• Emma’s been in London most of this week so I’ve been chasing my tail with demands from children, the dog, the fish, work, cycling training. Not necessarily in that order.
  • I bought some new drinking glasses. Just some standard Ikea high ball 400ml ones. If there is one thing I’ve learnt recently is that life is far too short for crap drinking glasses and crap kitchen knives. Do yourself a favour and make your life a little easier and better and get decent ones of both.
  • Speaking of kitchen things, I re-seasoned my cast iron skillets. I have two I use regularly; a big one and a small one. Both of them were pretty shot with all of the seasoning rubbed or scratched off. There are a million methods on YouTube on how to re-season them, but here’s mine. One: Make sure the cooking surface is clean. For me, that meant a good old scrub with wire wool to get down to the bare metal; Two: add a super thin coat of good quality grapeseed oil. Then wipe as much as you can off with kitchen towel; Three: Place it upsidedown in a preheated over at 220C and bake for one hour. Let it cool inside the oven; Four: Do this as many times as it takes to build up a layer upon layer of seasoning on the pan. For me, this took four times and took all day. The house stank of burnt oil for days. Worth it, though. My pans pass the frying egg test.
  • My cycling training is off plan this week. My leg’s still injured. I think it’s getting better – I managed 20 minutes yesterday at 180 Watts (which is endurance level for me at the moment). It was sore to begin with, but then settled. Last time I go walking in my wellies for hours.
  • I’ve made the jump to tubeless tyres on my road bikes. This was after discovering the rims of my five year old Campag Zondas were absolutely shot so ordered a new pair of Hunt 4 season aero wheels. They look impressive – light, wide, and tubeless ready rims. I noticed they can come already fitted with tubeless tyres so opted for those. I’d never really given tubeless much consideration until this week. Anyway, last night I fitted some tubeless tyres to my Shimano C40s. The first went ok, the second was a real effort. In the end, a good tip I found on YouTube was to wrap the tire in a tight strap so that when it’s inflated the strap forces the beads to the rim to get seated well. Up to that point, I’d sprayed myself with sealant more times than I could count. I’ve not ridden them yet, but I’m looking forward to a smoother, less chattery ride.
  • I’m looking forward to the weekend. Not much going on really, just the usual driving children to climbing or their performing arts thing they do on a Saturday. I fancy doing some proper cooking on Sunday so may crack open the Big Green Egg and BBQ a good joint of beef.