New Brake Pads

New brake pads fitted on my bike by me own fair hand. Well chuffed with myself as I also had to adjust the cable to get them to work. That is one of the best things about being a bike owner, you can get to fiddle around a wee bit with things. I have to admit that I am a bit of a beginner at bicycle maintenance but in the last few months I have swapped over tyres, fitted brake pads and removed the back wheel on my commuter bike with the Alfine hub. It's all a learning curve and hopefully I will graduate on the gears next.

Had a fantastic couple of classes this morning and I am feeling it now. I have been reading Chris Hoy's autobiography and he goes into great detail about the training and pain that he goes through when he did the kilo event on the track. Basically he is going hell for leather for 4 laps and he does it in just over a minute. When the Marvellous one said that the first round on the speed track was just over a minute, I thought I would try and put myself in the great man's shoes and see how I would get on. Wow that was tough! I had a decent resistance on the bike and by the time I got to around the 45 second mark, my legs and lungs were burning. Then I remembered another wee snipped of information that he gave regarding of reaching you limit. He believes that once your brain is trying to tell you that you can go no more, you should ignore it and then push a wee bit harder because we are all capable of working beyond this point. Did the same in the second round after a nice couple of minutes rest. Gotta say that I don't usually push because I didn't believe that I had any more in me. Thanks Mr. Hoy for the invaluable advice and motivation. Isn't it great to have an insight into the mind of such an amazing athlete.