Monitoring my training

Now so that you can monitor both my training progress and more importantly in due course, how I am going, whether it is riding merrily down quiet Italian country lanes, along their major highways or slogging up hill and down dale over the various hills / mountains as I endeavour to get from one end of the country to another, I will be regularly posting not only some comments & photos as I go, but also for all those cyclists among you a record of my Strava activities.

Why the pseudonym?

Why the pseudonym - BLACK KNIGHT?

Well, if you've ever seen the movie - Monty Python's "The Holy Grail" you'll be familiar with who exactly The Black Knight is! 

A visual reminder - The Black Knight scene 

So why him, well because having had a heart attack requiring four Coronary Artery stents, I have to take a light-hearted approach to life otherwise it could be just a tad scary so "Coronary surgery - Tis but a scratch"!

Admittedly the other reason for this choice of pseudonym is the fact that much of my riding in the past has been undertaken under the cover of darkness, in the late hours of the evening, in part because I've always been a night owl, in part because of work commitments and in part because I was the primary carer of my mother who suffered from a muscle wasting disease and needed a great deal of physical assistance / support.

I mean sure most cyclist's take to the roads in the early hours of the morning, but for me the idea of rising at five thirty in the morning was (and remains) nigh on an impossibility as some of my colleagues who ride as part of the Lead Out Cycling crew or have joined or passed me on the Maling Road Ride can testify.