Category: Words

Yesterday was the first ride home of the year with lights. Last night I decided that the commuter (aka the bike that tried to kill me) needed to be resurrected so swapped some pedals over to it from the cross bike (I will need to drill the locknut off the remnant of the spindle to reuse the old pedal body – the lovely people at 2pure have sent some replacement spindles) and fixed the double snakebite in the rear wheel with a new tube. Dug out the winter lights and mounted them on the frame and pretty much ready to go.

Of course this morning as I actually ride it I remember all the little irritating things that need to be done and I’d forgotten about, like the worn out bottom bracket whih means the left leg’s turning a bigger circle that the right leg, which is irritatingly noticeable on the downstroke. The other is the fact that in the crash I managed to twist the seatpost, so now the saddle’s not pointing straight. Still the bike feels properly fast and I buzz along.

All goes fine until the bends of fury where there is another case of piss poor lane discipline when a woman in a Black Golf FSI tries to put me into the kerb. I hold my ground and despite being along side her peering into the window to try and get her attention she nor her passenger see me. As we wait at the lights so I give a polite knock on the window to remind her that I’m there. Shortly after that as I follow the traffic, matching the speed of the cars in front, I’m hooted at from behind.

I’m not sure what the person behind me expected me to do, possibly move to the side so that they could over take. I saw no point doing that because I was going as fast as everything else and I’m not going to be made to eat the kerb again… so I just reached around and gave the old two finger salute. This prompted more hoot-a-tooting and as we rounded the next bend and the road widened into two lanes on the one way street I pulled out, eased off and came along side the car.

The driver of what turned out to be a silver Astra gave me the evils, so I shook my fist at him in a menacing manner and ranted, at some volume in my best Ray Winstone Cockney accent: “You f***** c***! What’s your f****** problem? Stop your f****** car and I’ll bloody ‘ave you, you c***!” Which didn’t really help placate the situation, rather it seemed to piss him off even more leading to much engine revving and a woefully poor attempt to cut me up. His spineless “You little…” comment as he drove off didn’t really seem to carry much weight.

I accept that there’s two sides to all such things, but when you’re all worked up from what’s effectively a sprint to work, dickhead motorists are never likely to be on the receiving end of a carefully crafted and eloquent critique of their driving skills…

Update:

Just thought I should add a few comments to say that this is all very out of character, I usually go months without any problems, but recently there does seem to have been a spate of people driving to kill me. I have to write up stuff like this or I’d forget about it!  The most annoying thing is that certain people seem to think that because they’re in a car and I’m on a bike they should have more right of way than me…

This is a theory that won’t get much truck from me. I don’t go looking for trouble, but I will hold my position in traffic because I don’t want to end up eating the kerb or getting stuck under a lorry (lost a friend that way). If the traffic around me is moving faster than me then I will pull to the side and let it pass, but if I am traveling at the same speed I will ride in the centre of the lane so: no idiot can cut me up (been there too many times); I am more visible; and have more room for manoeuvre.

Yesterday I went to London and during the rush hour walked from Knightsbridge to Westminister past Buckingham Palace. It was a nice evening and I think it’s sad to go to such a spectacular city and then miss most of the architecture by buzzing around everywhere underground. One thing struck me – there are a lot more normal looking people commuting on bikes in London than in Manchester. There’s an article in issue one of the Ride Journal by a dutch writer all about this.

What I mean by that is that here, most commuters seem to be pretty well geared up for the job in terms of cycling specific clothing whereas is London most people I say yesterday just seemed to have literally left their office, hopped on their bike and started to ride home. No lycra, no fluoro yellow safety jackets and in a lot of cases not even a lid. Thought that was an interesting comparison, most exciting thing I saw was a guy on a street-setup mountain bike win the sprint across a junction as the lights changed doing a fully crossed up wheelie. Very cool.

I’m also reminded that public transport when it wants to be can be utterly crap. My train from Bedford to London took about 40 minutes on the way in, but the same journey on the way back took double the time and was mostly spent with a guy who kept asking me if it was the slow train (bloody well feels like it) when he wasn’t drinking Stella, on the phone to his girlfriend, mum, mates or coke dealer – do you have powder? What about rock? Nah, powder is fine. I’m just going to get a taxi, be there in 20 minutes….

