Category: Words

I first went to Bristol as a rider in the mid 1990s, but the end of October this year was the first time I’ve been there for a ride. We stayed with our friends Stuart and Debs in Portbury and rode out on Saturday morning for a three hour loop taking in some of the local forest and country park singletrack. It was like a bizarre cross between Calderdale, Thetford and slippery Malvern mud that caught me out on some of the corners.

The singlespeed coped well with the conditions and it’s clear that these guys are very lucky to have some top trails within the Ashton Court Estate and Leigh Woods accessible from their doorstep. I’d like to be able to go back and explore them again in future.

I haven’t ridden since last Tuesday evening. I succumbed to the lurgy which normal afflicts me at this time of the year or thereabouts. Thing is, given what happened on the ride home last Tuesday I could have had much bigger problems.

There’s always something ominous about approaching a set of traffic lights where there is a queue of on coming traffic waiting to turn right. Normally it’s not an issue when there are cars and traffic going in the same direction as me, but when you’re the only traffic, motorists seem to get this idea you don’t count.

So there I am gunning it along at about 25mph towards the lights, I end up in this deadzone of no traffic and a queue of cars waiting to turn right across my path. The first car goes no problem, plenty of room. The second car, in this case a Navy Blue VW Lupo, can’t see what’s coming until the car in front has moved out of the way. Then he starts to go too. I am already starting to cross the function.

He hasn’t seen me. The brakes get locked up. This is going to be close. Millimetres is the gap as he brushes past me in a squeel of tyres struggling for grip under a heavy right foot planting the accelerator into the carpet. Stupid bastard. I think you could hear me shouting at him from low orbit. Just to make sure he got the point I gave him a special salut too.

…Faster now, you know I got no brakes – so said Dexter Holland, which makes you wonder what experience led him to pen the lyrics. Perhaps, just maybe, he’d tried riding with no brakes. I’ve some experience, one involved a 10 metre square plate glass window which after our encounter had a great big crack in it.

Today I was supposed to be riding great trails in North Wales. I wish I’d gone, because it’s been a stunning day today. Instead I managed a ride out locally and decided to take out the Ti Deluxe which hasn’t seen trails for about the last 12 months. Of course you forget the little things that aren’t quite right from one ride to another. In the Ti Deluxe’s case this is the problematic brakes, which need bleeding.

Hanging the bikes by the rear wheel doesn’t do hydralic brakes much good. The air in the system rises to the caliper and then either doesn’t or takes ages to escape back to the lever. So today I had a bit of front brake and absolutely no rear brake, which despite an hour of lever pulsing to try and get the air out of the system failed to materialise. The ride was at 50% commitment as a result of not being able to scrub off speed.

The days of riding to work in shorts, no socks or gloves could be at an end. This week has seen some cooler weather and on a couple of mornings, I’ve been able to see my breath in the air. Now that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily baltic outside, because it’s to do with the humidity too.

We always breath out water vapor along with air, but can’t usually see it because the water molecules are not close enough to form individual droplets. Individual droplets can be seen at the dewpoint which is associated with relative humidity. A high relative humidity indicates that the dew point is closer to the current air temperature. If the relative humidity is 100%, the dew point is equal to the current temperature.

Now cool air can hold less moisture, which is why dew forms on the ground overnight, when the air cools. If it’s humid, you’ll be able to see your breath at higher temps, than when it’s less humid when it’ll take cooler temps to be able to see your breath. This is why you can see your breath in the winter much more easily than in the summer.

It’s been cool and dry over the last week – well up until earlier today, so it’s probably time to dig out the 3/4 bibs and long sleeved merino. Oh and bike lights… I’ll be needing them too.

I don’t need a bell on my cross bike. The ‘no matter how much toe-in you use’ front brakes squeel like a stuck pig and scare the bejesus out of any pedestrians foolish enough to be walking in the bike lane far more efficiently. They’re so effective I’ve grown to like it. Mwah hah ha.

That was the noise my bike made this morning. For the first time in months I had a tow in to work in the slipstream of a coach. I was of course paying far more attention to my distance to that back of the bus that where the bike was going and I managed to ride over a pothole I’ve hit before. The Kurdunk of aluminium slipping on aluminium was my bars slipping in the stem so i had an interesting ride into work with the bars at a funky downward angle.

It was warm this morning so shorts, merino t-shirt and a gillet and riding sans socks was not a problem. By lunch time I was walking to the post office around the Captain America set in a jacket with a woolen beanie on. The ride home had better be a fast one. A few hours makes a big difference in this city at this time of year.

The Wattbike was out again for the Student Welcome Fair at The University of Manchester. I swear that thing is like a magnet. I tried to resist it… I didn’t feel great. I had silly shoes on. I couldn’t remember what I had done last time. Joni Purmonen had set the top output – over 1450w. Going to the gym and pushing weights clearly pays off.

Still ten minutes later I’m back on it. I ripped my foot out of the toeclips on the first start, managed to get the power down second time around. Previous attempts have seen me hit 1210w, 1311w & 1381w. I managed 1386w this time. Enough for 3rd place on the board. I wouldn’t mind having a go on one of these now with some proper biking gear and pedals on…

This morning a coleague was late for a meeting, so a deal was done. We’d meet at his office and he’d provide a coffee. My first coffee of the year. I’m not sure exactly what coffee Caffè Nero produced, but I’ve still got a caffiene shake going on almost 12 hours later.

Of course the meeting being delayed by an hour meant that I was able to ride to my office in a downpour of epic proportions, but with my coffee fuelled cloak I was like Miguel Indurain ripping up the tarmac as I big ringed it into work. Yes a deliver driver in a Mercedes Sprinter did think about cutting across me at a junction, but then he saw the 100yard stare in my eyes and thought better of it.

Work time evaporated and the next thing it’s 7.30pm and time to ride home…quickly, because it’s already that time of year where light is fading fast in the evenings. The coundown to needing lights for the commute has begun…

You can say you’re World Champion if your name’s Tracy Moseley. Well earned result that’s been a long time coming…

Photo by Rob Jones.