One Month Done

Well true believers I have completed my 1st month of training, and overall not bad.

I have gone from being knackered after 10 miles to knackered after 30
Lost over half a stone in weight (17.4 to 16.7)

Saturday was a comedy of bike related errors. I wanted to join the ride from Quest, the local bike shop as it’s a nice social ride with some nice people that culminates in cake. However the pace is usually quite sedate and with a lot of riders you get a lot of punctures and mechanical hold ups, and I wanted to get in some serious miles, so I was to be up at 6, ride to Devils Dyke and back and join in the Quest ride at 10AM.

Also gave me a chance to try out new kit on the bike (Tyres, pedal, and grips all wore out), and I have a new hydrating rucksack!!

Perfect, except the Steed has had different ideas, and decided that I needed some lessons on wheels. Being a big chap, obviously the stresses, or radial compression, I place on the wheels are quite high, and the wheels that came with the Steed are a bit on the cheap side. The wheels go round, the spokes compress and bend and eventually they fatigue and the wheel begins to buckle. Additionally, the hubs aren’t sealed and we have had water in the bearing and worn them down, which means the wheel wobbled from side to side. Long story short the back wheel was a bit f**ked!

I popped round to Jim the bike whisperer during the week, to see if he could help with re packing the hub and see if that helped. It didn’t, but we had a nice chat, some of Amy’s lovely Banana cake and Tea and I now know how to repack bearings. Seriously, Jim is the Cesar Milan of MTB, The bike whisperer. My front wheel was doing all sorts of misbehaviour on one ride; in fact it nearly fell off. Jim calmly took it off, caressed the cones and put it back on. Job done! One MTB in a calm submissive state.

Anyway, back to Saturday, my alarm didn’t go off as I forgot to set it but I got out the door at about 7, with a mission to ride for 1.5 hrs and then turn around and head to the bike shop to meet the guys. I got as far as Cissbury Ring and the back wheel just gave up the ghost with some horrid grinding noises, and your humble narrator nursed the Steed to the bikeshop to wait for Darren to turn up. God bless Darren, he basically rebuilt the hub in 1hr and got me back out for 10AM! The bad news is that basically I have cheap shitty wheels and being a fat bastard, they are going to do the same again. So I must look into getting some quality wheels – at £285 a pair!!!!

I can feel another guitar being sold.

The second mechanical mishap (yes there was more than one), was the quick release mechanism for my seat breaking. That was a right pain in the arse, as we were just about to do some righteous downhillage and I had to brace the seat post with a mudguard clamp. Stopped it from going up and down but it span round and round, really annoying and made me crash a lot in a very short space of time.

Fortunately we were very near to the village of Steyning; I offer gracious thanks to the proprietor of Steyning hardware for helping to fix the seat. However, I offer this statement to the remaining villagers:

Fcuk Steyning.

What an uptight shitty little place!! I admit that 30 odd MTBers invading your blue blood twee Tory shithole could be a little intimidating and gangs of middle aged accountants rampaging through the village must be very upsetting. We wanted to take a breather whilst the running repairs were completed and we were clearly very unwelcome. Apparently at one point, it nearly came to blows in the newsagent. People of Steyning – stop taking yourselves so seriously, and lighten up!

Until then, Steyning is on the list of villages I have a beef with, along with Chiddingfold, Shiplake and Botley. Arseholes. However the butcher in Chiddingfold makes exceedingly good sausages.

I reckon I can find a few more before this mission is over.

Rock on!