Ok so its not as cool as some folks but I am proud of myself this weekend. I have managed two rides and covered 22 miles in total.

Today I rode to Norbreck Castle in Bispham and back home via the Marine Hall in Fleetwood.

This was 12 miles in total. Not even the furthest I have ridden in one day, but it was such a lovely day and although breezy, which slowed me down a bit it was a great ride.

I found after 2 miles that I had to walk up the ramp to the sea front at Rossall, which was a little unusual because normally I can do this no problem. Maybe yesterdays ride took a little more out of me than I thought. Having said that , it was into the wind most of the way.

The ride back was OK apart from knocking the computer off its mount twice as I set off – due to the big gut!! The first time I realised it was missing I had ridden a tenth of a mile before I realised and then went back for it. It was laying on the floor at Cleveleys. Oh hum.

I stopped off at an ice cream van and bought a 99. Sitting in the sun, having made 7 miles on my own power, eating ice-cream felt good.

There were a fair number of pedestrians and cyclists on the prom today which killed the speed. The Marine hall was incredibly busy due to a dance competition, including one troupe practicing on the prom itself, blocking it off!!

The final leg from the Marine hall was a little painful as the muscles just above my knees were aching. Other than that it was a great ride out.

Slow I know! I have had my bike for 9 months now and have only just made 150 miles, despite aspirations of doing the Manchester to Blackpool bike ride this year.

I was asked yesterday by a friend at work if I wanted to go for a bike ride today. I had previously offered to share the pain so to speak as she was struggling to motivate herself to get out. So I agreed to go if it wasn’t raining or blowing a gale.

As it turned out the weather was nice this morning, a little windy but no worse than last weekend. An added bonus was that it was sunny. The weather forecast was for overcast but fortunately it was wrong.

We had already agreed on a route to get to Fairhaven lake from her house in Lytham. By Google maps it was about 5 miles, which was good since that was the kind of distance out that I wanted to do. I drove out to Lytham with the bike on the roof of the car.

The route took us down Green drive, which is a shared cycle path and foot path. Nice and leafy! Then out to Saltcoats and the mini roundabout at Lytham road. Here we turned right towards the Prom. Then after Lytham Quays it was left off the road onto the sea front. Up until now we had been travelling at about 13mph, but we soon slowed down due to pedestrians. Onwards past Lytham windmill towards Fairhaven Lake. I had never been down this path and it was a nice change to see the landmarks from a different angle.

We stopped for a water and bum break at the St Annes end of the lake, watching the birds. By now it was lunch time so we rode the short distance to the cafe, locked the bikes up and had a sandwich.

 

We debated riding on to St Annes but decided against it, leaving that to a later date. and chose to ride back the way we came. The ride back was against the wind, but was no different to the ride out.

Next time we will ride to St Annes from Lytham, just to push it further. I like riding  with other people its better than riding alone!

A friend of mine from work, Angela, told me about the event that is being run today 13th. The event includes two bike rides to Cleveleys and back on at 11am and the other at 2pm. Angie suggested we go together on the ride at 11 as she wanted to get out on her bike, maybe dragging her husband along as well. I agreed since I had ridden to Cleveleys before and knew I could cope with it now.

OK looking at my logs I haven’t ridden for a month, or blogged either for that matter – sorry for that.

We met at the corner of Macbeth road and Manor road and rode down the prom Angie’s husband didn’t come along in the end. I let Angie lead to see how fast she was going to go more than anything and found I was pedalling less and freewheeling more! The wind was behind us.

We arrived at the Marine hall in Fleetwood in about 10 minutes, its a mile from my house and as Angie lives on the road behind me its about the same for her. During the registration which was free, we were given a free tee-shirt. I squeezed into an XL one, err the shirt I had on is 5XL hmm it was stretchy but tight. 

