I’ve had a bit of a pants old week of it: I’ve had the third set of bikes nicked from my house, with my Trek EX 9.8 and (unridden) GT Zaskar Carbon being lifted through the roof having had the locked angle ground away…

I’ve had a properly hard year of trying to get work sorted and going – I’ve recently taken a job in Cardiff, meaning a commute every day (or so) from Bristol – it’s not as bad as it sounds as I live in north Bristol.

However, that’s the bad news – resulting in a bit of a belly, no real leg strength at all and a pining for the trails again. I still have my road bike and I’ve just bought a set of Mavic Cosmic Elites for it, and looking forward to trying that out.

The good news? I just found out my newly renovated local has Doom Bar on tap now, and it’s £3 a pint. Bargain. I’m drinking it as we speak.

So, how can you help? You can help get a grizzled 4x Mega vet back onto the bike and really wanting to push through the pain again?

I’m toying with a bit more road biking than before, mainly because I now have 2 young girls – 2yrs and 4yrs, and they suck up a lot of time – I know that much of my riding will need to be on the turbo or at night.

So, come on, get me fired up again – I miss you lot, tell me how you got back into it.

I’ll add, one of my downsides is I get depressed easily – and I know riding gets me back to feeling better – but the first steps are always really hard…

/tumbleweed

Hang on. I just saw, woah, PACE just released a new 853 frame?

This might just be what I need…

Hi Neil,

Sorry to hear about your recent thefts, I can’t believe the run of bad luck you’ve had with bike thefts.

I went through similar periods of losing interest when other priorities took over, work and family commitments.

It was really good to see you at Afan recently, brought back some good memories of when we used to work together.

Wanting to regain your fitness and get out there is the first step. I see you use Strava , building the miles up and beating and improving on your own performances aethe beginning.

You will get back to some respectable fitness it will just be small steps at a time.

Keep your chin up mate.

Dude with that sort of bad luck you don’t need a Pace in your life.

Hang tough. all riding is good riding:-)

Third set of bikes stolen? Blimey, reckon it’s time to move as that city has quite a reputation for theft.

Start riding now whilst there’s some sunny days then it won’t be so daunting when the seasons change. Good luck. 🙂

I’m going all in now for an Asgard Annexe and changing where the bikes are stored. Hopefully that and a 19mm chain will do the trick.

Denis – it was a delight to see you the other day; you are an inspiration of how a retirement should be spent, and I’d love to get out for a ride with you on your local trails to catch up properly – it’s a shame that I won’t be on the Trek!

The Pace looks like a wonderful alternative to my old Cotic Soul that I had – with an XT running gear and a set of nice forks, I reckon it’ll be perfect for the UK…

ps it’s never been about losing interest; more about not enough time 🙁

How about entering an event . Makes those nights on the turbo a bit easier if you have a reason to do it .

Night riding is some of the best fun you can have on a bike IMHO. Do you have any mates you can do a regular night ride with, there’s a group of 5+ in my village and we ride on a Weds night with a pint at the end! HTH