Take care of your GEAR & your GEAR will take care of you.

GEAR = Body, Bike & Other relevant equipment.

I write this blog after noticing that a little TLC goes a long way. After spending the weekend with Komo a few weeks back and seeing how he goes about looking after himself and his equipment, I thought that I might just give it a go.

My TT bike has been getting all the love of late and after riding my roadie on Tuesday morning in the horrendous conditions and wanting to race on it tonite I decided to give it some love.

First of all, I got my body treated last night by Jason (my myo) and got put some pain to which I felt like vomitting. I can say that I felt terrible last night but was spot on today, Thanks again Jas!

I turned to my roadie today and under close inspection, I was disgusted at the 5mm grime that was covering my chain, jockey wheels and cluster. Out came the degreaser and after totally covering the named parts and washing it off, I actually saw some light at the end of the tunnel. After repeating this anbother time and getting the trusty toothbrush and giving the chain a good working over I was quite pleased with my efforts. A few drops of lube and I was set to take on the crit tonite.

As soon as I heading off on my way, I noticed the difference instantly of no resistance in the pedal stroke, compared to previous. So getting a good warm up in I felt satisfied that I would finish the crit tonite.

As always the 1st lap is under control and once we started the race proper it didn't take long for the pace to increase and the race was on. My plan was just to sit tight and get around in one piece. After seeing a few harmless attacks take place I thought I would give my legs a good test to see where I was at. I had a hard attack which was reeled in soon after, but I was satisfied with how my legs and bike were feeling. The race continued with a few more unsuccessful attacks by myself and others and when there was 1 lap to go I decided to attack into the wind to see if I could gain enough advantage to hold onto the finish.

One guy jumped on my wheel and upon peering behind us and seeing a good 50m gap I thought at worst I would place 2nd. So I continued to "lead" the other guy out hoping the bunch wouldn't catch us into the head wind in the final straight. I gave up the room for him to pass and take the win and for myself I felt like I had just jumped onto a mag trainer cause I was going nowhere fast. With 100m to go another 2 guys passed me and I held onto 4th, which was a very pleasing result considering I hadn't finished with the bunch on my last 3 attempts.

My point to the story is that if you take care of your GEAR it goes along way in getting the most out of your performance. Lesson learnt for me and thanks KOMO for showing me how easy it is to look after your GEAR. Regular maintainence makes the job a lot easier.

For now..

X-Man

PS. My running is coming along ok and my weight is down below IRONMAN weight. Good signs for now.