Happy Cycliversary To Me

Today is a very important day.  Today marks exactly one year from the day I first got on my bike and rode it.  I am celebrating in style by doing absolutely nothing.  In spite of my stubborn statements that I'm OK really and I'll be back on my bike in no time following Friday's accident, I've had to face facts and admit that I'm not OK really and that it's going to take longer than 24 hours for my various injuries to get better.

None of the injuries is terrible, there are just rather a lot of them, mostly on my left side.  The worst one is my shoulder - there's nothing obviously wrong with it, but it aches right from inside, and it's making the rest of my arm hurt too (or maybe I've just hurt the rest of my arm as well).  I've also got bruises coming up in all sorts of places I hadn't realised I'd hit - again, none is terrible; they are just combining to make me feel less than excellent and mean that it would be pretty likely that I wouldn't have the strength to control my bike if something went wrong.  Therefore, I'm not going anywhere on two wheels today.  This makes me sad (I even had a little cry earlier).

Speaking of things going wrong with my bike, we (or rather, James) took it apart yesterday to check it over following its mishap on Friday. On the whole, it's in reasonable shape and it now has a nice shiny clean chain and a few bits tuned up and made better than they were (in fact, probably better than they have been for quite a while).  However, as James was tinkering and I was just sitting and staring vacantly in the general direction of my upside down bike in the middle of the kitchen floor, I noticed something that didn't look quite right on the front gears - some of the teeth weren't pointy.  In fact, some were also wider than others and they generally looked like they had been eating too many sweets and smoking a lot.

A closer inspection revealed that it wasn't just the front ring that needed to see the hygienist, the back ring also left a lot to be desired and it was decided, in dentistry terms, that dentures (i.e. replacement gears) were the only option and parts were duly ordered.  It'll probably be OK in the short term, at least until the parts arrive and we do the work on it, but the wear on the gears does explain the issues I've been having for a very long time with gears skipping and being clunky.  The issue seems to stem from the gears being aluminium (presumably to make the (folding) bike lighter) and the chain being steel - married ladies will know that putting two different metals in close contact for long periods of time will inevitably lead to wear, as we know that our engagement ring needs to match our wedding ring to avoid this kind of problem.

All of this is a bit depressing really, and given that it is my cycliversary, James and I decided that I needed a cycliversary present.  We decided that now that I've cycled in the dark twice and only fallen off my bike on one of those occasions, the best possible present we could get would be to enter the British Heart Foundation London to Brighton Night Ride.  Yes, that's right folkses.  Once we've been to Brighton in daylight, we're going to do it all over again about a month later in the dark, in the actual middle of the night.  I'm making this sound like it's an impulsive decision because I'm feeling a bit miserable, but we've actually been talking about it for a little while already - I just needed to make sure my diary was clear before signing up, which I've now done.  So, on Saturday, 13 July, we'll be setting off somewhere in the region of 11 p.m. to cycle all the way to Brighton again, and will hopefully arrive just in time for a fish and chip breakfast (!)

This new challenge means that we'll be redoubling our efforts on the fundraising front, so if you'd like to sponsor us to get to Brighton twice, then please click on the JustGiving link at the top right hand side of the page and put your hand as deep as you can reach into your pocket.