This might hurt....

ham_n_mustard

Hi all, i recently found out that my employers were registered for the bike to work scheme, so i decided to pick myself up a hybrid and try to drop a bit (lot) of weight and get fitter. i picked the bike up earlier today in Tribikes in limerick. i found the lads in there very helpful, got some decent advice on gear, didnt try and sell me ball of stuff i didnt need etc..

So, the tagets..

its all going to be "slowly does it" for the first while, my arse is going to need time to get used to the saddle (the saddle looks like the work of the devil, hence the thread title). hopefully build up distances over the next while and maybe attempt the commute to work which is about 36kms round trip.

i've been lurking on here for the last while, just sort of following the different logs, keep up the good work!!

t'bear

Nice one Ham. Make sure the bike is fitted correctly to avoid injury to hands,back, shoulders etc.... Loads of YouTube stuff out there to check. And you can change the saddle after a while if you are not comfy on it

I have a 30k commute so this is a good goal distance wise to set. Build up slowly and ensure you get rest days in between even if you feel ok straight after

ham_n_mustard

so, i got out this morning for a quick spin while the kids were still asleep. I learned 3 things in a very short space of time:

1) stevie wonder must have laid the road surface around our village, i hadnt really noticed it was this bad while driving the car/motorbike.
2) the saddle was definitely designed by a sadist
3) i'm an awful lot more unfit than i previously thought.

the fit of the bike seems ok so far, but i cant tell if my leg/arse pains are caused by poor fit/technique or just by me being a lard-arse.

hopefully it wont hurt as much tomorrow

ham_n_mustard

i got out for another quick spin last night. on the up-side, my poor arse wasnt as sore. it seems to be getting over the initial shock of being made sit on a saddle again. on the downside, im still breathing like an asthmatic elephant and my legs want to die.

fun times

nilhg

ham_n_mustard wrote: »

i got out for another quick spin last night. on the up-side, my poor arse wasnt as sore. it seems to be getting over the initial shock of being made sit on a saddle again. on the downside, im still breathing like an asthmatic elephant and my legs want to die.

fun times

It gets better, slowly at first unfortunately, but soon you won't know yourself.

Remember your'e not in a race, take a breather if you need it, make sure not to over do it and take your rest days (with the weather that won't be a problem) and you'll be fine.

ham_n_mustard

I'm off work today so i got out for my first real long spin earlier this morning. Unfortunately, the gps on my phone decided to take the day off too, so according to Google earth i went roughly 20.1km. time in the saddle was about 1hr 10mins. the average speed of about 17.3kph wont set the world on fire, but im thrilled with myself. i found that once i got about 3-4 kms in, my breathing seemed to become regular.... second-wind ftw! there was a bit of a headwind most of the way out, and when i swung around, it seemed like the wind did as well. crosswind all the way back but nothing too bad. I found the toughest part was the hills coming back into the town where i live. its not even a big hill, more like a long gentle slope, but it still felt like being kicked in the guts after 20 kms and knocked me down to walking pace.
couldnt care less though, physically i feel grand and there was loads of goldfinches singing so its all good!

t'bear

thats the stuff, dont just watch the stats as you go, its fresh air, birds, rain, all the good stuff.

Keep it up

ham_n_mustard

got out again tonight just after a light dinner, not my greatest idea ever but it was either that or not get out at all. felt like heaving for a few kms but it wore off after a while. shorter spin tonight, 15.5 kms in about 50 mins saddle time for an average speed of 18.6kph. still really slow, but then again im still really fat. im starting to enjoy this now, but on the downside, i'd forgotten how bad a mouth full of flies tasted

ham_n_mustard

got out for a quick spin this morning, only 4-5 kms before work. ass very sore from the saddle for some reason. it felt like all the padding inside the skin had gone. im still almost as fat though... the route i went on today had a (to me anyways...) a big dirty hill towards the end. just when i thought i was going ok, this hill really kicks me in the guts. a bit demoralised now, but i wont be stopping

ham_n_mustard

so this mornings spin didnt go according to plan. when the missus got home from work at 9pm, she more or less sent me back out for another spin. thankfully, this one went much better. i got the gps working again so i managed to record it on strava

http://app.strava.com/rides/11733154

dont laugh

triggermortis

ham_n_mustard wrote: »

dont laugh

who's laughing?
My first few spins out, it took me longer to get dressed than I spent on the bike!
Just keep doing what you're doing and you'll see improvements and you'll enjoy it more and then go further.

t'bear

Bloody right, 3 months ago I fell off the bike after 15 km, gave away my 100K cherry two weeks ago and regularly spend 3 or 4 hours now...and love it.