After registration it was a rolling start and off towards Cleveleys. Its the first time I had ridden in a group and found it frustrating at first with kids riding all over the place. Eventually, due to the wind, the group of around 50 spread out a little which made it easier. We had to stop once to let Angie take her jacket off and rest a little as she hadn’t ridden in ages. In fact it had been so long since she had ridden her rear brake cable had seized up! Once her jacket was in my pannier bag, we rode on for a while. The wind became more in our faces as we rounded Rossall point.

As we turned further towards south the wind became a cross wind but still had a slight headwind component in it, Angie had to get off and walk a couple of times – it was windy! I stayed on my bike and trundled along to keep her company despite  being told I could go on ahead if I wanted. It wasn’t a race and we were meant to be riding together so I stayed with her.

The outbound journey ended at the new cafe on the Cleveleys prom opposite the Vue cinema. I didn’t check the time it took to go out there, probably around 45 mins.

After a 30ish minute rest it was time for the group to set off back. We lined up ready for the start, chatted with our fellow cyclists then it was time for the off. the ride back was much faster, maybe twice as fast. At one point we got up to 14mph and I think we could have stayed at that for a good few minutes but had so much traffic in terms of pedestrians that we had to slow down to a more stately 9mph for the remainder of the ride. We stopped for a quick social chat with one of Angies relatives who had started out with her two children but only got as far as the sunken car park, bless.

I think the ride itself took us about an hour of cycling, I took no notice of the computer. The total ride time was 1:24 and I covered 10.4 miles. interestingly I took food with me but didn’t eat it, and I only drank 1 litre of water. On the whole a nice ride out. Thanks to the organisers and of course Angie for suggesting going on the event.

Ok when I say my first commute its really a partial commute because I drive to my mate Dave’s house and ride in from there.

The only issue with this is the time it takes to unload the bike, park the car and put the panniers on. I would rather park up, put the bags on and ride. Maybe drive to another friends house.

Anyway as it happens my ride in this morning was pleasant, the weather was good and apart from the driver of a van that had been in an accident wandering around the cycle path on his phone, un-eventful.

The normal time for the ride in is around 18 minutes. This morning it took only 15 minutes. Cool

I was out last night at a party in Lytham and got a lift there from my friend Duncan in Poulton. I had already arranged a lift back with my brother, Rather than get my mate to drive to Fleetwood to pick me up, I drove to his with the intention of riding out on the bike today.

Well I woke up with a hangover, nothing new there then, mostly because I didn’t eat that much yesterday but still had too much to drink.

I didn’t get up until 10am and had breakfast. the weather looked nice so I decided it was time to go for it. If you look back in the blogs you will see that the last time I went to Poulton was 6 months ago. On that ride I stopped several times on the way out and less on the way back. It was a sense of achievement for me to get there and almost back. Because of this I was expecting to stop on the way out and need water so I popped the pannier bag on the bike and loaded a litre of water in it.

Because of a one way street on the shortest route to Poulton I had to go round the sea front and down Beach road. I actually got into top gear on this bit, peaking at around 15 mph. Oh and there was very little wind so it was all my effort!

For the first time in about 30 years or so I rode round the roundabout on Broadway, I like the idea of riding up the inside of the traffic queue, but nearly fell foul of a car turning left across my path. It was entirely my own fault, I got a quick getaway and almost kept up with the car I was along side of, well I was just behind his rear bumper when exited the roundabout. This meant I had to slow. Keeping my cool and kept going down Fleetwood road. Just over a mile gone and feeling good.

Approaching the Broadwater shops a kid on a BMX, with his mate on the back who was carrying a fishing rod crossed the road, I slowed a little as he wobbled in the same direction as me. I passed him, giving him a fairly wide berth as I did, quite easily.  As I was passing by he shouted Watch where your going, what you  doin riding round at about 60mph. Honest this is what he said, no swearing. I looked at the computer as I was only doing 13mph. Anyway I got to Broadwater roundabout and managed that without stopping. 2 miles no stops.

