Winter Warmers

Hello everyone, hope you are all well. Those of us here in the UK will be quite aware of just how crap the weather has been of late, I don't know about you but I have struggled to get out on the bike, with the enforced down time (yes I don't have an indoor trainer yet, it is next on my list) I have turned my mind towards preparing for the winter months ahead.
Other than the weather and a back injury (now healed) things are going pretty well this week, there could be romance in my future, well I hope there will be, so far she is an amazing woman and I really lie her, I just hope she is willing to accept me for the person I am as I do her, time will tell.

On the road

One of the things I am most looking forward too this winter is getting back into a solid routine, summer is great but I find my self easily distracted and I loose a little focus, a set session to develop my riding and I end up just riding, nothing wrong with that, I love riding my bike.
Having a plan goes a long way in training, even just a simple day to day schedule will work as the body loves routine, it thrives on it. In years past I have had a simple scheme, ride as much as i can as often as I can, that was great and yes I rode loads, I was quite fit, but come race time, well I went backwards as I was tired, that was until I picked up the Cyclist Training Bible by Joe Friel, using that book I put together a better plan and I started to see my racing improve and creeping into the top 10 in my class.
Those days have come and gone but the ideas remain the same and I managed to pick up an updated copy of the book.



Over the next couple of months I am going to put my routine down on paper and stick to it as best as I can, I am even going to invest in an indoor trainer again just to maximize my ride time, I am quite looking forward to it.


This coming October I am off up to Thetford again to race in the Dusk til Dawn event, this is a 12 hour night race all off road, it is not for the faint hear-ted, I have done this race twice before, first time was great but the second, well it was a wash out.....
One thing I have learned from these races is the importance of a helmet mounted light in addition to a bar mounted lighting system as it allows us to look through the bends in the direction we are wanting to go instead of just following the beam in front. Well this month I had a little extra budget to play with so I invested in one.

What I picked up was an Exposure Joystick mk5 with the helmet mount, this tiny little light is amazing, on full power is will put out 300 lumen for 3 hours taking only 4 hours to recharge, I will be running this little gem along side my 700 lumen Lumicycle Hid lighting system on my bars giving me a sweet 1000 lumen of lighting power that will burn for about 3-4 hours (the Hid runs for 3.5-4 hours).
This system is not just going to be used for racing as I intend on getting my ass out on the trails year round now which will help my skills too. So as you can guess I am getting excited about the early autumn/winter riding already.