My bike tried to kill me!!!

Last Sunday we arranged to meet Gav for a ride around Houndkirk and Totley Moor. It was quite a novelty, riding the moors in dry conditions and we were all riding well - Gav commented a few times on how much more confident and in control J seemed since we last rode XC with him, which is quite cool. I was living up to my 'solar powered' suspicion and was also riding well.
Unfortunately, on the last rocky, hard climb before we headed downhill, fast, back to the car, my gears started skipping. Only a couple of times and I made a mental note to check it out when I got home.
And then the chain snapped.
This has never happened to me before and I didn't like it. :-( To my left, a grassy slope with hidden rocks, to my right, the rocky trail dipped away. I fell to the right and managed to unclip my feet, but not quick enough. I clattered down on my right knee and (somehow) my left hand, the thumb taking much of the force of the fall.
I picked myself up quickly and cursed the bike - had I not lavished enough love and attention and shiny bits on her? What had I done to deserve that kind of treatment? :-( My knee was bleeding, my thumb was throbbing and my pride was in tatters. And even worse, there were no witnesses - no one to come rushing up and pat me on the back and say 'there, there'. I was alone in my pain. (on the plus side, there was no one to see me fall off...)
I gathered up the broken chain, noting it had snapped just before the power link - odd, I thought - and pushed the evil machine up the hill to where Gav had been sitting for some time, having a drink and waiting for me and J.
[I worked out later it had snapped where I split it to reroute after I somehow managed to route it OVER a guide on the rear derailleur, insted of under it. Muppet. I had used a new pin to rejoin it but obviously I'd done something wrong and it had warped and pulled undone under strain. Still, it was a (painful) lesson learned - I won't do that again. And the paint on the bike is still in tact, so she is still beautiful.]
By now, my knee was bloody but not too bad, but the thumb was definitely not right. :-(
I coasted down to the pub and had a pint of medicine (cider) then went home, thoroughly peeved with myself - I was so close to cleaning that climb too, sooo close.  Ah well, next time.
Unfortunately, I had to drive down to Reading at 5am the next day and when I got up my thumb resembled a sausage, not a thumb. Uh, oh...
I spent Monday evening at The Royal Berkshire A&E dept wher I was examined and x-rayed and declared to be not broken. I was however sent away with a real heavyweight neoprene and steel splint to wear at all times for the next week. Great - sunshine and outdoorseyness with a big old sticky and stinky splint on = stripy arm...
On the plus side though, not being able to ride my bike meant I had to find an alternative way to spend my evenings at the hotel.
Monday was a write off due to the hospital visit so on Tuesday I got my shorts on and set off for a tentative jog around the lovely route I mentioned last time. Miraculously, my knees held up fine - I think my jeans had been squishing the sore bits and making them feel worse than they really were.
Not only did I cut 2 minutes of my last effort but the woods had been transformed into a wonderland of sring loveliness - bluebells, new leaves, young deer, bunny wabbits, new lambs in the field and best of all, warm sunshine. It was lovely. I felt surprisingly fit and fresh.
So much so that I did the same the next day - and chopped a further 2 minutes off, getting my 'lap time' below 40 minutes. Well pleased with myself. Maybe I am not so bad at running afterall, I just need the practise.

Bad news - my thumb is still very sore and swollen and I am beginning to think maybe it IS broken afterall. If it's still as bad on Tuesday I might take myself back to the docs. Boooo for injury.

Fat thumb, skinny thumb. Ouch.

Mind you, I feel lucky to have got to 38 with no major cycling mishaps, so it had to happen some time and having spoken to various other cycling friends I got off lightly anyway - they told me horror stories of not only broken thumbs, but broken wrists, elbows, compound arm fractures and testicles so badly battered by the handlebar stem that there was still no sign of them three weeks later. At least I avoid that delight. :-)

My veg garden is taking shape. My planting now includes red onions and carrots. I have 3 very robust looking buttenut squash plantlets, 5 cauliflowers that need to go in the garden, my spuds are sprouting nicely and my aubergines and tomatoes need potting on.
We've also managed to get some of the garden waste burnt - probably a couple more burnings and it'll be clear. I don't want to burn too much at a time and piss the neighbours off, but it is proving difficult to find a time to do it when people are not enjoying barbecues or have washing out.
We're getting there though.

Tempus fugit

It sure does. 3 weeks since I last checked in - and what's happened? Not a lot, really...

Well, it has and it hasn't.

