Month: January 2020

A Triumph?

I’ve been window shopping bikes for a while now. I know, I know. I love my VFR750 and it’s wonderful and will run for ever, etc, but the grass is always greener. I was looking at bikes I’ve had before and for which I have a nostalgic fondness. In spite of the actual performance of some of the bikes. But they are all old, old bikes now. My VFR is 25 years old this year. Then I was looking at the new (-ish) Triumphs. They do a rather nice naked (no fairings) 675cc triple. And the odd thing is, they are really up there on the reviews. Class leading, indeed. The downside being they are hugely popular and a premium marque, so expensive. That one is second hand and £4,800. All the talk is of the distinctiveness of the triple engine. Not revvy like an inline 4, lumpy like a parallel twin, or thumpy like a V twin. Lots of torque, fast, and responsive. With a unique triple character. I was very sceptical. I thought MotorCycle News (MCN) were just being jingoistic fanboys. The Triumphs I remember were basically semi-mobile teach-yourself-engineering devices. With additional muscle building from pushing it home. But every review, UK, US, Aus, all say the same. That’s a hell of a turn up for the books. So, I kept searching the ads, picking my ideal bike,then not buying it because it was too expensive. And I do love my VFR. Then my lovely VFR spluttered a bit and wasn’t running on all cylinders. Just for a few hundred yards, but then you’re conscious of it. It’s been getting more tricky to start for a while but I put it off as getting at the carbs on a V4 is a bit of an ordeal. Once it’s got to not running on all four you have to do something. I stripped it down on my day off. Fairings off, seat off, tank off, airbox off, disconnect the carbs then prise them out, take the bottoms off the carbs remove the jets, clean, poke and replace. Put like that it sounds like a really easy job. So not.  Two of my jets were completely blocked and were really hard to clear. Then just pop it back together again. It took me over 5 hours sat outside in the freezing cold. I was miffed. All that faffing about to poke a bit of wire down four jets. Enough is enough. I hit the internet again, thinking about getting a newer VFR, I love mine, so a newer one, with fuel injection and ABS would be brilliant. I sourced several. A bit over budget but not by the vast margin of the Street Triple. Then I cross referenced them with MCN reviews. To my amazement they said the VFR800 was good, but the Triumph Sprint ST (Sports Tourer) was in every way better. A Triumph. Better. Than. A. Honda. The VFR is legend. The Best Bike Ever Built. The yardstick. […]

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Happy Days!

I’ve completed day 26 of my run streak today. A minimum of 2 miles every day. I will accept 1 mile at a desperate push, but so far I’ve stuck to a minimum of 2. The idea is that running every day is the quickest way to regain my fitness, stamina and, hopefully, strengthen my weak running muscles that caused the IBTS. Before I got the IBTS I was trying to go for a sub 3 hour marathon, and I was fairly fit, so I was knocking out lots of PBs. More or less at will. I went for a 10 mile one and near killed myself. I got it, but when I checked back it was only a few seconds faster than when I was run streaking. So, I know it’s the way to go. I’ve gone from 3 months of injury and a really gentle and tentative start on January the first, to making my ‘long’ run a half marathon (13.1 miles) last week. About 4 miles in to that run I was having self doubt. “Can’t do it! It’s too far!” Today I set out to do a 15 mile run and I felt so good I was going to do 18 miles. My knee started hurting though, so I settled for turning round at 8 miles. My knee held up on the way back, but it was lucky I turned when I did, as the wind was in my face on the way back and I flagged badly. The last 3 miles were tough. Another 2 miles would have been too much. But the good news is I set out to do 15, did 16, and my knee held. A nice easy 2 miles tomorrow. Another positive is some people make it their running goal to do a thousand miles in a year, I’ve started off from tiny runs, there’s another 5 days of this month, and I’m currently on 133 miles. As always, everything is subject to injury, but so far, so good. In other running news, I’ve been doing one run of hills. This involves running through the pitch black park, over several bridges with steps, one of which is unlit, and doing hill repetitions on a steep bridge that crossed the Mersey, but goes nowhere, so there’s no traffic on it. Also dark. It turns out the Mersey bridge, running up one side, down the other, then back again, is .4 of a mile. 2½ miles (with 4 bridges) to get there, then hill reps. My second go at that route, this week, I got there then did 3 miles of hill reps. I’m going to need one for the 24 hour run anyway, but I’ve got a head torch for the dark training. Some loud! I got a cheap, generic one from Decathlon, but it was rubbish. Hard plastic with no padding so it digs into your head. I asked my running chums on Twitter and everyone recommended this brand (LED Lenser). […]

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I’M BACK!

It’s only as I sat down to start this that I realised I’ve not done a blog for 3 months. I’d just done the Chester marathon, set a new PB, but failed at my target. And it was hilly, which I didn’t remember from last time and for which I hadn’t trained. Turns out missing my target was the least of my worries. Trying to slog up the hills then sprint down the other side to make up time absolutely battered my knees and gave me Iliotibial Band Syndrome (IBTS –now I’m wondering where the T comes from-), which is a tendon (T?) that runs down the leg past the knee. It gets inflamed by “too much, too soon”, or unaccustomed hills etc. I thought I’d shrug it off, but it laid me up for best part of 3 months. I kept going back to it, doing a run or two, then it would flare up again. As of the first of January, my new year’s resolutions, I’ve been on a run streak (run every day) and 2 sets of exercises specifically designed to strengthen the weak muscles that cause the knee into excessive lateral motion. They are horrible. I’ve avoided strength training these last 9 years because it’s awful and tedious. Needs must. I’ve even had to be sensible about the running. I usually return to running with a 10 mile run. I tried a few 5s, before breaking again, in the 3 months I was out of the game. This time I started with a 3.3 mile circuit, covering my watch so I wasn’t going for a time, and just plodded it out. Then I slowly built it up. Like some kind of sane person. After a fortnight, with my ‘long’ run at 6 miles, I cracked and did a 10 mile run. My knee didn’t break so I thought I was alright. Then I started to let it slip. They say hard run one day, easy the next, never back to back. I did the 10 mile (long, by current standards) then a hill run, then another fast one. And my knee flared up. Panic! Back to 2 miles easy, 5 miles easy, 5 miles easy. My knee forgave me, so today I did a test run of a half marathon (13.1 miles). And it held! YAY! As I was going ‘long’ I didn’t batter the pace or put hills in to it, but as a steady run, it showed my knee will work. So now it’s back to easy day tomorrow, maybe a hill day, easy day, fast day, easy, etc, and keep up with the IBTS exercises. Fingers crossed I am back in the game. Realistically my sub 3 hour marathon isn’t happening for at least the first half of this year. *sigh*   The other reason I’ve been absent was the politics thing. I put all my time into flagging up St Jezza and the Glorious Socialist Worker’s Utopia on the thrice damned Facebook, […]

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