Monday 19th October

Despite not blogging for ages I have been carrying on the cycling. The week ending the 2nd October was my first week cycling the whole way in both directions - 25 miles a day, 125 miles in one week.

Today was the first day I cycled since about the 7th. I was away for a long weekend and have been ill with a cough and cold since then. It's still lingering but is basically better.

The cycle this morning was pretty good. It took me 53 mins which I was pretty pleased with. I wasn't especially pushing - partly because it was too dark to see my computer! It was still dark enough for the street lights to be on when I got to canary wharf. It was really properly dark when I left.

I had my gore tek jacket and my cycling gloves on this morning. I did feel a little bit hot but not too bad. I think I would have been VERY cold without them.
I did still have shorts on and my legs felt fine. That is until I had a shower! My legs got really itchy when they started to warm up so I am probably going to have to do something about that before it gets much colder.

O: HRav:143 kCal:766 D:12.4 Av:13.8 Max:21.4 T:53:51.3

2 Flat Tyres in One Day!

This morning was not a good cycling morning. I went down to the bike and climbed on looking forward to a good ride into work on what looked looked like a nice morning.

I discovered that I had a flat back tyre - it must have been a slow one as it was fine last night. It's my first puncture since I got the Armadillos but it's still a bit dissapointing.

Anyway, I went back up to the flat and got my spare inner tube out of my bed side table (don't ask). I managed to change the tube fairly quickly but just as I had pumped it up to the right pressure there was a little 'pop' and the tyre came away from the rim. A balloon of inner tube then appeared and kept getting bigger before it exploded!

With no more spare inner tubes I had no choice to go back upstairs, have a shower and get on the train.

I really need to get better at changing tubes. It seems to be as easy as it should be.

Tuesday 1st September

Had a really good cycle in on my new tyres and seat post. My saddle was a little higher than it was before which took a little getting used to but I think it was better after the initial oddness. My total time door to door, including stopping at lights was less than 50 minutes. Best so far.

The journey back was HORRIBLE – INCREDIBLY windy again. I actually nearly got blown sideways off my bike at Elephant And Castle roundabout.

I also got a sore backside on the way back. As well as the solid seat post I also removed the gel cover from my saddle. This was probably a bit too much of a change and I’ll put the gel cover back on for a little while.

O: HRav:139 kCal:647 D:12.2 Av:15.1 Max:25.5 T:48:31.9
R: HRav:137 kCal:780 D:12.1 Av:12.1 Max:21.3 T:59:08.8

Tyres, Seat Posts and Clothes

When I was pumping my tyres up on Friday I noticed that the beading on the rear tyre was pretty knackered. I’ve been wanting to try some Armadillo tyres for a while as they are supposed to be almost impossible to puncture.

On Saturday I bought a pair of Armadillos and fitted them. I ended up with the Cross Roads ones which are for road use and unpaved paths. I think I should have really got the Nimbus as that’s just for roads but I’ll see how the ones I have do.

I also bought a solid seat post. The one that I have had so far had suspension in it to soak up the worst of the bumps. I think it was good initially but it was starting to annoy me as I could feel me going up and down sometimes when I was pedalling wasting energy.

The new seat post also means that I won’t get oil all over my shorts and T-shirts anymore from the suspension bit. As a result of this I am looking for some better cycling gear. The cotton shorts I have are ok but not good in the wet. I also want to get some cycling undershorts that should be much more comfortable than boxer shorts.

I’m looking forward to trying the new bike set up tomorrow to see how it feels. The plan this week is to cycle all the way on all 4 days so that I’ll do about the same mileage as last week but only over 4 days (because of the bank holiday) instead of 5.

End of week 13

I’ve been a bit rubbish at blogging this week I am afraid. I’ve just not got round to it in the evenings.

This was the first week that I cycled more than 100 miles. I lost over 5 lb and the bike has now done 723 miles.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I cycled home a different way, along the Norhtern Line. There definitely less steep hills and in that respect it was probably a bit easier. There were however more traffic lights and a few narrow bits that got really snarled up with traffic that made it difficult to get past.
The rest of the week I went my usual way back cutting across Clapham Common and I think that I will continue to use this route.

On Tuesday Morning I got held up a little on Tower Bridge. For the second time I saw the bridge raise in front of me but this time it wasn’t a tiny little sailing boat but a very big cruise liner. More pictures here. She was still moored between Tower Bridge and London Bridge when I went past in the evening but had left the next morning. I should think she left on the early morning high tide.

On Wednesday morning I had a fantastic ride in and did the whole journey in less that 50 minutes averaging over 15 MPH over the 12.5 miles. There is much less traffic in the morning so the Northern Line route works well.

Thursday and Friday were VERY windy on the way home which makes life a lot harder.

My journey home on Friday was particularly annoying as I had a slow puncture. I filled the tyre up at Evans Canary Wharf and again at Evans Clapham. At Clapham I could actually hear the air escaping so I had to stop again on my way home to top it up from my hand pump.

Tuesday
R: HRav:141 kCal:831 D:12.1 Av:12.9 Max:21.3 T:57:58.7

Wednesday
O: HRav:140 kCal:657 D:12.5 Av:15.3 Max:27.2 T:49:02.3
R: HRav:139 kCal:786 D:12.4 Av:12.7 Max:20.2 T:58:31.5

Thursday
O: HRav:137 kCal:308 D:5.1 Av:13.1 Max:19.8 T:23:28.8
R: HRav:139 kCal:769 D:12.1 Av:12.5 Max:23.7 T:57:54.2

Friday
O: HRav:143 kCal:319 D:5.0 Av:13.7 Max:21.0 T:22:06.6
R: HRav:134 kCal:787 D:11.5 Av:11.1 Max:22.8 T:1:01:41

Monday 24th August

Pretty good ride in in the morning on fresh legs. Nearly averaged 15 MPH again but not quite – I did get stopped at quite a few traffic lights though.

Ride home was hard work. I didn’t eat much for lunch which probably didn’t help. It was also really windy but that didn’t affect me as much as it has done in the past.

I think tomorrow I’ll cycle home the way I cycle in the morning – not taking the short cut through Clapham Common but continuing along the Northern Line. It is slightly longer but is less hilly. I’ll just have to see how much traffic there is and how much it’ll slow me down.

O: HRav:139 kCal:699 D:12.5 Av:14.7 Max:22.5 T:51:10.7
R: HRav:139 kCal:787 D:12.1 Av:12.44 Max:22.5 T:58:19.6

Garmin 705

Like Justin at Bike Geek I am a geek who loves my gadgets. I have a load of them on my car but am missing a really geeky gadget for my bike.

I do have my Polar CS200cad which is pretty good – it tells me my cadence, top heart rate, average heart rate, top speed, average speed, max cadence, average cadence, time in zone, time above zone, time below, ride time and exercise time which is all very well but I want more!

For the car we have a GPS performance meter that logs your line round a course and plots speed again elevation / g / ect ect. I really wanted something like that for the bike.

It seems that the Garmin 705 is exactly what I want. It is expensive but it gives you lots of pretty graphs and maps of your route – all in one package so instead of posting up an instamapper route and averages and totals for a ride I can post links to maps and graphs like this:

http://connect.garmin.com/player/9925965

It’ll give me a lot more data about my riding so I can better compare how much I am improving.

It does LOADS of other things as well, it is a full blown GPS navigation system, you can record rides and then race against them later, you can plan rides on your computer then go and cycle them and so on…

It is expensive but if I’m good enough I think that Linzi might let me get it sometime.