OK, advice required. Since my first race I’ve been doing TTs for the last couple of months and getting faster steadily, but struggling to find ladies 2/3/4 races. I’ve got one entered for September but there doesn’t seem to be anything at York (the closest closed circuit).

I’ve found a 2/3/4 race but it’s a bit more of a step up than I was hoping for at this stage. It’s 2 stages on the same day – the 2nd is a TT which is absolutely fine, but the first is a 42 mile road race. That’s rather more serious than 40 minutes on a closed circuit. Is that too much of a step up or should I just go for it and hope that other people get dropped too…

Moved up a group for today’s club ride. My normal group normally meander around sociably at about 13-15mph. Today was 76 miles at just short of 17mph. Happy with that 🙂

I bought the voyage for precisely this reason. Much prefer actual buttons.

I’m finding it hard to find races at the moment so sticking to TTs. Best result yet in the club 10 mile champs the other night – only my second 10 miler so a PB wasn’t unexpected but I didn’t expect to come in only 8 seconds behind the ladies winner when I was riding a road bike with clip ons and she was on a full TT set up with disc wheel. I have another race lined up in September but until then I’m struggling to find cat 4 ladies stuff I can get to.

I use them because (a) they taste better than plain water and (b) I sometimes get headaches particularly if it is warm or a hard ride and using electrolytes seems to help avoid this.

To work is 25-70 minutes on the bike depending which route I go. Usually 30 minutes on the bike on the way home.

I have a £50 gift voucher to spend. As the giver commented “I bought it, then realised it would only buy a sleeve”. Top it up with more cash or stick to socks?

I got the a1 forma last month on cycle to work. Liking it so far after one mixed terrain 40 miler and a few commutes.

When I claimed on travel insurance they insisted on having something from a doctor. I broke my ankle on the way to the airport for my return flight and phoned them on the way to hospital as it was clear that I’d miss my flight and I wanted to start the process. They refused to do anything until they had something from a doctor (even though going to see a doctor to get what they wanted made missing the flight inevitable!)

My other half went into a bike shop to buy tyres and came out with a bike. The problem was that 4 of us had driven to the shop (or more accurately popped in on the way home from elsewhere) in a C1 and we had to work out how to get the bike home in it 😀

Flying to stockholm tomorrow and hopefully hiring a bike on sunday.

Fly to Sweden on Saturday. From there to Finland and Estonia.

75 miles on the roadie. Lovely.

Club time trial later 🙂

I cycled home from work then did an hour on the turbo.

About 5 months of one or two lessons per week but with a month of in the middle, plus practice outside lessons (and a couple of sessions on a private road before I turned 17). I got through 2 instructors – the first one I was almost in tears by the end of a lesson whereas with the second one I was much better and ended up passing first time.

My mum workes in the same town as where I went to school (rural area) so I’d get 30 minutes or so each way every day with her once she felt confident enough in my driving to let me drive her car.

50%ish on:

Mortgage
utilities
car expenses (insurance/tax – no loan)
phone/broadband/sky/mobile/tv licence
insurance
council tax

Groceries, savings, gym membership, bikes etc come out of the other 50% No kids.

Yes that would be the bank of england. I work nearby and often see them arrive in leeds City centre.

Hired a motorhome. Crashed it within an hour. Excess down the drain.

I phoned BC this morning so the deed is done 🙂

I did my first race today 🙂 ladies cat 2/3/4 race at York. I was expecting to be dropped so am pretty pleased to have stuck with the bunch to the end. I have no sprint though!

Tiny field compared to the men’s race but still surprisingly good fun.

Considering upgrading from a provisional licence to full now…

Cash for me except one bike which was on 0% finance with enough cash in my bank account to pay it off immediately. Just worked better for cashflow that way. (Strictly speaking I do use credit cards but paid off in full each month). I do seem to have stopped buying bikes recently although some of my recent upgrades cost more than my cheaper bikes…

I suspect that the stats look even worse once you take into account the people who entered the long route and decided to switch to medium at Cullingworth – my OH was one of them.