Next came Bourne Hill. The last time I did this I remember getting to the top absolutely knackered and having to stop to get my breath back. Not this time, I just plodded up the hill and coasted down to the traffic lights. These were on red so I had to come to a stop. I powered past the garage where I had a 20 minute wait for service, through Thornton and on towards Carleton. No busses this time! The ride was going well but I had a long slow climb up to the traffic lights at Carlton and apart from traffic lights hadn’t stopped yet. I made it in time for the lights to be at green and rounded the corner towards Poulton. The road from here on has a dip, railway bridge at the bottom, with another slight coast before the final ride up to the traffic lights on Tythebarn street. I made it to 15m of the top of this hill before I finally ran out of steam. 6.3 miles. I got off, pushed the bike across the road and had a minute to catch my breath, and road the final 200m to Duncan’s house.

I enjoyed that ride, it was a shame that I was only riding one way. After a cup of tea I drove to Morrisons and did my weeks shopping, get petrol and home. I have only eaten some fruit since the 38 minute ride and overall I am pleased with the performance. I just need to keep up the riding.

If you are using the original knoblies that came with your mountain bike and are riding on the road, well all I can say is ditch them!!!!

As i previously mentioned, I fitted some Continental Double Fighter II tyres to my Kraken. I got back from shopping in Blackpool less than an hour ago and decided I needed to try the bike out with the new tyres. Just riding down the street I noticed the difference.

Noise – what noise. I could hear the chain set  rattling on the cogs as I peddled. It took less energy to go faster too.

I took Manor road up to the sea front and had to stop for traffic so I could get across. Then road on the footpath over the bridge at the boating lake. Now this bit I am not putting down to the tyres, more to my general fitness levels. But I dropped only one cog to ride over the bridge, the last time I had to go onto the granny ring to crawl up it!! I may have been riding slightly faster giving me more momentum though

I turned onto the sea front and just peddled. I got up to 15 mph which I managed to sustain for about 5 or 6 minutes and I still had a couple of gears to go if I wanted. On my last commute I managed 16 mph for 2 minutes tops.

As I turned off the sea front at Rossall Hospital, I noticed that I had been riding with a slight following wind – slight breeze it were, honest guv, it were blowing a gale on the way back though. Actually using Blackpool Airports METAR, its actual weather from around the time I was cycling 12 miles away, it gave a fair representation of the weather at Fleetwood:

EGNH 011550Z 32008KT 9999 FEW018 FEW025TCU 11/08 Q1010

Translated this means :

EGNH = Airfield ICAO code (Blackpool)
011550Z = Date time group for the observation 01 is 1st of month 1550Z is time using GMT as the reference = 4:50pm BST
32008KT = Wind direction and speed in Knots ie wind was blowing from 320 degrees almost North Westerly at 8 knots which is about 9 miles an hour.
9999 = Visibility, in this case 9999 means greater than 10km.
FEW018 FEW025TCU are the local cloud bases with the amount and height. Here there are a few clouds at 1800 feet and a few towering cumulous at 2500 feet.
11/08 is the temperature and dew point in degrees Celsius
Q1010 is the QNH or atmospheric pressure with respect to sea level in millibars.

Bet you wanted to know all that. If you do really want to understand aviation weather reports more, you can download you free copy of GETMET at the Met offices website. I digress.

So I had a tail wind pushing me along for about a mile and half. However it was a leveller on the way back, I had the 9mph wind against me, but managed to keep the speed up to around 9mph on the 2.4 miles back. I didn’t stop for a break either which I would have done on the knobblies. I think this was because I was able to peddle for a bit, rest then carry on only slowing down a couple of mph over a hundred feet or so, where as on the knobblies this would have been a more rapid deceleration with the corresponding push back up to speed.

