Birthday Goodies

My generous wife give me some excellent presents including:

New CO2 inflator for my bike

Craft Tri shorts

And the best of all, a pair of beautiful Rudy Project Rydon II Carbon - ImpactX Photo Red glasses.  I am a lucky boy.

New Gear

With my new training program based entirely around heart rate zones, I needed a decent heart rate monitor. I have my Garmin Forerunner 301 which has heart rate but I have always found its performance patchy. It ofter loses reception and even when connected, it has too many random spikes to be entirely useful. So, after lots of research, I have ordered a Garmin FR60. It gets great write-ups and comes out best against its competitors like the Suunto t3c or the Polar RS400 or Polar F11.

Then, after the key broke off in my lock on my run-around bike, I have been getting the bus everywhere. Its a waste of £1 per trip and it takes three times as long. So, I took a big gulp and went down the local bike shop.

I came back with this; a Ridgeback Rapide Speed hybrid. £300 was the least I could spend and still get a decently made bike with mudguards and a rack. It rides well, seems sturdy, has a triple and changes pretty quickly. It feels like an unusual position compared with my road bike but I guess that's expected. I've never going to do long rides on it so that's not a problem.

I could have got a slightly cheaper bike from the Internet or a slightly better bike for £300 but I wanted to support my local bike shop. I would hate to see it disappear.