The week started with some retail therapy as I took my wheels into the local bike shop to see if I could sort out the pinging spokes. I could go into great detail about my thought processes, justifications and subsequent post retail guilt but to cut a long story short.... man goes to shop with choice of refurbishing old wheels or buy new ones...enough said... the new ones look very nice on my bike!
Thursday's ride was a very pleasant loop to Oundle and back with Mark and George. We stopped for coffee and cake in Oundle and watched the poor school kids waiting to go into their exams. 30 miles or so in the bag with no post holiday effects and it was clear Mark had recovered fully from his "one lung" issues of a few weeks ago.
My new wheels were fine but the rear gear mech is a slightly broader set up than my previous one, the indexing was messing about a little and I could still hear an annoying little click now and then but couldn't nail it down to any particular cause.
Friday was spent tweaking gears and removing everything I could from the bike in an attempt to idientify the clicking, I think its now either the front tube or main chain ring bearings but it's so inconsistent that its hard to nail down.
Saturday's ride was a beautiful one. Mark and I were joined by George, Heather and Mike, all local traithletes. The route was through some of our most beautiful Northamptonshire and Leicestershire countryside with some decent climbs along the way to test the legs a little. At 61 miles it was the longest so far for the pair of us, and although we both knew we'd been for a ride I think we were both happy with the improvement in our general fitness levels and our ability to ride comfortably for 4 hours or so. Mark also got to test out his Go-Pro camera, I think he's got about 2 hours of video to watch now to see if there is anything we can upload.
The ride wasn't without incident. I for one was somewhat surprised to come across two giraffes grazing in a North Northamptonhire village. Sadly, upon closer inspection they turned out to be statues but it took a few seconds for the penny to drop.After about 25 miles my front derailleur started to mess me about. Now I have to admit it was probably down to user abuse of the tweaking variety as I had adjusted them earlier that week, so I wasn't too concerned that it was actually broken, but it did mean I was unable, intermittently, to get into my big front ring. As I said to Mark though, better that than being stuck in my big ring with the hills still to come.
We pedaled on and arrived in the small market town of Uppingham where we stopped for a coffee and cake and then we headed off into the Welland Valley for a bit more hill work.All was going swimmingly until we met up with Heather's husband Pete who was waiting at the side of the road at Nevil Holt. I started to slow down and without properly checking my shoulders started to turn around in the road, only to realise I had turned right into Mark's path, giving him no option but to ride into me and then, despite valiant efforts to retain his balance, fall over. Luckily it was all at very slow speed so no real damage was done but I was subjected to some serious mickey taking from the others.
The ride home from then was uneventful and I think we both finished feeling quite strong.
This week it is going to be a challenge to get our training in. Mark's daughter gets married next weekend so it's a busy week for him and on top of that the weather forecast is fairly poor so I think I might be back on the turbo.
Onwards and Upwards!
