Cycling
As well as keeping up the general fitness, I want to have some targetted events. I'm not sure I'll properly race again (though I am keeping my race license for now), but might be convinced if the fitness is there and the course is right.
Targetted Events
- Struggle Dales 200km route - grippy and long. This will drive early-season fitness and getting winter base miles in.
- Struggle Moors Gravel 100km - this is going to be Gills b'day present to me, and will act as a focus to get more off-road riding in.
- Harrogate Nova TT League - in 2024 I was distinctly mid-field no matter how you slice it. Overall improvement on individual courses and league position is targetted.
Bike Maintainence
Commitment to not use a shop for maintainence, do it all in-house...on all bikes. The "biggie" is the winter service on the summer bike (which is the most complex bit of work). As a stretch goal maintain someone elses bike.
Vegganuary
I'm going to try and live veggie for January. Why not Vegan? I hear you ask.
- Dairy
- Honey (see below)
- I don't think it's that healthy, and it's sorta stupid
The main purpose is to force a stricter focus on my diet, and try and shed some weight. The goal is actually a lower calorie density in my food (more fibre and protein, less carbs and fats). I've been experimenting with meat alternatives (and some of the burgers you can get now are really remarkable (the best being Not Burger and Beyond Burger, though even the cheaper options are now pretty convincing. I have no intention of going veggie, but some structure around diet for a while is hopefully a good thing. Chance of success? Maybe 50% I reckon, and I might delay the start until 2nd January, as on New Years Day I'm marshalling a CX event, and with 12+ hours standing in a field scheduled, I'm not going to be picky about food offered.
Beekeeping
In January we start a beekeeping course with Harrogate and Ripon Beekeepers Association, with the plan to have a couple of hives at the bottom of the garden by the stream. Aim to have hives in place in the next 12-18 months, once the course is complete. We'll also need to prep the bottom of the garden (a low flood-proof bench for the hives, and some violent gardening).
Tattoos
After a bit of a crash-induced delay in 2022, I've re-started work on the arm tattoo. It took a while finding an artist I was happy with (fortunately Leeds is a bit of a tattooing hotspot, however the downside is that a lot of choice can be confusing, and current trends are for fine-line and delicate work, which is not me). I've already had one full-day session in December, and the next is booked in for January. I reckon that the arm/shoulder will need 3-4 more sessions to complete, and then I want to get some lower-leg work planned in for autumn/winter 2025.
Dog Training
Also crash-delayed, we need to work on the dogs. Reaver is, not to put too fine a point on it, a shit-eater, and it's a problem. We were working on it in 2022, and then I spent a long time in hospital/bed, and then we got another dog (which makes training really hard). We are now working with a local dog-trainer (specifically with Reaver, however Errol is getting similar training by default, as they need to be split up when they are trained for now). The goal is to have him walking off-lead without the poo-hunting drive overtaking him. Early signs are promising, but we need to go forward with this and get it embedded. In the short term it is disruptive, but hopefully we can see some long-term benefits.
Finances/House
So these are now basically the same thing. We have a list of big-ticket, long term improvements to the house we want to do, and just need to sort out the finances really;
- Rear kitchen/dining room extension (with upper bathroom)
- Solar panels and heat pump
- Heating system replacement (linked to above, we need better radiators and pipes for a heat pump)
- Driveway replacement
- Garden re-work (post-extension)
To some extent all these are linked (the solar panels would go on the south-facing rear of the house, where we are planning an extension, and the raditaors are requried for a heat pump. The driveway wouldn't be replaced until we have completed building work).
I've got ballpark numbers in my head for each of these based on a very high-level of investigation (the extension is 20sq/m @ ~£2k/sq/m, then a new kitchen and bathroom on top at ~£10k each. Heat pump and solar panels are ~£10-12k, and radiator replacement is ~£10-12K. Driveway is also ~£10k, so getting on for £90-100k I think).
Tech Refresh
My laptop is going on for 4 years old now. I mean, it's still incredibly fast, however it's soon to be 2 generations out of date. I also don't really need a laptop as my main machine anymore, I'm well settled into a home-working role, and it's noisy for running 7-8 hours a day. I think I'm going back to a desktop in 2025. My phone is similarly going on for 4 years old. Both are still completely fine, but I will investigate a refresh.
A couple of other nerd items;
1) Move the servers. Currently I have a box of servers running some always-on services (Plex, AudioBookShelf, a LAMP server, a *cough* small server that pretends to be based somewhere in the deep USA for reasons) in my office. Due to the vagaries of the house network they don't have great bandwidth. I want to move them down into the dogs bedroom/snug, and sort out cabling so they are directly connected to the main router. If/when we get the driveway done I'm planning on getting a patch-lead run out to the garage, and I can then move them out there, but in the short term get them hard-wired directly into the main network of the house.
