I feel I’ve been neglecting you, blog friends. I’m sorry, I have no good excuses, but as usually happens when I am in the wrong, I will try and make some.
Not a perfect beginning.
I’ve been riding: Exactly 1072.4 km’s worth, if you must know. I had a bit of a stomach flu or something for a few days this month, but other than that I’ve been on the bike 6 days a week, just like old times. Last January I had 952 km, which means 2013 is only 10% better so far – I’m pretty sure that the Haute Route is more than 10% harder than two Etapes du Tour, so I will try and stick to the program and up the percentages in February.
I’ve been working: Apart from an ever-growing Alps tour that John and I have been madly working on in the background (20 riders so far!), the new business has been experiencing all sorts of growing pains, from bank choice to payment methods to the right advertising channels. No answers to any of these issues (and more) yet, but I’m sure they’ll present themselves before it’s too late!
Sally and Elle
I’ve also got my first self-guided tour of 2013 happening right now, which has taken up a little time in meeting and greeting my Australian clients, arranging baggage transfers and making sure my one vegetarian is well provided for.
I’ve been buying stuff: OK, this isn’t a good excuse for not blogging – in fact it’s probably the opposite, given what I’ve been shopping for. I finally settled on a saddle, after giving one a test run for a couple of weeks. Yes, it’s Italian again, and comes with its own air vent!
This is the Selle Italia SLR Kit Carbonio Flow, which is a version of a pretty ‘classic’ pro saddle, it appears. It comes with carbon rails that I’m sure I’ll be crushing any day now, but till then I can be happy with a pretty astonishing 115 grams of saddle. And, believe it or not, it’s just as comfortable as my old padded-up Fizik.
So what do you say, am I forgiven? My wife says I’m good at making excuses, so if you aren’t satisfied I can come up with some better ones.
The Vicious Cycle 
hey Gerry whats an LSD ride …it sounds like fun
I only do those ones when I don’t have anything to watch on TV. Hours and hours of self entertainment.
groovy
Sounds like a good start to the year especially with other things happening. Do you have a climbing target each week/month and an average speed? I got the same saddle a few months ago. It’s great simply as I never know it’s there, even after a 10hr ride.
Did you say a ’10hr ride’? What the heck was that?
No climbing targets, no. In fact, the vast majority of my ‘rides’ are on the trainer right now. All the workouts are heart rate based, so everything else comes out in the wash.
It was a monster. While I don’t live in the Alps there are more than enough decent climbs in my area and basically no flat roads. They’re the same roads that Cadel trained on initially as his mum lives in the area. I’ve only recently started using an HRM and while I do watch the average come down as I get fitter I don’t use it in training per se.
Oh, were you the one who recommended that saddle? If so, thanks!
Hey Gerry,
I don’t care what kind of saddle you have, I have an SMP which I love but I have yet to find one that’s comfortable when indoor training. After 3 hours of so called LSD it takes my underside a day to recover. Ask John about DZnuts and what can happen with liberal use.
Cheers
Pierre
3 hours is a lot, I’ll give you that. Really though, the boredom is much worse that the butt pain for me. And check this out, I’ve only used chamois cream twice in my life.
We understand the attraction of the cheap thrills of FaceBook and are grateful for any crumbs you dispense to the blogosphere. I realise that your our LSD rides would be my TK rides having looked at your data. You managed to recover from your crash at great speed. Well done.
I an still feel the crash in the places I ended up landing on, believe it or not. I don’t heal like used to.
Life behind bars is always more er bearable with a liberal dose of chamois cream. You are applying to the chamois….right?