New Commuter, New Videos, New Shirts, Out with the old.

 Taken from my blog, The videos dont work here, To view please visit:gazzasblogs.blogspot.com/

http://www.justgiving.com/gb155

Welcome to my bumper update, This week we have 2 videos, 8 pictures and lots of info for you all, So get yourself a drink, Sit down and enjoy:

Weight:

Disappointed to loose just ONE pound this week but hey a loss is a loss, I will keep fighting and hope next week is better.

 

Monday:

The week didn't start off great, The GT was in for a new Bottom Bracket and I commuted on the Townsend. We Actually set a nice pace, Its always an adventure riding the old supertanker of a bike.

 

Tuesday:

I was back on the GT, For the first time since I started commuting to work on the bike  I stood up and sprinted up “Devils Hill" See the video below for the reason its named as it is, The video is of the direction that's actually a little bit easier then when coming home, That said either way isn't much fun.

 

I Rode home with a fellow commuter, It’s a guy who I have passed the time with a few times over the last few months, Got into a decent rhythm and managed to keep up with him (for the first time)  all the way till we went separate ways (approx a mile from home) , Got home and noticed that it had actually been a great pace and I had  set a new PB time of 27 Mins (Going home is more up hill).Thanks for pushing me like that Joby, I look forward to the next time,  The commuter in question has his own blog, Read it here.

One bad point about the day is that the GT started making that weird noise again when it was being pushed hard, The Bottom Bracket did need replacing (Ask the pedal lol) but it seems (after much investigation and head scratching) that the noise is coming from the rear QR skewer.

Wednesday:

Wednesday came and it all seemed pretty quiet, The GT had settled down (after some fettling) and I had started to stand up a LOT more now I had my confidence in doing so.

Then came a text with 5 words that would change my whole mood/day/ etc etc

The Text (SMS) Read “Your Cycle2work voucher has arrived"

After much (Frantic) negations to get my car to work, I left work at 4.30pm with the GT in the boot, By 6pm I was driving home with a brand new TAX FREE Trek on top of the GT :D

 

Here is it, My new commuter, Trek 6300

it wasn't actually my first choice but Trek were totally out of the Orange version of this machine and there was no ETA on when any more would arrive in the UK, So I looked around the shop and decided against going for anything else and accepted it in white. I REALLY didn't want a white one but wow am I glad took it now, Its a great bike and (I hope you will agree) looks stunning.The arrival of the Trek did mean that I only cycled 7 miles on Wednesday though

(Something I aim to make up for today).

 

Thursday and Friday:

Thursday was pretty uneventful to be fair, I was getting into my rhythm on the new bike and adjusting here there and everywhere. Friday however I seemed to have dialed into the Trek pretty well, As I left home I was EXHAUSTED from the week (will be all that sprinting that I’m not used to) I arrived into Denton and was passed like I was stood still by a fellow commuter, This will never do, I looked down and noticed I was at 16MPH, I knew I could do better but didn't feel like I had anything left in my leg.

Then I remembered I'm a player of THE SCR GAME, You can find me here a lot of the time too. I had a scalp to take back and protect (and as the great Lance Armstrong would say “pain is only temporary but losing is forever"), I dropped into a higher gear and started spinning like crazy, I was cruising along at 25mph trying to catch up to what was by now a spec in the distance, around a mile and a half later I was sat on his rear wheel and we were flying though traffic at a constant 22 MPH , The problem with trying to get my scalp back was that we were on a very busy 2 lane road and it just wasn't safe to pass (see the rules of SCR) so I had to take the moral victory of sticking with someone like glue at 22 MPH for around 4.5 miles ish, As someone who is on a MTB and over 22 stone I will take that :D.

Clothes:

    On Tuesday Night I decided to try on some shirts, Including my old NFL ones, I was shocked to see the changes in my body, See below:   BEFORE:   NOW:       BEFORE:   NOW:       I also purchased a £5 Polo Shirt from Asda (Wall Mart to my American friends) not expecting it to fit it, Deciding to try it on I was a little shocked when it looked like this:             

Bike Week:

Bike week is June 13th – 21st, I have decided in the run up to bike week to release this video, As I am descending “Devils Hill" On the way home one afternoon around 2-3 weeks ago I had an incident, I was traveling at over 22mph when a lady driver decided to cut in front of me, She had a young child in the front seat who was holding on to the seat as she almost clipped me(looked like the G-Forces to me)  

I am showing this video as a plea to drivers to consider cyclists as normal human people, Let’s raise awareness in the run up to Bike Week that this kind of action can causes serious injury (or worse)

 

Sorry for the TYPO on the video.     I have an interview with the press office on Monday, My involvement is wanted to promote Bike week, Pretty exciting but at this stage I have no idea what is required of me, So keep tuned.     Speaking of the press here are a couple more pictures from my Photo shoot from a couple of weeks ago.           OK OK I will stop with the pictures and videos for now (They forced me to smile anyway).   It has been a bumper update this week but things are moving pretty fast with just 35 days to do until Blackpool I intend to do another 1 or 2 warm up events so hopefully there will be more location picture updates for you to enjoy.   I am also (still) updating my goal list, It’s been a while and I have some much bigger goals on there right now, I hope to publish this week sometime.   Thanks for reading everyone, See you all next week.     Gaz (The Amazing Shrinking One)  

http://www.justgiving.com/gb155