After not really cycling that much in the last couple of years, this week I thought I’d start up again. Im less than 6 weeks away from the off. Damn I’ve got unfit..

I started out with taking in a 30 mile loop to and from work. Something I used to not even break a sweat with. I was in bed before 9 each night, but its nice to have that exercise ache, you know, the one that you know your muscles are going to come back stronger.

I did consider not bothering and just thinking about riding into fitness as I started touring. I am now glad I’m not, the first couple of weeks may have been miserable getting back into shape.

For the weekend I thought I’d start getting the bike up together. This meant an oil change for the rohloff, the cleaning fluid looked horrible, so it was well needed.

After cleaning I noticed that the jockey wheels on the chain tensioner were pretty badly worn. They have done well over 14,000 miles, so time for some new ones. Changing them was not as straight forward as I’d hoped and it needed an angle grinder to take off the seized on bearing race.

In my haste to try and remove, I first attempted using a screwdriver to lever it off, at the time thinking, this will hurt if it slips…. Then it slipped. Have a nice cut across my finger now.

This week, a new fly sheet arrived for my MSR Hubba Hubba. Cascade Designs Ltd sent it thorough with an invoice to pay after it arrived. Fantastic customer service. Set it up today and noticed it felt a lot lighter. I weighed the two, old vs new and the new one is 200 grams lighter!

Next task is to start contacting some potential hosts on Warmshowers. It’s lovely to stay with and talk to other touring cyclists and is always a pleasure to host and stay with others. As if on queue, today I had a request for me to host a French Couple on Monday. The house now smells of oil and degreaser, better get off and tidy up.