The bike has been well and truly christened, with a few trips to Wharncliffe, Bakewell and Wyming Brook and just out and about. All the bits that came loose while I was riding (including the non-drive crank and the headset) have been firmly secured and it actually rides really well.

Apologies for crap quality but here is the bike in its natural habitat - Wharncliffe.
No trees were harmed in the making of this photo...

The main difference over the old bike is that it looks so pretty. No, only kidding - although it is true - the main difference is that because of the bigger frame and the wide handlebars, it opens my chest up while I am riding resulting in better breathing and not kneeing myself in the boobs when I am bobbing around trying to get up a hill.
I have also gone back to the SPD pedals - mainly because the old DMR flats looked far too shabby for my lovely. :-) I can tell the difference on the hils, again, but it is taking a lot of nerve when I am riding XC not to unclip and ride like a motocrosser, sticking the leg out for stability (and an easy escape).

What else??
J has bought himself a road-ish bike. It too is very pretty - all matt black and sleek. He seems to be enjoying riding that, which is cool. I wasn't sure how well he'd get on with the lack of suspension and the general difference in riding position but it's all good. Apart from one comedy fall whilst still attached to the SPDs. Lesson learnt; make sure you adjust the spring on BOTH sides of the pedal. Ho ho ho. (we've all done it)

Erm, so, gardening.
I now have 19 cherry tomato seedlings, 18 aubergine, 1 butternut squash, 5 cauliflowers, lots of peas and 1 purple capsicum all growing up nicely, ready for potting on or planting out. There are also more peppers and chillis (supposedly) germinating, carrots and raspberries in the ground, potatoes in bags and strawberries, thyme, oregano and sage in pots. I am waiting for some Tumbler tomoato plant plugs and my red onion sets to turn up - any day now...
It all sounds very organised, but I have never attempted this kind of thing before and I am definitely winging it. I guess I will see what grows and what doesn't and adjust/abandon next year as appropriate.
The front garden is a mass of colour and is my little haven of peace and girliness.

My little corner of peace and quiet. Wish the back of the house got so much sun.
Found an old, enamel bedpan in the back garden and planted it up with pansies.
I think it looks ace on the table.

Wish my house faced the other way though, so I wasn't facing every passing stranger when I sit out and read.

And finally, the exercise...
Well, I have not been as exercisey since the turbo trainer got packed up - maybe I should recommission it?
I have been out running a bit more though, and while I was down at head office last week I went for a run that looked good on my little map and was even better in real life - I got fields and woods and hills and nice chatty cyclists and baby lambkins and I was back at the hotel before I knew it. Yes, I ran and I enjoyed it - breakthrough!! Here is a pic from that route:




In a field, near Knowl Hill.
There's cycling in them thar woods too - might take my bike next time I am down south...


Since then I have been out on my local 4.5km 'time trial' route and from my baseline time of 34.5 minutes I did it in 30 minutes and 3 seconds. My 'might take some time' target was 30 minutes, so to have been just 3 seconds off already made me very happy indeed. Feeling quite pleased with that.
Cycling - the race is in 65 days so I need to get my arse into gear for that.
Got my BMI and body fat % down into the next number. Still a fat knacker, but a little less so.

Gratuitous food shot - sorry.
I made american style pancakes with slightly tired strawberries and my home made dandelion jam
that didn't set and is more like dandelion syrup. It's kind of like runny honey. Nice, but dead sickly.

Right, dunno about you but I am bored now, so bye for now. Hopefully my next update might be a little bit sooner.

I were right abaht that saddle though

Oh dear, nearly two weeks since my last update and there's very little to tell you.
Weight loss minimal, been off sick for 3 days with some crappy virus that made me lose my voice but the important bit is..
I got the bike finished!!!
After a minor headset catastrophe (as in, the one I had was not complete)  - and I thought I was going to have to go for a hardcore off road ride with the girlies on the Halfords hybrid bike. That could have been interesting, but as it happens I got her finished in the nick of time.

My precious

And as it also happens, because of illness - not all of it alcohol related - I baled on the ride, instead opting to ride the 28 miles home from Bakewell because I woke up ridiculously early and I am crap at being quiet.
I mailed J before I set off and then just as I got to the other side of Bakewell he texted to see whether I wanted picking up. I was actually quite prepared to ride all the way home - I wouldn't have set off in teh first place if I hadn't been - but he offered and I was ill... I made it to the other side of Calver, half way up that big old hill, when he got to me.
I went back to bed for the rest of the day. Poorly and almost mute.
I had Monday booked off as holiday so I (stupidly?) went for an 18 miler with the boys and Bimbenstein was great.
See...

