Making me happy.

Well the Tour de France is proving to be the exciting sporting occasion that it always is. Each year it manages to be unpredictable and delivers what is always a great sporting event. Team Astana is showing that it is a real force to reckon with and has ridden well each day. My favourite team Garmin has featured on the podium in 3 of the first 4 stages. Bradley Wiggins managed a 3rd place on stage 1-Tyler Farrar took 2nd on stage 2 and the team itself came 2nd in todays team time trial which was the 4th stage. Lance Armstrong (Astana) is cycling with a style and power that is truly amazing when you consider that he has been retired for the past four years and Mark Cavendish (Columbia) is showing us yet again that he is the fastest sprinter in the world right now. At the present time Garmin riders are in the overall placings at 6th(Bradley Wiggins) and 10th(David Miller). All of this makes me happy.--

Something else that has made me happy over the past couple of weeks is all the messages and calls I have received offering me support and best wishes following my accident. These have come from members of the Backpackers club and other areas of the outdoors scene as well as people that I have got to know in the cycling world. It makes me happy to realise how lucky I am to know such nice and thoughtful people. A big thank you to each and every one of you.

Latest Update.

This picture was taken just a couple of hours after we had arrived back in the UK at the end of our ACCR. It shows Jason and John with their bikes aboard the Starcross ferry. Little did we all know that about 30mins later our ride would come to an abrupt end when I had my accident. Exeter hospital was not where we had expected to be that evening. --In the past few days my situation has deteriorated. It would seem that after all the full on activity of the ride itself and then my left arm being totally immobile following the accident and the subsequent collarbone and multiple rib fractures I now have a Thrombosis in my left arm. I woke up on Friday morning and my left arm had blown up like the michelin man. It had grown so huge that it didn't look like my arm at all. In fact I am convinced it belongs to someone else. Anyway the upshot was that my GP had me down the hospital before my feet could touch the ground. I now have daily hospital visits while they try to establish the correct levels of warfarin that I need to be on in order to treat this condition-this situation could continue for a further six months which isn't a great prospect to look forward to. Anyway just before leaving home this morning for my hospital visit I had a phone call from John. John told me that he has decided to upgrade the wheels on his bike following all his broken spokes in France. Apparently he went to Bicycle World at Longham as I had recommended them. They are the Felt dealers who have my new bike in their store room awaiting my visit so they can build it up. They are going to build John a new set of wheels for his Revolution- as I said in a recent posting regarding John's wheels-it was only a matter of time ..!!

Good for a Laugh.

One of the good things about having someone like John on the team is that he is always ready to give us all a laugh. If he's not telling us one of his funny tales of the time he spent in the film industry he is cracking a joke or doing something that the rest of us find really humorous such as mentioned in yesterday's posting. One evening in France after a long and hot day the talk came around to the subject that is often on the minds of all long distance cyclists- that is the subject of CHAFING. Now chafing can be really painful especially as the temperture rises and the mileage mounts up. In order to help combat the problem most cyclists wear padded lycra shorts and a lot of us also use a cream that we apply either directly on the skin in those secret little places or else on the chamois pad of the shorts.During our evening discussion John told us that he wasn't using a chamois cream but he also let slip that he was wearing cotton underpants as well as his padded shorts. Now this is a total NO NO!! If you wear cotton underpants they will just absorb all your perspiration and all that dampness just helps to make you very sore indeed. The idea is to wear the padded chamois lycra shorts and NO underpants. Poor John - no wonder he had been suffering. When the rest of us had finished laughing (which took a good few minutes) John told us that he hadn't realised and that no one had explained this to him bearing in mind that he is not a cyclist as such. So between the bouts of laughter we explained to John all there is to know about the black art of wearing padded lycra shorts and the use of chamois cream. The following evening at the end of the day's ride we were suprised to see a large white greasy mark all over the rear end of John's shorts. When asked about it John explained that as he didn't have any chamios cream he had used baby nappy rash cream-more laughter. Unlike chamois cream the nappy rash cream is oily and is not absorbed by the pad in the same way that proper chamois cream is. By the end of the trip Jason and I could tell how far we had all cycled that day just by looking at the size of John's oily patch. The bigger the patch the further we had travelled. This proved almost as accurate as the bike computers. As I said at the beginning -you can always rely on John to give you a good laugh....!!!!

Broken Spokes.

