But after two consecutive weeks of broken spokes at last the back wheel held together – and to some degree, so did I. Mike of Lakeland Cycles in Bolton-le-Sands got me back on the road, so thank you to him. But 20-odd miles around Arnside is one thing; 100 miles to Wrynose is another. I think I need Mike to rebuild my wheels entirely before my mad dash into the Lake District. New rims and better spokes all round. 

Gaah. Another broken spoke.

It was all woe and doom this week. Again. Just past the Longlands Hotel on the road to Burton in Kendal, crack! – a spoke broke with a spectacular noise and the wheel instantly buckled. Bad enough that it sounded like someone was shooting at me; worse is that this is the third spoke to go on the same wheel. It’s pretty much a new bike, too.

We tidied up the spoke as well as we could and opened up the brake calipers to let the wheel turn. I limped home sounding like the grocer’s bike in Open all Hours, but raised to the power 10. People came out of their houses to see what was going on, cows in the fields took fright, and one guy out with his dog was so preoccupied with this apparition coming up the hill that he walked straight into a lamp post.

In the helmet at least they wouldn’t know it was me.

When I got home I logged onto the internet and looked at wheel prices. Wow. So when’s the next sale on, then?

Not much to report this week: Same old route, a stronger wind than I would have liked, average speed down to 13.8 mph, and weight 15st 4lb. For some reason I just couldn’t get going – I wasn’t happy, not really feeling that well, and it was all a bit of a struggle.

They say you shouldn’t grumble, but I’m going to. I blame the bike. It was rattling a bit, and the mudguard was catching. That explains everything, I think you’ll find.

I’ve sorted it now and will have no excuses for next week…

Again, I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to my chosen charities. So far we’ve raised nearly £400. Who’d have thought it? Not me, that’s for sure.

A bit more about John Black. 

When John was having his annual bout of man flu in the darkest depths of December, he expressed doubts about whether he wanted to go on the Wrynose ride next May. This didn’t last long. As the days are getting longer his training rides are becoming more focused; he is getting quite a bit of midweek cycling under his belt and is really going for the hills while I’m stuck at work. His competitive instinct clearly has kicked back in. It’s a bit scary.

I’m sure our little excursions on Sunday must frustrate him a little. I had a few days off in Leyburn, Wensleydale last week, and back on the bike on Sunday, in very windy conditions, I found it difficult and tiring. ‘Good for fitness,’ says John, blithely. He’d already done three or four rides that week.

Although he never says much, I know he has to ride slowly to enable me to keep up. It could be quite humiliating if I had any pride. Here am I, a much younger man, and this 70-year-old guy is riding rings round me. My only saving grace is that John’s doctor tells him that he is the fittest man he has ever met for his age. So at least he is exceptional. 

Make no mistake, John is leading this expedition and I am very fortunate that he is. My job is just to find the time to give him and the course my best shot. ‘My best shot’ being to cycle the full hideous 100 miles, get over Wrynose, and repay the faith in me that an increasingly alarming number of people have shown, of course.

In reference to which, many thanks if you have made a donation to one of my chosen charities. So far we have raised more than £360, for which I am very grateful, as I am sure are the charities involved.

If you’d like to donate, it’s very easy to do so. Just click on the ‘Donate Here‘ panel to your right, pick one (or more) of the four charities that appear on the next page and click ‘Donate Here’ again. For three of the charities (Rotary requires that you post your donation) you’ll go straight to my JustGiving page: make sure you have your debit or credit card to hand, and simply follow through what is a very straightforward and secure process.

Please don’t wait for me to arrive in pieces at the downhill side of Wrynose before you make your donation. The modern style of sponsorship employs a stick rather than a carrot – you make the donation in advance and bully me into completing my chosen mission, rather than place before me the promise of a donation should I succeed. Either way the charity benefits: this way it just does so sooner and unconditionally.

Thank you.

4 January 2009. The first cycle ride of the New Year and the old team are back together again, just like Sundance and Butch. Or Foggy and Compo, at any rate.

A decent run, too: 30 miles, including the long drag up the ‘Albion Hill’ at Arnside. Average speed 14.7mph, weight 15 stone 5lb. Just two pounds added since 21 December, and that, I’ll have you know, is a result. This is the least I have put on over the Christmas period for many years. I may be on the verge of becoming a blob once more, but I’m a well-toned, muscled blob who can train at the gym for two hours and cycle a bit at weekends.

I hope I’m not kidding myself. The blog team at Pagefast have used the ever-expanding genius of Google maps to create an interactive route map of my Wrynose ride. I’m going to have to lose those two extra pounds sharpish…

It all went a bit Pete Tong this Christmas, as the kids seem to say.

