Bike Blog
So some other loony tried to kill me on the way home last night. Hogged the road in his white Mercedes Sprinter van on a leafy suburban street lined with cars. There was room for a bike and him despite the cars, but no I had to slam on the anchors and pull into a gap to avoid joining the collection of dead flies plastered over his grill. I didn’t have one problem riding in France, but then again some of the places being explored by bike weren’t that crowded…
There are some things that are actually quite hard to do on a bike. The Switzerland Squeaker is one of them as demonstrated over the years by Jez Avery. Which it helps to do if you’re northern. Another is being the most successful at winning downhill mountain bike races against the best in the world. Which it helps to do if you’re northern too. Another is riding skinnies, where it seems to help if your northern and Canadian and they’re in the local woods for practice. Then and possible the hardest of them all is doing a front wheel skid on a road bike.
This is tricky because the tyres are generally quite grippy and that the back is usually the first to slide, yet this morning on the way to work, I managed to lock up the front wheel. Some numpty in a Micra was in the wrong lane in the dual carriageway just after the Bends of Fury and darted across for the left hand exit cutting up the car in front of me, who slammed on the brakes causing me in turn to slam on and swerve to avoid stuffing it into the back of his red Polo. So, it seems that it helps to be surrounded by daft northern drivers if you want to perfect your life saving front wheel skids.
Went running at the weekend, nothing spectacular. It’s the first time I’ve been on a proper run in about 6 years. New trainers were okay. Legs felt okay afterwards and my back hasn’t been impacted by it, so that’s good. Only did a 5km run from the house, but it was a chance to check out some new things – like the BMX track that has been built in the local park – and test the new kit. The Nike+ probably needs some more specific calibration, but it wasn’t far off the Polar calculations of calories burned. I suspect that my HRM needs some fine tuning too, so in all I’m pretty impressed. Cross training is back on the cards.
Many years ago I bought Mike Pearce‘s route guidebook for the Peak District and Derbyshire on the basis that although I thought I knew a lot of riding areas in my local spot, in reality I only knew a handful and ended up riding the same old (albeit fantastic) trails all the time. So this weekend, I picked out another route from it half thinking that I had done it before, but the reality was that I hadn’t and that realising this midway through the ride was a nice surprise. Great weather, company and empty trails topped off with an ice cream at the car park at the end. Summer riding in the Peak District doesn’t get better than this.
So this route has prompted me to try and complete the last few routes in the book that I haven’t yet ridden and also it has me thinking about one of the Grand Tours that I’ve been talking about for a few years. I’m thinking that with a Bivvi mid way, Manchester to Leeds off road in two days along some amazing trails isn’t really a crazy idea… Then there’s that other even bigger one I’ve talked to friends about, but can it really be done in four days?
Commuting to work has recently been very uneventful. I did eventually fettle the brakes on the cross bike, the front having being squeaking when used for ages, but when the back one started, I admitted defeat and adjusted both. Despite the heavy rain we’ve been getting at irregular intervals, I seem to have avoided it so that riding to and from work has at least let me stay dry. This morning’s ride in was worthy of a mention as a cheeky scoundrel dressed in full fixie fashionista regalia jumped every set of lights on the way in. His pop culture outfit was slightly undone by the fact that he clearly wasn’t man enough to ride fixed, or even singlespeed and was riding on some non-descript road bike. He wasn’t going very fast either. I contemplated ‘having a word’ when I caught him up, but then as I didn’t fancy ending up under a bus I never did. Cock.
I needed some new running shoes and decided to try the Nike+ system which links into my iPod touch. We’ve been talking about getting students using the system at work, so it’ll be a bit of real world product testing too.
Fine weather has eventually reached Manchester. The curse of the Cross Bike is lifted and biking now doesn’t involve getting wet and grumpy with the climate. A road ride on Sunday took the monthly total comfortably over 100 miles and it was interesting to crank around some of the lanes in Cheshire that I used to train on. There’s even the possibility that I might do more road riding, the Indy Fab does make for a nice cruiser, but still isn’t enough to take the back aching bumps out of the road surfaces.
Sunshine. Warmth. No rain. And a clear run through all of the traffic lights on the way home. Today was a great day of commuting.
Rode today, taking in the Goyt Bridge Loop that is now one the of established routes from home and a more interesting alternative for riding than the river run. Unfortunately we discovered today that the council have sanitised one of the best bits on the route. It’s now under tarmac and has gone from being a nice downhill woodland trail to a section full of steps. That said the best bit is still there – a roll in to a chute, but it’s now behind a fence so you can’t ride into it any more and then the roll out at the bottom hs been turned into a muddy mess. Perhaps I shouldn’t complain too loudly, a lot of the riding in Reddish Vale is cheeky, but it’d be rude not to poach them. It was good to be out in the sunshine, but after weeks of rain, there was plenty of mud too.
No change in the weather – it’s almost the end of May but it feels like March. I’ve ended up getting rained on everyday I’ve ridden the Cross Bike to work. It’s quite bizarre. Last night to add to my excitement, some little Chinese fella in his Honda nosed out into the busy main road. I wasn’t sure if he could see me, because I couldn’t see him. In fact when he eventually leaned forward, he could barely see over the steering wheel and I had to double take to check he was older than twelve. Anyway I’d slowed down so much that the rider on the road bike I’d over taken just before caught me up and passed me and then I never reeled him in before I turned off which wound me up a bit.
Then on the final section home there were two more thrilling events. The first being a white van man who decided that without indicating, he would execute a u-turn in the road in front of me, which I really wasn’t expecting. It was close. I was quite thankful for the decent brakes on the bike for that one. Then at the last crossroads junction before home I was cut up in a move that is my pet hate – being overtaken just before a junction and then cut up when the driver realises that they have to stop and give way. I think I was either numbed by the two previous incidents or so sick of riding in the rain that I just wanted to get home, but I couldn’t even be bothered to show my appreciation for such considerate and forward-thinking driving by shouting “Cock!”
