THE GOOD BUCK

Since I got the Bonneville I’ve been loving it more and more. It’s just a joy to ride. You don’t have to be going for stupid speeds or scary lean angles, just open the throttle and hear the roar, it’s gorgeous. I’m actually enjoying tootling around just for riding’s sake. I don’t have to have somewhere to go, I just want to be out on it. I took it to Lymm Dam the the other day for a picture.

It says AI generated content because I used the amazing software on the ‘phone to remove some posters from the railings and the arse end of a car that was in shot. I should have then cropped it, but here we are. Random guy gets to stay in the shot because he’s echoing the blue of the bike.

The Bonnie is not without faults. The seat is too thin and uncomfortable. I’ve ordered a second hand one off a different model of Bonnie. The handlebars feel too high. and the bike is too small. I’m hoping the bigger seat will lift the feel of the bike. I’ll see what acer bars would feel like when I’ve fitted the seat. The bars are only £62 and are a straight swap. Then, instead of a sit-up-and-beg position, you’d be leant forward over the tank. I think that would feel more natural, give a better feel for cornering, and it would allow you to lie over the tank, out of the wind, at motorway speeds. The only other thing is the cramped footrests. Again, I’m hoping a taller seat will cure that. If not, somewhere down the line, fit a set of rearsets to move my feet back.

It’s been an interesting fortnight. I took my Harley into the shop and I was all set. Money in the bank, Harley to be fixed, Honda to be my reliable bike. The Harley shop still haven’t got back to me. Then I clipped a road sign in my truck at work, so I’ve been off work, without any pay, for 12 days while I wait for them to put me in with the driver trainer for retraining. Then we had a beastly hot heatwave, so I wasn’t sleeping and I was tired and grumpy. I got bored and started perusing bikes again. I saw a (modern, -2010-) Triumph Bonneville for sale. Only 22 miles away. £2,650. Over a grand cheaper than similar bikes. I was up after 3 or 4 hours sleep on the longest day, reading bike reviews for models of Bonnie. Everything said this was the one to get. It was so cheap because it had done 54,000 miles, but everything I read said that as long as you changed the oil and checked the valve clearances on time, modern Triumphs are good for well over 100k. They are a well engineered bike, that is under very little (67bhp) stress, so they keep running. This one had a full service history, so it met the criteria.

I was losing sleep obsessing, so I tried to convince myself my VFR750 was a superior bike. I was awake from before 03.00 so I got up at ungodly o’clock and rode to Keswick (230 mile round trip) for some pasties.

The bike was awesome and the pasties were nice, but they didn’t remove the taste of Bonnie obsession from my mouth.

We’ve been having a bit of a nightmare with Wendy. She was off work for months after being diagnosed with a knackered heart valve or something. It was a bad time for her as she was bored witless, just sat on the sofa all day long, or scared by nasty chest pains every time she did anything to break the boredom. It was a long 3 months for her. She finally got the operation date, 14 weeks after the diagnosis. They said it was go in, 45 minute procedure to insert the stent, wait 4 hours to check everything had settled, go home. Should be over the operation in 3 days, don’t drive for a week. All good.

We went in, they did her without any painkillers of consequence (just paracetamol) and it took them 2 hours. It seems like they were training up a new guy. So two hours of agony. At least they did it, so she just had to get over the severe bruising and pain.

They said 3 days, which is what I’d booked off work, then I had my normal 2 days off, so 5 days. She was still in a bad way after 5 days and had to go to the doctor. He said the nausea and bad back pain was a kidney infection, so gave her antibiotics. “They will clear it up in 3 days”. I was back at work, doing long shifts, leaving her on her own. Less than ideal. A few days later she was still in such a state she had to go back to the doctors. This time it was a woman. She said Wendy definitely didn’t have a kidney infection. Super. She said her back was badly tensed up. She sent a urine sample to the hospital, they confirmed no infection, and arranged for a blood test and kidney function test. We did that today. As she said “we have to relax that back” to Wendy, I’ve been giving her massages morning and night, which is providing temporary relief and making it bearable. Hard to think what it could be. If it was a damaged kidney you wouldn’t think massaging it would ease it. If it’s muscular you’d think the massages would stick. But the pain and stiffness keep coming back. I don’t understand.

I had a few days off training after the marathon then got back to it on Thursday. A 1k swim, followed by 30 minutes rowing, straight into an hour on the treadmill (7.3 miles). That is made really tough because you are already sweating from the rowing, then you have to run, in a barely cool gym, with no fan. Great heat conditioning, I suppose. But awful.

The next day I just did an hour on the bike trainer, the day after I did an easy paced 8 mile run. Yesterday I did an hour on the bike then straight out for an 8 mile run. I was just trying to train my legs to the misery of running off the bike, but after a 3 miles aiming at sub 8.30 I was feeling fine so I upped the pace to 7.40s to bring it home under sub 8 average pace. I was surprised and happy with that.

Last night I was thinking I need to do some long rides to get myself bike fit for the half tri and work towards LEJOG. I tried the Garmin feature where you ask for a distance and it plots you a safe bike course. It lead me along Cromwell Ave (busy main road) and over the motorway roundabout (a Highways Agency declared accident blackspot). That’s a no.

I got a free place for winning my age group at Blackpool marathon with a 3.08:11 last year. Then I lost my mojo. And got lazy. And missed so much training I thought I was giving up on running. Then I got a nasty dose of covid and I physically couldn’t run for a month or two after the bug. Which was actually a good thing because as soon as I was well enough I was dying to run again. I got back on the horse, got some good training done, overdid it, got a sports injury and had to take weeks off of running just a few weeks before the race. I did a 20 mile test run last week and I was so battered I decided I wasn’t fit enough to start the race this year. But then I was rabbit-holing triathlons and saw a full distance one, relatively cheap, in 18 weeks. I mentioned it to Wendy and she said “But you’re not even doing marathons right now.” (Or words to that effect.) I realised I was being slack and defeatist. So I did the marathon today.

Being on the sea front the wind was pretty stiff, right in your face one way, at your back coming back, then in your face for the 3 miles back to the start finish line, you do two laps of that. There were some some of roadworks today so they’d re-routed the course a little, but not re-measured it. It was consistently .3 of mile too long. My watch was saying 10 miles, then I’d pass the 10 mile marker at 10.3 miles. It wasn’t just my watch, I asked two other runners and their watches agreed with mine. That was a tough mental challenge on the last 3 miles into the wind. I was absolutely smashed, I wasn’t really marathon fit, I had nothing left, and they were sticking an extra third of a mile on. I ground it out, clicking my watch at 26.2 so I’d have a real marathon distance time, then at the finish line. By that point I’d done nearly another half mile (.44 of a mile).

I’ve just looked, the official chip time is 3.42:36, but 3.55 of that was the .44 miles extra. 6th in my age group, 154th out of 596.