Aged 16 at the Juvenile Midland Championships (1998).

At age 28 and 10 years on, I have finally found the motivation to once again start cycling properly. In the back of my mind I’ve always told myself that I’d cycle and race again but life, travelling, relationships, work, and shamefully a bit of laziness have taken a priority (entirely my choice I have to say). So far exercising during my twenties has been somewhat sporadic, limited to the odd run, turbo session, and a bit of climbing but never anything more than that. Personally I blame the rapidly approaching number 30 and the inevitable decline of bodily function for my somewhat panic induced fitness fad, although my girlfriend thinks it’s perhaps to get away from her.

Still, motivation is an elusive beast and is often only captured when it’s in line with your core values, or when you feel you have no other choice but to tackle the issue at hand. I guess this is a bit of both; my core values being shifted around a little bit, and genuinely feeling like I have no other choice but to get training again and better the form I once held before it’s too late. It’s not a chore, at least not all the time, but going from a mediocre 40 miles a week (which can easily be 4 turbo sessions) to over 100 miles a week does require dedication. Sometimes you just don’t feel like going for a 30+ mile ride on a Sunday morning.

So far I’ve been cycling consistantly since April last year although I haven’t clocked up any significant miles. After some time off from November – early Jan this year (for various reasons) and missing most of the cyclo-cross season, physically I’ve felt really good the last few weeks. Don’t mistake that as being strong(!). Rather, I’ve had plenty of energy which feels great.

Suffering badly(!) at Allestree Park, September 2009. My first cross race in about 10 years.

I’m not a materialistic guy at all, but some of these tops are just so achingly slick that I simply *have* to buy them! They’re so original, so funky, and so crazy in some cases… I’ve never seen any t-shirts in the highstreet that rival the designs here – even a lot of the submissions that don’t make it into print are great! They’re cheap too, and actually end up being cheaper (from the USA to the UK) than the standard print t-shirts in Topman (which are crap anyway, don’t get me started on their booze/sex/football/laddy slogans that try to be witty). Screw designer labels, get something different, get something from a company that cares :D

T-shirts brought so far:

Conformity	Bleeding Heart (in red and black)
I Love You, CPU	Burn (in blue)
5311 OU7 (x2)	Death Or Glory (x2)
Brainwash (in beige)	Eighties Child
I Am Analog	I Like Trees Too
mmm… oranges!	Motovino
Captain Awesome	Blame It On Your TV
Emotional Trip	Flowers in the Attic
My Dearest Friend	Like Father Like Son
Come Back To Me	Walk Instead
Lost A Wheel	The Communist Party

You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements. Materialist 94% Existentialist 88% Postmodernist 63% Modernist 44% Romanticist 44% Cultural Creative 38% Fundamentalist 31% Idealist 25%

What is Your World View?