Club 10 mile championships on V212 last night. I was fastest lady by a little over 2 minutes and took about a minute off my course best.

25.56 – it’s very much not a fast course (fastest time by a club member was a 22, not sure if any guests went faster. But I don’t think anyone has ever broken 20 on it).

I am 2 years older than my sister. When she was maybe 2 or 3 (definitely under 4 as we moved house then) I taught her how to lock the door of the downstairs loo.

I then encouraged her to try it alone. With the light off. She managed to lock it ok but the fire brigade were needed to get her out again…

I flew Manchester to gran canaria and back last week hand luggage only. My cycling shoes (look keo cleats) were fine but they took my Allen keys off me. I actually also had a spare set of cleats as well as the ones attached to the shoes and they didn’t have an issue with those either.

Guilty. I’m a roadie. I started hanging round here when I bought a MTB. I rode it a few times. The last time was well over a year ago, since I bought a cross bike that fills my off road needs. I don’t do technical. But I still keep on popping in.

I have an amdro in a berlingo. Not a full on camper by any means but with a decathlon pop up awning 2 of us toured round belgium for a couple of weeks with no issues. I needed to get a towbar bike rack as there’s not much room inside for the bikes once the amdro is in, but I would really recommend it.

It was a bit windier than I’d have liked but it was from a vaguely helpful direction so not too bad. The last stretch was a minute slower than I’ve done it in the past but the start was blisteringly fast for that course.

Tonight went surprisingly well. Fastest ride of the year by a long way, and an all time pb on that course by 4 seconds. So far this year I hadn’t got close to last year’s times but the miles I’ve put in on the bike over the last four weeks seem to have really helped 🙂

We use the Decathlon one linked. It doesn’t attach to the van, but works well as a shelter/storage space and is dead easy to erect/take down. Not being attached gives a bit more flexibility as to how we position things on a pitch. We’ve just done 2 weeks touring round Belgium with plenty of heavy rain and it was absolutely perfect.

I’m getting back on the TT bike for the first time in a month tonight. I’ve been on holiday and am currently having a break between jobs which means I’m more inclined to go out for a long ride on the roadie than I am to do an evening TT. But we’ve got a couple of club championship races in the next couple of weeks so I want another ride on the TT bike before then to remind me what I’m meant to be doing!

I’m not sure that the 75 miles I did yesterday will help overly much, but we’ll see!

I’m having a mini spending freeze at the moment. I’m between jobs and not getting paid at the moment and although it was entirely planned and budgeted for, I’m aware that even once I start the new job at the end of the month I’ve got a couple of years where I’ll be the easiest/cheapest person to get rid of if anything hits the fan.

In theory it shouldn’t as Brexit may actually lead to an increase in demand for what I do, and I do have a buffer, but I’m just keeping an eye on things for now.

Watching with interest as we’re off to Belgium for a couple of weeks on Saturday. I have no useful advice as it’s our first trip but we’re taking road bikes and somewhat flexible about where we end up (camping). The Tour of Flanders stuff is definitely on the list.

V718. First time on it.

New 10 mile pb today and subject to confirmation it’s a ladies club record 🙂 23.17 🙂

The only slight downer is that the event was abandoned part way through so the other woman from the club who was riding (who was also likely to break the record) didn’t ride so I don’t quite feel like I got it fairly.

My OH and I both cycle to work most days, and we’ve both spent decent periods of time car free – I don’t think he’s ever had a car and I didn’t have one for a few years before I met him. We now do have a car between us, but it mainly gets used for transporting bikes from one place to another.

Parking will be the killer for me. At my current job I have a parking pass for the multi storey next door so when I do drive in I’m just spending a minimal amount on fuel because my commute is fairly short and I own the car anyway. I’m moving to a new job two doors away with no parking included. The rate displayed at the entrance of the multi storey is about £20 per day 😯

OK, I won’t actually park there and I’m sure that there is cheaper parking if I’m prepared to walk a short way, but by the time I’ve done that I may as well cycle right to the door unless I actually need the car (usually because we’re heading off somewhere straight from work).

