Dirty Little Tike
Peryl had her first shower last night. After 4 consequetive days commuting I thought she deserved it.
Typically it pissed it down this morning so I wish I hadn’t bothered.
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Archive for April, 2005
Online Bike Journal - Motivation
I’ve started hanging out on the Cycling Plus web forum, my handle is warriorwoman (of course). You can pick a fair number of tips as its a really active site.
Anyway the latest gem pointed me in the direction of BikeJournal which is a free site, geared up for storing all your ride details. You have to be bothered to key in all the relevant bits of data such as time, distance, av speed, av heart rate etc but in the long run you have a great record.
It’s really quite motivational as well, so long as you have a competitive bone in your body, which I do. There are ranks of other riders, so you can see where you fit into the scheme of things. At the moment I am in position 498 or 44th in the womens rankings, only 6552 miles behind the leader.
Log on try it out - and why not join the warrior women team?
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Airnimal Rides Again
Four days and Peryl hardly got a ride in, my excuse is that I’ve been ill and in truth I’ve felt just a little intimidated by her.
Still, thats all changed now. I replaced the seat and we headed for the hills yesterday, or at least we went to Richmond Park.
Blimey, blimey that bike can move. I went down one of the hills at such a pace I nearly wet myself. Can’t tell what speed I was actually going as I had set the wrong wheelsize into the computer! Must have been 60mph at least!
Today i went into work and set a time of 37mins which is really pretty good for me, now if I could remove the traffic lights I might really be able to set some records.
All in all I am pretty happy with Peryl the Airnimal Chameleon, I’ve sussed out the balance so I can stand in the pedals and have begun to feel that old confidence - the trust between man and bike. I was talking to my dad about the importance of feeling in tune in your bike, London is a scary place to ride without trusting your machine. He described me as a cyclotaur - half woman, half bike. He thinks he’s funny, what can you do?
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The Airnimal Has Landed
Well it arrived, a beautiful yellow dream machine. It came flat packed but I managed to keep singing throughout my frustrating attempts to put it together. Really it shouldn’t have been that hard, I’m just rather unfamiliar with all the road bike components - never heard of a Ring-go star.
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Anyway, I better stop calling her it and introduce you, she’s called Peryl and she has taken to living in my bath. Either I’m going to get pretty smelly or we’ll have to get over our inhibitions quickly and start showering together.
I took her out for a ride today and I’m pleased to say we got on well. Its going to be a bit of an adjustment for me, moving from my hybrid cannondale designed with comfort and more comfort in mind. The new Airnimal Chameleon Ultegra Ultra is very much more hardcore. Light, fast, sexy, although that is not how I feel after sitting on the saddle for an hour.
I really need to up the ante on the diet front again. I am not designed for sitting on a knife edge and the new bent forward, aerodynamic seating position brings my knees perilously close to my tits (which are certainly not my most aerodynamic feature).
The wheel size turns out to be fine, much better than the Brompton style wheel. It handles like a big bike and isn’t too jittery on the steering. Not quite sure about powering myself out of the saddle yet but I think my fears are because the bike is so light (and I’m not) rather than because of her diminutive size.
Not sure how the speed compares yet, it feels fast, my throat was burning in under a mile so I must have been going for it. I will try and rig up the polar S725 tonight and then I can tell for sure.
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Pro Cycling on the Internet
I’m absolutely determined not to let the Tour De France whizz by without me noticing again this year. Its likely that it will be Lance Armstrongs final attempt and I would like to see him race at least once.
Anyway I’ve just read up on the new ProTour rules which threatens to make the professional scene a lot more exciting and understandable for the novice - so now I just need to find a channel I can watch it all on.
Well thankfully the hguys at cycling tv have sorted that out and it looks like the cover every race I could want to see - check them out at cycling.tv
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