Category: Uncategorized

Moving into to the final week this has got to be the best Tour in a long time. Contador taking yellow when Schleck  had a mechanical doesn’t do justice to to what has gone on in the previous week. This is as good as it gets.
Lifes on hold at the moment, Etape was yesterday, be interesting to see how they faired.
6888 finished out of 10,000 with various comments about it being tougher than last year.

Back to the Tour  Stage 16 another cracking day and it’s not over yet.
Stage 17 Schleck beats Contador up Tourmalet by a wheel in what has been another great stage. Still 8 seconds behind with the time trial to come.
Torn between Eurosport and ITV4 for the coverage, Eurosport on a lot longer bit harder to differentiate between the commentary.

Monday: New arrival Benjamin Stuart Kinlan entered the world at 02:18. 8 lb 14 ounces. Work was pretty hectic with tank overflowing and a high level switch getting submersed in water which didn’t do the electronics any good.
Tuesday: Work but got off early to go and see the little fella with Val.
Tour De France is uppon us and at the moment I’ve no plans to see any of it. Promises to be a good race, rooting for Team Sky hence the replica kit I’ve bought.
Followed a few of the links that come in to the site and resolved to tidy the site up.
Wednesday: First day off, paid off some bills, played about with the site and I’m just about to head out to the Eureka for breakfast.
Thursday: More work on the house.
Friday: Out to the Eureka for Breakfast , explained FourSquare to Anne and how it worked. Dave (The Mayor of the Eureka) logged in later.
Anne gave me details of the 81st Eureka Anniverary ride  as I promised I’d put it up on the site. Chester for Mini bits, Eureka Cycle Sports on the way back and then back to the Eureka for another chat. 30 miles, was going to do more. Washed and cleaned the car.
Saturday: Rode to Chester via Missing Link, Capenhurst and the gated path to come out at Mollington. Picked up the paint for the car and rode back via the Dee cycle path and Saugall.
It was nice to sit outside in the sun chatting about bikes, rides and the Tour.
Another cyclist killed on the A5117 near where I had just ridden with another injured going to work. The police told Anne he wasn’t wearing a helmet, as if that would have made any difference. Keith Boardman turned up in sandals as he’d left his shoes in the car so no waving to him. Rule 43  a roadie shall not be permitted to wave or acknowledge another cyclist who wears shorts and sandals.

Page submenu,s are not working yet at least not in the way I want them to work. If your coming in from a link it shouldn’t be a problem. I’m working on it.

30 Jun Still editing bits and bobs around the site, deleted the Garmin page as there was no content on it. Same with maps, looked good to see all the rides when you start but 4 years down the line it’s not what people come to the site for.

I’m aware that the site upgrade is missing links to archive material mainly pictures and screenshots.  Aldi searches still come up with the site from 2 years ago so I need to keep it upto date just for the record. Some of the searches I’ve been doing  are going back a few years as that is when the kit was current.
My wheels are 2006  so current searches for Bontager Race Lite come up with the latest wheels by the shed load and nothing about mine. Google is good but it’s not infallible.

Starting to play around with menus as some of them are nested about eight deep and are off the screen. Links need sorting as the BHF don’t work again. Should keep me busy for a while.

It’s time for a fresh start with the new look blog. I’ve virtually stopped blogging and riding since my dad’s death last September.  He was immensley proud of my Etape ride, telling the nurses that this was his lad and he’s ridden a Tour de France stage on visits to intensive care.
One of the results of of the decrease in riding is that I’ve put on 10 Kg  and it shows. I’ve only got to look back at the archive to see what I’ve been capable of. 

Thanks to Paul for sorting out the re-direction to this blog which is hosted by WordPress.The old blog was hosted by SwitchMedia who told Paul about the Garmin searches that end up here. The 705 page is going to get a rewrite as I’m still on the first page of most 705 searches and usually the first non commercial one (which does stand out).  I’m still getting mail from Pakistan glove manufactures wanting to give me free samples of gloves following the Aldi cycle clothing reviews.

