2008 - the year of cycling for me?

I got back onto the bike the other night, and that is definitely a good sign considering it is only January - last year I think I may have cycled 2 or 3 times all winter. Granted that was on rollers, which are significantly harder to use than a stationary trainer. So while Steve is off cycling in NZ for the next 3 months or so, I've got his trainer and have actually started using it. The first obstacle was changing the back tire on my bike, something I've never done before, or at least not on a road bike - I remember changing tires on my 'dirt bike' when I was a kid. Anyways, I picked up a trainer tire (Continental Ultra Sport) on the advice of my friend Paul. I got the tire from Kunstadt Sports in Kanata. For some reason I got a great deal on the tire - it was marked for $45.99 but after ringing it up, they only asked me for just over $41 - taxes in! Sweet! I got the new tire installed with no issues and hooked the bike up to the trainer. Unfortunately the 'resistance change lever' for the trainer was meant to be mounted on smaller diameter handlebars (25-26 mm) so I have been unable to mount it to my bike which has the larger diameter handlebars (31.8 mm). I'm still trying to think up a complication that I can rig up - I think some copper plumbing pipe will be involved. I started with an easy 45 minute ride while I watched The Celebrity Apprentice. As you can see from the picture to the left, I also set up the camera to take a few shots of me while I rode. It was good to get some exercise in again, and doubly good to be on my bike again. Now I just need to try to keep it up. :)

I'm also going to try playing a bit with Google Docs while I've got this post open. Check out the presentation below to see all the photos I took.

The above is called an embeddable presentation and I found out about it from this post on the Official Google Docs Blog.