It’s that point in the season when I feel I’m on a treadmill, not wanting to go on, and desperate not to get off . . . “All right, this is the plan. We’ll get in there and get wrecked. Then we’ll eat a pork pie. Then we’ll go home, and drop a couple of...
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People who steal bikes are prize @£$€-holes. I’ve only ever had one taken, and given the attachment I end up feeling for my rides, it was something that really hurt. Worse still was the fact that it was my dad’s bike, so I had to tell him that I’d got his...
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Ooooh! I had one of those scary moments this afternoon. I’d just ridden up from Walker to the Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative in Byker (going up Byker Bank - a 35m climb in 240m of road - who’s got legs like overcooked spaghetti now?), as I needed to pick up some new break blocks for...
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No, not that kind of spin. I mean the bike kind. I’ve the feeling that I’ve been lulled into riding at too high a cadence, so that I’m spinning away, but going nowhere very fast. On my road bike, Gina (Giant SCR LTD), I tend to average just under 100 rpm, with conscious gear shifts...
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Maximum Bob’s put together a pretty fine list of reasons why Le Tour is THE sporting event. I’ll not list ‘em all here, but the punch line of No. 6 brought more than a smile to my face: 6. Whereas a Formula 1 car can crash at high speed, leaving the driver uninjured but out...
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Our entry confirmations for the Hebburn Triathlon arrived in the post today. This is a pool-based race, and the general form for these is that the starting order is from fastest to slowest swimmers, so that there’s no bunching-up  overtaking in the pool. I think there must have been some sort of crazy mix-up though....
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A very short ride around the course I’d just run, so that I could get an accurate picture on the mileage. I wanted this because I was so pleased with the time. But I don’t have a fancy GPS running computer (donations very welcome to the usual address), but I have checked my bike’s wheel...
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One of my goals this year is to run 10k in 40 minutes. Of all the things I’ve set myself to do, this is the one that’s most daunting. My PB for this distance is somewhere around 44 minutes, so I’m looking to make a 10% or so improvement. This is going to be even...
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I had a series of three meetings this morning, spread out between the Team Valley and two clients in Walker. With the forecast weather being for rain, I decided to drive - it’s one thing having to change into clean dry clothes to be presentable at the client’s; it’s a completely different thing having...
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Today is Sunday, and that means a longer than average bike ride. Seeing as I’d not been out for a while with my friend The Irishman, I agreed to meet at his house, and then we’d go for a slightly longer version of our usual route to the tank factory at the end of...
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It’s that time of the month again. Good high tides. With the plasterers still in the house, there was little I could do today. Housework was impossible, it was too windy to ride, and running just wasn’t something I really wanted to do - unless it was as part of a brick, and as I’ve...
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This evening, while Daughter was having her swimming lesson, I got into the ‘fast’ lane of the pool, to notch up 700m as part of my Hartlepool preparation. ‘Fast’ is in inverted commas, because usually at 5pm on a Friday, it has a fair cross-section of the slowest swimmers in the world in it. I...
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Trixie the Fixie made it onto the pages of the excellent Fixed Gear Gallery! You can see her photos at on this page. Now I feel like a real fixer . . . .
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Not sure if this really counts as training at all - HR struggling to get above 90. But it’s pleasant to jog along chatting to Shana, and I don’t have any running logged this week. So I thought what the heck - I’ll put it in the log anyway. The 25 minutes refers to...
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I give blood. In the UK, it’s not about getting paid for it (’cos you don’t), but because someone might need your blood. It might save the life of someone you love, or a complete stranger, who’s just as loved by their own family. You can read more about this on the National Health...
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I know I should be doing some of this stuff in the gym. “Total body workouts”, involving weights and machines and ‘reps’ and mirrors to keep an eye on my posture / posing - stuff like that. And just about everyone tells me that it’ll mean that the rest of my training will be...
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. . . . all things are relative. I’m not really a fitness coach, but I am giving a friend a helping hand, which began this morning. After last night’s swim and cycling, it just wasn’t in me to get up early today to go for a run before meeting Shana for her first step...
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We had some friends round for dinner on Saturday, and we got into a conversation about fitness. One of the women at the table said she’d really like to be fit (to which I of course replied, “well, you’re not such a bad looker . . .” - can’t take me anywhere more than...
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So last week when I went for my Wednesday morning run, I got to the gates of the Tyne’s North Pier, and found ‘em still locked at ten to eight in the morning. This meant that instead of me rambling on for 80 seconds, you got the rare treat of the video of the...
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Yesterday I was looking around the Fixed Gear bikes Gallery to see if Trixie’d made it onto the site, and I came across a short film about a guy who plainly just doesn’t know when to stop. Take a look at the film, and think about this next time you’re feeling de-motivated - if he...
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So the Tour De France started in England this weekend. And the first stage was through Kent, where I grew up. And I went to school in Rochester, one of the towns on the route. And my parents still live in Chatham, one of the towns on the route.  But right now, I live...
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