2) Start upgrading my music collection to FLAC. The self-hosting all started when I stuck my heels in and refused to move to Youtube Music 4 years ago. It's moved well beyond that now, however the main use of the in-house servers is still providing streaming of audio. I'd now like to start making this objectively better than most streaming services, and add in high-definition audio.
Currently I have ~35,000 tracks hosted, with an average bitrate of 128-256 in mp3 format. Absolutely fine for general listening, however I'd like to start future-proofing this. I'll start sourcing FLAC-bitrate stuff and building out a second library. It used to be the case that storage of this would be infeasible (I estimate ~1-1.5Tb, compared to ~120Gb for the current library), however my main media server currently has just over 38Tb of storage, so frankly it's not a worry now).
This has already started, and will probably take 2-3 years I think, but it will remain as a background task.
Comments
Another excellent round-up and I am inspired to work on my own.
It's amazing how much damage to your life the crash did. Not just the physical limitations and aches and pains you no doubt have (we all do in some form, we're old and shit) but how much of general life stuff you just had to park.
We're eating less processed meat now too. For me it's down to wanting to have a salad thing at lunch time so I don't get the dip mid-afternoon. I've found tuna-salad is bang on. Takes fucking forever to eat tho and Kate finds tuna triggering, so I need to be really careful to clean everything.
Since you fragged me at Fishcon (I accidentally wrote Fischcon, which is the German counterpart) I've been forced to watch fat intake. Too much shit food and I get diarrhea and the doc was quite specific that it's not good for my system. Sugars and bread seems to not upset me but lactose is a fucker.
Your bike goals are mind-boggling for me, frankly. I know you've worked up to it over many years and Ride Across Britain was years ago now (Felix was in a pushchair when we met you in Cornwall, he now rides my bike as a backup, he'll be taller than us by the end of 2025).
If you're looking for free PC bits, Felix has just done an upgrade so his old stuff is going spare. It'll run GTA and Helldivers 2 but it is long in the tooth! The jump up is noticeable, especially for encoding type activities.
I'm fine with processed food, I just try and keep an eye on the macro-nutrients (low-fat, low-carb mainly, and then plenty of protein). The biggest challenge will be convenience...after training I typically need to eat fairly quickly, and "fast" meals tend to have meat. I've treated myself to an air-fryer (after holding out for so long), and the intention is for this to quickly whip up cooked veg. I've trialled fake-meat in there, and it's fine as well. Given I'm halfway through making a big batch of sausage rolls for the volunteers tomorrow, the veggie thing starts on Thursday. I'm fortunate that I'm a bit of a Mr. Fusion.
The PC upgrade will be middle of the year I think...there is a release of new hardware coming in the next couple of months, and I'm hopeful that Intels Battlemage release (which looks pretty competent, and more imporntatly cheap!) will force a change in the mid-level market. I'd prefer new hardware so that it's still relevant in ~5 years time (even if by then it's no longer my main machine, I can definitely see it being moved to server/backup status). This is the working prototype build, with a bit of uplift cost for SFF.
The first RAB was 15 years ago (god I'm old), but you have to go back further to 2007 when I did my first half-marathon in an annoying 1h30m19s. That 19s is probably responsible for me pushing myself on for another year, and really embedding the active lifestyle as habit. Since then I've taken maybe 2 years off (1 in 2012 after I had my first car argument and broke my left shoulder, and another in 2018/2019 when my back went). I started logging training in 2010, and I'm now at about 6,500 hours, and on my 6th circumference of the globe.
The year seems to be flying by! First 3 months gone. I'd normally do this on the 1st, but I'm expecting chaos as it's a fun work combination of clock change and fiscal year end.
Cycling
it was a fairly tough winter...very cold, and a lot of the reli rides I was hoping to do were either cancelled or moved indoors onto Zwift. I managed to keep training and fitness up (mostly indoor riding), and the last couple of weeks have started to hint at summer. I've been able to ride outdoors after work. I spent a week in Spain, and for the first time in about 8 years we got rain, but still got in a decent week of riding (1 day lost, 1 day heavy rain while riding), and I'm going to provisionally say I'm in some good form. If I look at Stravas Fitness/Freshness model, this time last year I had a score of 59, this year I'm at 82, and seeing an upward trend as I move into longer sessions.
The TT League starts at the end of April, and the 2 long rides I have targetted are May and June, so it will be a case of building on the engine I have, and maintaining fitness without building up excess fatigue.
