First I'll introduce myself - Adrian Snow, 22 and currently living in Lincoln. I work full time and my spare time is taken up by my fiancée, amateur dramatics and sport.
This blog is about the sport element of my life - though no doubt some of the other two bits will leak in (hint: especially about the fiancée.) I decided I need some accountability in my endeavours to get fit so I should blog about them - even if I get 0 readers!
Inspiration for this blog comes from reading the likes of:
Tim Wiggin's Cycling blog
Rob Sharland's First Season Racing blog
James Shuttleworth - GB Age Group Triathlete - blog
I will try and credit/link to as many other blogs/websites that I can to get anybody who stumbles onto this blog into some proper good reading!
Bikes
My story with cycling started at the age of 5. My Grandad built me a bike from spares at a scrapyard and took me out to the field behind his house. Pushed me off and watched me fall off, again and again until I could happily ride round that field without falling down. This love of cycling continued through the years.. I had a BMX with pink tyres (thanks Mum & Dad!) then my first real bike came at the age of 12 (a red Raleigh 'mountain bike' from cousin David.) After that I had various bikes (many got stolen or lost - a post for the future I think!) on which I conducted paper rounds, then later commuted to college and work.
Then in 2010 one of my best friends bought a road bike.
Oh. My. Goodness.
The thrill of it was incredible, the skinny tyres and the drop bars just appealed to me like nothing else. I asked him if I could borrow it for a quick spin - 10miles later and I was hooked. We watched the 2010 Tour de France together - whilst not having a clue what was going on (can't say the ITV 4 commentary was much help either...)
After that epiphany I organised a 160-mile route from Lincoln to London for charity (www.lincoln2london.blogspot.com) which I thought would be a piece of cake - it wasn't. Much hilarity ensued but my love for road cycling was not dented.
In 2011 I bought a vintage Raleigh flyer from eBay for the grand sum of £40!
[Picture to come..]
After a few quid spent it was usable and looked like this!
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| Raleigh in restored condition. New tyres, bar tape & gear/brake service |
I started to ride this bike to work and out on weekend jaunts around the countryside. Nothing crazy but just enjoyed being out on the bike. In mid-2012 I got knocked off my bike by a car turning left and not indicating (SMIDSY!) Long story short - derailleur and gears system was screwed so I opted for the "cool" repair and get it converted to single speed and back on the road.
Now it looked like this! (Sorry for the dirty bar tape & low saddle!)
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| Single Speed & a new saddle |
Obviously 2012 was the year for cycling in the UK. The Bradley Wiggins/Team Sky euphoria was not lost on me and I spent out on a new Road Bike as a 'weekend ride'.
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| Yummy. Bianchi was an eBay bargain. |
I also entered a sprint triathlon in September - one of the One Step Beyond events - which whetted my appetite for future triathlons (race report coming up in another blog post). The triathlon interested me because it involved the competitiveness that my sort of personality craves (read: everything is a competition, walking to work, eating lunch fastest, being the best at changing channels on the Sky+ box..) whilst not directly involving bunch cycling which I have no experience of. Also the distances were nice and short which meant I could (probably) not fail.
Anyway, enough of the long introduction.. I'll write some more blog posts soon to catch up with my experiences so far and then talk about future events and anything else that seems relevant in my life!
Thanks for reading :-)
Adrian
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