At Wyming Brook, waiting for the boys.

 She is a much more suitable size for me and even though she's going to take some getting used to with different gear ratios etc I don't think near-silent gear changes and not kneeing myself in the boobs is ever going to get old... The only problems were a pedal crank that insisted on coming loose and the fact that I had put one of J's old but expensive saddles on because it was to hand and I think it was designed for little boys with slender bottoms, because my fat bird arse was killing when I got home.

As painful as it is, I think the saddle that says Windie on it is going to have to go on the bike. It's like it was made for me. In more ways than one...

Bits of news

Not got a lot to tell you - the bike building has stalled a bit and so has the exercise. Tut tut.
I've been under the weather a bit - I have a tendancy toward a little black cloud every now and again and J's oncology check was looming which always does a job on me.
Still, he had that on Tuesday and everything's looking okay. :-D
He saw the lovely Prof who looked after him throughout his treatment and she spent ages with him showing him his MRI pictures from before and during his treatment - apparently they weren't pretty. All okay so far though, at the third anniversary of his diagnosis. And to celebrate, the Prof has moved his checkups to 6 month intervals. That's quite reassuring, so hopefully now MY body will stop being such a wuss and the coldsores will heal and the motivation will kick in again. Here's hoping...

Despite the lack of exercise I *have* been trying to eat healthily and it looks like it might have helped. I weighed myself this morning and I have moved down into the next decade of kilograms - it's a big psychological boost seeing a smaller number up front. This shift means my BMI has also dropped into the next number down and best of all, my body fat % has too.
This doesn't mean I am slender yet, but it does mean I am headed in the right direction, and that's good enough for me.
For now.

On the bike front, the handlebars arrived and the general consensus is that they are huge, but they feel really comfy. I suppose the proof will come when I keep riding into trees/walls/cows and end up chopping the ends off the bars. The riding position feels promising though.

My pretty

A LOT less squashed up then on the old bike, and I CAN still hang my bum off the back of the saddle. Looking promising...

Right, I am off to Sherwood Forest to a company meeting and then off orienteering, apparently. I can't wait. Seriously!!

Project Funky Rhubarb* begins

I decided, in a moment of ambition, that I was going to build myself a new bike. I have an old bike with perfectly good stuff on, but the bike is just too small for me. I know I have been riding this bike for a few years now and you'd've thought I would have twigged that by now, but I didn't - but once I got it in my head that was it - I had to have a new bike.
However, there's nothing really wrong with the old one so I couldn't justify buying a new one.
I figured building my own would be a good way to learn about bike mechanicals and it'd be something cool to do. Like I said, ambitious...

Anyway, I found 'the frame' on Pinkbike.com and within 3 days of buying it, it arrived all bubblewrapped. You wouldn't believe how giddy I was.
This is what I got (I put my new forks in to show how the white and red forks didn't go and to justify therefore having it resprayed/powdercoated - more on that later):



It was a very pretty paint job, but it didn't go with the forks and, in honesty, I wanted a red bike!

I suspect the seller left the cranks and bottom bracket and the headset cups fitted because he couldn't get them off, because they took some elbow grease (and my 3rd ever proper bike tool - my shiny Park Tool crank remover) and creative use of a socket set extension and hammer to get them all off, but I did it. This gave me some confidence that actually I wasn't as inept as I feared. Woohoo!

I knew the frame had to be red and, after much research, I decided to get it powdercoated a nice shade of blood red, to go with the fork decals. Yes, I AM that girlie!!
I actually took Friday afternoon off work so I could take it to be done. I took it to a small company in Sheffield and was quite relieved to see them stripping a Cannondale frame as I went in. And even more flattered when the owner asked whether I was building it myself and was really impressed when I said yes. :-) I mentioned that the bottom bracket shell and all the other bolt hole MUST be masked well, that there must be no overspray on any of those bits.
J collected it on Thursday for me - I was 200 miles away at head office. Typical!! They sent me a photo and even in the bad lighting I could see red stuff in the BB shell!! And when I say red - it looked kind of salmon pink. Oh dear. I was dreading what I was going to get home to. :-S

I got home later that day and the frame DID look pink and it DID have overspray on the bottom bracket threads. Oh god. That threw me - how on earth was I, the mechanical numpty, going to deal with that. I decided it was going to have to go to the bike shop to have the threads retapped.




Funky Rhubarb. What am I going to do with a rhubarb coloured bike with fouled up bottom bracket threads??

