A new look and a mid week update

There's a new look in town, I had some free time so I basically scrapped the entire template that I had been using to this point in favor for what you are seeing right now. The new look is cleaner I think and better represents me so this is how it shall stay.

I am finally beating this cold that has been with me for the better part of two weeks and last night I hopped in the trainer, I only did 20 minutes and felt awesome! The only reason I cut it at 20 minutes is well the trainer is not exactly like riding the bike out on the trail and what makes me say that is my junk. Yeah I went there, after a mere 20 minutes on the trainer I noticed that my junk was how do I say? falling asleep? yeah that's about right. I understand that the trainer is not going to mimic a real ride but the bike is set up for me, saddle height adjusted properly, handlebars where they should be and I have ridden this bike 25 miles before without issue so you would think that 20 minutes on the trainer would be easy peasy. Unfortunately I will have to figure this issue out because causing my boys and their friend that they hang out with any discomfort is not really an option for me, perhaps I could mount a comfort seat that I have laying around on there for trainer use.

My weight is coming down almost daily, if I can hold my ground I believe that Friday will bring me a decent loss again which is awesome news. Ramping up the time in the trainer will be a good push in that department as well and though the trainer is doing what it's designed to do for me I am really missing the rail trails with everything they have to offer. I really should just pull the Trek out and toss my lights on it so that I can do a quick after dinner ride one of these days because having my daughter all day does not really afford me a day light opportunity to get out there during the week.

My life has been so different since I dropped the weight that I have already lost and I am looking at this whole love of cycling as the beginning of a new chapter in that story. Reaching my weight loss goals will go along with getting there with my bicycling goals, they are hand in hand and I believe that by the end of this year I will reach my goal weight and my cycling will be a large part of the success.

That's all I got for today kids, but won't you follow along while I carve a new body out of the larger version that I now carry around using my bikes as the tool?

A new old project, 1976 Motobecane Nomade Sprint

Since this is a cycling related blog along with a fat guy losing weight blog I thought it appropriate that I post up a sort of project that I bought about a year ago and never started. This is a 1976 Motobecane Nomade Sprint and it is in what appears to be 100% stock condition besides the seat, did I mention that its very close to my size? I picked it up one afternoon while dropping some items no longer needed at the Salvation army when I saw it collecting dust in the back room hidden behind some children's bicycles. The price paid was a mere $13 and that's rounded up, it was $12 and changeand the photos below is exactly how I got it, everything is there and it pedals, shifts and brakes as it should but the bike needs a lot of work before I would call it reliable.

I decided that I would work on it this winter to see if I can get it on the road for the spring, the old Namade will need at least cables, bar tape, tires, tubes a new seat and lots of elbow grease to get this old bicycle where I envision it. I put it in my bike stand this afternoon and am planning on starting the take down and scrubbing of the components in my spare time, like I have much of that! I am on the fence with a couple things like what color cable housings and bar tape to use, if anyone is reading along would care to either comment or send me an email with suggestions it would help. My options are to either stick with the stock red and call it a day or I am thinking that black housings, tape and hoods would look good on a silver bike but as I stated, I am on the fence.

Another project that I have is an early 80's (1982 -1983) Zullo Criterium pictured above, this frame is very much too small for me which is a shame as it is a pretty cool little bike. My initial idea was to get it in ridable condition and flip on Craigslist but the more that I think about it making it into a nice little gift for my wife sounds like a better idea to me, she does not ride right now but I hope that one day she will head on out with me and if she has a nice bike to head out on perhaps she will be more likely to give it a go.

My weight loss is on track and the weight is still coming down, I am lighter than I was on Friday which is always a good thing! The plan for this evening is a spin on the trainer, a big salad for dinner and maybe I will head on down to that Motobecane to start taking stuff off to polish it, then I will need to start tracking down some tape and cables for it so that sooner than later I can have it ready to go. if you are reading along I hope that you are enjoying the blog so far, it helps me to write things down that have to do with the weight loss and I always enjoy sharing my bicycle obsession.... um I mean hobby.

That's it for today kids.

A Friday weigh in update for mister Clyde.

So its Friday and that means that I will record my weight on here again, Last Friday I weighed 372.6 pounds and this morning the scale had nice things to say to me when it whispered 366.4 and that is a 6.2 pound drop since last Friday. Adjusting my food so that I am not eating too many carbs later in the day seems to be making a difference on the scale and I am not finding myself hungry at all at any point in the day and that's always a good thing.