Why was the Victoria line closed so I missed the last fast train of the night? I like driving at night, but not when there’s road works every 5 miles with “Workforce in Road” and 40mph restrictions. That’s when the road was open and not diverted via the arse end of nowhere. Getting back to Manchester at 3.45am this morning wasn’t any fun at all.

Today was gloomy. The sun never really broke through the cloud and it just wasn’t very nice out there at all. Didn’t rain, wasn’t that cold, just windy and dark all day. Fitted a rear light today, but decided it needs new batteries as it’s not that bright. Didn’t hinder me from haveing a belter of a ride home tonight though. I managed to get a tow off a bus 75% of the way home and miraculously there wasn’t any traffic to hold things up. And no, it wasn’t a Magic Bus…

Spirits were lifted somewhat by the arrival of a copy of The Ride. I’ll admit it’s joined the pile of magazines that’s slowly building up in the ‘to be read’ pile, but I reckon it’ll be the first one I pick up. Seriously nice work and lovely paper and printing.

It’s been four years since some of the world’s best riders gathered, armed themselves with big rig bikes, custom tuned shocks, snorted Red Bull and through caution to the wind and then rode off some great big cliffs, cleared improbable gap jumps and crashed and burned. Recently the event, that brought them together, Red Bull’s Rampage, has returned.

It’s still an invite-only freeride comp for men and despite much hoo-ha about a global quest to find a new venue, it’s perhaps a little ironic that they’ve just moved it a little bit from the original location near Virgin, Utah. The setting is stunning with the Landscapes of the Zion National Park forming the backdrop. Quite how the legal implications that have let the event to be mothballed (due to the increasing risk competitors were taking) for the last few years have been overcome isn’t clear.

The event held at the beginning of October certainly wasn’t without incident with some big names, either playing safe or not quite getting it right and breaking themselves and bikes. The result was perhaps unexpected, but the victory deservedly went to the best rider on the day. Photos from Dan, and more on the event over at BikeMagic.

Just tried catching up with what a few friends have been up to and it look’s like they’re having a time out from being online. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to have a break every now and then…

The nights are drawing in. It’s almost twilight riding home now and with the leaves on the trees now all shades of autumn it feels like summer is officially over. That said it’s still quite warm, but I think in less than two weeks it’ll be time for roubaix base layers…

Manchester Student Newspaper Article with gratuitous photo of random attractive woman* in grey skinsuit. *Bike not models own.

So a weekend away produced a proper mountain bike ride. Unknown countryside, map, some recommended sections and a route picked without any local knowledge. The result was several hours riding, some good bits and some bits you’ll never forget. I’m not sure it’s a good sign that the first trail you ride is a muddy uphill climb, followed by a wet moorland summit into a waterlogged downhill where you have to pedal to go downhill, but either way it kind of set the tone for what followed.

The mainstay of the ride turned out to be several miles of hike-a-bike. After much more map reading than is generally necessary, the right direction was generally found, but there was no sign of any trail. The absence of a trail led to a session of what could be accurately described as bog orienteering, because the mission became navigating wet upland without sinking upto your waist in peat mire and taking advantage of any hilly bits to spot for the next fence/wall and gate. Basically the bridleway was signposted excellently at these gates, it’s just that no one other than cows and sheep can have used that trail in between them in about the last 18 months and it’s been reclaimed by the land.

Clambering through one particularly nasty bit, with a bike on my shoulder and pushing another I slipped and fell scoring a handlebar in the jaw and a chainring in the arm. It was a nice touch. The former made chewing Tangfastics interesting and the latter is going to leave a nice scar. On top of the that the fantastic bruises from the NDE earlier in the week made technical riding a bit tender, but in all it was a great ride and I’d do it again…

Massive thanks to Tim and Bee at Northumberland Bike Breaks for a great weekend – can’t wait to go back and get the guided riding in next time!

On Sunday some bloody idiot received a torrent of abuse. I was riding at a fair pace in the middle of my side of the road because I was about to take a right turn towards home. It’s a leafy suburban road with lots of parked cars and a 30mph limit, but that didn’t stop muggins, who hooted at me and then over took giving me a look of the evils. Quite what he was intending to achieve with this little manouvre is anyone’s guess, but I decided I’d ask him at the set of lights he’d then had to screech to a stop in front of.

