THE GOOD BUCK

I forgot to say, while I was looking for a 954 FireBlade I had my eye on a few. The others were higher mileage but had upgrades. I’d narrowed it down to 3 that I really liked and was undecided. I was leaning in favour of the one I got, and decided to do a history check on it. You could get one check or three checks for the price of two, so I ran the other bike other as well.

I had been struck by the wording on the ad, but not unduly. “Had if for more than 3 years and never been trashed or abused in my ownership…” In my ownership.  The check came back, it was an insurance write off in 2012!

That was the best £4.99 I’ve ever spent.

A year ago I had a moment of biking epiphany. All my life I’d loved Harleys, Brits, Cafe Racers, etc. Basically pretty engines in stylish bikes. That also sound awesome. While at the same time I poured scorn and contempt on plastic-fantastic, pocket-rocket, ugly, race bikes. Then, in my moment of clarity, I realised that was a superficial and nostalgic view of biking. Air-cooled, naked (no fairings) bikes look gorgeous, sound nice, but just don’t bikey things. The true essence of bikes, the aspiration of the 50’s/ 60’s Cafe Racer is speed and handling. It’s realised in race bikes. I’ve become my own antithesis.

I’ve just bought the most bikey of bikes. The legendary Honda FireBlade. (“The Bike That Changed How Bikes Were Built”.)

The best (older) model. Obviously the tech gets better, the performance gets more extreme, but this is the desirable model of the not-the-latest (£19,000) bike.

My Achilles tendonitis in my left leg cleared up after a few weeks of nursing it, but then my right tendon started hurting. I think, it’s a combination of things, “too fast too soon” on the run was just the final straw.

I think it’s bike set up as well. I bought a pair of, supposedly, wide fit cycling shoes in the exact size for my foot. The online tutorial on cycling shoes said they should be the snuggest pair of shoes you own. Any movement is losing power and causing friction and pain.

To be honest, they totally suck. I went for another long ride to test them, (I think it was about 100 or so miles) by about 70 miles my right foot was feeling numb so I tried wriggling it around. Big mistake. The pain was so bad I really thought I was going to have to get off and push my bike for 20 odd miles. It was enough to make me shout out. Happily it happened just as I was about to start a steep hill ascent, so I found out that applying pressure to it returned it to just uncomfortably numb. I managed to ride home, but every time I hit bumps or lost direct pressure to my right pedal the pain came back.

You know how they always say to gradually improve?

Never increase your distance by more than 10% per week, or 10% distance overall per week. Slowly introduce speed or hill work. Blah blah blah.

And you know how I always plan to stick to it then go too fast too quickly?

About half way around the Windermere marathon, as I was picking up the pace, I had a quick chat with another runner. I think I must have said that I’d done no hill training as he asked me how I was finding it. I replied “I’m not dead yet.” He seemed impressed with the answer.

I suppose it does express what it’s all about. You go as hard as you can, if you’re still going, you’re winning. The Iron distance tri mantra “run, walk, crawl, just don’t stop” says the same in a different way.