Cycling the Isle of Wight

My good friend Sean suggested recently that I come out of cycling retirement and join him and others on the annual cycle fest that is the ride around the Isle of Wight. A wonderful idea until I remembered that my ego is even bigger than my gut (which these days is quite something), how fit all the others are and how unfit I am! I have therefore had to come up with the following game plan for the ride...

1. Survive - Most likely scenario is that I get so tired that my head drops or I forget how to corner at speed and go headlong into a lampost or more likely on the Isle - a thorn bush.
2. Not to sustain an injury. When surrounded by such relative titans, it's easy to fall prey to the temptation of pretending to be fine, keeping pace with them whilst not admitting that I am over stretching myself and dying inside and in the process strain, tweek, pull or even rip a muscle I forgot I had.
3. Not to frustrate my fellow cyclists utterly by my relative lack of fitness compared to them who have not only been training consistantly, but upped their game since I forsook the sport to court and marry my wife! Fortunately, they are a very gracious bunch, so this is the least of my worries, but I would still love them to feel that we had a good blast round the island.

Anything else is a bonus!

In case you were wondering, I do love cycling, genuinely. As with many things - the risk is part of the thrill. I just don't want to be the weak link in the chain gang.

To that end, I went out for the first of a few training rides so that I have a semblance of fitness in time for the 25th July.

I want to look like this:

But I fear, I will probably look like this:

Still, it can only get better from here! :-S