Alex's Adventures on the Infobahn - bike

All downhill after the first climb

2010-03-21T08:57:00+00:00

Today I'm quite achey after Saturday morning's excursion to the top of Alderley Edge . Although the ride to the base of the climb was fairly easy the actual mile of steep ascent defeated me as well as the chain on Fliss' bike. By the time we got up to the Wizard Coffee shop we were both soaked through and looking forward to the promised "downhill all the way from here" back to Knutsford.

Unfortunately we couldn't get the chain on Fliss' bike working so she retired early via taxi to a nice warm bath while myself, Mufi and Daz continued on back via the predominately downhill route. I say predominately because there where still a number of rises we had climb as the landscape of Cheshire is still considerably more lumpy than the flat fenland that is my usual staple cycling experience. This wasn't helped by the occasional navigational snafu. The 10% incline was great to zoom down but not so much when we discovered we needed to go back up it to take the turn we had missed.

By the time we made it back to the house we'd managed 34 miles and some very soaked feet. The king size bath was a welcome end to the excursion.

The rest of the day was mainly concerned with the last three games of the 6 Nations. The Wales game was fantastic, all credit to the Scot's for saving themselves from the humiliation of the wooden spoon. It was also good to see England playing considerably better than they have been the last few days. It's a shame it wasn't enough to win but good that we held France to such a narrow lead. There was a mini party afterwards although no overly late nights as there was a preponderance of tiredness around.

Start of Spring?

2010-03-01T11:26:00+00:00

Giant Talon 1 Mountain BikeIn many ways February has been a bit of bumpy month, the sort when your never quite sure if your going to hit take-off speed for the year. Luckily it's a short month and this morning I cycled out into bright sunshine on my new bike.

Since the death of my old bike I've been muddling along with walking in and using the bike my Dad loaned me. All too often I've taken the easier car route and driven the 1 mile (as opposed to 4 mile bike route) to work. However I now have a bright new shiny, off road, well geared and well braked Giant Talon 1 and no more excuses for taking the easier route in. Hopefully I can start reducing the post-Christmas spread that I've obtained over the winter months.

The power of the wheel

2009-09-18T12:47:00+01:00

I suffered bike death last night on the way home. Thankfully the mechanical failure (which I heard) occurred about 1/2 a mile away from the house so I didn't have too far to push the bike. I'm not sure what failed but the rear wheel had a slightly eccentric rotation in the morning. After something audibly snapped the wheel rotation went completely weird and it basically stuck to the side of the frame. This necessitated me pushing the bike home with the wheel dragging along the floor giving me pause to think how useful a mechanical contraption the wheel is when it's working.

A few inches more

2009-09-07T13:07:00+01:00

I adjusted the seat on my bike by a couple of inches over the weekend. I now have to come off my seat when I stop (or lean fetchingly against a support) but it certainly makes delivering power to the peddles easier. This as it turns out was useful for the main adventure of the weekend with a visiting Lee. Leaving Fliss behind to tend home we did an ~30 mile round trip to near Thriplow to sit in a field. We were afforded a pretty good view of the planes coming and going from the Duxford Airshow and felt fairly good about nullifying the calories of the sandwich and beer Fliss had insisted we pack for the journey. While in no way the distance that some have done and certainly less grand than some of the regular jaunts I hear are going on in Manchester these days I still felt well exercised.

The house move is coming on like a relentless train at the moment. We exchanged last week and we complete on Thursday. We move in on Friday and have already spent a small fortune on white goods (actually brushed stainless steel) to equip our kitchen. Being a veteran of many house moves we have decided to go for the full packing option (encouraging work in the local community) leaving us to worry about bigger things. The house warming is tentatively planned for November, fingers crossed.