Certainly when I went through Addingham at 1:23 on the medium route (2 minutes inside the cut off) there were plenty of people behind me. I’d overtaken plenty on the hill over from Silsden, not to mention the people who were already behind me at that stage.

I’d been delayed a bit by a puncture (did everyone who punctured get a motorbike stopping to supervise them fixing it or is it just because I’m a girl? 😉 ) and having to walk past the crashes after Goose Eye but knew I was slowing and decided to deploy local knowledge to cut out the Cow and Calf and rejoin the route at Pool – although I wanted to do the Cow and Calf for the atmosphere I also wanted to get to the finish and do the run in without being diverted/swept up and I knew that the two weren’t compatible given the state of my legs! The distance was roughly the same, but my route was a hell of a lot flatter.

Due off in about an hour and not looking forward to leaving the house to do so! It’s only 5 minutes away so I’ll leave it as lte as possible. I’ve also worked out a couple of short cuts if it doesn’t improve in the first hour or so.

Your Bike Shed. Although it might be a bit busy.

The standard Evans document definitely has the 14 day cooling off period in it – I read it earlier this week as we are looking at introducing the scheme and that was one of the points I checked. As far as I know the web process uses the standard doc.

Middle 9.38

York on Saturday. We were going to ride over there from home but I will be saving my legs I think – will probably drive to just outside York and then ride the last bit to save having to find somewhere closer to park.

We live in Roundhay so I’m doing the sportive (108k) then watching the finish. Depending on timings/the state of my legs/how crowded it is I may cycle back out to Black Hill or somewhere like that, but I suspect I’ll just dump the bike at home and head back down to the park.

I am always pleasantly surprised by how many car drivers treat me decently. There are a couple of places on my regular routes where I need to be in the right hand lane of a busy (but not too fast moving) multi-lane road. Almost without fail if I shoulder check and indicate confidently someone will slow down slightly to let me move out in front of them. I used to try to avoid these junctions or (in one case take the circuitous bike route across crossings) but most drivers are actually pretty decent.

I don’t seem to get too much verbal abuse, and when I do I can’t make out the words most of the time. Other than one slightly heated exchange where someone took the trouble to tell me that I should have been indicating when I was trying to negotiate a junction on a steepish descent where I needed my hands to brake. Pointing out that I’d looked and used road positioning to indicate my intentions, and as it was a t-junction on a fairly narrow road she’d need to wait behind me whichever way I was going didn’t seem to help.

The most idiotic conversation was with someone at work. She knows I cycle in and was commenting that she wished she was brave enough because it was quicker than driving.

“But there’s not enough room on the roads really. I always worry when I overtake cyclists because I have to go quite close to them.”

“So why are you overtaking them then if there isn’t enough room to do it safely?”

“They’ll make me late”

“But you just said that they’re faster overall. Chances are they’re only delaying your arrival at the next queue of traffic rather than actually making you significantly later…”

Is the cat blue and gold though…

I’m wondering if the app has updated and the new version doesn’t actually work – for the first time I’ve started getting notifications on the lock screen and when I uploaded the photo it said I could now add stickers to it.

Not working here. It let me upload a picture and notifications come through but news feed etc doesn’t work

Yes, skyscanner set to “anywhere”. I picked up a cheap long weekend in Croatia for later in the year using that approach.

Forest of Dean – MTB yesterday and road today. Not sure about the rest of the weekend yet.

I don’t think greens have much of a chance here, and I don’t agree with all their policies but I’m kind of tempted on the basis that it might give them a bit of a springboard to get a higher profile and a bit of momentum for the next election or the election after that. But still undecided.

We parked a couple of cars for 2 days near the top end of lowther street earlier this year and everything was fine.

My parents live out there and yes it’s been a crap winter. Certainly the worst in the 12 years they’ve been out there. I’m not sure if it’s started to improve yet though. It will, I’m sure, I just don’t know when.

How the **** can that (even on the driver’s account) not lesd to a conviction. Words fail me.

Except sweary ones.

It definitely got darker here. Cloudy, but at times the right consistency to act as a filter – taking the sting out of the sun but just about thin enough to see through it. A thicker cloud moved over just as the sliver of sun got to its thinnest though.