The trainer is going well, The first week my hindquarter was not really loving the experience but since its toughening back up the riding is a breeze. I rode for 16 minutes last night which I know is not an awesome workout but something that I have learned in the past couple of years is that when I start off hitting it hard I usually end up hurting myself. Last nights ride went easy peasy, I had a bit of sweat on my brow, heart rate was elevated, arse was feeling ok and my legs had a lot more in them. I am not one to really worry about such things but since I haven't picked up a wireless bike computer to mount on the back wheel yet I had my wife time a minute so that I could see what my cadence was and I am pedaling at about 84 RPM which is decent I think. If anyone can recommend a decent cheap wireless computer that is capable of using a cadence sensor I would appreciate it, I already have Sigma that is mounted to the front wheel but its not wireless and it gets used when I ride the bike outside.

I got a visit from the big brown truck yesterday as well, The fellow dropped off some cycling stuff that I ordered recently and I always like getting bike stuff! I ordered 2 front fenders (one for my Trek and one for a friend), a pair of Planet bike Trippy grips for a project bike that I have, a pair of Castelli knee warmers and a pair of WTB Graffiti SF 2.2 tires (which are not in the photo) to mount on an extra set of wheels for my trainer bike. I was skeptical on whether the knee warmers would fit me good since I am a larger fella but I tried them on and think they will do just fine, the reason for the warmers is that in colder weather I find that my knees hurt a bit after a ride and I have a strong suspicion that its because I ride in shorts no matter the weather and they are not having time to warm up properly, we shall see if this fixes that issue.

A successful week for my health a more than six pound drop in a week as awesome in my book, I should be ramping the length of time on the trainer this week so we will see what next Friday brings.

If you are reading along I thank you.

Just an update, some time on the trainer as well.

Phlegm be damned! I decided that I was taking a ride on the trainer last night, curiosity was getting the better of me and I wanted to see just how much more quiet the slick was going to be not to mention that I just really wanted to get a short ride in. I only ride for 16 minutes, artially because my arse has how do I say? softened up a lot! since not riding regularly for more than 2 months and because I want to ease into longer rides to save my knees which started hurting near the end of the year on rides. The slick was quiet enough that my wife was in the room holding the baby and she fell asleep as I pedaled so that is a plus I think, I wouldn't call it silent by any stretch of the word but it was pretty quiet, especially compared to the other tire that I had on there previously.

My intake is holding strong and the 2200 calories that I am allowing myself seems to be more than I need as I have been lately having an excess at the end of the night so I have been a tad low the last couple of days where my calories go. To make up for some of the difference I have been having a yogurt about an hour before bed and this seems to help as I wake up and do not eat breakfast immediately but I am rarely hungry when I wake up anyways but I do normally have a cup of coffee, the last vice that I am slowly weening myself off of again. Eating carbs late is again off of the menu, I cut them out of my dinner for the most part but its not something that is written in stone, just some guidelines and as long as I am mostly following that, its what worked in the past.

So all in all things are back where they need to be and in two days time I will weigh in for the blog again, the weight is coming down so I am just hoping that I can keep this pace... in fact I hope that I can increase the pace in the way of more time on the trainer.

This is the plan, I shall execute as well as I can, so until next time, keep on pedaling!

Random, food, trainer and some more of the same.

Kicking this chest thing and feeling like I may give the trainer a whirl tonight, I haven't been able to give the new slick a proper go yet and am looking forward to seeing just how much more quiet it is. Yesterday I had a bit of a snafu with dinner ad my kids had an appointment with the dentist and I forgot to eat... The plan was that I pick my daughter up from school drop her and my son off with Wify at the dentist and I was going to go looking around a local sporting goods store but its not how it worked out at all.

Breakfast was fine, I then ate at 11:30 am again and was leaving the house around 2:30m and figured that I would grab a banana on the way out the door to hold me over until later, welp I forgot the banana. The dentist was just a cleaning and "should only take 30 minutes" so I was convinced to hang out and wait, 30 minutes was an hour and a half which left me at 4:30pm-ish having not eaten a bite since 11:30am. My mood was less than pleasant and with a truck full of rowdy kids it wasn't getting better, we decided to grab dinner out since the appointment took so much longer than it should have and we ended up at Applebees where I finally got some calories put into me at around 5:45pm, now we're more than 6 hours between a meal, not good.

