Road Cycling

March 2026 Stats and Selfies

Posted by Richard on 1 April 2026
Posted in: Cycling, Diary, Fitness, FulGaz, Gear, Home Gym, indoor cycling, Media, Pain Cave, Road Cycling, ROUVY, virtual cycling, Walking, Weight, YouTube. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

So March continued my normal exercise regime with a combination of rides on ROUVY as well as getting some of my usual  John Hallas’ Weekly Challenges on FulGaz done.  I’ve also recently enabled the warm-up and cool-down features on ROUVY to actually record the distance I’m cycling before and after each structured ride.

I still need to actually go ahead and arrange a partial knee replacement, which we’ll do in the early summer…

So, here are March’s stats which might look slightly different to usual again as I had to significantly increase screen resolution to fit them all in:

March 2026 Statistics

March 2026 Statistics

Activities: 71 Distance: 730.31 km Time: 27:08:18 Calories: 25,576

Turning to my weight, at the end of February I weighed 91.7kg and at the end of March I weighed 92.7kg, which is up by 1kg. I blame the holiday in Corralejo…

Body fat percentage was down from 27.7% to 27.3%, which is nice.

We had another holiday in Corralejo, Fuerteventura, at the end of March so I again hired a Specialized Allez Elite from Easy Riders Bike Centre and went for a morning ride each day from the villas at Bahiazul along the FV-1 to Tamaragua and/or the FV-104 between the shore and the famous dunes.

In total, I managed 206km whilst we were there (plus some walking/hiking).

I continued doing my little selfie videos to annoy friends on Facebook, so here’s a collection, all shot on my Apple iPhone 17 Pro.

Bahiazul Resort Fuerteventura: https://www.bahiazul.com/en/

Easy Riders Bike Center: https://www.easyriders-bikecenter.com/e/index.php

2025 Statistics

Posted by Richard on 1 January 2026
Posted in: Cycling, Diary, Fitness, Home Gym, indoor cycling, Pain Cave, Road Cycling, ROUVY, Running, Syndicated, virtual cycling, Walking, Weight. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Another year; another review.

2025 continued my fitness consolidation with a combination of real-world activities when we were on Fuerteventura and virtual activities in the UK (and Thailand where I didn’t venture outside the hotel to exercise), using the home gym equipment in the Pain Cave.

Since early November 2023, we’ve been back full time in the UK – other than holidays, of course – so the Pain Cave is visited pretty much every day first thing before work.

This helps with the pain and delays my partial knee replacement recommended by my Consultant by building support for the affected areas including my knackered (necrosis-riddled) knee and the pelvis and spine from the motorcycle crash. ‘Helps’ but doesn’t get rid of the constant pain that I have had to come to terms with.

Anyway, moan over, here are the stats:

2025 Statistics

2025 Statistics

My exercise stats are up from 2024 {in brackets}: 5,268.73km {4,218.76km} on bikes (real and virtual) and another 420km {700km} on two legs, so you can see the running and walking are now significantly down on the advice of the healthcare professionals.

Still not too bad for a 63 year old?

Weight-wise? On the 1st of January 2025 I weighed 88.0kg with a body fat percentage of 24.6% and on 1st January 2026, I weighed 91.8kg with a body fat percentage of 26.7%.  There’s a lot of room for improvement in 2026, especially as my target weight is 83kg.

All The Gear…

Posted by Richard on 8 September 2025
Posted in: Cycling, Diary, Fitness, Gear, indoor cycling, Pain Cave, Road Cycling, virtual cycling. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Nearly all of my riding is virtual: the UK’s roads aren’t up to road riding and the UK drivers even less so, seemingly filled with frothing, enraged gammon motorists hating all those “woke” cyclists, blah, blah.

So the only time I actually ride on the road is when I’m away on holiday in Fuerteventura, when I hire a road bike from the guys at Easy Riders Bike Centre.

I tend to wear just regular gym/running tops in the pain cave, but I do wear my ‘monkey pants’: a couple of pairs of Giro padded cycling shorts (Giro Chrono Sports Shorts).

Giro Chrono Sports Shorts

Giro Chrono Sports Shorts

At least that way I can have a modicum of comfort in the saddle.

But I’ve had a change of heart and decided that when I am out on the roads in Fuerteventura, I could probably use some actual cycling gear, so I’ve gone out and used a load of those promotional links you get from completing various challenges on Strava and bought some gear.

Specifically, these: a Le Col club bib and jersey from their club essentials range with some cycling socks and a Castelli jersey in Soudal Quick Step colours.