Tonight It Rained

This morning you could tell it was warmer outside because inside it was uncomfortably warm. Time then to crack out my favourite riding jacket and the standard issue gloves. Riding in the kit was perfect and the commute had that fresh air that you get on crisp autumnal days.

Of course tonight come home time, my choice of clothing was wholly inappropriate for the cold wet sleet of winter. The kind of weather that pierces you with a cold chill as icy water finds it’s way down the neck of your jacket, even with it zipped and baffled against the elements. This is the kind of riding that makes you remember why you ride all year around and why getting home to a nice warm household is such a great way to end a ride.

MCR Bike Polo

Rode the bike for a first time in a week today. It felt good to get some power down and the ‘cross bike is very capable in these wintery conditions. Still I had two near misses with numpties in cars on the way home that were completely pointless and achieved nothing other than a) getting the drivers two cars ahead in a stationary queue of traffic and in the second case, b) immediately hooted at by about half on Manchester for then trying to do a right turn across the oncoming traffic at a junction where right turns are prohibited. Nice one, losers.

On the way home from the hospital tonight I bumped into some of the guys from Manchester Bike Polo. They play down the road and no special bikes are required to have a go. Something for the New Year I think!

Two for One

Tonight would have been a fairly normal ride home on a freezing cold night and not worth writing about but then two numpties in cars tried to kill me. The first was a taxi driver who cut across two lanes of traffic and then over took me to then slam on his brakes and turn left. Thanks. I’ve got your number Alpha Cars.

Next up was only about 5 seconds later as I approached the junction a people carrier pulled in alongside me and tried to squeeze me into the gutter. I swung my knee out and made contact with the door! The driver was indicating left and fortunately the lights were red so I didn’t get cut up again and made it into the green box at the front of the junction before setting off again ahead of the traffic.

Brrr!

Crikey it’s cold at the moment. Ended up with a proper ice cream headache riding into work on Friday and with the temperatures still low today I knew it was time to layer up. Today it was time to dig out and don the Buffalo jacket. Mine is a Big Face smock which I bought in about ’94 and it’s still going strong and keeping me toasty, perhaps fortunately I went for the indigo blue colour rather than purple so it seems to have aged well, here it is in action in early 2006.

Buffalo in evidence
Photo by Dan Barham

Snow is forecast over night so it might be a case of taking a mountain bike out tomorrow as I still haven’t switched to cross tyres on the commuter. Winter is definitely here and making it’s mark. My pal Stuart has had 18″ of snow up near Perth!

Charge Me

The keyboard batteries finally reached 2% life remaining and I was getting sick of the mouse consuming AAs like they were made of fromage so I took the plunge and went for the rather lovely Apple battery charger. Small, compact and does the job of refreshing the power in a matter of hours.

Apple Battery Charger

I am very tempted by an iPhone4 and have been looking into options. I’ve been weighing up getting one for a long time, but having had a personal mobile contract for about the last 6 years it’s a case of shopping around for a deal.

Stelvio’s Perished

Played the trump card tonight. Managed to leave my wallet, mobile and swipecard and keys in the office. I was kicking myself on the way home for forgetting to pick up a letter from my desk and post it, but didn’t realise the extent of the forgotten stuff until I’d been home for an hour and of course everyone had gone home. Fortunately a colleague was passing by the office and my place tonight and dropped them off. Cheers Steve!

Stelvio's

Cleaned the ‘cross bike tonight. It needed the TLC. Will get the tyres swapped at some point soon. The Schwalbe Stelvio’s that are on it are starting to perish and there are small splits like these in several places. In fairness they have driven me mad because the green is so unevenly painted on the make the wheels look buckled left to right and up and down whilts you’re riding along. That annoyance aside, they are tough as old boots – this didn’t even cause a puncture…

Stelvio's