Changing priorities

The intention was for this weeks blog to have been stunning Go-Pro footage of me carving my way around the singletrack of the Surrey Hills. However, my wife is expecting our second child imminently and after she suffered a dodgy night I decided I should be staying closer to home on Sunday. So here I am sitting in front of the keyboard empty handed!

Family priorities mean cycling has been slipped quietly to simmer on the back burner for a while. Well that is the impression I like to give to my wife anyway! I do normally have a training schedule drawn up that extends at least two months in advance. However, I have entered zero mileage and no ride targets at all for January and February. I’m just going to see how it goes and grab any opportunities to ride that I can. Once Junior has made their appearance and the tide of visitors and well-wishers has slowed, I will begin to get an idea of what life is like with two little people to look after. Then I can plan the return of some kind of structure to by riding.  By the middle of January I would normally have all my races and goals for the year pencilled in and priorities planned out. Here at least I have entered race dates in the calendar, but there are no particular goals beyond the fact that it would just be nice to be there and taking part! This means I haven’t persued sponsors for 2016, as that would have tied me down to certain commitments.

In fact the squeeze on my free time has already begun. For the first time in years I resorted to leaving a bike at the local shop for some maintenance. A large part of my enjoyment of cycling comes from the tinkering and fettling with bike set-up. So it was with a heavy heart that I handed over the road bike for a new bottom bracket and rear mech. I collected it on Friday and I immediately could see things that weren’t done the way I would have liked to do them. Don’t get me wrong, the work had been completed and everything was working wonderfully, but it’s just small things like splitting the chain in the same place as the original joint so there are not two potential weak spots. The sort of fussiness you can have when you work on your own bike in your own time.

So this probably won’t be the last blog I write this year without a defined topic. In fact you can expect some downtime once the latest addition to the household decides to make their appearance. Come February the 7^th I probably won’t even have time to realise I’ve missed the first race of the year !!