Entries tagged with bike

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Myride

Today I went back for my spinning torture. Tried out Weight Management program B today. I preferred program A, I think. So, I'm all hot and sweaty again, but feel pretty good.

I also experimented with the excitement of going straight to the gym from work, using the Bus. Now I don't use buses very often (we didn't have them where I grew up, so I didn't use them at all until I went to University). I've lived in Reading for nearly 4 years, and today is the third time I've ever got on a Reading Bus. The main cross-town route goes straight to the entrance to my gym, you see, and in spite of traffic around the Prudential building, its much quicker than walking! I got to the gym about 5 mins before I normally get home when walking.

This meant I could get changed, get in the myride suite and be finished well before the spinning class started at 7pm. Which was good.

I did forget my headphones though, so Jamie had to cycle over to meet me at the door to give me some.

Entry tags:

Myride

So, as promised, I went to the gym after work and tried out the Myride indoor cycling facility.

The bloke gave me a quick introduction to the machine, as I'd never used it before. Its basically spinning class for one. There's a little DVD player/screen in front of the spinning bike, and you choose your workout from a wide range (they're all 5 min warm up, 20 min work out, 5 min cool down, so 30 mins in total).

I opted for the "weight management" workout, and did option A for all three sections. Which wasn't so bad. It talks about Borg Intensities quite a lot, which made my brain giggle at "Resistance is not futile" jokes. By the end of it I was extremely sweaty - it was a much harder work out than I'd have got if I'd just gone to the gym.

I feel pretty good now though, and will definately be doing it more!

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Icy!

So today's journey into work was possibly the most dangerous one I have ever done. My entire road (and both pavements) are made of ice. Its like a skating rink. I almost fell off my bike trying to get on the damn thing! Had another slip at the end of my road, as I turned onto Cholmeley Road. At the end of that road, next to Newtown Primary School, the road goes down a really short, steep hill to the tow-path by the canal. The gritting (if any) stops at School Terrace, so the hill is never gritted at all. One big sheet of ice. Fortunately, I'd already received a phone call from Jamie to warn me about it, so I knew to get off my bike (not before it had already slipped on the ice) and walk down the hill in the gutter, as this was the only place where the ice wasn't totally covering the road.

Once on the tow-path it wasn't so bad - icy, but as long as you went in a straight line and maintained a sensible speed it was ok. Was slightly late into the office, but thats the first time this week so I'm not too concerned!

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Wish the weather would make up its mind.

We've had snow, sleet, hail, every variation of frozen precipitation I can think of today. The floor is wet, so none of the more recent snow is sticking. So now its just irritating!

Everyone (well, mostly everyone) in work is now worrying about how they are going to get home - a lot of them use the Gatwick line to get home, and all the trains are cancelled.

I, of course, am unaffected by all this, as all I have to do is jump on my [freezing cold and wet] bike and cycle home through the icy slush.

I'm meant to be going to the gym tonight, but its cold and horrible outside and all I want to do is go home and curl up with Mr Fidget and my very excellent current reading material ("The Blade Itself" by Joe Abercrombie).

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Its like being inside a snow-globe

So walking home last night was somewhat treacherous, as the lovely powdery snow had been crushed beneath numerous boots and wheels, and had become a layer of icy, compacted snow. Jamie came to meet me by the lock, and we made it home without either of us falling over, which was nothing short of a miracle!

The kids on our street had been busy building a snowman, and had scraped a lot of the snow from the cars, but as they were only small, they couldnt reach a lot of it, so both our cars were still half covered.

This morning, I decided that cycling in to work was the better plan, as slightly melted, compacted icy snow having frozen further overnight does not equal a safe walking surface. So the cycle journey went without a mishap - my tyres are slightly flat at the moment which can only have helped.

