DORSET BPC SPRING STATIC- FINAL DAY

After the good weather enjoyed by everyone yesterday we awoke to a much colder day today. It started off cloudy but by the time that it took for me to consume another 'Hungry Camper' breakfast the sun had broken through. A second cup of coffee and a chat with Howard and the day had started to warm up.

After the usual last minute conversations club members headed off in various directions for their return trips home. Some left on foot but the majority were on two wheels.

Mike-Chris-Peter and I were the last to leave. We all cycled back to Wimborne together where Mike and Chris headed off towards Colehill and Peter and I carried on through Wimborne until we got to the Merley traffic lights- Peter headed onto the Castleman Trailway and I stuck to the roads being an out and out Roadie!!

In all it was a great weekend- great to see old friends again and great to have such good weather.

DORSET BPC SPRING STATIC DAY 2.

The walkers left for their walk about 0945hrs this morning but not until a large full english breakfast had been consumed by most of us. Those of us cycling didnt leave for our day ride until about 1045hrs. Because I was the only cyclist that had a cooked breakfast the other two wheelers page that i would not manage the hills! Well the truth was a little different as the picture shows- its not me walking up the last section of the hill. We cycled to Old Wardour Castle and it must be said that it was a hilly route including a 1 in 5 that even with the breakfast I was the only one of us that managed it to the top. A pleasant couple of hours was spent at the castle followed by a very interesting return route that included bridleway and single track pushing the tourers to their limits. When we got back to the farm the walkers were already back and the Hampshire group had also arrived. The cyclists now outnumber the walkers. Eleven cyclists and six walkers. This is the first time that I can remember the cyclists outnumbering the walkers at a Dorset meet.

Dorset BPC Spring Static. Day 1.

Arrived at Church Farm Sixpenny Handley early afternoon. There are about ten members here for the first night. About half are cycling and the others are on foot. The weather seems set fair for the weekend. This evening was fish and chips followed by the pub. Tomorrow we have one group walking the rest of us are cycling for the day. Tomorrow evening we should be joined by the Hampshire group who are on a weekend Cyclepacking trip so we will have even more bikes!

EXHAUSTED....!

Yesterday started with an early morning trip to the cancer clinic in order for me to have a drug implant. After I had the implant one of the other guys asked me what I planned on doing for the rest of the day-he looked aghast when I told him that I was meeting a mate for a days cycling. He said 'you do know that these implants can make you feel really tired? I am going home for a rest'.

When I got home I must admit that I didn't feel 100%. I had also got a really bad chest cold and a sore throat-a cycle ride obviously wasn't the very best of ideas- however 1030hrs saw me meeting up with JD at the Studland ferry for our weekly ride.
JD was eager to try out the component upgrades that he had made to his tourer so the hilliest route we could think of was chosen - Creech was one of the hills along our route standing proud with it's 20% elevation road sign. At the bottom JD said 'I don't really want to do this' but we set off up the hill anyway. When I got to the top I dismounted and waited for JD- a couple of minutes later JD appeared with his legs spinning in his new 'extra' granny gear and he was actually singing-yes singing to the hill as he made his way to the top. The one thing that you can say about JD is that he never fails to surprise. Who would have thought a couple of years ago when JD got into cycling that he would turn out to be the cyclist that he has become. LEJOG and the ACCR is under his belt with another big endurance ride planned for next year and he is out each week for a ride with me- he is in fact one of the more consistent of my ex work colleagues as far as cycling is concerned. Something else that I have noticed is that he is averaging faster speeds-all good stuff.

JD and I ended up with a total distance of 61 miles BUT I paid the price as I finished exhausted. Even when we did LEJOG and the ACCR last year I never felt as tired as I did at the end of yesterdays ride. Lesson to learn? Probably not a good idea to go for a sixty mile ride if you have a really bad chest cold and have had a huge implant of drugs before you ride -but I will probably forget this next time around.

Tommorrow I am cycling over to the BPC Dorset Group spring static weekend meet. I hope to make some postings about the meet over the weekend-the weather forecast seems to look good.

FIRST WEIGHT LOSS GOAL ACHIEVED.

The posting I made on this blog on the 19th February highlighted the fact that I was making a concerted effort to lose weight. Mid December 2009 I was suprised to find that I had allowed my weight to spiral to 15 stone. There were reasons for the weight increase but as this was the heaviest that I had ever been I decided straight away that I WAS going to shed the surplus weight.
I read up as much information about the science of weight loss and took advice from a sports coach and a nutritionist and eventually came up with a programme to lose the weight.
On this blog on 19th February I set out what I hoped to achieve and the dates for these target weights.
The first one was 12 stone 7 pounds to be achieved by 31st March. Yesterday I stood on the scales (now a weekly routine) and right on the button I had achieved this first weight target.
I have detailed broadly the method I have used in the comments section of the posting on 19th February.
My experience of losing weight is that it is not difficult. The thing that is difficult is sticking to the plan.-you do need to be disciplined. I believe that it is not enough to say 'I am going to lose some weight' this just isn't specific enough- you need to set out your goals in a similar way that I did with the dates that you intend to achieve your goals by.
To lose weight you will probably need to make some major nutritional changes to your regular eating pattern-after all your current diet is one of the reasons for the fact that you are overweight-that and the possibility of insufficient exercise. Lets face it drinking loads of beer and eating lots of chocolate and cakes and walking or cycling an extra 3hours each week is not going to get rid of the flab. I have become almost obsessive about how many calories I am eating and I am staggered that I used to eat an entire chocolate bar (900/1000kcals) in one 30 minute sitting-no wonder that I had put on the weight.
And from here-what now? Well I will continue with the diet until I hit my next target of 11stone 11pounds on the 9th May- after that I will taper the diet losing weight more slowly until my final weight target of 11stone is achieved by mid August.
I hope that my observations are of use to those of you who are planning to lose some weight.

A GOOD WEEK.

Well that's the end of another good week on the cycling front. I managed to get a good few more miles under the belt although a lot of it was spent dodging rain and potholes.

On Wednesday I went out for a ride with Neil another of my ex colleagues from when I had to work for a living.

Now Neil has the build of a small jockey and he can't weigh more than about nine stone so he is perfectly suited to climbing. He went up the hills like a ferret up a pipe and I must admit that I was hard pushed to hold his wheel up the steeper climbs. However I did manage to stay with him on the hills producing a better average speed over the overall loop. All things considered I was well pleased with my performance.

The picture? Just another of the cycle parking facilities seen on my rides during the week. Not quite up to the deluxe parking provided for bikes at the hospital (as shown in my last posting)but at least it has half a roof !!

OUT AGAIN

Followimg my solo ride on Monday I had a hospital appointment for more of the dreaded treatment on Tuesday.

While I was there I noticed that they have some quite deluxe style cycle parking facilities. I might well start cycling to and from the hospital and save myself the hassle of trying to park the car in a jam packed car park as well as saving myself the parking fee.

On Wednesday I was out again on the bike with JD. We went over on the Studland ferry and followed the route through Studland to Corfe and from there we cycled on to Wool where we had a coffee break. On the return we went through Corfe and carried on to Swanage and back to the ferry from there. My total distance was 46 miles. Considering the treatment that I'd had the day before I was reasonably pleased with my average speed of 14.1 miles an hour. The route gave us a total ascent of 3567ft.

We had a good ride but the wind always seemed to be in our faces and it was colder than we would have liked.