Hoorah!

It seems my prayers to make believe pagan gods have been answered. Either that or I'm being a complete fool again by believing the weather forecast yet again and it's going to break my heart in two. Hyperbole? Me? Perish the thought.

The forecast might not be predicting many marvellous hot sunny days but it's the first break in the rain for some time. Now here's hoping it behaves itself and doesn't decide to change completely overnight.

I'm very much looking forward to pedalling my wee heart out over the next few days. In reality that means crawling along at next to no speed.

Just so you know, clicking on the wee picture should enlarge it to a point where it's readable.

Cycling thoughts: 2 'Rain'

It's not a sophisticated thought. I'm not a sophisticated man. I barely pass for a man never mind the sophisticated bit.

The long and short of it is...

...I HATE RAIN

Okay okay, I see the point in rain. I like living in a country without serious water shortages, where crops grow well and suchlike. I don't, however, like being stuck in the house for a week, unable to cycle because it has rained almost constantly every single day.

The forecasts keep having a laugh at my expense; telling me 'Oh it's going to be dry the day after tomorrow, honest. Why don't you get all your cycling stuff together, plot a few routes and sure you'll have a great cycle in a couple of days' time'. Like the gullible muggins I am, I believe the forecast, prepare the relevant bits and bobs and get more excited than a middle-aged man should. , with visions of slowly moving bicycles floating around in my head. Stoopid stoopid me! The forecast is a terrible liar. I've whinged about it before but I never learn.

Please think positive weather thoughts and help save my sanity (and waistline).

NB Yes, I know I could cycle in the rain but I'm a fair-weather lightweight when it comes to my cycling.

P is also for...

I was initially going to nab this piddly image but thought the picture I chose seemed more appropriate to here.

P is for Panic: I had a cyclist's nightmare the other morning. I was on the last leg of my getting ready to head out for a cycle routine; I'd reached the have a small cup of coffee stage. On went our Dolce Gusto coffee machine (if you click on the link, I hope you thoroughly enjoy their music), in went the Cafe Lungo (whatever that is) pod, over went the actually put coffee in a cup lever and 'Pffft!', out came a few drips before the machine went kaput.

'Eek!', 'Jakers!', 'Cripes!', 'Egads!' and other such words people don't actually say or think unless they're characters in a cartoon. I feared my, seemingly correct, actions had destroyed our beloved so simple even an idiot like me can use it coffee maker.

You may not be one who finds cycling and coffee go together as an almost inseparable pair but I am and I'm definitely not alone. The thought of breaking up that relationship was not one I relished. Plus, I didn't want to have to pay to get the coffee machine fixed or replaced. Tears were considered but didn't appear.

Needless to say, my panic and worries were for nothing. It was a wonky coffee pod. The machine was absolutely fine, coffee was consumed and a slow tootling cycled ensued. The world was a wonderful place.

P is for Peculiar: From time to time I'll perform an action and think afterwards 'Why on Earth did I do that?'. That time to time happened for me again on Friday.

I'd been cycling a (by my standards) hilly route along the Antrim coast and was thoroughly knackered while making my (slow) crawl up the coast. Passing through (makes me sound like a poop) Carnlough, some wag (ie. a cocky spide) was weaving all over the road on his oncoming bicycle. As he neared me he said, something along the lines of, 'What about a race mate?' while laughing. Usually I go into immediate self-depreciation mode and say the likes of 'Ach no. You'd only beat me too easily' but the fatigue of the day must have addled my mind.

Rather than humouring him, I waited until he was directly opposite me, looked him dead in eyes, grinned manically and flipped him the bird. Weird as it sounds, I seemed to think this was all good natured japing around at the time. I didn't mean it to be particularly offensive. Cocky spide, however, seemed less than enamoured. Oops! Unlikely as it is, if Cocky Spide is reading this, please accept my apologies (particularly for calling you a cocky spide).

P is for Pheasants: Loads of the buggers. It seems everywhere I cycle, asides from urinating (see previous P), I have to avoid pheasants.