Eating too late is never a good thing in my opinion, but I ended up snacking once I got home to get closer to my calorie limit for the day because going too low usually ends with the next day being hard. My calories were a bit low for yesterday but that's fine I just don't like the big gap between meals and its kind of throwing me off today in the way of me feeling hungry all morning. I am hoping that by taking a ride on the trainer I will throw this feeling off as a workout tends to have that kind of effect on me, I am feeling pretty confident that if I take the ride easy I can get in something resembling a workout.

Something else that I wanted to mention is how the seat on my bike feels harder when its on the trainer, now this could be in my head or even just because I am not riding regular like so my arse needs to toughen up but I have a feeling that it has something to do with the fact that there is no give with the trainer. Kind of a random post but I wanted to try and get one up so there it is, hopefully I can get onto the trainer regularly very soon and can try and get that compare video up between the two tires and the sound levels of each, also I noticed that I have 3 followers now! I think that's awesome to know that at least 3 people have taken a look at the blog!

Until next time.

Easy like Monday morning...

Woke up this morning feeling a bit better than I have for the last 3 or so days so that's a good thing, I am still not feeling good enough to get on the trainer as this cold or whatever it is resides majorly in my chest, sucks. Because I am not feeling well does not give me free reign on the food though, I have been as strict as ever with my calories and am still tweaking the intake so that there are more veggies and whole foods than anything processed so in that regard I am still on the yellow brick road.

The bike with new slick installed is currently mocking me from the side of the room, I think it knows that this break from action is temporary and is happy that there is not a 370 pound guy working it over for the time being, this will soon change. lately I am also finding that I want to go for a real ride, if I wasn't feeling down I might have pulled the Trek out for a short ride this weekend but again, I don't want to push this whatever it is that has me coughing like a sea lion so for now its no riding indoors or out.

The plan for the week is to keep adding more whole foods back into my diet, drink much green tea and ride the trainer as soon as the seal gets out of my chest, I believe that come Friday I will have dropped some weight. I do weigh myself daily and I keep a log of it just so that I can see the trending with the fluctuations etc when compared to my food log but for the sake of the blog Fridays will be the day that I record what I weigh. There you have it, that's my big plan to get my ass back into a more fit state of being, will it work? I believe so but I will indeed have to do my part, the trainer will be a critical part of that equation and I believe that come warmer weather I will be conditioned better so that I can get right back into my regular riding again without having to "train" myself back into the same distances that I was riding before it got cold.

I noticed that I have a follower on the blog! hopefully this brave soul will be the beginning of an army of cyclists & people looking to drop a few pounds who can support one another down this road to better health.

Thanks for reading along and keep on pedaling!

Rebirth of slick, its cool like dat.

Wow! nine days since I posted but here I am with an update post, Things have been going as planned besides me getting sick and the weight is still coming down. Friday I weighed 372.6 pounds and that is a loss of exactly 2 pounds and that works for me! My eating is getting cleaner with me adding more whole foods back into my diet while taking as much processed junk out again, yes again, I was once on a path of purely whole foods and its how I lost most of the weight that I have in the past four years.

The Bontrager SR1 slick mounted on the bike.

The fluid trainer is working out great for me but the tire that my wife bought for me when she picked up the trainer was not a slick so it was not very quiet and since I plan on riding while the baby naps this presented a problem. I ordered a 26 inch slick from the LBS last week and it came in Friday, off I went to pick it up and onto the bike went the new tire a Bontrager SR1 and I have to admit the initial test ride was MUCH more quiet than the Michelin Country rock that it replaced. Thinking ahead like any good blogger I took a short video of a ride with the Michelin mounted on the bike so that I could compare the sound comparison between the two so as soon as I get a chance I will record the SR1's sound level and post both videos.

Keeping my calories within the limits that I have set for myself seems to be doing the trick for now, of course they can be adjusted along the way as I have a feeling that when the warmer weather comes back and I begin to do longer rides on the trails again the calories needed may go up. I am looking forward to this coming week even though I have to kick whatever this is in my chest I am hoping for a good week in the weight loss department.

If anyone out there is reading this, I thank you.