iPhone 14 Pro Max, 24 mm, ISO 80, 3.0s@f1.78

App: Spectre

Last weekend we were headed to the South Coast to attend a Christmas party being thrown by wife’s most favourite band in the world, Archive. I wasn’t feeling particularly good so was sat in the passenger seat whilst the wife acted as chauffeur. As I was sat there feeling a bit meh and watching the world go by as we were travelling along the M4 it struck me how incredibly grey and dull everything outside seemed. I’ve used the Spectre app for quite a while and in the right scenarios I think it produces some great results. I pressed the phone’s lens up against the window and selected a three second exposure in the app. I then cropped from portrait to square and that’s it. A vague greenness is visible at the bottom but otherwise this looks like a monochrome image. Sadly it’s not – the world really was that grey. well just outside Reading on the M4 it was, anyway…

One thing I noticed from last week’s ride is the improvement in graphics in the current version of the app. I run Zwift on an Apple TV 4K, but it’s hooked up to a 1080p screen so I don’t get the full effect. Even so the graphics were very impressive. This week’s ride had massive amounts of dust coming from the rider in front during the gravel sections.

The lengths of the Long and Standard rides were the same but the elevation was 682 m versus 234 m. It turned out it was the right decision – I was dying well before the end of the 30 km and especially on the reverse climb over the hill around the 21 km mark. Still it got done and it felt great to have achieved it. As a bonus I unlocked the Tour of Watopia ’24 Cycling Shoes. Woo!

I had Covid which although wasn’t as severe as previous bouts were seems to have left a long term feeling of sheer exhaustion and lethargy. Then my left ankle was been extremely painful after twisting it while walking the dog and wasn’t able to put much weight on it. Occasionally I still get a sharp pain when walking. Worst of all my sciatic nerve was playing up again which meant for a month or two I had severe pain down my left leg and lower back. Once the paint went I then had a couple of weeks where I wasn’t able to walk properly as I couldn’t roll my foot. I sounded like a duck when I was walking as I was flat-footing everywhere.

Thankfully they all seem to be resolved although I’m still feeling the effects of Covid somewhat. hopefully back on the bike soon at least.

Regards the Big Spin I managed to win the Tri-Spoke and Disc wheel combo. Woo.