It’s getting lighter and warmer!

At last! The terrible winter appears to be fading in favour of some (relative!) warmth and lightness! It’s the start of a good season…i hope!

After my outing a few weeks back in horrendous rain, the hub on the back wheel on my winter bike seems to be a little worse for wear. A quick strip down and new bearings should do the trick, but it was all too much for me the weekend before last when I didn’t realise until the afternoon before I was due to go out with the guys.

A quick switch about with wheels, tyres and cassettes and I had the ‘training wheels’ off my Giant on the specialized; a set of Mavic CXP22s. They’re not great wheels, but a lot nicer than the horrible Alex Rims that came on it to start with.

The ride was a good one, covering 55 miles at an average of 17.4mph. I was actually quite surprised as the headwind was chronic for the majority of it. The weather was great otherwise and it was just fantastic to be able to get out and not fear death from cold!

So anyway, next weekend the clocks change in favour of giving us an extra hour of light in the evening – hurray! That means I can start to fade the turbo sessions out a little and actually get some decent road miles in. The guys at work apparently go out every Thursday night and do hill climbs and naturally I will be joining them.

I will also try and get an outing in on Tuesday, probably to do some drill work on the flat and it may even be time to break out the summer bike (and try out my new wheels!).

4 weeks till the first Sportive of the year (the Wiggle New Forest ride) which is 83 miles albeit it on a yet unknown terrain! I need to do well in that, just for a start of the season moral boost.

Let’s wait and see….