It’s 4 weeks now since I dislocated my shoulder (for the third time) and had what I now see as an epiphany. I was unceremoniously dispatched to the tarmac at the Colne Grand Prix about a week after hearing that I needed surgery on the shoulder. It was inevitable in hindsight that it was going …
Last night was my last race for a bit. Colne Grand Prix is a race I have ridden loads over the years. It’s a great race. A very simple town centre criterium on a very simple course. The corners are fast and flowing, and it always has a great atmosphere with the course packed full …
It’s almost exactly ten years since my last time trial. I had ups and downs in my against-the-clock racing between the ages of 17 and 33, but on an April Sunday in 2003, I rode the local Hilly Time Trial (the now defunct Circuit of Holcombe) and didn’t realise quite how long I’d be hanging …
It’s been nagging me for a while, this one. This is about sport , technology, monitoring and stats. It runs to the very core of me in a number of ways. I’ve been using fairly detailed recording of my cycling and running for over five years now, since I first got a Garmin Forerunner GPS …
Continue reading “Why I hate Strava (and why I need Strava)”
Had a truly great day out on Saturday at the Harriers v Cyclists. It’s a very special event. Unique, light-hearted, but serious and brutal for the shortness of the course. It also covers a load of different topography in the It’s my fourth time there on the course that crosses farmland, ancient woodland, heathland and …
Continue reading “Harriers v Cyclists – one of those little classics”
I know I go on a bit about the Three Peaks Cyclocross. It’s nice for me at this time of September to put down a marker as to how I’m feeling. It’s my event and I am going to enjoy myself on Sunday. There are a million things that could go wrong and doubtless scores …
I need to qualify all this first … It’s about squeezing a bit of cycling into a family holiday for someone keen to be fit. Its not about trying to plan a cycling holiday or trip. The following includes references to on- and off-road cycling but this is all just done on the one bike …
Continue reading “On riding abroad (personal cyclist thoughts on a family Mediterranean holiday)”
January 15th: The year has ended. The last cyclocross race of the season and all too soon it’s time to hang up the racing wheels and have a few months of more bike fun and less training. A glass half full person like me never gets too worried about things like that. No matter how …
I joined Team Wheelbase in 2005 and will be racing for another team very soon (more on that will follow shortly). It’s the strangest feeling to move on from wearing the black and green kit – there have been some amazing highlights in the last few years and I just wanted to reflect a little. …
Continue reading “An amazing few years – thank you, Wheelbase”
A quick moment to gather my thoughts before the big off in the 3 peaks cyclocross on Sunday. It’s an annual pattern of familiar routine always peppered with new things each year to distract me. The basic sectors of the 3 peaks preparation are complex in themselves – training & fitness, equipment, food & nutrition, …
I’ve been a bit low on finding the time to blog the last few months. In some ways the world’s moved on. I don’t need to paste a link to a video or anything on this blog anymore because the sharing thing’s taken care of by Twitter and Facebook really. But there are some things …
Continue reading “Cart, sleigh & horse: Cyclocross season reviewed”
Interesting project on at the moment on behalf the design team for Whyte Bikes. Ian (who works on product design there) and I go back a long way and given my boundless enthusiasm for cyclocross (and what younger people might call ‘experience’), I’m starting to test a bit of a new venture for them. Whyte …
