As I Xi It

Being an avid keeper of data, I’ve been recording my exercise bike distances and times over the last couple of weeks. I used to do 10km in about 20 minutes, now I can do 12 km in less time! My personal best was 12 km in 19:54 on the 19th August. That’s an average speed of 22.5 mph. I’m just on fire! Whoop-whoop! Although I tend not to look forward to exercise, I do sometimes have the desire to just keep going, and going, and going, and going until I can go no more. It must be that heady mix of adrenalin, endorphins and epinephrine surging through my red hot veins. Sometimes, I even feel like going for a run afterwards too. The last time I did that, I got home, shut the door and pretty much collapsed in the hallway. My legs just turned to jelly. I remember looking up and seeing the cat staring back at me.

But here’s a bit of a puzzler, I’m not very good at cycling up hills. Rather than go at a steady pace, I just want to get it over and done with asap so of course tire out pretty presto pronto. I would say that I was more of a sprinter than long distancer, yet, paradoxically when I was at school, I was on the cross country team and was better at the 1,500m than the 100m. Bizzare or what?

Here’s yet another puzzler. While I’m lighter and fitter, I still can’t shift this spare tyre of mine. Must be leaner, but I quite like chcolate, cheese and ribs.

While I’m on the topic of exercise, I think my arm muscles are starting to atrophy from lack of photography. Maybe I need to take up a regime for the arms, like whipping. Pthcee!

A couple of weeks ago while out cycling around Danesfield, I took my G11 along for some IR. For some reason, this time, they didn’t come out as well as the Stocker’s Lake ones. I got a hotspot in each of the pics I took, it was more obvious in the longer exposed colour versions than when converted to black and white. I’d even covered the viewfinder, but that made a blind bit of difference.

Perhaps IR with the G11 doesn’t work for all types of pics.

Just before we lost the sun for the afternoon

A field, you can just about see the hotspot in the middle here

Went to Black Park last Monday for a cycle. It was good cycling weather and not too busy either.

This Saturday, Bone and I went back to Burnham Beeches for a spot of cycling. While we were unloading the car, a dog appeared from nowhere and presents Bone with a stick, eager to play fetch. Of course, she obliged.

The dog (Kerry) followed us for a bit into the woods and I guess got bored and went back home. I suspect she lives in one of the houses nearby.

Last week, we took a fairly gentle stroll around the woods, this week, it all started off pretty well until I decided that we should go off trail and ended up cycling through some thick fallen leaves, past a broken fence and suddenly we arrived on an island of scrubland full of heather and gorse.

More Dorset than Buckinghamshire. As we negotiated through the heather, we arrived on some tarmac roads and came across a whole bunch of european foreigners. They looked like a tour group, pretty far from central London. As we cycled past, one of them was collecting horse turds. I can’t imagine manure to be that expensive to buy anywhere in the world. Bone suggested that perhaps she collects turds like how I sometimes like to collect moss, lichens and rocks. But turds? I can’t imagine scatology to be a particuarly popular field. I guess different strokes for different folks or as Bone says “different horses for different courses”.

As we kept cycling along the tarmac, I found that it’d take us onto a main road and as we’re not road cyclists, we turned back into the woods. We retraced our steps (wheels?) towards the scrubland only to find that we had gone in circles and ended up where we entered. According to a plaque we’d past, the island of scrubland has a moat around it which would explain why we we kept coming across stagnant water. Upon consultation with my GPS, we eventually found our way back to the track which we had veered off. Things soon went downhill…literally.

So, we continued on back towards the car when I spot a steep descent and decided to zoom on down only to lose control and somehow get thrown off my bike, into the mud and ended up being pinned down by my bike over my head. Miraculously, I didn’t suffer any major head trauma, just cuts and scrapes here and there. I was just covered in mud, of all the spots I could’ve crashed into, it had to be that one patch of mud there. I suppose it was a softer landing than had it been on compacted dirt.

Tracks

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Don’t just reCycle, reuse!

Hurrah for hot choc containers

Taking my bike out for a real ride through the dense forest (coniferous) in deepest, darkest Buckinghamshire and testing out the cycle carrier. They all held up, but I’ll have to take up Evans’ offer of a free service within the first six weeks from purchase of my bike. I’ve got gear changing issues.

You tend not to take as many photos when out cycling as you do when you go for a stroll. Things do tend to whizz you by.