Frank Kinlan's Blog

Time to get back on the bike.

I’ve probably spent the last decade living on my cycling past having done nothing on the bike.
Things have moved on and I’m still stuck in a 10 speed world.

Even getting on the turbo was hard work, flat rides on the Tacx ending after a few miles. Things are gradually improving along with some weight loss. I’ve been through all this before.

We are on our second Motorhome following The Tour de France for a good 10 years only stopping for Covid. Nothing planned as usual but I probably won’t be doing the start in Florence.

Update 22 March 2024

Things are looking up the weightloss is coming on, a few hiccups but nothing serious ( 2 funerals one of them my mothers ). I’m down 10kg and the benefits have been instantaneous in terms of movement and joint pain.

Try picking up a 10kg hand weight, I did in Decathlon. Then think about carrying it around with you every step and every flight of stairs being a mini workout.

Making a return even on a turbotrainer hasn’t been without its challenges. Hollow tech bottom bracket shot, Mavic Kysrium freewheel shot (rebuilt), spacer missing , poor gear indexing, a10 year old tube giving up in a turbo trainer tyre gave interesting results.

The plan is a British Heart Foundation plan seemingly long lost “ So you want to loose weight for good” It worked for me once and it’s working again. -500kcals a day looses you 1pound per week.

Helmets

Roughly 10 years on the Helmet debate continues. I’ve drifted out of wearing one by choice, drifted out of cycling. Like most of the cycling world I’ve been riding without one. Cut back to the present were I have decided to get back on the bike and give it ago again.

The bad news is my Giro Atmos in the above picture is now beyond use. The foam is OK as is the shell but the bit that cradles the skull is rotten, same for Vals Giro helmet too.

Seriously considering a Boardman from Halfords as they all(helmets) have to meet the same CE tests, even the cheapest ones.

Deja-Vu. Pressing lifes reset button for a second time!

Well where do I start? Nearly back to square one but not quite. The weight, high blood pressure and a fondness for alcohol returned with a vengeance.

Not all at once but a gradual regression to the bad old self. This time it was a prescription review and blood test that caught up with me. Raised Liver Function test after a short time of abstinence had me on a repeat blood test which I had today.

Weight wise it started off good with Dry January kicking in straight away with a few kilo’s of weight loss and then it plateaued. Something had to be done so it was back to the gym after a long absence. It seems to have done the trick and I think I’m back on track.

It’s meant a complete new gym kit and it’s going to be a while before I tackle a spinning class again. I’ve also fallen out of love with the Bike having spent nearly a year off it at least. I’ve stopped using a Garmin, forgone using a helmet (if a car’s got my name on it, a few ounces of polystyrene is going to help me) prefer shoes that I can walk in.

This time I’m on my own and the first target is to loose 10Kg with the second target 20Kg. Today’s stationary cycle was 30 minutes @ 100watts which was 130kCal, it’s a start. Diet wise it’s probably not ideal but I’m not a rabbit.

I’ll post some figures when I get around to it.

Regards

Frank.

2015 Update

Just thought post an update as to the state of play. As you can gather I dont post much these days as there is not much to post. Fell out of love with the bike, bought Val an eBike and love it.

This years Tour de France trip was probably the best yet due to a lack of planning. Never had a problem getting a space on a site. Tarn gorge is a place to return to in the future.

Missed the immigrant woes at Euro tunnel by an hour, passed burning French farmers tyres that were still smouldering and didn’t pay a Euro in tolls this year.

More to follow.

MotorHome Mods

In no particular order at the moment as I just wanted to get the images into the post. Nothing turned out to be simple and there are some jobs that are best left to the professionals

Replacing the manual thermostat for the heating proved to be a bit of a pain despite having the bits lying around for a year.

It’s a simple to read and set digital readout but with diagnostics built in if things go wrong.

Cost £70 from the NEC fiddly to fit as the wire colours don’t match 100%.

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One of the first things to be fitted was this access hatch to the garage. The thinking being the bikes could be stored inside.

Garage conversion

A neat job done by Horizon Motorhomes near Chirk, who also fitted the sattellite dish (Oyster Caro)

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For some reason Dometic winter fridge covers cost as much as a complete new vent.

Where they get to I don’t know but they are not easy to source for the right price.

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Pollen filter change was cheap but a bit of a struggle for a hour or so as you are quite deep into the center console to get to the above.

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This gas locker vent is fitted to a wide variety of motorhomes and looks terrible in a short space of time.

It was under £12 to replace if you can find one. I will put links up soon.

Lots of other stuff to post, you do need some carpentry and electrical skills to try a lot of this. The cost of most things these days being a lot less than the labour costs involved.

Chassis has now been Schutzed in side and out and also MOT’d with flying colours.

Also fitted a set of Tour de France air horns on a separate circuit

Post Blog Shutdown

Hi folks, it’s not the end of the blogging universe but just a test to see what functionality I have left after ending the WordPress expansions that I purchased.

The relationship with WordPress has been mixed, it’s a great site and is free. Wordadds paid for the site upgrades until the advert revenue fell 90% last year.

Another nail in the coffin was the exclusion of <> which in my case was just an Strava widget. Requests for this were brushed off, If Blogger can do it why not WordPress?

This is after WordPress sent me an 8 year birthday card. I is unlikely to see 10 given their dismissive attitude.

So we will have to see how it goes, times change. The bike is on the back burner at the moment, it may come back but it’s not a certainty .

Moto 360 QI charging

Just to let the new Moto 360 owners out there know that you can charge your device with a QI charging plate. Its hard enough getting the phone let alone another charging station.
Superb device especially the fitness apps.

This is looking promising

A Google+ Story

A Google + Story

https://plus.google.com/117649524353536421734/stories/bdc89676-7081-3f76-b61e-4698e7ac2fd71483c02d03d?authkey=

I’m still playing around trying to get a Google+ story into WordPress. Google Stories are automatically generated from your Google cloud and can be tuned or rebuilt as you add more content.

Time to call it a Day

Just had notification that its going to cost $99 to keep the blog going and frankly it a cost that I’m not willing to bear anymore.
Why blog when you have awesome stuff like Google Stories.
If you trust Google, and why wouldn’t you, enable auto upload and autoawesome on Google+ and take pictures of what matters in your life.
Google does the rest and the results can be spectacular.

Garmin should be ashamed of the level of the support they give for their devices but they have been surpassed by the likes of Google Maps. Get a smart phone and enable it. Live traffic data, if your in a jam turn to Google Maps to find out why. Sally Traffic on Radio 2 should be made redundant.

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