Wow what happened to the last two months!

So work has been nuts, training almost consistent and a little hectic and life generally mad!

It is now March and a week before my 38th birthday :-O where has time gone.....mostly into paying bills and trying to do some training. A lot of time has been spent on the turbo a little less in the pool and running is a constant background theme! Overall I am happy with progress, this weekend I did another VO2max and the prelim results look good - 42.5 up from 37.9 in October :-) so something must be going well!

I am finally getting out on the bike again which is a relief as I have gone through all of series 7 of 24 on the turbo and most of the Battlestar Galactica series too!

Sorry for the disjointed format of this blog mainly just getting something down as it is ages since I last updated it....I must try to be more regular with it!

I have entered IM70.3 in IRE (as well as the UK one) it will be my B race and the last of the season as it is in September (in Galway!!) and I will probably be doing Marshman if I sort things out and enter!

Finally I have made a new bike! Well remade an old one really - I looked at getting a thief proof single speed but even on Ebay they were £400+ so I bought the bits from Charlie the Bikemonger (http://www.charliethebikemonger.com/) an awesome purveyor of all things single speed and built my own. This is something I have never done before - it was great! I stripped and built a bike from scratch :-) v happy. So the details:

I started with a CroMoly frame (Virago?? brand) which was 80s (red and yellow) colouring and stickers I then stripped it and painted it with Hammerite spray paint (really badly - don't want it to look too nice for the casual thief in Cambridge!!).

The rebuild used: an old BB and Bonty Racelight spider from my Trek Equinox fitted with a NoName 42T chainring; a new rear wheel (the original was a screw on cassette) with free hub and a NoName 18T cog; new mini V brakes and Quad cabling; the trek aero base bar and bonty aero brakes from my old Equinox and the old triaero saddle from it too.

All the single speed kit and an IceToolz equipment came from Charlie the Bikemonger (thanks for the web address Chris!) and the brake cable/rear wheel from other bike shops.

All I can say is thankyou to Chris W for giving me the kick to build it and everyone who likes cycling should do this - I am soooo much more confident in stripping and building a bike now!

....and here are some pictures! Enjoy!

I.