Monthly Archives: Mar 2015

A badger.

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6°C, still, dry and clear.
I rode Arrow home with MapMyRide+! Distance: 30.4mi, time: 02:00:10, pace: 3:56min/mi, speed: 15.3mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/899478955
After an annoying afternoon at work trying to get mailmerge to work properly, I rode home. Conditions were ideal, very dry, no real wind and not too cold.
Legs were full of energy, and I enjoyed the feeling of speed in 0in cool dark air of evening. In these dry conditions, the dust on roads is white. This is great, the lights have more effect, they reach further.
Today, despite a slow puncture, I totalled 40 miles. Result.

To cap it all, I caught a badger in the headlights. He scurried along the edge of a hedge. Curiosity, this was the same stretch of road that I encountered the bat last year.
Remember, I rode there and a bat flew along immediately in front of me in the same direction. Remember how enchanted I was?
The badger was charming too.

I like riding at night.

1,000th mile.

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I rode fixed with MapMyRide+! Distance: 34.9mi, time: 02:16:11, pace: 3:59min/mi, speed: 15.1mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/896676871
Rain held me back for the morning, leaving less time to build some miles today. That means that on paper, the ride is unremarkable. But at least it marks the thousandth mile done before easter.
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All those rides on the cross bike mean I had almost forgotten how comfortable the fixed gear bike is, especially on long rides.
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Chamois cream

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13°C brisk SW. Sunny and dry.
Chamois cream Is a little secret held by cyclists. It’s not something to rub into the Chamois in your shorts, so a misnomer really. It’s rubbed around your arse. A cream that is mild  anti-septic to reduce saddle-sores. Are you thinking it should be re-named? If it were called arse-cream, do you still think it would sell? A tube of whiteish arse cream? No!

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In small print on the back, are the ingredients and a product warning:
Product Warning there are no product warnings with this product.
Lawers have left their footprints here haven’t they?

Slime and silt.

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8°C, strong SW, Clear start but clouding over.
I rode CX with MapMyRide+! Distance: 37.3mi, time: 03:00:08, pace: 4:50min/mi, speed: 12.4mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/889388491
Again, rode the cyclocross bike in the strong wind. The fixed gear is daunting on exposed roads like these, an easy decision.
After only three miles, a puncture. By the canal, there was signs of recent hedge trimming, and it was blackthorn. The have especially long thorns that do not know about Challenge Grifo tyres. I have given in to desperation. Eleven punctures in one month, can you blame me? So, I bought Slime inner tubes. Anyway, the puncture. Those tubes have self-sealing goo inside. So I stopped canal-side and got the pump. I blew the tyre back up, and almost unbelievably, it stayed up.
Riding on the beach seemed appealing this morning. Last week it worked well, so why not again?
I will tell you why not, silt. First it gummed up the chain-stays then the gears and finally, it shed the chain. Even the wheels were hard to turn.
There was plenty of driftwood to use. It took quite a bit of prodding before the biggest lumps dropped out. I must have looked like one of those crows doing IQ tests on TV. Well, a florescent crow, you know the ones.
The tyre pressure remained! In fact, I added more for the tarmac section, and return.

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This is the rear stays with most of the gunk removed.