One Week

One week without posting, and one week without riding. My slightly scratchy throat on Saturday turned into full-blown "I feel rubbishness", which wiped me out for three days. I did manage to get to the gym on Friday, but then I woke yesterday with some kind of neck/shoulder spasm. So overall, not great.

In the meantime I've started to think about events that I could do next year, that might be a bit different to this year and might enable me to buy more things.

Firstly, the UK Singlespeed Championships. I don't think this will really require me to be fit, it's more a case of finding someone to go with and getting the entry done in time. It might allow me to spec up the Inbred with some shiney new bits.

Secondly, The Dragon Ride. This is a long (100 mile), tough (big hills & the odd mountain) road ride, in the middle of June. It's a bit like the Etape Du Tour, but much nearer and much cheaper. Jon seems interested in this, he's definitely a bit of a roadie at heart. Of course, doing a challenging road event may well require a much better road bike. I've discovered the Orbea Orca (not discovered in the "dug up in the jungle" sense, more the "read about it in a magazine" sense). It's one of the few road bikes I've seen that doesn't look like it's been painted by a chimp with a fixation for primary colours. On the minus side, it might be totally unsuitable for what I want to do, and is verging on the stupidly expensive. We shall see.

Not much mountain biking in the list yet. To balance things out there might be for XC racing, and I've booked to go on a guiding course. This is step one (of about 12, one of which involves finding oil in the garden) in the escape the normal job plan.