We went to watch Jez run the line at Middlesbrough against Everton on Boxing Day, and stayed overnight at a local Thistle Hotel. A good stay, and passable food. But on the way back I had a problem with my eye, and by Sunday morning this had developed into iritis. This is a typical part of the ankylosing spondylitis package – I’ve had it a couple of times before and without rapid treatment it can become very serious. On this occurrence it was a timely reminder, too, why I’m taking on Wrynose. The Arthritis Research Campaign needs your support.  

Anyway, another Sunday bike ride bit the dust. Instead I got myself into the hands of the out-of-hours doctor service, and very good they were, too. Wrapped up in the warm embrace of the NHS, by 4pm I had been seen by a consultant ophthalmologist, the eye condition addressed, and I was on my way. Should be back to normal within the week.

Where there’s a warm NHS embrace there’s always a receptionist from hell too, of course. No matter how bad you’re feeling, these vicious numpties will make you feel worse. Your broken leg? That’s a personal affront to them. A bad eye? How dare you intrude on their own small world of misery.

If you saw Eric Morecambe grab ‘Andrew Preview’ by the lapels at Christmas you’ll have an idea of where my daughter Sal was going with our own charmless harpy. Now that would have been something worth seeing.

If my eyes had been up to it…

It’s a strange game being a printer; a real cycle of feast and famine.

Appropriately enough, this being Christmas, we’re in feast mode at the moment. An entirely different set of challenges from the famine downturns, but good problems to have. Mostly. Juggling the kids, the job, the husband, dinner, the babysitter and a night out at the opera is something that only a multi-tasking modern superwoman can do? Have a word with a commercial printer. We’ve got 15 tickets in the job board and every one of them wants delivery yesterday.

All of our printing jobs have to be managed and progressed concurrently to a strict timetable. We work to the principal of ‘advancing on a broad front’, and if we didn’t nothing would get done on time. That’s a Montgomery-ism, by the way, and I use it deliberately to make a point about men balancing workloads. We can do it, you know, and in printing as in many traditionally male-dominated industries and professions it is something we have always done. As women come into these industries they do the same. The point is that none of us – man or woman – makes a fuss about it. We just do what is needed to get the job done.

I could say more but I won’t. Except that my Grannie did everything that today’s Blackberry-toting modern supermum does, and she did it without the benefit of electricity and apparently without feeling the need to call everyone’s attention to herself.

Ahem.

If you’re still there, and feeling touched by the spirit of the season, please shoot over here and help out my chosen charities. And have a very happy Christmas!

25 miles, average speed 14.8mph, weight 15 stone 3lb

At 70, after a lifetime of competitive cycling, John still thinks like an athlete. He watches the weather conditions, takes note of wind direction and speed, and calculates the likelihood of an appearance of the old enemy, rain.

It’s the same with his health: If anyone within a kilometre of him sneezes, he immediately checks his temperature and ups the Vitamin C intake. So with his grandson having involuntary projectile vomiting and his daughter having something equally disgusting at the other end, he backed out of our Sunday bike ride. Before he did, he worked out the best route to avoid the worst of the wind and sent me on my way.

Cycling in windy conditions can be really exhilarating, and I had a great ride. That is, until I had to turn around and come back. Speeds in excess of 20mph and flying up the hills on the way out; ‘oh b****r’ and a battle on the way back. But it went reasonably well and I was quite pleased.

And if you’re a bean counter, that 3lb at the top indicates an increase of one pound of solid leg muscle over last week. Honest.

25 miles, average speed 14.2mph, weight 15 stone 2lb

What is it about Christmas and everyone wanting their printing done early?

We’ve been going potty with work. My theory is that customers, bless ‘em, don’t want to come back after the long break to find they have run out of stationery, and so hit us with last-minute orders to make sure they start off the new year on the right foot. So that’s us busy on the commercial side. Over on magazines, of course,the start of January is one of only two times a year when everyone – weekly, monthly, six-weekly, bimonthly and quarterly – has the same deadline. It’s been madness and I have had nothing left for Greg’s indoor trainer.

But we don’t work Sundays, and Sunday was a beautiful day, so it was back on the road at last for me. And a good job too. Up the road to Crooklands, back to Sandside and Arnside, a long drag up the Albion hill to Silverdale and home. Cycling on the road is much more a test of fitness than a static trainer, and after the few weeks we’ve just had I was happy just to spin the pedals and get around the course.

Happy, too, to get on the scales and find myself at my lowest weight for a couple of years. Just in time for Christmas.