Winter miles give summer smiles - apparently...

Ok, Mark, yer right.  There's enough smut, double entendres and other gruesomenesses at times in this blog that leaves little to ones imagination about the problems I have when riding my bike.  Including the other problems and irritations in my life.  So I think yer right, I shouldn't introduce anything fnar'ish about how winter miles give summer pil... er, haemorrhoids in the title of this blog today should I?  

I also need to say a big thank you to 'Unknown'.  Thank you 'Unknown'.  Yes, you're absolutely right.  I do need to revisit the set up my bike cos a poorly set up bike will, at the best of times, make a mess of anyones cycling shorts and their contents.  Like letting loose a rabid Rottweiler in a chicken coop.  There is no excuse for me not fettling my saddle before suffering many more p.., er, miles.  Ok, ok thanks everyone for taking a keen interest in my nether regions. 

Now of course I do not blame South Side Mark for any of my bum issues.  Sorry Mark.  He is a racing snake - one of those nice slippy slidey snakes when out on his bike.  You know, a toothless grass snake with a good bit of speed and a lovely demeanour.   Man and machine in perfect harmony.  Of course his observation when he followed me was correct too.  That I looked like an old diesel HGV with a bent axle.  In fact it was my saddle adjustment that needed fettling which was probably contributing to the knee and other unmentionable pains I suffered on the coast to coast ride last year too.  So I did take a closer look last week.

Hmmm, I think I now understand the cause of the problems with my 'perennials' [1].  Yes, you might remember how last year I changed the handlebar stem to give Koga a facelift and a shorter neck?  She now looks like the bike she should have been when I first bought her.  Ugly, yes.  But I'm now happy to ride her with the lights on.  The handlebars are now 2 inches lower and I can drop more onto my elbows without my belly getting in the way when we get a blob on.  

Post the stem change I was hoping for a better relationship.  However, as noted previously the subsequent problems Monsieur B67 created when he appeared in our lives sadly couldn't be fixed with just a dollop of bum cream.  I don't like the taste of the stuff anyway.  So a solution was needed to stop Brooks and his French uncle from snogging Hairy Melon within an inch of her life and leaving her with the most horrible looking love bites on her short neck.  Which must have been pretty hard going to do cos she's a fat no-necked lass with wild curly hair in all the wrong places and bad breath.  But hey, they're French and so short necked types with sweaty hairy pits are always fair game.  Fecking French.  

Simply, I had not made any changes to the saddle position post the stem change.  I really didn't think that such a minor head alteration would significantly change how much B67 might snuggle up to Hairy Jane, but it did.  It took me a whole morning last week to fettle the problem.  A process of lifting and tilting and sliding B67's head covering a lot of up down and left right combinations whilst maintaining the correct knee to pedal position and keeping the hip wobbles to a minimum.  That involved a lot of short circular test rides in my cul-de-sac, which at the same time had several of the local children riding around on their new Christmas bikes.  My neighbour did laugh.  'Looks like you're having fun riding with the children, Wayne', said Pam.  I did have to explain...

However, now that I've twiddled with his height and his angle of dangle all I get out of him on the harder hill climbs is a somewhat mute *pbstt* and *plurbbb* kinda spitty noise.  I think I've accidentally chopped off his tongue.  For sure I've shortened his laughing gear a fair bit.  Even ma boys and balloon dog have settled down.  There they were yesterday, curled up together in the dog basket, warm, moist and asleep as I whisked along.  Whisked!  Yeah, really?  LOL!  

Hairy Melon is now all good!  The merest smear of bum cream was all that was needed on the latest ride out to keep her slick, slippy, sloppy and so very very happy.  

Yesterday was another 40 or so miles out from home to the north west of York, like this: 

 

Winter riding.  Yes, as South Side Mark said to me in an email yesterday, 'winter miles gives summer smiles'.  I'm still riding in shorts which is not helping my knees.  For sure I almost slept on the sofa last night cos the stairs again were hard to climb.  But all was good this morning as I came down them.  

