Chilly 14°C tops. Light N breeze.
Paddy Wagon: a swift ride but there is probably some selection bias in that claim. I tend to ride this bike when winds are light, and light winds are conducive to fast rides. Today the overall average was 23.6kph, that’s only 1 kph below my best in August.
22°C strong sun & light NW breeze.
Brighter sun had more heat in it but the air was 8 degrees lower. It felt just as hot to me unless in shadow. Anyway,. I’ve edged the average speed up a bit, 24.7 from 24.5kph.
26°C, 3/5 cloud, light SE breeze.
No wind so I got the fixie out again. This was nearly 1km/h faster than yesterday, so that’s very encouraging. I had another road rage from a driver of a white van. He blasted the horn a few times & shouted something incoherent on entering Croston. I have no idea what that was about.
22°C, sun & clouded over later, no wind & dry.
Rode another 23.7kph on the fixie. This matches last week’s ride but was much further. I caught up with a nice little group of roadies; a guy, his daughter & friend. They had nice modern road bikes in contrast to my 15 year old steel single speed.
He told me they were regulars at Manchester Velo and did National events too. I asked about their training while we were talking about Garmin data. They both had cadence & power meters but that was really only for the use of their coach. They typically did 10 hours a week and about 6k per year.
I was dead impressed which drove me on to set a pace after my cafe stop. I’m quite inspired actually.
18°C, sunny with a cool westerly.
Kona Paddy Wagon the fixie went well today. So much so that I wasn’t sure the Speedo was callibrated correctly. Anyway, the average speed here is correct and is 2 km/hr more that the last best ride. It didn’t even feel like that much effort really.
Kona Paddy Wagon, 11°C, moderate SW, clear blue sky, dry
Used the morning for repairs to prepare the summer bike to go out. I got a replacement pair of Mavic Aksium elite wheels and put them on with 25c tyres. The rear went down so I swapped the tube. There is a drawer in the kitchen where I put repaired tubes, so I took another one. That also leaked away. Possibly, it was caught by the lever while fitting that new tyre. How annoying!
Anyway, the ride was excellent. It really looks like spring out there and it’s only February. The GPS failed saying average 11.4kph. stupid machine.
13°C, light breeze & sunny. Warm!
Surprisingly warm for the start of December. Anyway, changing that screw-on cog was easier than I expected. Now the chain is rolling smoothly, unlike yesterday. It was so bad, I thought the chainring would need a change too. Not necessary.
Kona Paddy Wagon, 14C, no rain but muddy, light SSE wind.
It has a new chain but it doesn’t ride well over the teeth. Under load, each tooth clicks. I should have changed the rear cog (and I expect the chainring has gone also). Last time this happened, I couldn’t get the cog off with the chain-whip. Fixie cogs screw on, but as you ride them, the thread tightens. By tyhe time the teeth are worm out, the cog is too tight to remove. The bike shop had to practicaly break the cog off in a vice, it was that bad.
Furthermore, the rear tyre has a slow puncture that didn’t bubble in the bucket so I replaced the valve. Yet, it still slowly deflates.
November has been an odd month, it started and ended warm with an icy week 3. That makes acclimatising difficult.
12°C, no wind or rain or sun.
Tendonitis: it’s flared up again but is currently waning. So the idea was to do a 2 hour ride on the flat while there’s no wind. On turning north from Rufford, a group of cyclists tagged on. Then one took the lead to up the pace. I held on without too much difficulty.
They were quite complimentary about.my keeping pace. They were on nice modern Ridley carbon bikes and me a 14 year old steel single-speed. I don’t suppose they realise that a single speed is more efficient when the cadence, gearing and incline are ideal.
The above data is wrong because the app paused after the cafe stop. The total distance should be 52km.
21°C, light SE, sunny & dry
Same route as last week and the bridge is still shut. There’s nothing visibly wrong but cracks can be tiny (if that’s the cause).
It looks like the bridge will be closed until the end of the year.
Micycle 