Rides: Used to be one of the sites strong points thanks to the early use of GPS.  Missing out on the first part of the season means next Sunday is going to be my fist 100 miler of the year. Many I talk to look to starting out on a charity ride as their start to becoming a cyclist, so I’m toying with Liverpool-Chester-Liverpool mainly because you get 5 miles of riding under the River Mersey. Normal service should be resumed in 2011.
The Bike: Now starting to show its age or at least parts of it are. I’ve been messing around with the rear wheel for a while now replacing bearings a couple of times only to find the axle worn, this wouldn’t have been too bad if during the course of the repair I hadn’t found three cracks in the rim.
Comments: Over 2000 of them which according to Paul is a lot.  The aim is to get back to you within a day.
Garmin Forum: The new site should allow me to implement this idea and get more of your input.
Pages: Going to get revamped. Content updated, links if they are broken, fixed.

The picture: Etape 2009 by the Simpson Memorial.

Test area for my original http://healthfocus-uk.co.uk/a%3E%C2%A0 blog which at 4 years old is looking a bit tired.

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Bought an Iphone at the weekend and this is a test of the WordPress app.

Mel Vasey was tragically killed at the weekend riding to the Eureka Cafe for a Birkenhead NorthEnd club ride. These picture were taken before one of the Christmas runs.

 http://www.bnecc.co.uk/

Condolances to his wife and family.

Mel and my paths crossed when I started looking at road bikes. I was about 19 to 20 stone and had a problem with wheels taking my weight. I had this doubt that modern wheels with a spoke count half of what is normal for a decent wheel would be up to it.
Mel said that the modern wheels were bulletproof there was no weightlimit on the Trek stuff and it was tested on  large Americans. It had to be good due the liability issues they have.

I kept going into the shop as my weight came down having mentally decided to treat myself to something good when I got down to 100 Kg. This represented a 33% weightloss to me. At 105 Kg Trek lost their nerve and were the first ones to have a sale.
I was just passing and ended up the proud owner of “The Toy” a Trek Madone 5.2 in Discovery Channel colours.

We would bump into each other at the Eureka Cafe, Mel used to have Wednesday,s off to ride with the North End. I wasn’t quick enough to ride with a club and started going out with the CTC. £2k worth of carbon fibre exotica is a bit much for some of the CTC rides but boy have I had fun.

More later

 

Aldi are having another day of sports and fitness equipment special offers next Thursday. There is a variety of stuff on offer and I have recomended the Crane Sports Heartrate Monitor in the past. If the one on offer has a calorie counter it will be a real bargain. It’s £12.99 and available in a variety of colours. Even basic branded models from other manufacturers are twice this price.
Also on offer are Welby Bio-Impeadance Analysis Scales (body fat)  for £14.99. I’ve written about the Lidl ones along with a couple of months worth of results. I still log all the results every day, so if I ever get asked how much I weigh you’d get that mornings result.

Don’t make the mistake I did of buying 1 dumbell thinking you can always get another one later. You need a pair of them to do some of the weight routines. I think they pack the singulary because a cardboard box can’t withstand 20 Kg which would be the combined weight of two dumbells.

The training shoes look better this time.The pair I bought last time had a plastic vent that caused blisters when I was starting the walks around the block 10 months ago.
The plastic was harder than the rest of the shoe upper  and soon made it’s prescense felt. These look a bit plainer but more suitable. I haven’t got around to spending £50-70 on trainers yet. Maybe if I ever took up running I would look into it but not yet.

The Aldi website isn’t listing them just yet as they still clearing todays offers.

Aldi

Update: 12 Jan 07 . Good news, the heartrate monitor has a calorie counter and a host of other features on it. The display has a lot more  information on it and in calorie counter mode looks to display BMR, Basal Metabolic Rate. The calories you burn when at rest. One of the readings is a % of max heartrate , next to this is average heartrate. This is going to be a really usefull feature in something like a spinning class. It also has a max/min heartrate memory. It is packed with features that I now find usefull. Ok it doesn’t data log like the Garmin Edge but that cost me nearly 20 times what this unit cost. It looks good too and comes with a handlebar mount.  The instruction booklet is just that rather than a folded leaflet and is a lot easier to follow. At £12.99 there is no excuse for not having one.

If your just starting out, perhaps trying to impliment a new years resolution it will be a lot easier if you can measure your performance.