When we were on the ACCT we all felt the frustration that John was feeling due to the high number of broken spokes that he suffered. This led us to the spectacle one afternoon of John in the main square of the village of St Emilion on his mobile phone to The Edinburgh Bicycle CoOperative telling them about the problems he was having. We heard him come out with phrases like 'What can you do to help me?' and 'Can we come to some arrangement?' Now I have always found the EBC to be most helpful but quite what John expected from them when they were nearly 1000miles away is difficult to understand. Anyway the final outcome was that on John's return to the UK he would return the wheel to them for checking and testing and they would either repair -rebuild or replace depending on what they found. I bet the poor guy at EBC had a red hot ear when he finally got to put the phone down that afternoon. Now to follow on from that- we had only been off the ferry for a few minutes on our return to good old blighty and had just passed through customs when John is straight on the phone to EBC again. Again I have no idea what he was hoping to achieve with yet another phone call to them but the final outcome of this call was the same as the previous one-he was to send the wheel off to them on the Monday and they would take it from there. Now that was two weeks ago. Did John send his wheel back to them? NO!!. After one very expensive mobile phone call from France and a second call the moment we got back to the UK he has not done anything about it. If he had sent it back on the Monday as agreed he would probably have a replacement by now- and he can't say that it would have meant his bike being off the road for a couple of weeks because he didn't ride his bike again until yesterday. MOST BIZARRE !!! The guy that repaired his wheel on the last occasion in France told him that the wheel was in desperate need of a rebuild so I will keep you informed of further developments on this story because it is only a matter of time.......................

First words of advice from the cycling oracle.

Here is a picture (apologies for poor quality) of Dave our broom wagon and support driver as mentioned in yesterday's posting. The photo was taken on board the ferry on our return trip from Spain. Dave had settled down for the night in his recliner-quite what the hoody is all about I am not sure although Dave did tell me it was to keep the light out of his eyes. Now I have to ask you-WOULD YOU TAKE CYCLING ADVICE FROM THIS MAN? Since his MBK hit the roads yesterday he is now known as the team's 'Cycling Oracle' and his first words of advice to me were to invest in a set of stabilisers for my bike- probably good advice considering recent events...!!

From Broom Wagon to Saddle.

Some weeks before we set off for France Dave Vaughan our broom wagon and team support driver acquired an old MBK bike that he was going to renovate. During our time away on the ACCR Dave told us various tales about the cycling he did when he was younger. Apparently he was quite something on a bike in days of yore.(I think in those days bikes had a big wheel in front with a very small one behind). Dave went on to tell us that our bikes have the gear change lever in the wrong place-apparently the only place for the gear change levers is on the down tube as fitted on his MBK. As well as pointing out to us where we were going wrong with our cycling technique he also explained to us that when he got the MBK on the road he would show us all how to ride a bike properly. Well today I received a text from Dave informing me that the MBK is now on the road. He has been out for a 'bike proving' run as he described it. I informed him that I would give him a 5 week headstart (my accident recovery period) and then we could tackle the 'hill of death' on the team's training circuit. This will now give me an even greater incentive to recover as soon as possible and perhaps I will then be able to learn how to ride a bike properly as taught by a master.............................!!!!!!!!!

Bike upgrade.

Prior to setting off on the ACCR and to celebrate my escape (early retirement) I decided to upgrade my sportive bike. I have always fancied having something mildly exotic - some guys buy themselves a fancy sports car- I am happy to settle for a superbike. After doing all the usual research that one does when considering a major purchase I decided that I would stick with the FELT brand and go for the top of the Z series range. I placed my order four days before heading out to France. Whilst in France I had a call from my Felt dealer informing me that the bike had arrived. It is still in the box and awaiting to be built up but it needs me in some level of fitness to visit the shop for measurements etc. The bike has the Z1 frame as used by half of the guys in the Slipstream Garmin Chipotle team and it features full Shimano Dura Ace components. The wheels it is supplied with are Mavic Ksyrium Equipe's which are very good and well thought of wheels. However I am going to run the bike with the Fulcrum Racing Zero wheelset that I purchased a couple of months ago. The Zero's- as well as costing three times more than the Mavic's- are lighter which is great for hills and acceleration and they also look great with their red anodised oversized spokes. I handed over almost as much for this bike as I did for the new car I purchased in April but it is a bit like taking delivery of a brand new Ferrari on the same day you receive a driving ban!! Due to the accident I am looking at another 5weeks at the earliest before I can even sit on the saddle.

My current sportive bike is now for sale. If anyone reading this is interested in a super Felt Z80
Sportive bike that has only covered 730 dry miles having never been out in the rain or damp conditions at half the price of the current Z80 and with a higher specification please contact me for more details. The bike is finished in a high gloss blue finish and part of it can be seen in the picture sporting the Fulcrum Racing Zero's. The other picture shows what my new bike will look like which is finished in gloss grey and clear carbon.