The grant will tell you who has been granted probate (the executor). They are responsible for distributing the assets and sorting stuff out. If a solicitor is dealing with it, their name will be on there. If someone else is doing it then you will find out who.

I *think* (currently applying for a grant and haven’t received it to see what the doc looks like so not 100% sure) that the grant may have a copy of the will attached, which will be the “grant and will” mentioned.

In my mum’s case my dad and a solicitor were named in the will itself, but the solicitor renounced the appointment and my dad is doing it alone (with my help) so just because a solicitor is named in the will it doesn’t mean they’re acting.

New 25 mile pb for me -1.07.32. Not a fast course but the other two I’ve done were even hillier! gradually closing the gap on my other half which is nice.

V237. I wanted to get another 25 in before the club championship 25 in a couple of weeks. Got told last night that it’s “horrible, hilly and roundabouty” so we’ll see how that goes.

V718 next weekend though – got my acceptance through last night. I’ve never ridden it before so it will be interesting to see how fast it is.

And possibly V810 on Tuesday, although it’s my birthday so I might opt for eating cake and drinking wine instead.

When I ordered my C2W bike there was one showing as in stock at a relatively local store so I opted to pick it up from that store. It’s a bit more of a faff to get to, but worth it to get my hands on the bike a bit quicker. After a few days I’d heard nothing despite it saying available to collect next day or something similar and got in touch to find out that it had been sent back to the main distribution centre and would then be sent back to them, which delayed the whole thing by about a week.

Grrrr!

(And then there was the time when I tried to by a Croix de Fer from them. It turned up with a dent in the frame and the wrong pedals. I had to get the spec on screen and point at where it came with SPDs to get them to believe me that it shouldn’t have flats on it. I didn’t buy it in the end due to the dent, and they didn’t have any more of that size in stock)

I’ve tried a few things and now seem to have settled on a road bike (Trek Domane) with mudguards, rack, SPDs and gatorskins (23mm at the moment – 25s fit but not with the mudguards I got – they did fit with my old guards but when I got a new set after the old ones cracked I ended up having to fit narrower tyres).

I carry tubes etc but my commute is short enough to push the bike either the rest of the way home or to work if I really need to (approx 5 mile commute so I’m never much more than a couple of miles from one end or the other of it, and there are bike shops en route to replenish supplies).

The bike has bottle cages but I only really use them if I’m doing an extended commute (or if it’s performing its alternative role as my winter bike).

Normal gears and rim brakes. I did have an alfine hubbed disk braked commuter at one point, but although it didn’t require much maintenance, when it did it was a lot more faffy than this set up.

Mainly cash. I have 8 bikes. 6 of them were cash (technically credit card but paid off on the next statement due date so no interest charged), 1 was C2W and 1 was 0% finance (with the money in the bank to cover it).

I’ve only started taking this more seriously in the last year or so. At the moment I’ve got a decent but not exceptional (for my age) sum in my workplace pension and a similar amount of equity in my house. That’s probably 80% of my total net worth.

Of what’s left about 10% is in cash ISAs, 5% in high interest current accounts and 5% in a stocks and shares ISA (invested in Vanguard Lifestrategy). I’m trying to put most of the “new” savings into S&S as my cash savings are sufficient to act as a decent emergency fund.

I often wonder this. In particular what is the point of advisory cycle lanes without solid lines. There’s one on my road. Mainly, I suspect, because it’s a wide quiet road where it was easy to add lanes to hit a target without inconveniencing anyone. Cynical? Anyway, on one side of the road in particular people always park in it. There’s nothing stopping them, there’s no enforcement, so the lane may as well not be there. I tend to ride right up the middle of the lane to make a point rather than dodging in and out of it(the road is still wide enough that cars can pass me).

The other thing I’m struggling with at the moment is actually *not* being left hooked. There are a couple of junctions in particular where cars overtake me then try to turn left, they are aware that I’m in the cycle lane so they slow down or stop expecting me to go first. The thing is that I’m riding sensibly and carefully and virtually never go down the left of a vehicle indicating left. So I come to a stop too. Which then tends to lead to a bit of dithering around who dares go first. Meaning that it would have been quicker if the car had just waited behind me in the first place.

