Bike: Commencal Meta 5.5
Distance: 26.2 miles
Time: 2hrs 40mins

There was a small part of me dreading this ride, the first decent mountain bike ride I have had in almost 6 weeks, I knew the lungs would scream, I knew the legs would scream and I knew a small part of me would be screaming, however all in all it was a perfect ride.

Darn cold today again, getting used to this freezing weather, the new thermal knee warmers are perfect, the thermal socks are not, the only downside to the ride was the 40 minutes it took for feeling to come back into my feet after the long ride back down from the forest.

The ride itself was great, ok my fitness has lost quite a bit, it’ll come back though just takes time and plenty of riding but what today did was complete stoke my mountain bike fire again, I am just itching to get out riding again.  The trails were in perfect nick today, some scamblers have been through and actually helped the trail by taking off the top moss layer so each trail just rode really sweet.

Great days ride, followed by curry and beer, what could be better!

Bike: Cotic Roadrat
Distance: 20 miles

I didn’t think I would even get another bike ride in this year I have been feeling so crap with this flu and chest infection but after 3 weeks of doing nothing I was at breaking point yesterday and needed a ride.

I layered up well as it was still at freezing point outside grabbed the Roadrat and decided to try for an hour at a slow pace to see how I felt, my how things have changed in a short month, fitness feels like it has completely gone! I managed about an hour and 15 minutes, covered 20 miles at a ridiculous pace and then spent the rest of the day coughing my lungs up – great!!

Today though I don’t feel too bad, so I guess the infection has gone and I am left with just a crappy cold, I so much just want to ride every day now but the plan is to ease it back again, so a day off again today, short road ride Monday and then hopefully Davagh for a decent mountain bike ride on Tuesday, I know the legs and lungs will be crap but the soul will be smiling!!

Best laid plans and all that, looks like any riding I get up to the next two weeks will be purely mental and dream related. Got hit with a nasty flu virus on Saturday following nicely with a chest infection, so that’ll more than put and end to any form of biking over the Christmas break, c’est la vie, I could be annoyed, angry and mad but at the end of the day what is the point.

Ever since the trip to Ae back in October things haven’t quite gone to plan at all, so I will aim to take stock, make plans, set goals, get fat and play with the kids toys before the torturous journey back to fitness starts again!

I relented and finally paid up a sub to this great magazine, I’ve been reading the online version since Issue 1, it’s just got better and better with every issue.

I was stoked to come home and find a nice parcel from Pittsburgh with the 2 back issues I had ordered – happy days, happy reading.

Saturday morning brought with it a catalogue of disasters that could have meant no ride of any description, which is not something I was looking forward to in the slightest, considering it has been too long since I had a proper mountain bike ride.

My car packed in on Friday so I was without a means to travel to any trails that are worth the ride, a severe frost coupled with fog meant a road ride would have been like dancing with the devil himself.

I prowled about the house for a couple of hours and then had enough, layered up and jumped on the Meta and headed out into the -2 fun anyway.  Had a good hour just spinning round the local small forest and lake trails, it was good fun playing on the ice, well good for learning some new balance skills anyway but at least it was a ride.

At long last something to put a smile on my face about mountain biking in Ireland, if this trailer is anything to go by we are in for one sweet movie early next year.

Break the Cycle Trailer from Andy Yoong on Vimeo.

Bike: Cotic Roadrat
Distance: 37 miles
Time: 2hrs 20mins

Bike: Commencal Meta 5.5
Distance: 7 miles
Time: 55mins

Best laid plans and all that.  Saturday was supposed to be a pure mountain ride through the muddy forest, slept in (how is that possible with kids) and missed the window of opportunity for 3 hours in the hills, so pulled the Roadrat out and hit the roads instead, same route as last week to see if the legs could cope any better, they didn’t but that was more down to the Arctic wind that tried it’s level best to freeze me to death.

Usual mix of car driving assholes doing their level best to either put me in the ditch or just plain run me over, lost count of the amount of friendly hand signals that were delivered and at least on one occassion a full on verbal assault – mental note to self, learn to calm down!

Legs were heavy at the end but it was a good ride none the less, no riding during the week made it more painful, that I know, aim this week needs to be to ride more, no matter how exciting it is staring at a blank wall – ride!

Sunday I needed to clear the head after one too many the previous night, so manage an hours escape on the proper bike round the local woods and paths, nothing too interesting to note other than the fact I managed to get out on the mountain bike, a joy to behold after 2 long weeks.  Some tweaking needed to the front mech, but that is an every ride occurrence these days!

Plans are afoot to get a really decent ride in this side of Chrimbo, fingers crossed 13th Dec should see us hitting the trails of Ballinastoe, if the internet tales are to be believed this will be better than the second coming, well almost but not quite.

Bike: Cotic Roadrat
Distance: 37 miles
Time: 2hrs 20mins

Phew! It’s been a long time since I did one of these, perhaps June/July this year, anyway, time was short this weekend and I only had a couple of hours Sunday morning to get any sort of pedal powered satisfaction in so I decided to whip out the Roadrat.

From the off it was completely noticeable that the legs have not had a sustained singlespeed ride for a long time, my aim was 40 miles and I actually felt quite good up until the 30 mile mark and then the legs just died for some reason, probably the curry/beer nutritional combination from the night before!  whatever happened it annoyed the heck out of me, so the plan over the winter is to try and get out at least every 2 weeks for a sustained singlespeed ride, unless of course the sun shines and I am forced into a mountain bike ride!!

Am struggling with temptation at the minute, have seen this in the sale:-

with 2 upgrade options which just blings the bike out perfectly, so my ultimate dream bike in a sale……