Second blog post ever!

Mileage since start of blog - 78 miles

Ok, so I started this blog with the intention of updating it almost daily, but with the realistic expectation that after the novelty had worn off it would get much less frequent. So, 6 days after the first post, I guess it's time for a follow up one :-)

One of my aims of this is to keep a record of my achievements and accomplishments. So, here's a few stats from recent times; 3 weeks ago, 59 miles in 6 days. 2 weeks ago 66 miles in 5 days, which includes 9 miles from the porterhouse to Leytonstone without a dismount and a 42 min ride from Holborn to Leytonstone. Last week I clocked up 78 miles in 6 days, one of which was 8 miles in the morning, and 23 in the evening.

So, still reading, or has that put you to sleep yet? Well, the other bit of exciting news is that my package from unicycle.com arrived. This included Defect DVD, a crank extractor, and, most importantly of all, a new Nimbus gel saddle.

Defect was amazing! Quite mind blowing. It's certainly going to be one of those films that I will watch again and again.

The new saddle... Aaaah lovely! I hadn't really expected it to make that much difference, but it really does. The standard udc one isn't exactly uncomfortable, but after some time in it, it can make one, well, want to change positions fairly frequently. But the Gel saddle, even for the 23 miler, was great. It's a much lower profile than the standard one, which I didn't really appreciate until I was riding home the first night, and wondered why my knees were up around my ears. With hindsight, I should have known that changing a saddle which is an inch and a half lower means it needs the seat post to be raised an inch and a half.

And the crank extractor? Well, I was able to swap back my 127mm cranks for the 110mm ones today. I've been out on a 12 mile run to check them out, and although they are much much faster than the 127s, it really is at the expense of control and breaking. 9 miles in central London after a couple of beers without a dismount was much easier than a 6 mile trip to Long Eaton with multiple dismounts. I guess it's just a case of re-learning the 110s again!