Interestingly he made the perhaps unwise decision to wind down his window. Which only made the vitriolic torrent of abuse that then poured forth from my angry lips a lot louder for him than it would have been from behind the relative safety of 4mm of glass. I don’t think I’ve had a swearing out burst like that in some time and a litany of profanties about said driver being the illegitimate child of a pig dog and likening him to womens gentitals through vulgar phrase certainly made me feel better, even if it did have passers by left jaw dropped and staring. Fact is he was a 100% cock not so much for the stupid overtaking, but for conducting said move at a junction whilst simulatneously smoking and holding a mobile phone.

Now I’m not sure if what happened tonight is some kind of bizarre karma or just plain luck, but tonight I had a Near Death Experience (NDE) for the first time in a few years. I’d picked down the commuter again today because after buzzing into work on the Ti Deluxe yesterday, I fancied a quicker ride in today. Ride in was fine and so was most of tonight’s. One minute I’m jamming along with the flow of traffic, buzzing past wing mirrors and keeping pace with the cars, next minute something has gone very wrong.

At first I thought the chain had snapped, there was that sudden loss of drive that when you’re flying along suddenly destroys your balance. Next thing I’m straddling the top tube and doing a tank slapper all over the front of the bike, I’m seriously out of control veering across both lanes of traffic sideways. I remember thinking that the only thing that could make this worse was being rear ended by some of the traffic behind me or ending up in the oncoming traffic lanes. I’d like to claim it was Ryan Leech-esque bike handling skills that saved me from eating tarmac, but I suspect that lady luck had more than a little say in my fate.

Somehow I didn’t go down. I kept that bike upright and finally managed to bring it to a stop. Hobbled off it and dragged it over to the pavement. Damage assessment part 1: sore inner left thigh and arse cheek and mangled right calf. Damage assessment part 2: snapped pedal axle. Damn that’d do it.

Eventually I spot the pedal body and finally get a chance to extract it from the middle of the carriageway. Stop for a minute or two to calm down a bit and get the wind back in me. No one stopped to see if I was okay, which was nice. Eventually figured I’d try some single pedal action and made it about 500m before I worked out the rear tyre was punctured too. That’s be me walking home then.

Reckon that was as close a call as I’d like for a while – I feel lucky the Ti axle sheered so cleanly, I’ve about four contact points from the loss of control in my right calf – if it had broken and left a more jaggedy metal stump, I’d be writing this after a trip to A&E (which was conveniently on the way home). Had a nice brew and a chat with Jon and Paula tonight which helped take my mind of things a bit. Their son Alex has generously offered a bike for a friend this weekend which is fantastic. The commuter’s off the roads now until I get various bits sorted out. Wiggle have emailed me to say the Truvativ BBs still aren’t available and that’s just rubbish.

Plans for riding today had to be change en route and what had been planned as a blast around Penmachno turned into a session around Delamere. Tyrrell and I rode out for the first time in ages and I even found some new bits of Singletrack I hadn’t tackled before so it was an interesting ride. Rode the Ti Deluxe for the first time since March and as you’d expect it feels totally different to the Remedy. It’s just feels so fast and agile, whereas the Remedy almost feels like you have to really put effort into things.

Had to clean both bikes after the ride today as I’d just run out of time last weekend. I’m going to have to order a new stem, because at the moment they’re sharing the same one and the same set of pedals and while swapping the latter isn’t an issue it’s just a pain having to swap stems. To add to the recent electronic catalogue of disaster, my work Blackberry has now packed up and seems dead to the world…

First ride of the year into work with gloves this morning. I guess that’s a little earlier than last year, but there’s a cold northerly blowing and it’s a bit parky outside. No idiots tried to kill me today, but I did almost contemplate the use of one of my special stickers on the Police Riot Van that pulled out infront of me last night on the way home without indicating…

Getting the bikes ready for winter. Not much needs doing, but the commuter is still off the road waiting for bits. One thing that really annoys me is when you order something because a company says they have it in stock and then once you’ve placed the order they then tell you that they don’t. That just sucks.