Yesterday: Cycling– delayed after an accumulation of repair jobs. You know how it is- you check a minor job that needs doing and find another problem you didn’t know about. Just as I was checking the brakes before setting off, the front derrallier cable broke, it wasn’t the cable as such, but the sheath. I’ve never seen that happen before. See picture, note that the PTFE inner sheath is sound, as is the outer, but the stranded lining is the one that failed.

The ride was good though, what a difference 5mm makes- I put a chainset with 180mm cranks on, and it’s really liberating, I can get full stretch on each pedal stroke. far more efficient.

Cycling: in a rush this afternoon against early sunset.
Not a lot to report then.

MSLive failed yesterday, so this post is posthumous.
Cycling: Blackbirds use ground effect whilst in flight to gain extra speed for less effort. Here in the UK that often means using flat hard surfaces like roads. Today, one Blackbird ended its life doing that. It was struck by a car near the River Tame and fell like a rag-doll into the road not far from me. As I rode past I could see that it was still moving, I wasn’t even sure what it was until close.
Like that story I told here a few years ago, I picked it up, in the vague hope that it would recover. No injuries were visible, its heart still beating, and heaving rapid breathes. It’s eyes started to close, and the breathing got lighter, the little yellow beak slowly lowering. After no more than a minute, the breathing stopped, I urged it on to no effect. The moment had passed I thought when its beak opened slightly with a film of saliva in the corner.
I put it on the grass.
Such a beautiful creature, one of the finest songbirds (more so being a male). Such a waste,
The photographs were taken less than a moment after it faded from life

nine in one ride, remarkable. The winter bike is handling perfectly, it’s not been that good for years! But I am anxious about a ripple in the paint on the top-tube. It could be a symptom of a crack underneath.

The National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas is very good. The main wall is about the same proportions as Stonehenge, but there is a slit just left of South in two walls that line up with the sun on guess which hour of which day? A slightly sad note i has been posted on the doors, apologosing about the number of memorial trees that have died due to last summer’s flooding. I can’t help thinking – what do you expect? You build your site on the flood-plane of a major British river, the land is really marshy, and much of it is below river-level. More trees will be killed next time it floods, hardly a rare occurance.

NB the iPod is working really well. I’d like to find out how to remove the built-in games, they swallow up about 400MB out of the 4Gb this model has. Those and the operating system I suppose. Now- how do I uninstall those games?

Riding out across the Sittles farm estate, I heard what sounded like Opera, drifting across fields from the north. Curiosity drew me into the Alrewas Arboretum where a grand Remembrance Sunday event was held. thousands of people were there, loads of ol’ vets and military big brass. They’d just had a ceremony ( my arrival was just after 11.00am). the event concluded with a flyby by a Douglas Dakota painted in army colours- see photo.

Arrow: is back on the road, after three months. The brakes are better than ever as is the handling (after adjusting the headset properly) . Had a decent ride despite being beaten back by the rain. It was warm and sunny otherwise.
Back to work tomorrow….

I don’t know how she’s done it, but Rosie has a Facebook profile. I hope she doesn’t post anything too rude on there, it’s meant for humans really.

64 miles today, see photo. Feeling much recovered, cold over & done with. Other cyclists said that loads of us are grumbling about lost weeks on the bike, all due to pathetic little viruses. I reckon that I’ve lost about 2,000 miles’ worth this year. Taking pictures while riding is a little tricky, a really good way to fall off probably. this camera doesn’t seem wide-angle enough though, it needs a 28mm equiv lens. Also, there is frustratingly little control over shutter speed so motion blur is not as much as ideal for this kind of shot.

Crows. We have a fiery autumn, not actual fires, just the colours of turning trees. Every decent sized tree seemed to be surrounded by large gangs of crows, all cawing.