Oh, and don’t forget the time when a car was dropping a passenger off, knew that I was in the cycle lane so rather than pulling up to the kerb pulled up to the edge of the cycle lane. Meaning that the passenger door would get opened straight into it. So I still had to go round the outside, but I was now going further out than I would have done had he just pulled into the lane. Not a major issue, I’m confident and aware enough to do that, but it does make you wonder about how safe the lanes are – even when drivers see that you’re using one they seem to struggle to work out what to do…

I *do* use them, but mainly in places where they coincide with the road position I’d have taken anyway.

Personally I’d think you’ll be better giving the bike back – on a 1k bike c2w is only worth it if you stick with your employer for 6 years so the residual value is 0. Otherwise your better off with 0% finance on a one year old model.

Do you have to stay with your employer for the full 6 years though? For mine the bike is owned by Evans who lease it to my employer who lease it to me. After a year I enter into an extended hire direct with Evans (or that’s how I understand it to work). The employer falls out of the picture.

Just coming up to the end of my contract and currently working my notice so I hope I’ve got it right! C2W scheme ends at the end of this month and I leave in July…

They’ve surface dressed it…

Recce of V810 today – we have an interclub event on it later in the month and I wanted to see just how bad the hills are – it’s very much a sporting course!

Gave the legs a nice ride out after yesterday’s race – I don’t do that much bunch racing, and my talents are more suited to TTs (I’m basically a big diesel who can’t sprint and I just end up towing people along rather than having the kick to get a gap…), but it was good fun – I stuck with the bunch to the end (actually with it and thinking about my positioning in it rather than yo-yoing off the back!) but had nothing in the sprint. And more importantly no crashes after quite a nasty one in my biggest bunch race last season.

Sadly the course ran out before I got to use that “saved” energy! It was downhill with a tailwind too so while it was an easy stretch I reckon I could have gone faster without the traffic.

Plenty of e1234s if you’re female…

Mixed ride tonight on the club 12.5 mile route. It was tough conditions (headwind up a stiff climb) but I wasn’t dropping too much time on last week’s ride which had been in fast conditions. Then I got stuck behind a queue of traffic that was stuck behind a tractor that was stuck behind a slower rider. Spent about 2 miles sitting up and covering the brakes with a fair amount of freewheeling, and was rather frustrated at the end.

I was then cheered up by the fact that I was still much closer to last week’s time than most people!

No TT this weekend, doing my first circuit race of the season. E1234. Lovely… (Although to be fair all the pre-entries seem to be 3 and 4).

Crap ride on the club event on Thursday but I’ve just made up for it with a new 10 mile pb of 24.39. Very happy with that!

I went at lunchtime – queued for an hour or so to get in, but someone I knew came out while I was queuing – she’d got into the queue at 9.30 and was only just leaving.

I got shorts and a gilet, could have picked up a bit more but that was as much as I wanted to spend. I am female though – there was a lot of XXS but they did have a decent selection of other sizes. I needed to get back to work so didn’t spend as long rummaging as I could have once I’d found the bits and pieces I’d actually turned up for.

I also use YNAB – I was put off a bit when I started because I didn’t feel like I “needed” a budget – I could cover all my bills fine, it was just that I wasn’t saving as much as I’d have liked. But it really has helped and I’ve saved so much more in the 12 months I’ve been using it than I used to – despite buying 2 new bikes in that period ( 😳 )

I did mine (both bones, down by the ankle) when I was in my early 20s. Pinned and plated (still in there). That ankle has been noticeably bigger than the other ever since and has a restricted range of movement.

For a while it didn’t bother me too much once I’d got through the recovery stage. I ran marathons (I even got a good for age time at one point) and ultras, and it wasn’t much of an issue. I then got a hamstring issue which I just can’t shift (we are talking about 5+ years of it coming back every time I try to start running again) which essentially seems to be a slight non-alignment of the foot/ankle causing issues back up my leg.

The good news is that cycling is fine now I’ve spent a bit of time setting up my bike. Being clipped in is not an issue at all.