07Lapierre

Good man! Keep it up! Enjoying reading your progress reports!

whacker00

just reading through your posts ham and it has me in stiches would have wrote the exact same I picked up a bike from Tribikes wednesday (very helpful staff as i am a complete novice didnt have a clue what to go for) and first spin out i couldnt believe the roads, thought i was riding around temple bar !!! fair play on the progress and best of luck

ham_n_mustard

So the missus decides i should go for a spin while i'm waiting for the casserole to cook. while i was getting ready to go, i realised we were throwing out a tiny mattress pads for a moses basket. since i dont have padded shorts and the evil saddle is still tearing the fat arse off me, i decided to cut up the piece of padding and stick part of it under my ass inside my trackie pants while i was cycling. it worked perfectly, but when i got off the bike i must have looked like some class of a pervert.
anyways, another 14.4 kms in 46 mins today so im happy enough. a bumblebee the size if a golf ball hit my head on the way, frightened me so much i nearly ended up in a ditch.

Thanks a mil for all the words of encouragement as well, really appreciated!!

t'bear

Get some bib shorts off the t'interweb (wiggle do their own brand). Getting the longer spins in can introduce new things (lack of comfort, hydration, pain where there shouldnt be any) that takes the mind off the objective, you need to be comfy and properly equipped so you are not distracted off the important tasks, like keeping the right cadence, climbing hills etc and meeting your objectives week in and week out.

Keep up the super effort

Hope you demolished the caserole when you got home :-)

RossieMan

You should cycle every day, that way i can have entertainment out of your posts.

good work though, just started myself and its good to see others struggling too. :P

ham_n_mustard

Hope you demolished the caserole when you got home :-)

absolutely destroyed it!

good work though, just started myself and its good to see others struggling too.

we should start a wheezers/strugglers club, meet up, do about 3.5 kms in roughly 3 hours and then go for pints

ham_n_mustard

I met a lad on the road last week, said 2 or 3 yrs ago he was in more or less the same physical condition that i'm in now, he reckoned that before he changed his saddle, he was keeping a lot of his weight on the bars and pedals cos the saddle was killing him so much. this made a lot of sense to me, i was starting to feel pressure on my wrists and wasnt feeling really comfortable on the bike. At the end of a roughly 5 minute chat, i wasnt sure if this lad was my indian spirit guide or just some mush from county limerick on a Claude Butler.

I ordered a new fat-person saddle off ebay, and it arrived on earlier this evening. I fitted it and took off for a spin. it made a huge difference. I can actually sit on it rather than just lean against it. for the route i went tonight, my average speed has increased by roughly 10%. i know thats only a 2kph difference, but 10% is still 10% .

http://app.strava.com/rides/12402126

Thank you spirit guide :pac:

ham_n_mustard

lost the first stone (many more to go...) in just under a month by cutting out ****e food, portion control and of course getting on the bike. Thrilled.

coming in the road earlier, some scobe in a starlet decides that cutting in about 2 feet from my front tyre was the funniest thing he ever did. I was really pissed off at this because i make a conscious effort to keep as far into the near-side ditch as possible. What happened next restored my faith in people. a lad coming along behind us on a suzuki bandit must have seen this and flew off after the starlet, overtook him, then slowed down to a crawl. starlet boy starts beeping and flashing. hopefully lesson learned but i'd doubt it somehow. anyways, long-shot but if you're reading this:

young fella in the starlet...cut in front of me and laugh like that again and i'll pull you out through your spurious exhaust pipe and break your nose.

lad on the bandit...legend

davidsr20

Just reading ur posts I'm in the same boat, I'm only 2 days cycling it is very hard and my ass is killing me too, I'm on a cube Mtb and the saddle is small.
Iv done nearly 14 k km in 2 days and it is hard but I'm determined to lose 2-3 stone.