Now I'm sitting in my nice warm office, with an almost full contingent of work colleagues. We've just had a massive heavy snow shower, which has coated the pavements very effectively, but its not sticking to the roads. It surprised me, because yesterday's forecast said no snow today. Today, the forecast is saying "snow today, no snow tomorrow".

Of course, now my bike is outside being snowed on, which isnt good. And I'm meant to be going to the gym tonight, so at least I get to cycle home on a gritted road which hopefully wont be as busy as usual, instead of risking my neck on the ice rink of a tow path.

Entry tags:

bike,
climbing

The morning after.

So having slept on it (somewhat awkwardly, as I couldnt really curl up on my left or my right sides), I am now in a better position to say just how injured I am from yesterday's "bike + black ice = ow" incident.

My hip hurts. The bruise which I was expecting is starting to show, but its currently the size of a very small thing, and completely overshadowed by last week's "Tinky + gate = ow" incident (at least, I think thats what it was, I don't really remember bashing into anything and now I have a massive bruise). However - far more irritating - the accident seems to have jarred my neck somewhat, and now all down the right side of my neck really hurts, and I can't really turn my head in any direction, so I'm having to walk around doing a "George Clooney as Batman" impression all the time.

If the neck doesnt improve, there will be no climbing tomorrow :-(

Entry tags:

bike

(no subject)

I am very disappointed with my bike accident this morning. When Jamie fell off his bike most recently, he had massive bruises everywhere, and huge grazes all up the sides of his leg and elbow.

Me - I get a graze you can barely see and no bruising at all and it just hurts when you poke it a bit.

Not fair!

Entry tags:

bike

Ow!

There was black ice on the cycle path this morning. I hit some. I fell off my bike. I landed mostly on my left hip, where I already have a suspicious bruise that appeared from nowhere last week. Just a slight graze, nothing serious, although I haven't thawed out yet. It might start hurting more when I warm up. We shall see.

My bike is ok, just the chain fell off, and it was too cold to stand around fixing it, so I shall have to walk home as well. Rubbish!

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And now for a proper update

Well, an update of sorts, as I really don't have much to update about!

Jamie has bought a new bike, as his old bike (the one we bought from halfords at the same time as my original bike-that-was-stolen) is now two years old and starting to die a little. And he keeps falling off it because its not great in bad conditions. So he has a bike which costs about 3 times as much as the old one did, and has all kinds of shiny kit on it, like Rock Shox front suspension, and Shimano posh hydraulic disc brakes. And its super light, cos its all made of aluminium, and its shiny and black and silver and very swish.

So he is very happy. Although it was very funny the other day when he was getting all excited about it and he said "I'm getting a bike for Christmas!!!", so I said "well if it's for Christmas, then you can't have it until Christmas Day, and I'm going to have to hide it somewhere in the house and wrap it up for you". So now he's getting a bike "near Christmas" so he can have it straight away! He's like a little kid, he's so excited.

He's also managed to sell his old bike already, to some guy in work. Which is great.

I am almost caught up on my work now, from being off for over a week (study leave, then exams, then lurgy-death). I did all the VAT reinvoicing for December, which nearly drove me mad, and now I am halfway through catching up on the cash allocations. By the end of tomorrow I should be caught up and able to function normally again! Next week will be a quiet one in work, because its coming up to Christmas so people are starting to be on holiday. Not me though, I ran out of holiday cos of all the studying I had to do, so I have to come to work next week, Mon - Weds (although I should get the afternoon off on Weds). Also the week after, between Xmas and new year, I have to be in the office, but hardly anyone else will be. In my little bit, I'll be all on my own as both N and I are off next week. I do have 2nd January off though, because I thought that was pointless.

Battled my way through the Woolies closing down sale today, to get hemming tape to fix Jamie's DJ trousers. 40% off! So i bought two packs :-) I think its a real shame Woolies is closing down, I will miss it. Plus I have no idea what will take its place here in town - a Wilkinsons would be handy as we don't have one of those, and it fills a similar useful niche. Don't know where else in town I would have thought of to go for my hemming tape, Woolies was my first choice.

