And breathe...

Every winter it's a struggle to out on the bike but in the last couple of weeks I've been a bit more motivated to invest in my cycling.
Unfortunately the weather has been pretty awful on my days off so I've not put in as many miles as I would like but I'm feeling optimistic about riding. No huge plans for any major events but I do have a few ideas.
I can't say that the cycle show in London last week was particularly exciting. All much of the same really so I won't bore you on the details. I'm just glad that I blagged a free ticket rather than paying for one!
The main reason for my positivity is that I had my first Yoga session last night and it's stimulated me to think more about my breathing and posture. It's early days but I'll give a more detailed post in the next few weeks.
Happy new year everybody.

The woman from O2 thinks I’m a pervert….

While I’m waiting for my new wireless router to arrive, my smartphone is unable to enjoy WiFi connectivity at home and so I’m restricted to the use of the 3G mobile connection. This isn’t much of a problem as mobile internet is pretty fast these days and I only really look at text based sites anyway.

I’m a big fan of the Inner Ring blog. It’s an absolute goldmine of information on the pro cycling scene and often first to come up with the latest stories. If you haven’t seen it before, it’s well worth checking out, unless you have no interest in cycling in which case you’d probably be better off finding a website that best suits your needs like www.beinganidiot.com.

Yesterday, I selected my Inner Ring bookmark on my phone to get my daily fix on the blog when I was confronted with an age restriction page from O2 (my network provider). Other sites seemed to be working ok so I was baffled and called them up.

I spoke to a very nice lady and told her of my problem and that I was having trouble visiting a sports website, in this case cycling related. She said that they had been having problems with their system and she’d received a few calls of this nature, more towards the online gambling sites. All it would require would be for her to fill out a form on my behalf and then my account would be back to normal within a couple of days. We went through the details and I thanked her for her help before she finished the call by saying, “Enjoy your cycling websites.”

Call me paranoid but I’m sure the way she said cycling was a little bit disbelieving and if it was a video call her comments would include the sign language for speech marks followed by a wink. I think she was assuming that I wanted to surf some mobile porn sites.

I’m just lucky that I didn’t tell her I was visiting Big Ring Riding next. She'd have fallen off her chair..........

Supplements. Believe the hype?

When I first started cycling, I was desperate to spend money on the sport. So much so, that if you took a shit and stamped a picture of a bicycle on it, I'd probably try to buy it from you.

I think the majority of humans are insatiable - we always want more and are never happy with what we have got. The grass is always greener on the other side (or the tarmac is always smoother if you're more a roadie than a mountain biker).

I am fairly obsessed with cycling and so if I can't be outside riding my bike, I want to be reading about bikes or planning routes to cycle or arranging rides or buying things to do with my bike or cycling or that vaguely resemble cycling. The buying part brings me onto the purpose of today's topic - supplements.

The reason I've been thinking about this is because my sister is training to run a marathon and is currently completing training runs of around 15 miles. She has read a few articles about fueling and decided to ask me what I use whilst I'm cycling.

It's an interesting topic. When I first started to cycle, I used to take a bottle of water and even though the distances were short and one could argue that I was cycling on"stored" energy, I didn't die from hunger or exhaustion.
A couple of months into my new found hobby, I joined ,my local cycling club (Addiscombe CC http://www.addiscombe.org/ ) and threw myself into a 50 mile club run, cheating death with a cup of tea and a Kit Kat.

I read some magazines and found out that I shouldn't be content with merely cheating death, I needed to stick two fingers up and poke death in his/her eyes (no sexism here - I don't work for Sky Sports). My mind was opened to the world of nutritional supplements. In the blink of an eye, I had found a whole new avenue to spend money on. I could almost hear the accountants of Wiggle rubbing their hands with glee.

So, I dived in and bought gels, powders, bars galore and used them whenever I could on a ride and do you know what? I didn't die but I didn't win the Tour de France either.

I'm not saying that supplements are wrong or don't work but I think it's all too easy to get caught up in the hype that goes with them. I've learned that I don't need to take an energy drink on every ride, sometimes a banana is better than a sports packaged cereal bar.

Now, I follow a simple strategy:
30 miles or less - water.
30 - 60 miles - water, a banana or flapjack or an energy drink.
60 plus miles, whatever the media want to throw at me.......

My advice to you, do whatever makes you happy and you think works but respect your body and always have something left in reserve.

Just mooching around.....

Things have been pretty hectic over the last few weeks, with the Christmas break and everything. Isn't it funny how we call it a break but it seems to be more hectic than the rest of the year??!!

I took the opportunity yesterday to just get out for a ride on my bike and not really bother worrying about how fast I was going or what my heart rate was doing and it made a refreshing change.

Living in South London, I'm always in a rush to head out of town and into the country as soon as possible which generally means I head south or east to get out into the lanes. This has got a bit boring of late as it tends to mean I do the same monotonous 5-10 miles to start and finish every ride. I thought that it would be nice to head north for a change and head into London.

I used to work in a job where I rode a motorbike around London and since leaving that role, I do miss "the big smoke" and sights that go with it.

I decided to just see where I ended up, which ultimately led me to Greenwich on a damp, cloudy morning. I stood for a while looking out over the Thames and for the first time in a while, I actually felt relaxed.....