Well the Tour de France has come to the UK again, and this looks like the best tour yet for us. Cycling was mainly for kids when the tour first came to the UK 40 years ago back in 1974. A very few strange people cycled for holidays and some people commuted to work but the car was taking over.
Over the last ten years cycling has become incredibly popular in the UK and as a sport its something we are now world leaders in.
So where are we going with this. Well it may come to a surprise to people who have known me for that last twenty years but once I was a very keen cyclist and would happily jump on my bicycle and do a seventy mile ride round some of Lincolnshire.
When I moved into my flat my bicycle was stored in my mothers shed for ten years and then at the old house it sat at the back of the garage for another ten years.
Me and Caroline did get the bikes out once and do a ten mile ride but with the garage full of motorcycles and garden tools it was always to much bother to get them out.
Now we have moved into the new bungalow with lots of room the bicycles are stored in the garage but are easy to get to, so with that in mind during the two week holiday we recently had, one of our tasks was to get them roadworthy again.
A bit of a strip down, degrease, grease then oil with a full clean, new lights, locks and mudguards, I have been gradually turing my old racer into more a sensible commuter.
We first did a quick five mile cycle round to the next village and back, just to make sure the bicycles were working well, then with a few tweaks, such as new mountain bike SPD peddles and cycling shoes we have been off.
Gradually working up to a gentle twenty five miles a week, usually with a quick ride on Monday and Friday nights, today with the Tour de France as our inspiration we went a little further a field and explored some of the further villages as well as the local Whisby Nature Park.
With my iPhone mount on the handlebars I had a cycling computer app installed tracking our route and facts about the journey.
A gentle afternoon cycling turned into a twenty one mile trip so with the fourteen miles done on Monday exploring a local disused railway line that has been turned into a cycle path leading to the city we managed thirty five miles this week.
Nothing compared to what the Tour de France guys did today and will do every day but a great start to getting us both fit again.
Another set of Leica M rangefinder firmware updates were released recently, as well as fixes there were tweaks allowing one to switch off the live view button and disable the movie button etc.
Since the last major update to Adobe Creative Cloud, when I launched Photoshop it warned me I only had a month left of use and could not contact the licensing server. It recommended I check my account details.
