Sorry for the radio silence but it’s been a difficult couple of months in the decliningcyclist multiverse. The stats are simple, across the last two months of 2025 I only rode a measly 127.78km all of which were indoors spread across 5 rides on Zwift. In my defence there were a couple of reasons for the dramatic tail off in riding and then my lack of posting over the last couple of months.

Firstly coming into November last year I was feeling a touch burnt out. I had a niggling cold that I just couldn’t seem to shift, work was busy and there was a lot of family stuff I was trying to catch up on in the run up to Christmas which saw me pulling on painting overalls rather than bib shorts as I finally realised I couldn’t put off the decorating back log at home any longer if the pesky adult children due to return to the nest over the holidays were going to have anywhere to sleep. So I’d already mentally written off November on the riding front and decided it was going to be my ‘recharging the riding batteries’ month before hopefully a strong December to finish out a pretty good year of riding.

Then in the last week of November my Dad passed away quite suddenly after being taken ill at home. As I’m sure you can appreciate riding my bike has been the last thing on my mind over the last few weeks, and even if I’d had the motivation to ride, planning Dads funeral, looking after my Mum and starting the difficult process of settling Dad’s affairs has taken nearly all my free time.

Life does of course go on however, and hopefully as we move into the new year I’ll be getting back into the saddle both metaphorically and physically. The first hurdle of 2026 is unfortunately more time off the bike while I recover from the shoulder surgery, but as I finally sit down at the laptop to write this in mid January all the bits of bone that were in the wrong place have been removed or ground away, the shoulder has had what the Consultant Surgeon referred to as ‘a full service and tidy up’ and the rehabilitation has begun. I’m 4 days post op as I type and this morning was my first ride back on the indoor trainer but more on that next month.

While I’m sitting at home for the next couple of weeks nursing my stitches I’m planning a review post covering 2025 and a what’s coming up in 2026 post as well so stay tuned. Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year and here’s to a great two wheeled year ahead !