"OK Trip Computer"

Lee & I yesterday at the 12 mile mark, coming back over Pitch Hill again.


I got my new speedometer for my bike on Thursday. It is a Cateye wireless Micro. I fitted it with the help of my friend Lee and we then went out Friday night and gave it a test run. We did a leisurely hour and a half around Bushy Park and the Thames tow-path at night. Just over 17 miles. Then again yesterday afternoon up in the woods of Holmbury & Pitch Hills and also we took in Winterfold Woods too, which is right over the west side of Pitch Hill, just to see what they were like. We only saw a tiny bit (we kind of just went right around the outside of it) but it looks like there might be some quite nice 'Hidden' single track in there. I will be going back soon.
We cycled 18.04 miles in 2hrs 40mins (slow, but not so leisurely.....plenty of uphill in mud!), and we were out for nearly 4hrs! The Cateye tells you exactly how long your wheels have been spinning....so we must have been standing still a total of 1hr 20 mins. That would have been when we stopped to do laces up, take top layers off, take photographs, lowering & raising saddles, helping three other lost mountain bikers find there way, watch 10 horses trot past, complete with riders (every single one of them said thank you to us for letting them by.....the riders;), eat food, drink, look at views, have wee-wee's, check our OS map.
Doing yesterdays 18 miles was harder than doing 33 miles around the local parks here last Wednesday! My right elbow hurt from all the battering it rececieved! It was so much fun though:) Along the way (according to my trip computers other readings) our average speed was 6.8mph, max speed 27.8mph. It was interesting to find out that from the car park up to the top of BKB is one mile (all up hill) and BKB is half a mile long and all down hill:) We did that twice; Once at the very start of the ride and again right at the very end. As you can imagine, we were quite tired after all that. I am going to do that 33 miles again this Wednesday with my trip computer to see how close my measurments were, working my route out the old fashioned way.
I know I can trust my new speedo to give me the correct mileage, as I did a little experiment using my new speedo and a website called MapMyRun.com (big thanks to WarriorWomen). Basically you find the area you want to map using Google Earth and put down a series of markers including a start and a finish and by following your exact route, you can see how may miles it is to your favourite Macdonalds;) I plotted a route from my friends house in Strawberry Hill (I could even see Lee's Brothers split screen VW camper in the drive) and went to the end of the road and marked all the way around Twickenham Green, being careful to stay on the right side of the road and not to cut corners etc, and back again to his house and the mile mark was exactly four doors past his. I then did it on the bike with the new speedo and low and behold.........It clicked over to one mile four doors past Lee's!
How about that for accuracy! Now I want to go and check other places too. They say that the Tamsin Trail in Richmond Park is 7.3miles long. I shall find out. This means I will have to stick to the trail all the way around, which I hardly ever do. I don't mean that I cut corners. I do quite the opposite in fact and try to make the route a little more interesting and longer.

All my mileage this year has been added to my 'Mileage counter' right at the foot of my Blog now. I also worked out my mileage for the whole of last year. From the scribbles I put onto my calendar, I have ended up with a figure of approximately 3420 miles (Not including the little cycling I did at the gym between Jan & June 2006). So all I have to do is beat that this year I suppose. I have put 3600 as my target for the whole of this year. That is about 10 miles on average per day.......I don't go out every day, so we will see;)

So on to other things. You may remember I had some work done on some teeth back in December. Well the work that was carried out (basically a very large filling) has failed! I think it has anyway. I can't see what has happened but either part of the filling has come away or come loose or part of the tooth next to it has come away. Part of the nerve is exposed anyway and is very painful at times. He better inject my gum with pain removing liquid or I may well be in prison this time on Wednesday for murdering a dentist & his assistant;) This all happend on Thursday and the best they can do is tomorrow. I have been hoping all weekend that it didn't get worse or fall out completely! It hasn't. As you know, I hate the dentist and can't wait for it to be over.....again!

My cold has gone now and I am feeling great again. With my Hep C tx all over and done with, I am feeling more or less as I did whilst on tx. They say that the drugs take a while to completely leave your body, but either I just have no feelings or I didn't get any side effects in the first place? One thing is for sure.........I feel just as I did (physically) before I even began tx, and I felt great.
I still get the HIV sides after my evening tablets. For some stupid reason, I thought that they just might go away once I finished my Hep C tx. Fortunately they only occur once a day and for about three hours. If I experienced them every hour of the day I would have stopped taking them long ago!

One last thing.........Congrats to my fellow Blogger & Haemophiliac who has just got word of his still being clear of Hep C after 48wks of tx. Good on ya Chris:)


Jason






(C) JPT 2007