Pheasants don't appear to be terribly smart, even as birds go. Rather than having the common sense to run or fly away from the oncoming bicycle, they have a tendency to run a few feet in one direction, turn around to run in another random manner and repeat this until they're either safe or involved in a crash. They're lovely birds but rather nonsensical. At least, in their defence, they're pheasants and not peasants. I'd hate to sully myself writing about the lower classes.

P is for Purchasing: I've had an almost obsession with buying (cheap) cycling stuff recently. Mainly it has comprised of jerseys and the odd bit of other clothing. It makes me wonder why I buy it all.

It's not that I have a huge vault filled with cycle gear but I certainly have enough to be getting on with. I could probably wear the stuff I have for the next five or ten years and not have to purchase another item of cycle clothing yet purchase I do. My (very basic) theory on this is of the old donkey and carrot scenario; If I buy cycling garments, I'll want to try them out. To try them out I have to go for a cycle. Therefore buying cycle clothing pushes me to go out and cycle more.

Of course it could just be that I like getting stuff.

P is for Pique: Pique's probably too strong a word but it starts with a P so it'll do. I'm sorry to say deflate doesn't start with a P so it won't do. Maybe I should have tried to shoehorn in puncture in an emotional sense? With the bicycle reference, that might have seemed almost clever. What a shame I'm not.

Anyway, my slightly peeved (maybe I should have used P is for Peeve) grump comes from an order I made with Bike Dock. I had ordered my lovely lady three pairs of their Altura Night Vision tights because they were listed for a mere £19-99 GBP each. It seemed like a great price. In addition to the tights, I ordered some other bits and pieces. I think the total order came to a little over £130 GBP.

This morning I received an e-mail apologising and telling me they had a software problem and the tights were incorrectly priced on their website. Apparently the actual price is £34-99 GBP. As the error had been on their part, they said they'd give me another ten percent off the £34-99 GBP.

I appreciate it was an error and am grateful for their apology but, more often than not, companies tend to honour the incorrect price. That being the case, I decided to cancel the order in its entirety. It's the first time I've tried to order anything from Bike Dock and it doesn't entice me to do so again. I'd imagine they're not obliged to sell items at the listed price if there is a mistake but it annoys me they didn't offer to do so. As I wrote earlier, in my experience, normally shops do sell items for the listed price in this scenario. It was, after all, their mistake.

Rather than put me off shopping there, they could have honoured the price and I would have thought 'That's good of them. I'll shop there again' instead of my current 'That's not as good as other shops. I'll not hurry back there to buy anything'. It seems silly on their part. They might have had to take a slight hit on tights but would have earned a new customer (potentially both online and physically in the shop) and good words from me to other prospective customers. Besides, I'd think the profits from the other items I was going to buy likely more than offset any losses incurred from the tights.

As I say, they didn't do anything particularly bad, they just didn't do anything that good. Other shops have shown considerably superior customer service and will get my business instead. They've left a bit of a bad taste. Maybe they'll write back to my cancel the order e-mail and redeem themselves. That remains to be seen. I'll be surprised if they do.

P is for...

P is for Puncture: When it comes to most aspects of life, I'm not a superstitious fool. I don't worship the moon or believe a certain number of a particular type of bird means I'm going to win the lottery or die horribly. Yep, I like to think I'm a modern scientific level-headed guy. Why then, if I'm so bloody logical, do I refuse to say the P word when out cycling? It even pained me to type it there earlier. What kind of moron am I (before you answer, I'm many types and flavours of moron)?

Do I think some sort of tyre god (as opposed to the Norse god Tyr [thank you Valhalla]) is going to send forth a plague of thorns should I dare utter the P word? Apparently I do. Apparently I am of the opinion my saying the P word will directly result in my getting a hole in my tyre which allows air to escape. That means two things must be true:

1. I'm extremely egotistical to think I'm so important or magical as to make this mystical tyre rupturing take place with only the utterance of a mere word
2. I'm obviously mental and not in a way people say when they want people to think they're great fun but rather in the manner which means they're in danger of being sectioned

P is for Pee or Pee Pee or Piss or Pish: There are probably other names for urinating which start with a P too. Please feel free to share in the comments section.

Of late it seems I can't cycle for more than a couple of miles without an overwhelming desire to urinate. As I'm not an animal wishing to mark his territory, I fear I may have an over excitable bladder. He's fine when he's in the house but take him out for a day (I mean out of the house not outside my body) and it appears he's a terrible showoff.