Bike maintainence was going well, and (stretch goal) I have done work on other peoples bikes...however I am taking my summer bike into the workshop on Tuesday to get a niggling issue with a hydrulic brake losing pressure diagnosed and fixed. I'm off to Mallorca in April, and don't really fancy plummeting down a mountain and finding a pressure loss has occurred.
Vegganuary
Done and documented. Interesting to try it, probably won't be trying it again.
Beekeeping
We have finished the theory part of the course (well, 1 class left, but that is revision on the weeks we've done so far). We've bought 2 hives, and will be attending a workshop to assemble them in a couple of weeks time.
Next up is the practical sessions, which are carried out at Harlow Carr, which is a short drive or a medium walk away (it's on the same stream we are, so we regularly walk the dogs there). We need to get our suits ordered soon as well.
Once we are into summer, I need to build a hive base at the end of the garden. Gill has been clearing the area (which we will be calling the Apiary), and I need to build a stand about 45-50cm high, large enough to fit 2 hives with a gap of ~1 metre between them.
Tattoos
The arm sleeve is complete, and healing has (just) finished. I now have a mixture of tribal and geometric blackwork from my right wrist upto my neck. Really happy with it...it's nice and bold. I'll have an easily identifiable corpse! I'm still hoping on doing the legs, but that will be in autumn, and probably in a different style. I want to speak to a couple of tattooists based in Harrogate to see if it's a style and piece of work they feel they can do.
Dog Training
Mostly done. Errol and Reaver have (mostly) had their bad habit controlled.
Reaver was a poo-eater, and he would go into an adrenalin-fuelled hunt for poo off the lead. He's now a lot more relaxed, and doesn't get the same urge. We've noted in the last week or so some signs are still on display, so we are not out of the woods yet, but now we know how to control it.
Errol wanted to say hello to every dog, and would run over to them from a long way off. He's now at the point where he sees another dog, and looks to us for attention and a treat. It's a huge change, and makes walking him far less stressful. Again, he'll occasionally look at a dog and start whining, so not out of the woods yet, but we know what to do to stop it escalating.
Working with a dog trainer has been fascinating...we worked with a no-nonsense ex-army dog trainer, and she (literally) had both our dogs eating out of her hands within a few minutes. She highlighted that commands and actions to discipline dogs had an incredibly small window of opportunity...about 1 - 1½ seconds from instigation. once you know that, and you can spot the initial signs that the dog is about to do a bad habit, and know what to do, changes can happen very quickly.
Finances/House
At the end of February I settled the legal case over the car incident in October 2022, and a reasonable chunk of cash landed in my bank account. Thats been shuffled off into Premium Bonds for now. As we have a known budget, we are able to move forward with the extension.
With the (massive) assistance of Gills architect cousin we submitted for planning permission in February, and have recieved consent. There are a couple of conditions around root protection on the trees to the rear (which we assured are not too bad...probably overkill, but will ensure no subsidence in the long term), and we can start looking for a developer.
I'e also had a conversation with a uni friend who works as an solar panel/heat pump assessment manager for Octopus, and have a bunch of notes on what we need to do in order to make the house 100% suitable for going gas-free and (hopefully) low electricity bill. The biggest one is replacing the heating pipes, as we have microbore (8mm width), and really need 16mm pipes all round. That might be the developer, it might be a separate job. It will definitely trash the house!
The fixed term on the mortgage ends in September...hopefully by then we have a good idea of final budget, and if we need to we can release a bit of capital. I'm still highly confident that we can move to a 5-year fixed rate to clear the mortgage.
Tech Refresh
The servers have been moved. the bandwidth issue was becoming onerous, so I spent a cold, wet afternoon indoors routing cables to a high shelf in the dogs bedroom. It's 100% resolved all issues with Plex serving up media.
Without wishing to delve into politics, as part of moving the servers, I've decided to host a local copy of Wikipedia via Kiwix, which I've set up on a Pi. There is a lot of bullshit going on in the States at the mo, and supression of information and education is one of them. While the Wiki Foundation is not directly federally funded, there are ways it could be impacted. Its not impossible that self-hosting services becomes more important in the next 4 years.
I'm continuing to rebuild my music library in lossless/FLAC files. It's going pretty well, far ahead of schedule. Currently I have ~20,000 songs, and I'm working on getting complete artist discographies where possible. Prioritisation is via the current "Most Played" data from my current library. Average bitrate of the new collection is ~1100kbps
Hardware purchases will be done over summer hopefully. I think speccing a machine will be quite hard...right now there is a fair bit of conflicting information about GPU's in particular, so I need to sit down and work out what I actually need.