With these new tyres on the bike I am a happier bunny I can tell you.   Golf tomorrow and the weather looks fine. Monday is light rain showers but could be OK for another ride. I will try Poulton if it is, I need to take my old laptop  motherboard to my mates for him to fix as a spare in case this one goes again

The title says it all. I changed the tyres to the double fighters I bought the other day. I have yet to try them but they look OK on the bike.

I didn’t have as much a problem fitting them as I expected. The maximum pressure is 65psi so I pumped them up to 60, mainly because the pump pressure gauge isn’t that accurate.

No I haven’t given up riding or blogging, my laptops motherboard fried a while ago and I haven’t blogged since. I just put another motherboard in it last night and tonight’s the first chance I have had to update the blog. So a quick recap of the last 2 months. Time flies!

I have ridden a few times since my last post. All commuting from a friends house in Lytham to work. Its 2.75 miles and takes 18 mins going in and 16 going back!

Not long after the first commute I bought a bike rack for the roof of the car from Halfords. The only problem is that the car park at my mates house is through a tunnel (formed by a flat above the entrance) This means I have to stop, take off the bike then park up and fit the pannier bag. Just a minor inconvenience.

Mileage to date is about 118 miles. I will update the log as soon as I can.

I bought a maintenance stand last month from Halfords, its useful and gets the bike where you want it for working on. Yesterday I bought the Haynes cycle maintenance book, a tool kit and some semi slick tyres – well I think they are Compared to the knoblies they are Continental Double Fighter 26×1.95 Bike Tyres £15 each. I have yet to fit them.

With the cycling, Salsa dancing and now golfing, I feel fitter but ain’t lost any weight! Oh hum.

Thats all for now.

So I missed an opportunity yesterday to get out in the glorious but chilly sunshine. Oh hum.

Any way I woke this morning and it was fine outside. I decided today would be the fateful day that I would do my first partial commute. Monday is bin day so after putting the bin out I packed a change of clothes in a carrier bag, shoes in another bag, and fruit plus sweets (for my colleagues at work – honest) in another.

Then it was round to loading the bike in the boot of my car after taking the front wheel off. I had to put the rear seats down of course and attempted to slide the bike in rear wheel first. No chance, the pedals would not fit through the tunnel into the passenger compartment – crap design by Rover!

In the end I popped it in forwards. Bit of a pain but it did go in. This took about 15 minutes. Ok I figured, as its now 8:30 and I don’t have to be in work until 10, wonders of flexitime I would be good to go as the journey to Lytham where I was to park up would take about 45 minutes at this time of day, 20 minutes tops to cycle the 2.75 miles from my mates house to work. Yup I measured it to check!

Because of road works on Amounderness Way at Thornton and to make me feel better about not passing work to ride back, I chose to drive down the sea front route through Bispham, Blackpool and St Annes.  Progress up to Norbreck Castle was reasonable for rush hour traffic. I then hit a slow bit. It took 20 minutes to go approximately 2 miles due to Blackpool council closing the promenade off at Bispham to remove some illuminations feature. Fancy doing this in rush hour! I finally got to Dave’s at 9:25! En route I noticed the smell of oil, which I attributed to having topped up my cars engine oil on Friday and not driving in between.

I parked up and proceeded in an orderly fashion to extract my bike and put the front wheel back on. As I unpacked the pannier I noticed that there was a pool of oil on the boot carpet. The container of engine oil had toppled over and the push on cap had opened up. Over a year of this container floating around in the boot and today I had it open of its own accord. I recon it happened when I put the bike in the boot.

Ok so bike assembled, I needed to load the pannier bags with my luggage, the clothes and shoes fitted inside no problem still inside their carrier bags, but for the life of me I could not get the bag of fruit and sweets in the pannier in one go. Time was getting on so I decanted the items into the pannier bag. Helmet on, high viz tabard on and gloves on, suited and booted – off I set.

