Author Archives: essiep

Towpath in darkness

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8°C, clear sky with brisk W wind and cold.

https://www.mapmyride.com/workout/3279276373

Here’s a first, an off-road ride in the dark . The hard contrast from the light make ruts and pits easy to spot. Last night’s rain made the surface quite squelchy, that back wheel didn’t always follow the front. I did not fall.

It’s been a fun day. First thing, I visited a geology muse in Birmingham, The Lapworth Museum. This fossil as a cast, you can see that in close-up. Bits of white plaster show between the grey. I think the grey is graphite powder that was rubbed in.

Anyway, Lapworth us a well laid out museum with plenty of interesting exhibits. I highly recommend it. There is a rock wall made of samples and a key. I played the game of guessing and then looked up each type to make a score. I got about 1/3 correct. Clearly, I need to read up on peridotite.

DIY: Plumbing, a leaking radiator.

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6°C, becoming greyer but still dry.

Much as I hate DIY plumbing, this one job has to be done. The kitchen radiator has left little puddles beneath when I get home. The system pressure would drop enough to shut down the boiler by the end of the the week.

After trying loosening and re-tightening the nuts on the valve for no improvement, I bought a replacement valve. This is a basic thermostatic valve and looked like the right size to fit onto the same nuts and olives.

Here is the old valve without the thermostat. Water leaked from the centre of the black top

Now that the heating system is a closed loop combi-boiler, draining didn’t take long.

The pipe looks scruffy but I can clean it up when I decorate. Perhaps Emery paper then varnish it to keep the copper colour.

Cost of repair? Just over £6.50. Boom!

At the same time, I have put together an emergency pipe repair kit: some pipe, compression joints, PTFE tape and a pipe cutter. Oh and a flexible pipe, that should be enough should the worst happen this winter.

Heavy wind and strong rain

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5°C, stormy return in headwind.

https://www.mapmyride.com/workout/3266109343

The idea was to ride to the beach machines and drop into the bank. Actually, that went to plan but the rain arrived early. Then the return was a slog into the wind and rain where speed dropped as low as 7mph. The route was flat too, a-hem. Both hands and feet were cold by the finish, more because of the wet despite extra layers.

It’s over.

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8°C, light cold easterly. Sunny.

Mapmyride let me down today, but it’s about 9 miles on the Arrow. Things went wrong when I rode into town to visit the record shops. The app has not been right since it was reinstalled.

I bought this bike in 1993 when I lived in Bristol. At the time, there were 2 good second-hand record shops. Each week, I’d ride to Clifton triangle to browse and buy. Notice the nostalgia.