I'm not sure if it's the recent spate of cold weather giving my bladder a shock, the caffeine filled tablets which are in the fluid I drink (caffeine barely needs to pass my lips before I've have to make toilet) or simply one of the unpleasant parts of the aging process. Whatever it is, I'm against it. I don't want to be stopping all the time to empty my waste at the side of the road. It's highly unpleasant and rather unseemly. Plus, I don't want to find myself getting in trouble because someone thought I was having a fiddle when I was actually having a piddle (there's another one). P is not for pervert (or anything considerably worse).

P is for Plonker/Pillock: Well, it is if you're Derek Trotter (for the former) or a cliched person from northern England (for the latter).

This grumble relates to an incident when we (myself and my good lady) were out cycling about a week ago. We were passed by another cyclist and pleasantries (ie. 'Hello') were exchanged.

After he passed us, realising we were almost home, I said to 'er indoors 'We've got a few gels and things we didn't use. Should I catch up with him and ask him if he wants them?'. Post affirmative response, I gave chase to offer gels, bars etc. to the gent who had passed us and may have required them more than us. I was catching up with him reasonably quickly until he looked round, saw I was closing and decided to up his pace. Likewise, I increased my speed and bit so I could make the offer. He kept looking round to see where I was and carried on and on increasing his speed as I got closer and closer.

Eventually I couldn't be arsed any more and stopped trying to catch him. Honestly, I don't know if I could have caught him or not at the speed he was eventually going but that's not really the point. I mean, what was he thinking? He obviously only increased his speed so I couldn't catch up with him. Did he think I was trying to race him? I was on a steel framed tourer with mudguards and a rack pack and wasn't on my own. Did he imagine I was going to rush on, leave my lady love behind and try to break him in two with my majestic racing? Gawd knows. What a frigging tool!

I evidently wasn't tracking him with fury and bad intentions. We'd just said 'Hello' pleasantly a few minutes earlier. I just dunno what goes on in some people's heads at times.

P is for Precipitation: Thank goodness I remembered the word precipitation. Previously I had typed Pistulent Weather. Even by my own standards, making words up is contrived.

We were taken for a ride today. That's a poor choice of words. We actually went on a ride today and weren't taken anyway, unless you count travelling by bicycle as the bike taking us somewhere. Anyway, this taking for a ride isn't of that sort. It refers, instead, to the hilarious lark which is the weather forecast.

As you will know if you read the previous post, I've been going doolally with weather woes. It has been raining pretty much every day recently. Imagine my joy when the forecasts showed today's weather to be white cloud but dry (not normally that exciting I'll grant you). We plotted and planned a route to do today, got our stuff ready last night (I'm like a child on Christmas Eve) and headed out for a lovely cycle today. Well guess what, it pissed down on us and was almost exactly the same weather we've been having almost every day recently; hours of light rain with the odd bright spell.

Oh how the weather forecasters must giggle with their evil games. Ha! The joke's on them. Despite both cyclists (myself and the good lady again) and our bikes getting absolutely filthy (requiring a hosing down and some Muc-Off when we got home) and a few nervous moments on the filthy slippery roads, we enjoyed ourselves while the forecasters were chained up in their weather towers. Up theirs!

Third time lucky

Remember my witter about 'silly' cycle jerseys? No? It was the one with the photo of boobs. Ah, you remember now.

Anyhoo (as people don't actually say), in that post, I mentioned about ordering a Foska Kwik-E-Mart jersey from Evans Cycles.

As is customary in these affairs, I paid for the jersey and it arrived in the post. As is also customary in such situations, I wore this jersey while cycling (just the once), the hem unravelled and a long white thread tried to make its way into my gearing (thankfully failing to do so). Evans was phoned, apologies were made (by them, not me), the jersey was sent back (with me paying for the shipping), time was waited and another jersey (as if by magic) arrived in the post.

Again going with custom, I opened the package and looked at the jersey. This time, I didn't even need to put it on to see it wasn't good. Down the left side, a thread had been caught, pulled and left the jersey laddered/hitched up. I'm not sure what the actual expression is but hope my stumbling wordage gets you in the right ballpark. Oh and it had dirty dusty warehouse smudges on it but they were washable.