Not sure whether I’m riding tonight – first club TT of the season but the weather forecast is horrendous and the organiser has said it will be cancelled if what they have predicted actually arrives. If I do ride it will mainly be to refamiliarise myself with the course – I’ll be on a road bike in full on winter kit. The skinsuit and TT bike can wait til it gets a bit warmer!

(plus points are allocated depending on how much you improve your time so starting with a slow one isn’t necessarily a bad thing :wink:)

1.11.46 at my 25 was enough for 3rd lady, it’s not a particularly fast course but I went 3-4 minutes faster than my only previous 25 on an equally slow course. I struggled a bit with the position towards the end as I’ve never done a ride that long on the TT bike before. Was glad of the climb near the end for an excuse to get out of the saddle!

Cold but not as windy as last week and it stayed dry so I can’t complain too much.

Second season for me. Last year I started on a road bike (no clip ons) and finished as fastest lady on our club TT course and overall ladies champion. And I bought a TT bike.

Only one race so far this year – my first open. Nowhere near a PB (horrendous weather conditions on a slow course) but 90 seconds faster than my main rival in the club and we picked up the ladies team prize.

I’ve got a 25 at the weekend. Only my second ever 25 and it will be the longest I’ve ever ridden the TT bike for. Then the club races start next Thursday so that will be pretty much every week til August.

I’ve also got a place in a 10 on a much faster course in May so it will be interesting to see how that goes – I’ve got my eyes on the club 10 mile ladies record – it was set by main rival at the end of last season at a time when I was consistently beating her when we went head to head but not brave enough to venture onto a dual carriageway so I was only riding slow courses and she was riding fast ones.

Easily, I’ve started getting a lot more careful about tracking my money over the last year or so , and I don’t have kids which helps 😉

Not amazing but better than many. I’m 37, last year’s statement said there was around £70k in my company pension, with another £20k or so in long term savings/investments elsewhere. Mortgage should be paid off within 10 years. There may be an inheritance in the next few years to help things along (my sister and I are my grandfather’s only living relatives).

I’m about to start a new job so intending to bump up contribution levels a bit more when setting up the new arrangements.

I always find it far worse in the rain – I’ve always assumed that this is for the reasons scotroutes suggests.

Set off for a ride to try to get me more comfortable on a bike I hadn’t really taken to. Bars wider than I was used to. The entrance to the trail was a hundred metres or so further down the road from where we’d parked.

Set off, took an arm off the bars to indicate the right turn while looking behind me, yanked the other end of the bar more than I’d intended and tipped myself into the road. Very sore ribs for a few weeks after that one…

My grandparents are at two extremes of the scale.

My mum’s dad lives alone, and he only leaves the house on christmas day, for doctors appointments or funerals. Carer comes in twice a day to get him into/out of bed, my sister (who lives close) does his shopping. Utterly miserable and although there’s nothing medically wrong with him (just general old age) he’s constantly complaining about how he feels.

My dad’s mum is a couple of years older (turns 90 this year) and is constantly out and about doing stuff. Dealt with breast cancer twenty years or so ago, and is now mentally and physically in decent shape. My uncle lives with her and she’s out seeing people more often than he is. Still travels abroad fairly regularly too (two of her three sons have emigrated).

Where things actually get more tricky is my dad. My mum died last year, and they live abroad. It’s quite hard for me and my sister to keep an eye on him because he’s so far away and although he seems to be dealing with things OK he’s not the most communicative so it’s hard to tell sometimes. Healthwise he’s fine other than a bad back (early 60s) but I worry about him financially. He sold up in the UK to buy a business and although it provides him with enough of an income to live on, I’m not sure whether the proceeds of selling it (which he’s looking to do) will be enough for him to live on in retirement.

It then gets a bit sensitive because mum and dad’s retirement plan had apparently been to live in her dad’s house once he dies, meaning the funds he does have would go further. That was always dependent on him not having to sell it to fund care, but is rather trickier now as it comes straight to me and my sister, cutting him out of the loop. I’m not saying we wouldn’t let him live there, but our first instinct had been that we would sell it to clear off our own mortgages.