Welcome from next door ....
I'll help ease you in .... what kind of riding do you do/have you done? Do you have any goals? Club? Liking for ale? Old bikes? Skin diseases?
Anyhow, to continue the Chess theme I reckon that you're a Rookie rather than a noob ....
In order:
History: Er as a kid/teen on a '10 speed' racer with downtube friction shifts and a wheel at each end, then nada until middle age (suspect this isn't uncommon), Got fat(ish), old(ish) and semi-sensible. The excesses of my twenties and thirties (and more..) are pretty much behind me, I can't handle it anymore and perhaps even more strangely find that falling flat on my face in some darkened car park after 12 beers and a curry also doesn't hold the appeal it once did, odd that. Now, about 10 miles a day on a bike with even more gears that are cunningly controlled from the brake levers, though I'm still always in the wrong one.
Why again now? Oh the health stuff, lose weight, some cardio exercise, and a nagging feeling that I'm not helping the world much by clogging up the roads in a ton and a half of metal box that's spewing noxious chemicals whilst being a kinetic disaster in waiting for any lapse of concentration on my or someone elses part, all in order to re-supply myself with a tin of beans, a cucumber and 250 pristine sheets of bogroll. So where possible the car gathers dust and I shop/work/everything by bike.
Goals: get fit(ish), lose weight, stop being an irresponsible self centered (if hardly atypical) git as above where an alternative exists. Not competition though, I'm competitive alright, but not if it starts to actually hurt, then it becomes "Go ahead, I don't want a plastic pot painted gold on a piece of laminated plywood with a plaque with my name spelled wrongly that badly anyway, if you do...carry right along" and I'm far too slow in any event. Which sort of leads to: I don't belong to a club (yet) as even in the case of not competing there still appears to be a 'keep up' element; I've lurked enough to see the "average speed means nothing" threads, however a lot of clubs still seem to segregate on this basis (I guess not unreasonably). But I'm new to this and might be convinced otherwise.
Ale is sort of covered above, I like the stuff (mmm London Pride..), but one is never enough, don't see the point, and 12 is where it inevitably leads for me. Well, perhaps more like 6 these days, but the principle remains. The cost, in innumerable ways, is too high now.
Just the one bike, not that old, (recently re-named Bikey McBikeface, yeah yeah, original eh?), 2010 spesh Tricross comp, with 2010 being the first round of this lark that was then put on hold and resurfaced, and put back on hold, and resurfaced etc etc. Huge mods, one of those Brooks Cambium saddles and some Kojak bald boots. Oh and those devices designed to make you look like a total prat at the earliest possible occasion, I believe the technical term is spd's. Chose it as a compromise, riding on 23 (or even 25) tyres seems too harsh for my tender rear (its fitted with 35's) and suspension is a potty idea for a road (occasional canal path) machine in my opinion (oh no, he went there, an opinion)
Skin Diseases? Heh, none that I'm admitting. P.
See? Nothing new at all here, all very common I'd imagine. And I still manage to make it look like war and peace.
Rookie: Ah yes, had to crop that, underneath it says "hard core pawn", a pun so amusing I laughed for oh, 8.5 seconds straight.
We all had to start somewhere and this was a great start
Why thank-you sir, and to all who waved. I suspect the reasonable start should be considered as scafell pike or such, in that it's all downhill from here.
Would that my cycling felt that way.
