Hard week

Had the pleasure this week of having the pins of my seatpost snap while I was riding today, not sure whether its too much power or too much weight.  Half way through the ride and a fair few miles from home, pins snapped and had to complete the rest of the ride standing up.  Not helped by Tom Copeland and James Brickell pushing the pace and making sure we took the longest possible route back home for me. Quads will be aching tomorrow! 

Great ride with Drew on Saturday, looking pretty sharp even at the end of a 5 hour ride, real buzz about the team ahead of next year!

Night Riding

Congrats to Felix for his win over Sir Chris Hoy at the Europeans, epic result, can't think of anyone who deserves a result like that more than Felix.  Feel like I am on the far less glamorous side of cycling at the moment with my winter training.  As work usually finishes pretty late, I tend to get home, have a nap and then start training about 7.30-8.00 and go for a couple of hours while the roads are a bit quieter.  Been loving the night riding as so few cars, saw 3 shooting stars tonight and practicing handling throwing the bike round the tight corners of Lewes one-way system at 10pm with no cars on the road is a lot of fun, if a bit mental.  Legs feeling pretty good, stamina building, going to be a good season.

Great team ride on Sunday and good to see George, Tom, Tom and Lewis joining the club as well as Jack Oliver-Blaney who was pretty much part of the club last year anyway.  Going to be an awesome year, can't wait for all the race calendars to come out, first race 15th Jan; can't believe I am looking forward to racing at Hillingdon!  Got about 90 percent of my Sussex coursework done for the entire year; just one essay and one presentation left and so plenty of time for training now!

New wheels

Just had to do a post to talk about the new winter bike; In Gear in Uckfield have helped me out with a new Kinesis frame which for the price feels amazing, have taken it out over some proper winter training lanes over the last few days and it is so stiff and descends beautifully as its rigid throughout and you can get your weight right over the back wheel.  Lacing the bike up with lights ahead of all the night training I have coming up over the winter, as ever being a teacher though, not too long until the next block of holiday time.

Half term is always a great time to get back training and Dan Bennett is sending his training plan through in the next few days.  Really looking forward to getting some structured training back, trying hard not to get too prematurely excited about the race season but setting goals and laying out periodised training plans makes me think about how next year has so much potential.  One particular boost is seeing the team rosta for next year which looks quality. 

Had a great ride out on Sunday with some of Dan's training clients and enjoyed a wet but social ride. Thanks guys.

Thanks also for everyone who keeps feeding my fish.