Party of Five

My cycling adventures started sometime ago now. Around oh about January 2008 or there about's. I had the aboveknee amputation of my right leg on September 11th 2007 and then had to undergo a good few weeks of rehabilitation, which took place at Shotley Bridge Hospital. I waited for my wound site to heal and after around 6 to 8 weeks I was fitted and received my first prosthesis which I hated with a passion. It felt heavy,looked naff and I had to hold the dam thing on with a Tes belt. This was a neoprene, belt which was elasticated and went around my waist and secured tightly. This was the worst part initially, as I was constantly uncomfortable and I couldn't enjoy a meal whilst wearing it as it was like wearing some medieval corset. Those days seem so far away, yet are still fresh in my memory it's good to look back on them, not because they were pleasant,but because they act as a reminder just how far I have come. 

What a Motley Crew

In the early days I would head off out on my bike all alone. I had no one to ride with. I would fall off lots and I mean LOTS! This was because I was so used to having my own 2 legs,even if one of them was pretty knackered,after having surgery known as limb salvage. A huge internal prosthesis,called a Kotz prosthesis was placed inside my leg to replace my diseased bone. This procedure never really worked and I would just hobble around on it as best as I could, suffering lots of infections and really bad pain. So when I went back to riding it was after something like 11 or 12 years. It's amazing how your brain is programmed and mapped from an early age to remember how to do things and then again it's also how amazing hard it is to convince your brain "I'm Missing a Leg" When you lose a limb,it takes your brain a while to adapt and when you go to put that foot down that no longer exists, well it's not there. As my right leg was my strongest, (if you imagine it's like which hand you write with, or which leg you would kick a ball with) well I used to go to put this one down and time and again it was "oh crap" as I fell in what felt like slow motion to me.

After a slightly elusive sunrise

I'm determined to catch a nice, or should I say beautiful sunrise. So far I've failed in my last couple of attempts. I used to be up at the crack of dawn when I worked as a postman, but that was years ago, before I became ill with my leg. Since then well I can find myself in bed till all hours of the morning and don't get to catch too many sunrises. Just lately however I've been getting up at silly o'clock like this morning for instance 4:00 AM and heading out on my bike.

 Last night I checked the weather on-line for our local area and from what I read I thought it was going to be a canny morning.......how wrong was I ? I had intended riding up to Consett to catch the sun coming up over the Hownsgill Viaduct and shoot a small movie with my GoPro.  Well to cut a long story short the weather was pants, very dull, lots of clouds, mostly of the miserable variety. I decided I wasn't going to let this ruin my day. So Kyle my son who had joined me on this early morning adventure thought about where we could go and capture a few photo's and a bit of movie footage. We decided to head towards Waskerley and the reservoir as we hadn't actually visited it before.

Once you start to get up into the moors and the area opens up, it's so beautiful over there. It's so peaceful down by the reservoir. I rode right down to the edge of the reservoir and got a little bit of footage and even had a bit plodge in the water at one point to capture some pics of my bike at the waters edge. I reckon we did around 35 miles or so today and had a really enjoyable time, even if the weather was caca doo doo.

 Oh one thing I'm not happy with is my new cycling shorts, the lycra padded variety. I bought a pair of Funkier 8 panel gel filled shorts thinking they would help me out in those long rides in the saddle. Boy how wrong was I, these particular brand or design of shorts are so uncomfortable for me and have actually chaffed me pretty bad on both my good side and socket side, so I think I'm going to have to invest in another pair from a different manufacturer. I've been sore in the saddle before but not like this Ouch lol !!!!

Here's a few photo's from today

I saw that some kind of work was being carried out on the Hownsgill Viaduct as there was a few barriers up. I then spotted this notice when heading over towards Waskerley Way near the farm.

Apparently some sort of fencing is being put in place in the hope it will stop people committing suicide off the viaduct, as it is a pretty well known area for people to actually jump off.

A Notice of work being carried out on the Hownsgill Viaduct

Me playing on my Sandman coming down a trail near the Viaduct

Kyle and me on our way up to Waskerley. Rowley Station was actually dismantled brick by brick and is now at Beamish Open Air Museum

Yeah I know it's just a gate, but the sky and trail leading off into the distance caught my imagination so I thought why not take a snap

Here are a few shots which I experimented with using different camera settings and a filter I got of my good friend Adrian. I took quite a flot of shots,  didn't want to bore you so only put up a few....

Sandman Hoggar Ti at the shore line of Waskerley Reservoir

In at the deep end lol

The sky was quite heavy with clouds, added to the shot though