The bike computer wasn’t working but hey no problem, I must have moved the sensor. One thing i forgot to mention was that in Fleetwood the roads and footpaths were clear, damp but clear. Yet here in Lytham there was ice on the roads and frost on the footpaths! Oh well i will have to cope – its too late now.

Warton street in Lytham is a busy two way street with parked cars on either side, so I decided to be car friendly and take the back alley all the way to the main road. I managed all 2.75 miles without pause, except for the traffic lights and roundabout on the way. The cycle paths were covered in frozen snow so I rode on the main road. Its a 50mph road but no-one honked or caused grief.

I got to work slightly flushed and toasty warm. As I road up the path to the office, Tim, one of my colleagues was in the foyer, on his mobile and congratulated me on my first ride to work. Woo hoo lol. I made it for 9:58, it had taken just under 20 minutes!

As the day wore on, I was contemplating the ride home. First time in the dark, busy road and 2 lanes of traffic filtering out of the car park onto the main road. I have to admit I wasn’t looking forward to it, on top of this the cycle path was likely to be icy as well. As it turned out the traffic at 6 o’clock was nowhere near as bad as it had been the last few weeks, most folks must have caught up with their flexi time.

I had done some additional research on the route and discovered that I could turn down Freckleton street and get to my car that way. So a plan was unfolding. Riding down the cycle lane on the main road, despite tabard and lights, I was a little uneasy. I reached the cycle path about a mile up the road by the Land Registry office and stayed on that until it reached Lytham then it was back on the road. The path was covered in a mixture of slush and ice I managed to stay on the bike so no worries.

Approaching Freckleton street I was overtaken by another cyclist who happened to be turning at the street before the one I wanted, but his bold sweep into the middle of the road to turn right. inspired I decided to turn right, a quick check behind, hand out I moved into the middle of the road, and turned down Nelson street. the remainder of the ride back to the car was indeed boring. I gave way to a car that was in my path down one of the back alleys. Apart from that it was all too easy and over too soon.

There – first one over. Here’s to the next

Its not even 1% hot let alone half hot! Yup what do you expect at the end of the first month in the year? I know my postings are a little hit and miss so far, but I have suffered no real illness, just general “I aint going out in that” moments at weekends and general oh bugger it I can’t be bothered.

Oh yeah, I forgot to post that I had been down to Brookes Cycles in Fleetwood last weekend and bought a pannier bag. Its the same make as the rack I bought last December, Avenair 28 litre capacity. So I now have no excuse to commute!

Well today I was feeling I  can’t be bothered-ish and was going to stay in doors.  I did just that until about 12 noon when i realised I had nothing in to eat other than stuff I needed to cook I was feeling lazy! On just the toast I had earlier, I decided to go for a ride and get some food. To make it useful I took rode round town, down the sea wall, part of cycle route 62 I think. and past the ferry terminal. By the time I had reached the Knott End Ferry my hands were like blocks of ice and were actually hurting with the wind chill. Oh well, Brookes was just around the corner.

I parked my bike next to the veranda post outside the shop and proceeded to lock my bike up. Coiled cable wrapped in plastic is fun stuff and kind of springy. Its the newness in it I suspect, Anyway that successfully done, remember my hands were frozen. I unclipped the rear lamp and the computer but couldn’t unclip the front lamp so I left it on the bike and went inside the shop.

I ended up with some fleece gloves for £4.99 just to keep my hands warm temporarily, I will buy some better gloves next month.

I unlocked the bike and put everything back on it then set off again. I am getting better at starting, although I must admit I do sort of do it in a strange manner, I can push down on the left pedal to move off but have to back pedal to move the left pedal back up to the top again to get my right foot on the pedal and then carry on normally. Strange huh?

I eventually got to the shops I had intended to go to in the first place. Shopping done and my hands toasty warm, I packed the pannier bags and set off. Hmm cold hands, hmm gloves! I had left them on top of the pannier bag. I stopped and they were still there. Phew.

Then home – only 4.85 miles