Good morning - the super-sorry carcass has risen and broken fast.
I kinda promised to keep away until I feel mended, rather than become a moan-fest in a happy place such as this.
I'm pleased to say that I'm well on the mend. Primary and secondary bruising near healed. Cuts and grazes now healed and will no doubt fade in time.
I've managed to start getting out and do some bimbling, even though the coastal winds in Lee here are strong - why the Dickens did they name this windy place Lee? Makes little sense to me.
The broken ribs are much less painful now; they just make deep breathing for faster riding / hill climbing a bit more difficult - not that I had the most puff anyway.
The busted up shoulder is taking a bit longer. I'm required to exercise it to get the ligaments to heal correctly. I don't get far into exercise before the pain flares up. On the bike I can't pull on the bars for hills and fight against prevailing winds, but I am getting there.
I've been using ride with GPS rather than the more often preferred Strava. I'd discovered a feature called 'segments' where members set up segments to compare their ride times against others. I only started riding again in May against a background of covid recovery and 30 years out of the saddle. Accordingly my ride times were unspectacular despite my wishing to be at least an adequate enough cyclist to consider some club riding.
It's also interesting to see who else is local and view their ride data. There are very decent riders near me, mostly members of a very successive club- Fareham Wheelers - who seem to have a competitive streak. So much so, that some of their riders were recently called upon to represent the UK in international amateur competitions. One of these, a female cyclist caught my eye, I won't name her here, but she is local, rather younger than me, and a very quick rider. She seems to often ride daytimes and I wonder if she is one of the women that I see riding around here on race bikes.
There was me thinking that she wouldn't need an older much slower person for a riding companion, but something caught my eye this week. There's a timed segment of just one mile near me that she has had several rides on and times recorded. To my astonishment, I'm in joint second place on that leaderboard and 14 seconds faster than her. The segment includes a slight incline and the record shows me going at 27.9mph, that's quick for me so pretty happy with that! If I can shift a bit more of this weight of mine and then maybe a little more from the bike, I just might have another go and timetrialling after near 50 years away from it.
I still hear our club trainer of the day John King ( a very lovely man but sadly no longer with us) used to answer to anyone wanting to go faster 'pedals and shoes, pedals and shoes'. So I guess I'll have to splash out now and get rid of my flat pedal and M&S granny dog-walking shoes for something more appropriate. I need to find another 8 seconds to claim the top spot for that segment. Maybe I'll just wait for a day when it's blowing a hooley along the Cherque Way segment and I'll crack the record with feet off the pedals.
Love to all.
That's great news Monkers, so glad that you are on the mend👍
It sounds like you are a very modest and very accomplished cyclist. You never lose the competitive streak, and taking advantage of the elements is eminently sensible. ( our club had an informal 5K Lockdown challenge, some members were jogging a few miles to get to a more advantageous downhill starting point before starting their watches)
Lovely to have you back
