Oooops!

It seems Rugby Tours and no pedalling, do not a healthy lifestyle make!

Scales do not lie, a 6Ib gain. After 6 weeks static weight I guess something had to give. And it did. Just in the wrong direction.

The weird thing is, my clothes are still getting baggier and people are still saying that I look like I'm still losing the pork plus I feel like my pedalling is getting better.

But the main thing is I'm really looking forward to Monday now. Bring it on!

New Bike Radar Blog here by the way.

After reading poor old Les' tale of woe yesterday and obviously reading Joby's many and varied opportunities for suicide I suddenly remembered a brilliant piece of advice I was given when I was learning to ride a motorbike. It may or may not be of any use but here it is any way.

It was my bike instructor John (ex Cop bike instructor) who said that when riding up to a junction it is always good to make eye contact with drivers around you, he conceded that most of the buggers never look anyway, but by staring at the driver of your nearest threat does make the driver think about your presence. I always eyeball vehicle driver's very intently at junctions and some of the looks I get back (surprise mostly) do tell me that it does at some level work. As we are clearly the bottom of the road user food chain we need every bit of help we can get, so if that little snippet does come in handy then job done.

Simon (aka Fat Man Slim) asked me a question yesterday about the gear I carry on my commute. So here goes.

My Road Bike and my Ridgeback commuter are equipped pretty much the same. Water Bottle holders x 2, a saddle bag containing a multi tool (including chain splitter) a spare inner tube, a puncture repair kit, tyre levers and a couple of pound coins just in case! Both bikes have pumps on the frame and I musn't forget front and rear flashing LED lights too. But they're not in the saddle bag obviously!

On Mondays I cycle in with a daysack (with Joby's kindly donated daysack cover on it)

containing my laptop and various work stuff that I needed over the weekend, plus any kit swaps I need to do. I do try to do kit swaps when I'm driving. The laptop and daysack usually stay at work until Friday when they come home with me.

My Marin MTB has no kit whatsoever bolted to it and I carry everything in a Camelback mule which is a top piece of kit. The piccy below is the one I've got.

I must mention the fact that I wear a Muvi Cam on my helmet too. It's a pretty fun thing to do as form of record keeping, but as Joby is proof of, they're quite handy in a deterrence kind of way.

Usual trip to the Dodford tonight, only not. It's the Pubs re-opening first Birthday celebrations this weekend and we're camping out in the field around the pub so we can join in properly, there's a BBQ, a band, St Georges Day festivities and a real ale beer festival so in all fairness there probably won't be any post from me tomorrow as we'll be back home late and have shed loads of family stuff to do. Have a good weekend everyone.