It's alive!!! but I ain't got no bolts in my neck.

Its been a while where I find myself with some time to sit down and write a post so since I had a couple minutes I thought it was time for an update. Point blank I have been struggling since June 2011, a personal tragedy is making things hard on me and focusing has not been easy so we get what we have here, some weight gain. I hit a point where I started remembering some of the struggles of being 534 pounds and with a lot of thought ie: Jedi mind tricks on myself, I have been on a roll for about a month now again where I am doing everything right.

To say that weight loss is a mental game would pretty much sum it up because if you are defeated mentally I doubt many people would be able to keep it together when it comes to something as difficult as staying focused in the face of stress. Losing weight is not easy for any person and someone who says that its easy is just plain lying to you, its a simple thing but easy it is not and there in lies the problem. I have come from 534 pounds down to as low as 305 in the last four years, I am currently as of this morning at a rotund 363.0 pounds but am riding my bikes almost every day now along with the most basic item in my bag of tricks which is a simple walk every day.

I won't complain or whine about things that make it hard because we all have them but shit just ain't easy sometimes and I won't get into it more than that as focusing on the negative never helped anyone. Instead I chose to focus my energy on a couple things that are possible causes for an issue and I have seemingly come up with a solution as I am again able to stay focused and the weight is coming down again but then again when someone walks a few miles per day and then rides a few more it tends to help in that department so who knows.

Short and sweet is this post so I will end it here, I will also try to get a post up more often because when i start getting emails asking if I am alive obviously someone out there still follows.

Thanks for all of the support over the last couple years its been invaluable.

As ever
Me

An update of sorts and some vintage steel for your morning Joe.

I cross posted this with my cycling blog so you can check it out there if you haven't seen it, My weight has how do they say? plateaued? lately, I can't figure it out because I am eating ok, exercise has been coming more often with the weather I have been taking the little one out on rides on the Adams trail a bike but the weight loss has stalled. I am not going to worry about it but will keep on doing what I am doing and call it a slow time because if I let it get in the way I will undoubtedly gain weight in the long run and I ain't down for that. I mentioned the weather warming up and its got me in a bike kind of mood, like I said me and my eldest daughter have been going on rides out on the lake with the trail a bike and I started working on the old Motobecane again, we're getting close on that bike I tell ya! soon enough I will have a new ride in the stable even if its short lived as I am unsure I am a roda bike kind of guy but we will see.

I needed some down time so I headed off to work with the Motobecane yesterday for a couple hours and finished up cleaning the rear derailleur, the shifters and I got the cables/housings installed. I am still not done by a long shot and there is still a lot to do before the bike is done I did make some good solid progress on the bike last night. I chose Jagwire platinum braided cable housings to blend in with the frame a bit and I really like how they look on the bike! I did make a couple decisions on just how closely I was going to polish things up, I was thinking about the fact that I am planning to ride this bike and polishing everything to a mirror finish didn't make a lot of sense because of that fact, I mean if its going to get grimy anyways why make it shinier than when it was new?

With that said, I did not skimp on the polishing! I think that the bike is starting to look pretty nice even if this shot makes my basement look like a dungeon! who am I kidding.. it IS a dungeon! I still have to completely do the wheels (I just tossed them on to see how the bike looked) as I have not touched them other than a small test spot where I polished the rust off of the chrome and I do believe that the wheels will look pretty good after some elbow grease. You can see that I laid the rack on there just for a look at how it would play out and I think that I like it and will stick to the original plan of doing fenders and rack on this bike.

Above is a closer shot of the braided cables installed on the shifters, I think they compliment the silver frame pretty nicely! I am still on the fence with what color I should do the tape/hoods/saddle in but I am sure that it will come to me... eventually. I originally wanted to do the bars and saddle in brown/honey but that is more expensive than the other options and since I am not 100% on whether I will keep this bike in the long run I keep going back to just do the bars red, black saddle and brown or black hoods, I am very on the fence with the whole thing. I don't really ride road bikes let alone vintage road bikes! and that is why I am unsure about whether this will become a permanent ride in my ever growing fleet of bicycles even though I have put a good amount of thought and time into this bike.

Finally a shot of what I started with compared to where I brought it, I think there is a big difference and when I am done I think it will be even bigger! Next on the list of things to do will be the tape and saddle and I am very anxious to see how it looks with a bit more of a finished feel to it. Now the decision must be made on the tape, once that happens I can choose a saddle and finally hood color, some new tires and we will be off for a ride to snap a couple photos in a nicer setting than my dungeon... er I mean basement!

Over all I am on the right road and with the spring right around the corner I am expecting the biking to pick up some which will hopefully help tear away some of my winter jelly that I have packed on during the hibernation. I will never stop striving to get to my goal and some day I will be able to say that I weigh 250 lbs, it may not be in a week, or a month but the day is coming because I will not let weight control who I am or what I do in life and that's that!

Until next we meet, keep on pedaling!

As Ever
Me