Mr Fidget's Christmas present arrived in the post today, so I am looking forward to taking that home and wrapping it up for him tonight. Its a cat bed, which we're going to put on the dining table as he loves to sit on it and watch his territory out of the window. Hope he likes it! Otherwise it will be finding itself a new home in Swansea or Milton Keynes!

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Oh dear

Jamie fell off his bike on the way home. He bashed his right wrist, and grazed his left knee pretty nastily, and his left thigh as well. His left shoulder is also very sore. I don't think he's broken anything, although he may have cracked the bone in his wrist, we're going to see what its like in the morning, because we can't really face an evening up in casualty tonight!

He is being very pathetic about it. I put germoline on his grazes, and a big plaster on the graze on his knee, and cooked him a tasty tasty meal of mushroom, garlic and honey lamb steaks and jacket potatoes with loads of butter. Then we watched the Baa-baas playing Australia, because Shane Williams was playing for the Baa-baas.

We have also ordered our Christmas presents from Jamie's parents to us (they wired us the money today) - Jamie is getting the new season Osprey's replica shirt (he gets one every year), and I am getting a pink waterproof mp3 player.

Fidget continues to be ridiculously cute - I cannot sit down in this armchair of an evening without having him permanently attached to my legs in a variety of upside-down poses. And when we go to bed he spends the whole night alternately curled up and stretched out along my side/back. Its cute enough I suppose, but every now and again it gets very irritating!

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Oh no!

Morgan Freeman's been in a car crash! I hope he's ok, I like him.

In other news, today has been excessively dull. My left shoulder aches like anything, my right hamstring also aches and my right ankle has been a little wobbly, but not anywhere near as bad as yesterday. Damn my climbing without having done any real exercise for a couple of weeks!

Plan was for Jamie and me to go to the gym together tonight, but we are both too sore so we will be doing it tomorrow evening instead.

Which means this evening I can devote to planning house moving things.

On my agenda tonight - how to arrange my new desk! I have lots of stationery, and arts and crafts type materials, and they all need somewhere to live. also the important paperwork needs a sensible, organised, permanent home.

Today I bought my gamecube controllers and memory card (all in the sale in Game!) so now I'm just waiting for my games to turn up so I can play them to death :-) Want them to be here already! Will also be cool because they are both cooperative games, so Jamie and I can play together.

Wanted to play something tonight, but none of the PS2 or Playstation games we have are interesting enough.

Also, Jamie investigated new wheels today, and it looks like its only going to set us back £25 or so. Which is good.

Entry tags:

bike

I really dont believe this

We just popped to Tesco to see if they had any cool games for the PS2 or the Wii that we could buy to play this evening.

Cycled rather than drove for all the right reasons. Got to the store, parked up and locked the bikes right next to the shop, alongside some other bikes.

Went inside, were in there probably 20 mins tops. When we came out (minus any games, but plus kitchen foil and some oven chips!). we discovered that some usless little scrote has nicked Jamie's front wheel!

Jamie is understandably angry. Tesco staff were useless. Security camera was not pointing in correct direction. Noone saw a thing.

So we shall have to go to the cycle shop in town on Monday and find out how much a new wheel costs.

As I said to Jamie, at least its just the wheel and not the whole bike gone. Or both bikes gone, which would have been even worse.

But he is too upset/angry about it to listen to my logic at the moment.

Reading sucks! There's far too much crime! In the last three years we've suffered from:

numberplate stolen from my car
wing mirror vandalised on my car
my bike stolen
Jamie's car broken into and only not stolen by virtue of its immobiliser
Jamie's bike wheel stolen.

Thats five crimes in three years, that just us two people have suffered.

Thats ludicrous! We shouldnt have to live in a society where this is normal!!! (in all cases, crimes unresolved. Police informed on three occasions, were kinda helpful but couldnt really do anything about it).