So, on the phone to Evans I went again and this time had a good whinge at them about having to spend so much on posting the jerseys back, driving to and from the post office etc. (although I'm not sure there actually as an 'etc.'). The nice chap from Evans told me to hang on to the faulty jersey (which is wearable but not of merchantable quality) and had another one (which he inspected beforehand) sent out to me.

The new jersey, so far, seems to be in good condition and has not fallen apart after one wear. We'll see how it survives a mild wash.

In summary, the lessons learned are; Evans Cycles eventually seems to sort problems out to customers' satisfaction and whinging at people is the best way to get results.

Onto other matters...

Hasn't this week been appalling! Being one who, whenever possible, doesn't cycle in the rain, I've been going spare. I've had a terrible case of cabin fever, sitting indoors getting gradually angrier and angrier about and at the weather.

The weather isn't a great thing to get angry at. There's never any satisfactory conclusion. I can be angry at it for rainy weeks, become friends again when the rain subsides and it'll still turn round and rain all over me without any concern for how it might make me feel.

I suppose it's better to direct one's anger at the weather than at other living beings. However, in writing that, my cabin fever has made me even more insufferable to live with than normal. It's amazing quite how depressed the inactivity was making me feel. Getting out for a quick (in terms of time, not my speed) ride yesterday was like opening a frustration valve.

By nature I'm a fairly lazy chap. I don't particularly enjoy exercise for exercise sake. In fact, if I perceived cycling as exercise and not an activity, I'm not sure I would enjoy it very much. Other than cycling, I haven't been doing much cardiovascular exercise and I miss it terribly when I'm housebound by the weather. I could (and should) use a treadmill, spinning bike, cross-trainer, rowing machine and suchlike and attempt to keep get fit that way but it's not something I derive much pleasure from and find it hard to motivate myself to partake in such activities. If I was more of a fan of banging Eurotechno, I might find it easier.

Thanks for reading and may the weather where you are be always sunny (although not really because that would probably lead to some terrible problems with crops, water supplies and all that auld caper).

Cycling thoughts: 1 'Gears'

It's easy to write posts of about two sentences on this so I will and I'll pretend they're profound (which they're not) by associating them with the word thought (or possibly thoughts).

I think I'll do a load of them because, as I say, it's dead easy and fills space. Right, here goes nothing...

My first thought was... Hang on, it wasn't my first thought ever, it's just the first thought I had in terms of doing these thoughts things. I have thought in the past. Hmmm, seems trying to keep to a couple of sentences is proving more difficult for me than I imagined. Back to the matter in hand...

My first thought was probably that previous post where I realised I was being a little obsessive using a cotton bud to clean my bicycle. However, I didn't post it as such so this is going to be the first thought even thought it isn't really.

Okay, now to the dismal disappointment of my thought. Gawd this is an anticlimax. Anyway, I was thinking today about that moment of disappointment when you're struggling along on your bike and think 'I'll change down into the gear I was holding off going into until I'm really knackered' and then realise you were already in it.

Oh dear. That was it. Sorry about that. Must do better.

Obsession for men

There comes a time in a man's life when he takes a good long look at himself and thinks 'Is this really what I've become?'. For me, that happened a couple of days ago when I realised I was cleaning my bicycle with a cotton bud.

Prior to getting the cotton bud to clean the bicycle, I knew I was going to go to the drawer, get the cotton buds, open them, choose one (my favourite cotton bud) and use it to clean my bicycle. I didn't, however, know quite how ridiculous that seems when actually put into practice until the moment itself.

Dogs, clowns and Sir Jimmy Savile

The other day I did something I'm not sure whether to be ashamed of or not. While we were cycling along, a dog ran out and angrily made its way toward us barking. I shouted at it to try to get it to go back but it kept coming so (here's the potentially shameful part) I spat and my spittle hit it on the nose. When this happened it immediately stopped in its tracks, shut up, looked a bit confused, then turned around and went back into its abode.

I don't know if spitting on dogs is a great pastime but it seemed effective in that case. I suppose it doesn't harm the dog and I can be sure its nose has been immersed in much worse than a little bit of saliva. If it stops the dog from running out in front of a bike or, potentially worse, biting one of us, is it a good practice to partake in? I really don't know.

