How's the training going?

Being English I am obsessed by the weather, when it felt as if spring was well on her way I was speeding along in T shirt and three-quarter leggings, now we are back to rain blown horizontally in fierce winds I've returned to gloves and dew drop on the end of my nose. Every year we get it, blackthorn winter still it could be worse the first wood anemones are out near Newmill.Last weekend the weather was fantastic and I did 77 miles which I thought was pretty good until I remembered I have to do that three days running. Living here where its only about 7 miles from the north to the south coast I end up heading east or west: east took me to Breage, St Erth and back along the north coast, decided against carrying a goose egg home in my back pack but the marmalade was tempting. On Sunday I headed west up Paul Hill (confusingly named Chywoone Hill) which is a real chain snapper but worth it as the world opens out to St Buryan and Lamorna. The stuff which Cornwall Hospice Care sent has a 16 week suggested training programme which indicates I could be up to around week 12 with my two 35ish mile rides at the weekend and three 15 or 20 milers during the week. In a month or so I'll have to take the programme a bit more seriously but I think I'll go on just enjoying myself for a bit longer.

Spring

Last Friday the Very Hungry Caterpillar introduced Google by celebrating the first day of spring. I thought it all started on 21 March but I'm not going to quibble over a day. It has been a fantastic week, early mists giving way to clear blue skies and wall to wall sunshine.The solar hot water panel is doing its thing, buds are bursting all around I've cut the grass, eaten purple sprouting every evening and even had my first swim at Battery RocksThe larks are trilling and washing is flapping on the line.I've had my first T shirt and shorts bike ride in glorious sunshineeven if it was a bit nippy cycling home in the evening. The moon seems to have gone missing so the night skies are awesome, the mighty procession of Taurus, Orion and the winter Triangle are shuffling off to the west and Arcturus is bright in the east heralding spring.

Squeak,squeak

My bicycle has developed a squeak.It all started when I misjudged a pothole, the helpful road sign warned 'Temporary road surface' but 'Missing road surface' would have been more accurate.At first it was quite a little squeak, the kind you might confuse with a wren bopping about in the bushes, but now it has become so insistent I find myself pretending it's not me as people turn to stare. I must go to the bike shop, they'll sort it out.The Cycle Centre in Penzance is brilliant, everyone is friendly and helpful, they have endless patience with people like me who don't know their cartidges from their cassettes.When I first started going it was crowded into a tiny shop at the top of Bread Street, so small that there wasn't room for the bikes to have pedals.Now its old sail loft shop in New Street has bikes hanging like Christmas decorations from the roof and you can get anything from several thousand pounds worth of bike to a widget costing only a few pence (does anything still cost 'only a few pence?)

End of an era

One of my most frequent evening rides is to the Planning department at Penwith's offices, down Bone Valley for the primrose experienceoften a bit of a detour around Newlyn and back up the steeper hills past Trevaylor and the bluebell woods of Newmill.

It'll be a sad day when Penwith District Council disappears and we get hoovered into the bureaucratic mess of the unitary Cornwall Council, the authority we so resoundingly voted against. It will be another sad day when Penwith's offices close and everyone has to move to some soulless office further up the line - rather too far for an after work ride for me. I've had my ups and downs with Penwith but I'm glad to have worked with so many nice people there, I wish them luck and I wish us all luck with such a ridiculous change of local government

Bikes in sheds

Question - when did you last get your bike out of the shed and go for a ride?

Out of 11 answers - 2 rode their bikes yesterday and 9 not since last year or longer.

Our recent poll suggests there are quite a few bicycles mouldering in garden sheds. If you would like to blow off the cobwebs, get out the oil can and have a gentle (flat) ride from Penzance to Marazion with me for hot chocolate or coffee or cake.....

....let me know and we'll organise something soon.

To The Lighthouse

Hoping to increase my stamina I cycled yesterday to Godrevy to meet my back up team. An afternoon of wild skies and open beaches with the added treat of about 60 seals lolling on the sand at Mutton Cove

ending up with a hot chocolate at the cafe
A round trip of 32 miles