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After an abortive attempt to get the bearings out of the suspension link arms yesterday I decided it was job for the proper tools so off to the shop I went (via the phone at first) and then had a stroke of luck. One of the shops I spoke to is a Marin dealer (related to Whyte) and they told me that the bearings have a lifetime warranty, so I should get replacement bearings for free and only have to pay for the removal and fitting of the bearing to the link arms. Bad news is that the distributor is out of stock of bearing at the moment, so it look like the Whyte will be off the road for a few days.

While we were at the LBS yesterday I got the my son to sit on a 24″ wheeled kids bike, which is did very easily, so easy in fact that the Martin from the shop wheeled out a 26″ wheeled bike for him to try, putting the seat right down he was able to climb on no problem, in fact the seat would have to go up a bit so that he could pedal properly, everything was going alright until Martin said he was actually sitting on a girls bikes!! dear son could not get off quick enough………. At least we know now that he could get onto a small framed 26″ wheeled bike.

In the afternoon I sorted out the Cannondales rear gears (trouble getting the low gears) so I would have at least one bike to ride. Then I was out for a test ride, it would only be a short ride as it was 4:00pm when I left. I put my riding shorts on (as opposed to my leggings) and was surprised by how warm it was as I did a small loop along the river and around Throop. It was cold in the shade but nice and warm in the sun, wished I had gone out earlier for a longer ride.

Hopefully my new light will turn up this week, it is the UK somewhere, just got to wait for Parcel Farce to deliver it.

Last night was weight-in night and to my surprise I lost 1.5lbs, I was really expecting another gain because of my eating habits from last week. Obviously somewhere along the lines I must of got my eating right, really need to crack on and get it right again this week. and get into a new number (16st something as opposed to 17st something). Think I will make some more chicken noodle soup today.

As I finish writing this guess what has just arrived in the post…………………..my new light!!

The sore head has gone (or at least going) and things are looking brighter.

I went for a ride this morning, but it was a late ride for me. I normally leave at 7:30am-ish but I got up late and found the F1 Grand Prix was late starting due to the weather so I sat and watched that till the end, an interesting race which swung the championship in another direction. I did not ride my normal Throop loop instead I went over Canford Heath and Delph Woods, managed not to get lost this time…

When I got back I reduced my Whyte to a pile of bits, I have removed all the linkage from the rear suspension. Not happy that I found several of the bearing a bit lumpy and gritty feeling, going to remove them from the linkage tomorrow (got to knock up a bearing press!!) and clean them but it looks as though I need to replace all the suspension bearings (8 of them).

My routes page (I mentioned last night) is up and running, let me know if you try any of my routes

As forecasted, it rained relentlessly on Saturday. My intention of staying in bed all day went out the window because I was required to be the family taxi driver. Had to drive the wife into town early and then sit there watching the rain fall as we had arrived early and there was no where for her to wait.

OK so I will have a lie in on Sunday, did not go to bed till nearly 1:00am, that should make me sleep and it did, until 7:20am when I woke up, completely wide awake, I got up at 8:00am. At least today it was nice, sunny and warm.

On Friday night, in the vain hope that I might just ride this weekend I decided to fix the puncture I found on Tuesday morning. That was easy enough, as I was about to put the wheel back on the bike I noticed, well felt, that the front wheel was not spinning smoothly, a quick loosening of the axle indicated orange grease…………that orange rusty coloured grease. I picked up some grease on Saturday but due to one thing and another I did not do the hub bearings until Sunday morning. Unfortunately once I had cleaned, greased and reassembled the hub it did not feel much better than when I took it apart, will have to keep an eye on that. The only riding I did was a couple of short runs up and down the pavement just to make sure things felt alright on the bike. I think had I done a short ride to day I may not have been to bad, my cold seem to be going but then I thought that around Thursday but it still here.

I have now got a pair of tyres for the sponsored ride at the end of April, got a second hand pair of Continental Sport Contact. these have hardly been worn so should serve me well for the one ride.

I decided to make the most of my enforced lay off and the good weather this morning to do a little gardening. There were a couple of large bushes that were slowly encroaching on to the drive so it was about time for a short back and sides for them. Spent an hours cutting them down to size and a further hour clearing up the mess. We could not go anywhere as I was waiting for the above mentioned tyres to be dropped off so at least I put the time to good use.

We had been promising the son that we would take him to Throop Mill to feed the ducks for a few weeks, so having an hour to spare once the tyres had been dropped off this afternoon we thought it was a good time to feed the ducks. Now for the past couple of months I have cycled past this mill on my Sunday morning ride there has been loads of ducks there. We got there late afternoon and it looked more like a duck feeding massacre had taken place. There were more pieces of bread floating on the water and laying of the bank side than there were ducks, even the seagulls were not interested. I can’t remember the last time we threw the bread in the bin on the way back to the car. We past a dad with his young son on the way to feed the ducks, I did not have the heart to tell him the ducks were not interested.