I feel like a bit of a shit for spitting on the poor dog but, at the same time, I didn't do it any harm and was getting pretty desperate in my attempts to stop it. It's considerably more humane than giving the dog a kick or anything horrid like that. Ultimately the dog shouldn't have been able to get out onto the road to bark at us in the first place. If the owner even vaguely cared about their pet, they would make sure it was kept in and safe.

I was petty with another dog today. It's a Jack Russell (I think) which almost always runs up beside the road, jumps out of a hedge and barks at me. I was travelling the opposite direction from normal today (I'm a terrible creature of habit) and came upon the dog... Good grief! No! Not in that way! I draw the line at spitting. Anyway, I chanced upon the dog and he hadn't noticed I was there. So, being childish and (as mentioned) petty, I waited until I was quite close to him and barked at him. He was suitably raging but couldn't get anywhere near me as my usual uphill pass of him was now downhill. I'm sure the guys working on a big shed across the road thought I was an arsehole. They're probably right.

When I see/read about someone successfully taking undertaking an activity I also attempt, I try to analyse their, work out where I could improve and copy them. Needless to say, I often get it completely wrong. What I'm most prone to doing is looking at, for example, someone cycling and thinking 'Oh, they appear to have their knees and toes 'in' a little. I'll have to do that too'. That's all good and well if I didn't completely overdo it until I end up cycling with form like some sort of clown lampooning a cyclist. All I ended up doing was giving myself knee problems.

Another clown's problem I have while cycling is the old hook foot. Rather than realising my ankles let me pivot my foot up and down, I often find I've kind of stuck my foot into a toe down position. That's not good; either for my output or my hamstrings. Just on that subject, our neighbour told me cycling can shorten one's hamstrings. I think he could be correct.

Some of the elder statesmen of cycling round here (who have been cycling for over sixty years) walk in a manner which suggests their hamstrings are a tad tighter than a non-cyclist of a similar vintage may be. Of course, they've probably got much better hearts, fat content, etc. etc. than many less active people too and they really are incredible for their age. Any of the particular gents I'm thinking of would be much stronger on a bike than I am and I'm not even forty yet. All the same, it makes me think I should do plenty of hamstring stretches. I'd like to be healthy in as many ways as possible for as long as possible. Note to self: be aware of form on the bike and stretch plenty off.

'Come on, get to the bit where you shoehorn in some rubbish about Jimmy Savile'. That's what we all want, isn't it? Of course it is. I'm sorry to say it's nothing from personal experience, just a wee fact (at least I hope it's accurate) which I discovered while nerding about the internet recently: Sir Jimmy Savile (who a friend of mine once accidentally referred to as Jammy Civil) rode in the 1951 Tour of Britain as a semi-professional. Blimey! You can see a scan of a relevant newspaper article here. For some reason The Duke (no, Davids Dickinson and Bowie weren't in the race too, as far as I know) is referred to as Oscar Savile. That's confusing. I'd imagine Óscar Sevilla is named after him. This seems to confirm the participant is indeed Sir James.

I knew about his marathon running and wrestling but he seems to have been an all-round athlete. If we're to trust the accuracy of Wikipedia, here's a quote from the man himself on just that subject:

"If you look at the athletics of it, I've done over 300 professional bike races, 212 marathons and 107 pro fights." He proudly announces that he lost 35 of his first 35 fights. "No wrestler wanted to go back home and say a long-haired disc jockey had put him down. So from start to finish I got a good hiding. I've broken every bone in my body. I loved it."

I've got a new found respect for the slightly creepy old cigar-chomping weirdo now. Reading further on Wikipedia, I guess his being involved in raising over forty million pounds for charity probably deserves a little hint of credit too. Maybe I'm the creepy weirdo by being more impressed by his Tour of Britain ride.

Oh, while on the subject of the Tour of Britain, couldn't they shove another couple of more difficult mountains in it? I know Britain doesn't have the sorts of climbs one would find in France, Italy or Spain but surely there are some tough climbs which aren't getting a look in and which could make it more exciting. Aren't there?

