Life begins at 40

Today I turned 40 years old. I started my new year with a 50 mile bike ride (what else) - hence the first person to see me that old was Simon, who seems to be my de facto training buddy these days. He didn't say I looked old or anything, and none of my joints suddenly gave way on the ride, so maybe being 40 isn't so bad after all.


We set out around 7:30, and the temperature was -2 degrees celcuis. That's quite cold if you haven't tried it. We managed almost exactly 50 miles in just a little over 3 hours, so I was quite pleased with that pace; especially for an old fella.



This is a picture of me on my return when Jules presented me with a pile of cards which all appeared to have the objective of rubbing it in how old I was.

We had a bit of a gathering in the evening which was fun, and I even managed to stay awake after the ride, through setting the house up with balloons and food and drink, through partying til 1:30 Sunday morning.

Got some great presents including 6 bottles of Scotch. Simon got me a head-warmer thing to go under my helmet when cycling....would've been nice this morning! I also got some compressed air canisters for quickly re-inflating a tyre which are very cool.

Lost cadence sensor

I set out for another ride this morning. Only 27 miles (when did the words "only" and "27 miles" get permission to sit next to each other in my vocabulary?!). My bum was a bit sore to start with after the ride on Saturday, but soon warmed up.

As we set off, I noticed my cadence sensor had fallen off - have to order a new one I guess. The ride was good; except my knee was aching a bit on the up-hills. We adjusted the saddle a bit & that seemed to help. We finished the ride in under 2 hours.

On arriving home, I realised I could figure out where I lost my cadence sensor by looking at the route from the Garmin - there would be a point from the ride yesterday where the cadence would go from "something" to "nothing". I found the point on the ride & went to have a look, but it just happened to be near the junction between the Hogs Back and the Farnham road into Guildford - not an ideal place to find a small piece of plastic with a magnet in it.

Now we're getting somewhere!!

It's getting light earlier now, so we set off sharper today. Mad Paul still insists on cycling from his house to mine, so he ends up doing an extra 14 miles or so on me. I'd like to say he needs the extra training, but in fact the reverse is true; I'm sure I used to be fitter than he did. When did that happen? :-)

Anyhow, we set off at 8am with promises from the weathermen of rainshowers later in the morning. It seems that whatever the weathermen say is pretty much the most likely thing not to happen. So it was today. The rain never materialised, although it was a bit blustery. Largely the same route as last weekend via Haslemere, but with an extra 10 miles added at the southern end. 55 miles!!!!! Feeling good now. 50 miles was a mental objective for me. Better think of another one now. And that blummin hill at Hindhead felt a lot better today.

Ciaran, having told Simon we were starting at 8, woke up at 8 for an 8:30 start. So we set off without him and he promised to catch us up. We took a slight detour 8 miles in at Cranleigh, and it must have been at that point that Ciaran caught up and overtook us. I'm obviously not taking any pleasure thinking of him pushing himself for 50 miles trying to catch us up, but he got home about 30 minutes before we did!!!

Going for another ride tommorrow morning. Will be interesting to see how my bum feels...

It's real

Today a group of people met for a quick bicycle ride (22 miles) followed by some lunch and a discussion about a much longer ride this coming summer.

Everyone seems up for it, and suddenly this mad idea I had after my son, Fraser, passed away seems very real. We agreed that in 26 weeks time we will cycle from Land's End to John O'Groats to raise money for CHASE childrens hospice where Fraser spent much of his 2½ years and in particular his last week. The tough part is we will be doing it in 5 days as if it is not challenging enough.