Pedalling nowhere...fetching my bike & fixing my bike

I am doing my best to be as involved with cycling as possible without actually being able to get on my bike! Here's a quick summary of what I've been up to:

Last Thursday I went to the gym to follow the physio's advice to see how I get on using an exercise bike on a low resistance. The answer is it didn't really work! I did my best, but I just couldn't pedal hard enough to get the machine started! Luckily Ant was there with me, so we had a good giggle about it and I pedalled away very slowly and gently on a switched off bike. It was particularly embarrassing due to a lycra clad guy on the bike next to Ant's who was furiously pedalling and puffing away, but never mind! Despite not being able to do much or for very long, I was surprisingly pleased to be on the bike and I hope it won't be long before I can start building up the amount I can do.

After my semi-successful attempt at going to the gym (and after aborting my attempt at swimming too and sitting in the jacuzzi instead!) I went to collect my bike. I'm pleased to say it's all now fixed and I didn't need anything replacing, so it was a cheap job too.

Then on Saturday we did our bike maintenance course, which was excellent. Bernard and Andy were great and took us through the basics, beginning with cleaning the chain. I'm sad to say my bike was the only one in the group that had a chain in need of replacing! We then had a good look through a basic bike toolkit and unravelled the mysteries of several tools, most of which I'd never seen before! After punctures came my most eagerly anticipated bit of the day - sorting out the brakes! We can only get our bikes in the car if we take the wheels off first, which is fine. Stopping the brakes rubbing after putting the wheels back on again was never fine. I'm pleased to say we now know the secret and can adjust our brakes to our hearts content - yay! In the afternoon we looked at gears, which I have to confess still baffles me a bit. We also went through buckled wheels and how to fix them with spokeys, very clever stuff! Finally and most baffling of all was the task of taking off the axel and greasing the bearings. To be honest, I'd somewhat lost my concentration by then and decided that if I ever need that doing, I'll give Andy a call! All in all though it was a great day and very useful. I would highly recommend it to anyone who doesn't know how to do the above things, as it's really not as difficult as it looks (says she who spent most of the day watching other people fix her bike...the real test will come when I need to fix something out on the road...watch this space..!)

I'm sure not many people say this, but I'm looking forward to seeing the physio again on Wednesday. I know I've made progress in the last two weeks and I'm hoping for a big gold star for doing my exercises every day!

In the meantime, I'm going to look into signing up for the cycle scheme at work and do some research on touring bikes...as soon as I'm ready to get back on the road again, I want to be ready to go, go, go!