So I’ve had my bike for a month now, and I’m pretty happy with it so far. I’ve ridden approximately 90km on it over six rides, including two commutes.

The plan, if I see it through - is to do four 12km commutes to/from work in a week, and at least one 20+ km ride on the weekend. But I’m not going to kill myself to do it, so we’ll see how that goes.

I’ve got a bit of drama with the gears on the bike though, the chain is slipping pretty regularly some of the time. That’s not too uncommon with a new bike, as you wear in the shifter cables they get some slack.

I’ve taken the bike for its first service (albeit a bit early), and had them tighten up the cable which has helped a lot, but it’s still a bit of a problem so more investigation is required.

That aside it’s great fun to get out and ride, it’s been simply years since I’ve been for a proper ride and I’m not nearly as shitted afterwards as I thought I would be. Hooray.

Anyway, my short term goal is to crack 100km, which I’m set to do tomorrow when I do my next ride home from work, and also to get up to 20km/hr consistently on all my rides.

I’m keeping track of my rides with Bikemap.net and MyCyclingLog which is useful, but not very accurate when you’re going on overpasses/etc and the elevation data is wrong - might be time to find a very cheap second hand GPS or some such, as the iPhone apps I’ve tried as abysmal.

Most rewarding experience of the week? Riding across this deceptively steep overpass two days in a row without stopping or feeling like I’m about to die.

Hooray.