So, what could I do until I could get to the bike shop to get them done? Refit the headset cups and the various clips and bolts that I took off. That took an entire lunch hour of breezeblocks, blocks of wood and my trusty hammer, but I did it. Again, a small victory and I was really relieved to see that, with a few black bits on the frame and the forks just pushed through and held in place with a temporary stem and my old wheels in it, it looked less pinky/more brick red. I could deal with that. Not quite my lovely blood red, but definitely better. And it was starting to look like a bike now too:

So, now it was time to deal with that overspray...
With the advice (sometimes conflicting) and calm reassurance from some of my friends, and mechanical support in the shape of J's brothers dremel, I attacked the threads gently and slowly but slowly, they started to come shiny and clean. J stayed to help for a little while, but I was fretting and bitching and it was safer in the end for him to retire to bed with his book. Ooops. Sorry Julian...

Anyway, another minor victory there meant I could fit the bottom bracket, the cranks and my SPD pedals.
I bought a new seat stem and borrowed J's old saddle, just for photographic purposes, and this is where I was by Saturday afternoon:

I am still not brave enough to cut the steerer tube but it will need doing at some point, but I can do it, I am not as useless as I first thought I was.

Next?
Well, I have ordered a set of white Felt decals and a set of black handlebars, so waiting for those to arrive, and the chap in the bike shop appears to have donated a gear cable guide so I need to pick up some gear cables, a chain and some handlebar grips and then I can start transferring the gubbins from my old bike. How very exciting!!
And after that, when it is all ready to ride, I will get some white Team Bimbo stickers made and the transformation will be complete.

Sorry if this was a bit of a long and boring read but I am just documenting the build process.

* The name Funky Rhubarb comes from my lovely friend Heather who, when she came out with that name, cheered me up no end and actually made me feel loads better about the colour, even if it wasn't quite what I expected.

Come on spring, do your thing!!

Bored with cold weather now. And having heating now means you're never quite sure just how freezing it is going to be when you finally get outside - although currently it is fair to assume that 'bloody cold' will do.

Anyway, the headlines - got my new bike frame and took it to be powdercoated. Very giddy because that *might* be ready to collect today. Also, got my body fat and BMI under my first targets I had set. Don't get me wrong, I am still a fat knacker, just slightly less so...

We went for a walk in Rivelin Valley on Saturday - took our cameras and had a nice pootle around, snapping pictures off here there and everywhere and it was nice. I think I have almost got my photography mojo back. Yay. I've missed it. I hope this is the start of me getting a bit of get up and go back because I am fed up of lacking the motivation to do even the slightest thing. Fingers crossed, eh.

Anyway - here is one of my pics from Saturday. It cheered me up when I saw these little fellas, made me feel a little bit like spring is almost here...

Exercise wise:
In the past week I have stuck to my press up and sit up plans, I have turboed twice, been for a real bike ride once, been for a walk with some fairly decent hills and been for a 'run' this morning (I think I actually did walk most of it today). I still don't like running but I did do my best time so far for the route I did. It's only 4.5km, but it is hilly and horrible and I took 2 minutes off my previous time. I don't think I will ever enjoy running but it is a very handy way to get a quick stint of exercise in, and no muddy bike to wash when I get back. Maybe when it is a bit warmer and I can go out in shorts I will change my mind, we'll see...

Right, I'm off to work now. Whoop.

Bimbo bike build

I've just bought myself a new bike frame - another hardtail, a Felt Q720. Nothing spectacular but a better size and a good price, so I can have it powder coated and made to look pretty. Pure bimbo style.
My current idea is have it done white, with replacement red decals, but I could have it done pink or green or any colour. Suggestions?
I am giddy and terrified in equal part. I have done 'bits' on my current bike, but I have never built one from scratch. Will be a good learning experience if nothing else.
Pictures to follow, I guess.

On the exercise front, I haven't done a lot this last week due to having possibly the worst cold I've ever had. :-( Poor me. We were going to ride yesterday but woke up to snow. BLOODY SNOW!!!
So I finally got out for a ride today with Julian and Graeme. We went along the canal towpath to Temple Newsam near Leeds - a mud fest to almost rival Wharny!
And in other news, in light of the bloody cold weather today I realised that my boobs have their own micro climate. It is the only explanation for my boobs being so cold I thought I might get frost bite. Or should that be frost nip? Ho ho.
I wonder if there is a market for big boob sportsbras with special pockets to slot in those hand warmer pouches you can buy? Who do I contact to find out?