Sandy's Blog

On Friday I went out for some food at china china, it was a buffet and the food was really really good. I was a bit nervous about having Chinese food the night before digging trails but it was well cooked and really tasty, and cheap too.

PHOTOGENICS!

After the a huge dessert we plodded up to a Casino on Queen Street, on the way I happened to bump into an old friend from school - Chris Cowan. He was into the whole skating subculture in school (not skating you see, just the coolness associated with it), and from where I was standing he hadn’t appeared to have changed his attitude since. However it was good to see him and we swapped numbers so I guess we could meet up sometime when he isn’t smoking cannabis.

So into the casino we go. About 10 of us, and 2 members, so we have to all get signed in. I end up getting impatient and arsing around while this was happening which got the attention of the ladies at the reception, one of which laughed (probably in pity) and the other gave me the feeling any more high jinks might have had me seeing the streetlights again. We walk into the main gambling area - what a dull place, totally not what its like on James Bond films at all! It just felt drab and desolate. Myself and 2 other guys (who were also not gambling) went upstairs to the bar while everyone else started playing Blackjack etc. After waiting for a while I got served by the same lady who laughed at me in reception who apologised that the usual barman was not around. She then continued to pour the worst pint ever which I obviously had to rip into her for doing. We sat down and immediately started to have a discussion about the morality of gambling, which then quickly brought out the fact that some guy had committed suicide in the toilets in this casino last year, which obviously lowered my opinion of the place even more. Anyway I didn’t make my disapproval of the place completely obvious when the gamblers in the group showed up every now and again, but in general I have always thought gambling, money and greed bring out the worst in people - the clientele were generally young to middleage men who in a lot of cases swore openly when they lost and looked like they had little much else to their lives. When I went downstairs to try and figure out how the games actually all worked Dave tried to coax me into playing by handing me a few money chips - I gave them back to him though without using them.

At the end of the night someone was up £40, another £10, and the remainder had little left - as far as I know because I bailed early.

You know that saying - “No buses for ages and then two come along at once” ? Well I actually saw this a few days ago and took a photo.

Sure, not a big deal if the bus comes ever 5-10 minutes, but when you live in a location where a bus comes (at best) every 15 minutes, it is annoying. Time to move I think.

So last night was my first proper session back at the gym after about 20 days off. I don’t realise most of the time but it gives me a real psychological boost and is a really good contrast to cycling (I would be skin and bones!). Anyway it was full of stragglers with obvious new year resolutions - quite amusing really there were more than double the numbers of people in the gym last night compared to an average night before Christmas.

I have experimented with various forms of training routines over the last decade, so what works? Well obviously it depends person to person, but the key factors I think are consistency and flexibility, no matter what your real goal actually is (be it weight loss/fitness/strength/flexibility etc).

You need to have the motivation to do it obviously. But you need to incorporate the ability to shift sessions too, and also the mind set to occasionally let one or two session slip for other reasons, without letting too many slip either! In my opinion the current system I have at the moment works well, I go to the gym on Tuesday and Thursday evenings for just over 2 hours, which can be shifted if needs be (bit of forward planning required here), and cycle whenever I can. This time last year I experimented with going 3 times a week but I found it too much, 6 hours a week is excessive when you are mostly doing weights.

With all these new people in the gym, with their new year resolutions and stuff, I feel that many will really punish themselves, for what?

Fallacy 1: Punishing yourself over extended periods of time is good training
Doing miles more than you are used to, with no extended breaks is very likely to completely exhaust you and make you ill, forcing you to have time off and probably quit permanently.

Fallacy 2: The gym makes you fit
Sure, it has the potential to make you fit but to actually get there you either need to be a complete loser or something. The gym on its own is very hard to sustain and will eventually just bore you entirely, its better used as a tool to complement something else you do (with added fun!).

In addition to those above points, I see so many guys in the gym lifting very heavy weights to build muscle quickly - more likely to result in injury, very unsustainable and will possibly leave you very large and fat due to the associated weight gain by the time you reach your 40’s (unless you keep the routine up).

Repeat after me: BEEFCAKE! BEEFCAKE!

Over the last week I have come to the realization that my mountain bike has been seriously neglected. This is normal due severe slackness, however it has been complaining pretty badly since new year:

• Whenever I put the power down the chain slips entirely from the cassette (drivetrain needs replaced)
• I find it hard to turn left (headset is dodgy)

As it turns out, fixing the headset was a 30 minute job with a bit of cleaning, care and lots of grease required. The drivetrain replacement has been in the pipe for ages and I decided to use the winnings from SSMM 2005 where they photographed me at 3am with a handlebar moustache and about 8 t-shirts on!

I have most of the tools required to do this including all of the specific Shimano tools. It went ok apart from one chainring bolt which I just could not remove and had to go to the bike shop.

“oh you just use this tool here…” - gffnnashahaha

Anyway, get back home - stick the new rings on and try to hammer the chainset back into the frame. And you will never guess what?

The Shimano deore granny ring (easiest front cog) will not fit around a Shimano XT bottom bracket cup - Argggh!.

So anyway my bike is now without easy gears, and I have a 4 hour ride to look forward to tomorrow - goodbye knees!