I’m hoping this will be a challenging year.

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I originally set this blog up to chronicle my love of mountain biking and over the years had improve from a 1 hour, 4 mile slog to 25 miles in 90 minutes with the odd Manchester to Blackpool thrown in for good measure.

Well.. I’ve not posted much about my mountain biking for a while now and there are a couple of reasons for that.

  1. Work. I’ve been incredibly busy with my job and have been very lucky to spend quite a bit of time away from home in China, North America and Europe

2. The big reason is that I discovered Road bikes…

I went from this

raleigh pursuit

A 1980’s Raleigh Pursuit (library image) that I discovered being thrown in a skip. I rescued it and added some new tyres, quite enjoyed it and sold it for £70

 

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Then bought this,  leaned it up and realised it was too small. Sold for £100

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Then bought this from a neighbour for £60, lovely bike but I didn’t get on with the gearing. 1980’s SunTour with EX600 groupset. Sold it to a collector in Ireland for £200!

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I then got this! Reynolds 531 groupset, Biopace crank and rubbish brakes. Which resulted in..

ouch

30mph crash with a stationary car. Trip to A&E to be glued back together. Miraculously, nothing broken just a buckled front wheel. I sold the bike and got this..

decathlon sport

I got this for £150 as I wanted a more modern bike with STI levers and brakes that actually stopped 200lbs of stupidity. Quite enjoyed it and then saw….

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I managed to sell the Decathlon Sport for the same price I paid for this Cannondale, which I absolutely love. I did the Manchester to Blackpool and knocked 1hr 20 minutes off my previous ride time of 5hrs 40. I’m hoping to get the time to nearer 4 hours this year.

I’ve also got an entry in the London 100m which will require a lot of training for. I haven’t been on my bike since some fairly rubbish rides in October!

What’s the plan… Well I’d like the weather to get a little calmer before I get back on my road bike as I don’t like the idea of being blown off in front of a lorry 🙂

The mountain bike is going to be used more this year as it’s a good alternative and I miss getting muddy!

 

 

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