That's It

2011 mileage is done.  Weather for the last few days has been pretty poor, rain and gales.  I had to go in to work on Wednesday and it was hard work, even dangerous.  We hoped to get out today but again rain all day.  We did go for a walk but got soaked.

Anyway, my 2011 mileage topped out at 5117 miles. 4424 miles on solo road bikes, about 1000 of which were on the fixie.  648 miles on the tandem.  The tandem miles were seriously cut short by my elbow break in the summer.  It is still more difficult to manage the tandem than solos.  My MTB mileage has been particularly poor, only three trips, again the broken elbow effect.  I’ve not been on the MTB since my accident.

Highlight of the year is the Isle of Man trip once again.  This is already booked for 2012, but due to other commitments it will be a quite different group.

Riding up to Scotland at the end of May was also great and has given me the touring bug a bit.  Hence my ride down to my Mum’s which was a different kind of ride, being on my own, but enjoyable in different ways.

Next year I hope to do a bit more touring.  As well as the Isle of Man trip, we have an extra bank holiday in June so a long weekend trip, probably up to Scotland, is on the cards.  I would also like to do a couple of short solo tours like I did this year, maybe get the train out somewhere and ride home.

Happy New Year

Cheers

Tim

Nearly There

All the pressies are wrapped and under the tree.  I’m sat with a glass of wine listening to some Neu! on the turntable.  Ready for Christmas

Monday was wet and windy.  There was still some ice about and I went to work on the Pompino with the Schwalbe winter studded tyres on.  I’m not sure how effective they are, I didn’t crash on the bits of ice, but would I have crashed without the tyres?  I think I need some really icy conditions to be definite.

Tuesday was our work Christmas do.  I didn’t stay late which was a good job.  Some people were wrecked.  The rest of the week was warmer and wetter.  I rode in yesterday for a short day and got soaked.  I had all my gear on the radiators but still didn’t get it all dry before I had to put it on again.

We got some disturbing news on Thursday that Ian’s daughter had had a riding accident and was in a bad way.  Ian came out to the pub Friday afternoon to tell us what had happened.  His daughter, Lizzie, is a very good dressage rider and was schooling her horse on Sunday prior to a competition.  It seems the horse stumbled, either due to the claggy icy conditions or just poor footwork, and fell forward and over.  Lizzie stayed on his back and was crushed underneath.  At first they thought she’d broken her back, but after being air lifted to hospital, she was diagnosed with a broken femur and a badly bruised back.  She’s had an operation to insert a rod into the femur and is now back home, battered and bruised but able to recover.  Ian has aged 10 years!

He was able to get out today.  Unfortunately I had to go and get the Christmas turkey so wasn’t able to go.  I rang Alison who had also missed the early ride and so we agreed to go out to Beacon Fell together.  I was knackered.  It is the longest ride I’ve done in 4 weeks, 35 miles.  The wind on the way back was very strong and the roads were under water in several places, but it was good to get out and ride.

Not sure how much I’ll do before year end, but its a respectable total even if I failed to reach my target.

Happy Christmas

Tim

Miles – 102

Total - 5104

5000 miles

Illness, weather and work have made the last three weeks pretty meagre mileage wise.  I did pass the 5000 mile mark this morning, no way am I going to get near 6000.

I spent most of last week in Winterthur or Bristol.  The week before it was very windy and wet, with hail.

we set out for a short ride this morning but as soon as we got out of town, the roads turned quite icy.  So we headed back towards the coast and The Beach Terrace Cafe for a cooked breakfast.  We saw Joe out on the Lytham Fancy Dress 5K and Joe’s son Ben waitering in the cafe.  A short trip back to Ian’s to pick up my car and we were done.

Tim