New year, new start.

First of all, I would like to wish everyone a happy new year!

So far, 2011 has been an interesting one… I had the pleasure of going to Wiggle HQ in early January and swapping out the old Kiron MTL for a sparkly new Verenti Millook and kitting myself out in some sexy new 2011 dhb winter lycra.

I couldn’t wait to get out on the new machine so the very next day I decided I’d get out and hit the road…. literally! About 6 miles into my journey I was tackling a roundabout on quite a busy stretch of road so was eager to get around it and out of the way of the rush hour traffic. Perhaps a little to eager though as half way round I found myself having an intimate connection with the floor.

Jumping up and grabbing the bike I hobbled onto the centre of the island, much to the amusement of the traffic I can imagine! I checked the bike, put the chain back on, checked for blood and more importantly I checked to see that I hadn’t got a huge tear in my pants and that my bum wasn’t on display to add to the humiliation!

I’m pleased to say that the dhb clothing did its job well and stood up to the ‘Freke crash test’ fantastically well. The bike faired well too, a couple of scratches and a knock on the rear Mech was all it had to show for the ‘off’.

I was OK, although I thought I had possibly broken my wrist so off to hospital it was! Very luckily for me it was just a nasty sprain so a week in a splint soon saw me on the road to recovery.

I’m glad to say that I have since done plenty of miles on the bike and have learnt from my error, taking it a bit more steady around the islands!

The bike is a joy to ride, the carbon forks and rear frame section really take the harshness out of the rough roads. I’ve got myself into a really good rhythm with it and am still doing the ‘lunch break ride’ as I’m not a fan of cycling in the dark!

The plan over the next month is to keep trimming off the excess weight I put on over the Christmas break and improve my stamina. At the minute I’m doing 12.3 miles in 40minutes, 30seconds / 18.2 mph average so this is what i plan to work on and get my times down and to get me fighting fit for the new season ahead!

Cheers,

Nathan