Fat Bloke on a Bike

It's 5.30 am and I'm sat at my desk again thinking of what to write.  Especially the experience of the fully laden run to Bedale, a pretty North Yorkshire town on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.  As usual my mind is now all quiet and empty compared to when on the ride when it was all a buzz with flies and bees and everything else that hit me in my gob that day.  I guess the best thing to do is to start at the beginning, add a middle bit and finish at the end.  So here goes. The bike had been set up and loaded ready to go a couple of days beforehand.  A phone call earlier in the week to the Bedale campsite confirmed that they could fit big old me in a little old corner of the site and after a bit of faffing and fettling and checking for the n'th time that everything was loaded I'm ready to go. It's a lovely sunny warm day.  The crap nav has me set to head to the west and take the Rufforth, Cattal, Boroughbridge and Ripon route up to Bedale.  With a...

It's 1.30am and I cannot sleep cos my face hurts.  I think its a reaction to the new tablets prescribed to me by Doctor Strange this week.  Let me explain. If you recall from earlier blogs I've been having some investigations done into why Balloon Dog intermittently dribbles leaving my bits drowning in occasional weeny flash floods when out on the bike.  Not a lot but enough to get it checked. The ultrasound says I am ultra sound.  Last week Doctor Strange humiliated me as he put what I think was his finger into that place that should only ever be an outie.  I know for sure he was laughing as he said relax and think of England just before he took my cherry.  Oooohhh!  Ewwww!  Aaaagghh!  ...says Doctor Strange... Anyway its all smooth he says which is good in that there are no unwanted lumps and bumps on my prostatey thingy.  I can if I wish have a PSA blood test says the Doc just before he bombarded me with a plethora of informatio...

Summer has arrived.  Well that is how it feels.  It's as though we've bypassed spring and gone straight in to summer like I'm playing some giant life game of Monopoly passing GO without stopping and collecting dosh on my way to Jail.  With only 4 weeks to go to the S500 thing it's time to get some serious miles under my belt, now with a fully loaded bike.  Here it is. I've tried to put it on a diet but no it's not having it.  I tried to fit the sleeping bag along with everything else in the panniers and there just isn't enough room.  A Tardis I do not have so I have no option other than to stuff the sleeping bag down the back of it's knickers which has resulted in it having a rather fat arse.  Fat arsed it now looks so Fat Arse it now is. The miles are starting to grow.  London Alan joined me for a couple or three days last week during which we had two jaunts out.  Initially into a head wind towards Pocklington, a town for spotty teena...

It's another lovely spring day. I have many things to do like sorting the bike saddle to new seat post combo, sorting my niece's boy's teaching aid first computer thingy and sorting my ancient uncle Con as its Friday!  Yay.  Friday!  Yes it's time to make more cakes and buns with him to make sure that the old goat is up and doing something rather than vegetating in front of the TV. Can I squeeze a bike ride in?  Yes!  It's sunny with a fresh south easterly wind and being that I'm a ride out with the wind in my face and ride back with it behind me kind of guy then there's no choice; I need to visit Skipwith Common woods again for a peek. As usual it takes at least 20 minutes for the legs to warm up before I can push along.  I'm again on the old LNER railway line, now a Sustrans route from York to Riccall.  There I am all lah-di-dah Gunner Graham ambling along when from nowhere there is a very polite 'I'm gonna pass you on your right' cal...

It was the bikes annual service today.  Oh dear, it's time to get the wallet out and let my pet moth again see the light. I need to be sure that my Koga bike, Fat Arse, is gonna be OK for the Scottish 500 which is only 7 or so weeks away.  My Rohloff hub explosion last year drenched my gold plated Gates Carbon drive belt in fresh oil which I'm told if not immediately cleaned off would mix with road grit and make a rather good grinding paste designed for destroying expensive belts and sprockets.  I fastidiously washed the damn thing in Wybunbury on the LEJOG thing last year destroying a set of hand brushes as the oil had the consistency and irremovability of glue which didn't best please the pub landlady when I handed the oily brushes back after a thoroughly good scrub.  Sorry, it wasn't me. I had spoken with Dave at Cyclesense in Tadcaster (Koga dealer and service agent) about changing the sprockets and gold encrusted carbon belt from a 54/19 to a 50/19 combo to ...

I'm often overtaken by many a racing snake. Slippy black lycra clad feckers with slim shoulders and rock hard legs going like bejesus at a million RPM's.  I try, I so try to speed up but all that my legs do is say 'nah not a fecking chance mate' and I quickly return to my 60rpm plod fest. Today on the news is the story of James Cracknell who at the age of 46 is again climbing into some coxed eight snakeskin water craft to negotiate with a boat load of other kids half his age the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race this coming weekend.  Oarsome the newspapers say [groan!]. Here I am a fat man with another 10 years on him dreaming about the days when as a twenty something Amateur American Football player I used to push exceptionally heavy weights around like feathers in the gym, beat the crap out of the rock hard punchbag, strap weights to my American Football helmet to strengthen my neck; and play my favourite game with exceptionally palpable memories of dicking people ...