I rode round.

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

Went for a ride last night (needed to make amends for Mondays night weigh-in disaster), decided on a short quick blast, along the river bank loop round the field and back along the riverbank and as I had not ridden the Cannondale for a few weeks decided to give it an outing. In my haste to get going I forgot to pick up my sunglasses, it was not particularly sunny evening anyway. I headed of to the river bank and no sooner do I get on the path along the river bank, I am collecting bugs in my eyes and mouth, it was even worse when the path was shady and enclosed by the undergrowth. I soon learn to keep my head down and my mouth shut although one particular bug in the eye nearly had me in the river as I could not keep my eyes open.

I will make sure I wear my sun glasses on on my next ride.

Apart from the bugs the ride was almost uneventful until a mile from home when a visit from the puncture fairy had me pushing the bike home. I had all the bits with me to sort the puncture out but with the dark threatening clouds looming above decided to push the bike home.

I have entered myself into one of those organised rides, this one is organised by Evans Cycles and is being held at Liphook, Hampshire on 21st August. I have entered the 25mile ride although I may ride the 30 milers. This will be my first organised ride, I was going to do one of these rides in January but it was snowed off. Anybody else having a crack at this?

With any luck I might have got my link to Facebook working, will only know when I publish this, so lets find out

I decided to updates the wife blog to Word Press 3 last night. I must admit I was surprised at how quick and easy it was. In fact so impressed and how easy it was I decided to update this site as well, 20 minutes later the blog is running of Word Press version 3. I only had one minor hic-up and that was the fact that I lost the code for the visitors from around the world by after a bit of faffing around I found the code and everything is now up and running as it was……………unless you know different??

Not much to report on the cycling front, never went for a mid week ride, never went for a Saturday ride, only did a short ride (9.8 miles) today at Wilverley Plain in the New Forest, was mainly flat but interesting with a lot of scope for extending the route if you wanted.

No doubt the lack of riding will reflect on my weigh in tomorrow night……………I am not holding my breath.

I have uploaded the route on to GPSies.com (click on the link at the bottom of this post). I have found this site quite useful for finding routes. I have also uploaded three of my routes on to the site which can be downloaded in a variety of GPS formats.

I am now 4st lighter, in fact it is 4st 1lb lighter and it has taken 2 years, of dieting, you could say I am slightly chuffed to be 17st 8lb

For those of you that have not followed my blog, I started dieting with Slimming World after the doctor told me the results of a blood test showed I was heading towards diabetes. The wife was already a Slimming World member, so I joined on the 21st July 2008, just on 2 years to the day. It has not been easy, there have been many times when I felt like saying sod it, but I have stuck with and the fact that I am now 4st lighter is proof that it was worth it.

I have to say thank you to a few people as I would not of got this far with out them, Alison Yorke-Saville at Slimming World for keeping me going, Clive at Massive MTBer, he has been an inspiration and given me the encouragement to keep going (he will hate me for saying that) and finally the wife for putting up with me when it has all gone wrong.

I still have a long way to go (at least another 4st) but at least I am doing something about it

Finally, daft thought of the day, my weight loss is the equivalent weight of 396 jam doughnuts!!

Got up this morning and looked out the window to be met with a dirty grey black cloud, went to the bathroom (other side of the house) to be met with sunshine. Decided to have a cup of tea and then recheck the weather. 20 minutes later it is grey and overcast to I finish getting ready and of on my Sunday morning ride past Throop Mill. I think not having the mid week ride saved some energy in my legs as I seemed to be flying (I was riding the Whyte). Had some fun with a Squirrel woods at Hurn, he decided to let me chase him down the forest track accept it was down hill and I nearly ran him over, fortunately he turned right and went up a tree and I carried on down the slope.

My next run in with nature was nearly head on with a horse and rider, I was concentrating on getting through some sand before turning off down a track through some bushes and the horse and rider came bounding out of said track. Fortunately I stopped but the horse came to an abrupt halt nearly throwing his rider, he was not expecting to see a cyclist, could job I did not have to apply the brakes hard as the screech from my brakes would of really scared the s**t out of the horse. Pleasantry exchanged I carried on heading for home. When I got in I checked the time and it was 10:02am, I started to put my bike helmet, gloves and Camelbak on at 7:00am, so by the time I got out of the house it would of been a couple of minutes past 7, so I make that 3 hours for a 27 mile ride, certainly my fastest time I have ridden the Throop Loop in.

Now its is time for a whinge (two in fact), there is a new phenomenon creeping into British driving, it is the act of approaching a road junction, be it a normal tee junction, roundabout, traffic light and then stopping anything up-to 2 meters from the junction white line, why? I was told by my driving instructor to make sure I judge the junction right and park with your front wheel just touching the white line. Some these people that park back from the while line are leaving enough space for a Smart car to pull in front of them, I can see absolutely no benefit for doing this what so ever, I just cannot understand it.

My second whinge is about road junctions again, but this time involves car indicator and the position of your car at the junction. If you come up to a Tee junction and you indicate right, is it to much to expect that you move to the right hand side of road and and then when clear to do so actually turn right, of course it is not possible to do that, that is why when you indicate to turn right, you position yourself in the middle of your side of the junction thus blocking access to those that want to turn left or go straight on (in the case of a cross road) and then when you move off you turn left!! Have I missed something, has a new Highway code come out that say I will do what I want to do at road junction and sod everybody else?? The driving awareness of some driver is absolutely abysmal.