With the new year brings a renewed effort to try and set things right. To continue losing the pounds, to ride further and faster, or to try and hang with the group ride a little further than last year. Or maybe you (like me) just needed to get a ride under your belt in order to get started again. Today was my get started again ride.

I knew yesterday that I would ride today. No matter what. It was going to be cold and windy. But I had to ride. No matter what.

You have no idea how many times I’ve meant to sit down and write this (or any) blog post. There was always something more important, or easier, to do. The same could be said for my riding the last couple of months. I’m full of excuses and virtually none of them are worth anything.

I rode great from January through October and then things just kind of went south. I got sick, work picked up a lot, the holidays arrived, the youngest had Christmas play rehearsals, sucky weather, family was in town, etc., etc., etc. You get the picture. In fact, I bet many of you dealt with a lot of the same stuff but were more dedicated than I was.

On last Saturday’s group ride a buddy and I were dropped by the main group. The fast dudes must have been feeling good because by mile 8 we were already going over 25 mph and I finally gave in at 27. The other guy did the same about 30 seconds later. That left us to ride by ourselves and we had a great ride despite the wind. We followed a short ride 25 mile loop and enjoyed the cool temps.

About 3 miles from the finish I heard a loud ‘pop’ from behind me. I knew immediately that my buddy had just flatted so I pulled over. Upon further investigation he discovered that not only had he flatted but he had a hole in his tire as well. It looked like the tire had simply

Welcome to the September 2011 Cycling and Weight Loss Report. I do these reports once a month so you can follow along in my progress towards losing weight with cycling. More importantly I want these posts to help inspire you to battle the bulge. You can see what I’m doing, what’s working for me, what isn’t, the challenges I’m facing, and what I’m struggling with. Through it all we’ll both be better for it.

The month of September was another hard (i.e. I struggled) month but it started out great with me completing an organized ride on September 10th called The Patriots Memorial Ride. You can read my ride report here. About three days after that ride I started to not feel so good. I’m hesitant to say I was ‘sick’ but my body didn’t feel right at all. There was no way I could ride but I did manage to keep my eating under control. Somewhat.

As the month of September moved along I began to feel better and was able to get more mileage on the bike the last couple of weeks. My eating on the other hand hasn’t been super. I have kept it under control but it could be improved so much. I’m sure you can relate. Without further rambling, here’s the breakdown for this month.

A few weeks ago the sunglasses I had been using while riding finally had to be tossed after I lost one of the nose pieces. The nose piece had been coming off a lot but I kept putting it back on. Well, it finally came off and I didn’t notice until after my ride so there’s no telling where it ended up. That left me in need for a new pair of riding sunglasses.