I rode with MapMyRide+! Distance: 63.29km, time: 02:52:05, pace: 2:43min/km, speed: 22.07km/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/1927260194
Last ride of the year. Adding up the odometers, the total is about 4,500 miles, down considerably on last year. However, I took weeks out for hiking. In the summer holiday, I barely rode at all.
Also, one of my cycle computers doesn’t record total milage so I will rely on the gps app Mapmyride for its summary to be released on New Year’s Day.
7°C,strong W, with even stronger gusts. Clear and sunny.
I rode The Jake with MapMyRide+! Distance: 29.00km, time: 01:37:45, pace: 3:22min/km, speed: 17.80km/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/1921438703
Punctured: and got a lift for the last 3km. Shame because the first 16km were good. Good, even in this wind which was stronger and colder than the last outing.
10°C, westerly gale, mostly dry but grey.
I rode The Jake with MapMyRide+! Distance: 31.77km, time: 02:10:51, pace: 4:07min/km, speed: 14.57km/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/1919957957
Barbara is the name given to the second storm of the winter. Conor, the third. Today marks a respite between the two storms which means dry weather, but very strong wind.
I had a mishap ten miles from home. I rode through a puddle, nothing remarkable about that. This one hid a sharp edge which have the whole bike a severe jolt. I was lucky not to fall off but then I looked down. The back tyre was completely flat. The sharp edge caused a pinch puncture that was not repairable.
At this point, I found a brake pad in my hand. Replacing the wheel dislodged the pad. It’s a tiny thing and I have never serviced disk brakes before. I don’t really know how to assemble them and now was not the time to learn how. After some nervous fidgeting it back into the slot, it seemed to work.
I swapped the inner-tube and carefully rode home on a tyre softer than ideal. Low tyre pressure is the likely cause of all this to begin with.
Stormy, mild winter’s day.
A family day out ice-skating; skating in the city sounds like a nice winter thing to do but it didn’t work like that. The marquee was grossly overcrowded and filled with near deafening pop music. I was filled with the urge to run a mile. A mile wasn’t necessary because the Tate Gallery was only a few hundred metres away. That worked out well enough.
Return to the agreed 3pm spot was interrupted by a strong squally downpour. You could see the approaching white sheets of rain crossing the Mersey. I sheltered behind one of those odd looking buildings you see near docks.
There was just enough shelter to take a few photos with my new pocket camera. It’s a second-hand Fuji X-10 which I got via eBay. It has lots of fun features, panoramic, hdr, colour modes, and a sensor that can take alternative exposure shots at the same time.
Today, I played with low colour and black and white. The bin animation is a composite of the pictures taken with the best-frame feature.
7°C, sunny and dry. Light wind.
Remember that wasp nest in my house last summer? I decided to investigate it today. The tent was ready to pull open after I cleared the nearby ivy. The interior volume was filled with paper structures to a volume of about 1 litre. The tent gap a hard plastic tube connecting the interior and exterior walls of the building. Lining the tube was a complete layer of paper honeycomb cavities. Inside that layer was a 3 layered structure which was effectively 3 floors. Some of these floor had dead eggs or larvae.
fascinating isn’t it? Up to last October, I heard their daily routine start at sunrise. The buzzing must have been workers ventilating the nest. All summer, there was that sinister chewing and cutting sound. None of that has affected the vent. It must be the sound of paper construction amplified in the tube.
There aren’t many dead wasps in there. Either they had already left, or the pest treatment dispersed them. I’m glad really. I like to think they lived their year’s lifecycle to its normal conclusion. They disperse after the spawning and live a more solitary life until the first frost.
The tube now has some of the honeycomb shelves back in place. Wasps don’t make nests in old sites so this should deter them next season.
I’ll never know about the other nest, it’s entirely inaccessible in that roof space.
11°C, still, clear and drying out.
I rode Jake with MapMyRide+! Distance: 23.71km, time: 01:30:56, pace: 3:50min/km, speed: 15.64km/h.
Towpath pause.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/1912095641
The mud is soft, black and deep now. This confused the wheels who couldn’t decide whether to go the same way. The whole bike feels different when veering about on soft tyres. That aspect is fun with only a certain frisson of dread because the canal water looks deep and cold. I grinned most of the time, probably.
I rode Arrow with MapMyRide+! Distance: 68.78km, time: 03:02:49, pace: 2:39min/km, speed: 22.57km/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/1905252578
If I didn’t have so much work to do, I could have ridden far more. In this mild weather, all, I want is some stamina training, damn this job.
1°C, light wind but heavy rain.
Winter, a respite from the cold and a day to recover from work.
Olafur Arnalds: Island Songs.
7°C, light SE wind, dry but salty roads.
I rode Paddy Wagon with MapMyRide+! Distance: 86.77km, time: 03:38:25, pace: 2:31min/km, speed: 23.83km/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/1896343307
18km further than last week, and a few km/h quicker too. Okay, there were no hills today, but no gears either.
5°C, light NE, no rain but damp roads.
I rode mustang with MapMyRide+! Distance: 26.82km, time: 01:38:33, pace: 3:40min/km, speed: 16.33km/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/1891190354
It’s not always obvious what to do when you notice the first signs of a puncture. If it’s dark and there are no light-up places to fix the tyre, what do you do? This night, I decided to inflate with the pump because the deflation was slow to start with. Then ride on as far as I could before it deflated too much. Unfortunately, next time with the little pump, deflation got faster.
Stopping to re-inflate 3 times isn’t so bad, but the time between each re-inflation was getting noticably shorter. The last interval was less than a 1km. I walked the last 4km home in all (in quite a bad mood, and hungry).
Next day, I did the repairs. The thorn that was guilty, was surprisingly long and difficult to remove. These puncture-proof tyres make pulling thorns out very tricky. If you don’t get it all out, the new inner-tube goes flat immediately. Retrospectively, the choice to walk was probably about right.
Micycle 