Legs of lead and a head full of poop

Here's hoping this attempt of mine to embed a wee map (from MapMyRide) works. At least I think that's embedding. I'd recommend clicking the view elevation button (scroll down the map) to see what my forthcoming snoozefest is about.

It's a snippet of a few miles cycling I did yesterday (along with other unmapped miles) which showed me to be the weakling I always suspected.

I am, however, a stubborn weakling as I refused to walk. I'd be lying to say I found it anything short of tough going but I twiddled up at a crawl in my tiny 30 front 29 rear gearing and eventually made it to the top. Sometimes I even threw it into a high gear like a 30/26 or 30/23 (for about ten feet at a time). I'm a regular Bert Grabsch with that kind of gearing.

That climb was probably no big whoop for most cycling types but, while pedalling up the 16% section into the strong headwind and looking at the black cloud on the mountain top, I kept thinking 'What kind of moron does this to himself?'. Needless to say, that was replaced with 'Yay! I feel brilliant for having done that' immediately upon reaching the summit.

Something I made an error of during my cycle was taking on too much caffeine. After caffeine infused gels, tablets in my juice (including accidentally dropping two into a bottle when it should have been one alone) and meeting my lovely lady for a couple of coffees (which she bought for me) on the way home, my stomach was not particularly grateful. I'm surprised my bowels didn't register a complaint too. Remarkably (and thankfully) they behaved themselves very well. Had they not, I dread to think of the consequences.

My GPS was annoying the boobies off me yesterday. It kept telling me I wasn't moving when I knew (albeit slowly) I was. It was behaving particularly badly about half way up my mountain (listen up belittling grumblers, it does officially count as a mountain) climb, bleeping constantly and being a regular pain in the bum. Eventually I had to switch the speed/cadence sensor off and let it get my pace from the GPS itself. I hope it turns out to be nothing more sinister than a battery in need of replacing. I'm sure a replacement unit is about forty pounds or more.

Has anyone been watching the UCI World Championships in Denmark? I'd say the chaps and lasses involved in that might be able to make it up my (to them) little bump of a climb yesterday hardly having broken sweat. They seem almost superhuman.

As you'll know if you're a regular here, I've been bitten by the cycle jersey buying bug of late. The other day I added to my recent addiction and got another Foska jersey. This time it was a black I Pay Road Tax jersey. What I didn't realise at the time is that it refers to the website www.IPayRoadTax.com. In my ignorance, I thought it was making referece to the majority of people on bicycles also owning cars and paying road tax. More fool me. As their website points out, I don't pay road tax at all. I pay vehicle tax. Here it is (copied and pasted) from the I Pay Road Tax website:

Road tax was abolished 74 years ago. Road tax doesn't exist. It's car tax, a tax on cars and other vehicles, not a tax on roads or a fee to use them. Motorists do not pay directly for the roads. Roads are paid for via general and local taxation. In 1926, Winston Churchill started the process to abolish road tax. It was finally culled in 1937. The ironically-named iPayRoadTax.com helps spread this message on cycle jerseys. Car tax is based on amount of CO2 emitted so, if a fee had to be paid, cyclists would pay the same as 'tax-dodgers' such as disabled drivers, police officers, the Royal family, and band A motorists, ie £0. Most cyclists are also car-owners, too, so pay VED. Many of those who believe road tax exists, want cyclists off the roads or, at least registered, but bicycle licensing is an expensive folly.

Like a lot of such websites, it appears the contributor(s) can be a bit vitriolic gut reaction at times but it generally seems fairly decent. They're also prone to taking ridiculous internet comments (which were presumably made in some pathetic attempt at humour by unfunny and unintelligent people) as if they're meant literally. I don't think that kind of action helps their cause much but they've got some good stuff to say in there too.

The point about people paying tax on their vehicles as opposed to paying directly for the road is a fair one and worth making. It is a bit of a tired cliche to hear people grumble about cyclists not paying road tax. Turns out we all don't, including those who drive Volvos.

While looking up the Foska website I noticed they sell novelty pasta. It's a bit expensive for my tastes but I still like it. I'm afraid it's much the same story when it comes to the prices of the coffee etc. at Big Maggy's online shop too. I'm a tightwad.