Mad Dozza’s Blog

Well after almost 3 month off my bike (due to shoulder problem) i finally got back to it. I got my mountain bike out the shed on Thursday, cleaned it (which was a massive effort as the mud has stuck like paint) checked it over and found i needed 2 new tyres, new rear break pads and new grips, i also decided that after lugging my car foot pump around last summer i needed a new pump. Unfortunately i was stopped in my repairing tracks by the ceasing up of the awful Presta valve on my rear tube (it looked like the slime from the slime tube had caused the problem). In a usually heavy handed attempt to fix it i managed to snap the valve off and get covered in the green stick stuff.

I went to my local bike shop found out that it was possible to convert a wheel with Presta valves into Schrader valves simply by drilling out the holes in the wheel rims using a 21/64″ drill bit and filing the hole nice and smooth. The man in the shop offered to do this for me and did me a good price on the parts as well as not charging me for labour (good bloke).

Today the sun was out, it was a little too windy for my liking but was not too cold so i decided to do my first outing of the year in an attempt to be mountain biking fit for the spring. After a mile on the road and my first major hill i had the taste of blood in my mouth, my legs were crying out to stop and there was a pounding in my head that would not stop. I cursed the beer, turkey and chocolate of Christmas that had now come back to haunt me and pushed on knowing this was the beginning of a month of cycling pain which was necessary in order to regain the fitness that had so easily slipped away since last autumn.

I managed 5 miles over a combination of roads, two grass hills, one dirt track and a park path. I am quite happy with this and now plan to go out tomorrow, weather permitting.