It was then I heard a squeak.  I looked to my left to see a worried Dawes, still restrained in all her black magnetic metal wear, peeking back at me over her svelte handlebar shoulders.  Ooooh my leg started to tremble at the thought of it.  It's enough to say that another riding session quickly followed whilst sucking on an orange for breakfast which has magically stopped the knife fight in my knees this morning.

Nonetheless, I do need to keep the aged legs turning if I stand any chance of getting my fat carcass all the way down the country again this June.

Yep, planning for this years rides has started.  Simply this years big plan is gonna be to ride from John O Groats to Lands End.  You know - LEJOG the other way around.  I've started to book accommodation for me and London Alan who is going to do it with me with a lot of batteries.  South Side Mark is joining us on the JOG to Gretna section (so the full length of Scottieland) where I think he's gonna get married again.  I don't think he's told his wife yet.  Finally David the Gentle Giant is also joining us for the ride from Inverness back through the Trossachs (Trossachs! Fnar!) to his home just outside of Glasgow.

Provisionally, it looks like this:

It's gonna take 3 weeks simply because we're all retired so none of us need to be back at work.  So why thrash ourselves to death?  We're all around 60 you know so 50 miles per day is going to be hard work.  It's almost the LEJOG thing I did in 2018 but with some minor amendments to the routing cos I learnt where all the crap roads were in 2018.  I'm hoping for a downhill kinda route.  From top to bottom.  Bottom.  Fnar!  

I've also started a 'low carb' diet.  Well, its not really a diet.  Out of the tons of stuff that I eat I'm now doing my best to cut out most of the carbohydrates.  So potatoes, gone.  Bread, gone.  Pies, (weep!) gone.  Rice, almost gone.  Pasta, gone.  Cakes, etc... gone.  Cereals, OK then just a little.  

I do need to take in some carbohydrate to give me some energy for cycling.  For example, on the ride out yesterday my legs felt dead.  For sure the energy levels are down so every hill climb was hard.  I now know just how London Alan felt towards the end of the NC500 last year as he similarly tried to ride on an empty stomach.   

Talking about bottoms, well of course I recall just how hard the LEJOG thing was on Hairy Melon, not to mention my knees and balloon dog etc back in 2018...  A lot of the issues were caused not by saddle positioning but because I had to push a ton of blubber to the top of every mountain on a fully loaded tour bike.  And this country is all fecking uphill anyway.  One sixth of a ton of man and machinery carrying plenty of manky clothing wrapped up in plastic bags whilst looking for the ever elusive laundrette.  

I'm hoping I can travel lighter which should be helped if I also lose some weight beforehand.  My sister Gloria knows that I can do it cos I lost 4 stone approx 10 years ago by doing the same thing.  Problem though is I always find it difficult to keep the weight off.  

Nonetheless, I learnt a lot on the LEJOG thing so I'm really looking forward to it :-)

Oh, and my new Surly bike should be ready for March / Easter.  An off road mountain bike kinda thing which should go places that Koga should not and Dawes cannot.  A green frame with gloss black everything else.  Being built with higher spec kit from the frame up.  Tubeless wheels.  Fully kitted for tour riding and hopefully for this journey.  More to come in this blog later.

I've not yet told Koga nor Dawes that there's going to be a new one in my life.  

Oh dear, I'm in for it.  

Ciao for now.   

[1] Perennials -  You know, it's that flowery strip of no-mans land between the good guys and the bad guy?  The playground and the sewerage works?  The front and back?  The innie and the outie for you ladies?  But no it's not like that no mans land between North and South Korea who after 60 plus years are still at war with each other.  I know for sure that neither the arse hole next door nor ma boys / balloon dog have the capability to nuke each other.  That is until I have a really hot chicken vindaloo for tea.  Sorry, the correct name for the piece of skin is the 'Perineum'.  But that just does not sound funny at all, does it?