Life in the Bus Lane

A disk just failed in the temporary replacement mail server.

What did I do to deserve this? It must have been something really really fucking awful.

I think I’m off to have a nervous breakdown.

My DECT phone started playing up a couple of days ago, so I took it back tonight and got a full refund of £60, then popped to the shop next door and picked up a triple-pack of the same handset for £70. I think that qualifies as a good deal.

Happy belated birthday to my Inbred, which was two years old on the 24th. Well, that was the day I first rode it, the frame had arrived two weeks earlier.

Just to bring a shitty end to a really shitty day, it’s just started raining. Could it actually get any worse?

I’m off to hit things. Very hard.

Blimey Charlie, that was a surprise.

Sky have finally provided regional BBC channels, that means no more poor quality pictures due to the pathetic reception I get here.

TAG McLaren Audio is going titsup.

Nice kit, shame about the prices.

Status: Your order has been accepted and is awaiting processing. 23/07/2003[11:50:43]
Your order has been picked, and is awaiting despatch. 23/07/2003[16:56:09]
Your order has been despatched by Parcel Force/Royal Mail 29/07/2003[10:25:26]

Nearly six days to actually dispatch a package which was ready to dispatch? Bunch of useless tossers.

Oh, and the item showing as

Status: Your order has been accepted and is awaiting processing. 23/07/2003[11:50:43]

was the mystery package which arrived yesterday.

Why bother with online order-tracking if it’s not going to be accurate?

Apparently there is a parcel waiting for me nextdoor. I have no idea what it is, the only thing it could be apparently hasn’t been shipped yet. I’ll just have to wait for my neighbour to get home so I can collect it.

It’s amazing how much better the Inbred feels with a new bottom bracket and new pedals fitted. It’s virtually silent again, and just feels a lot more solid. I might take it for a longer ride this evening if the rain hasn’t started by then, the forecast is for a couple on inches over the next day or so. Usual british summer.

Story of my life really.

Decided to increase the rebound damping on th Z4’s this morning. This is adjusted internally and I managed to drop the allen key down inside the fork not once but twice. At least it gave me a reason to change the oil in the forks.

Apparently matt02 thinks this is dull, maybe I should stalk random ladies like he does :)

Very wet today, so typical summers day really. Fitted the new BB to the Inbred, there was a fair amount of play in the old one, now I’m attempting to tidy the house. A fairly monumental task.

http://www.trepanning.tv. I can’t believe that Dale thought that it might be real :)

Following extensive and in-depth testing[1], it’s safe to say that the new pedals seem very good.

Similar in shape and size to the 24/7 Slack pedals, but with slightly less evil pins, and no built-in bottle opener. But then they are 2/3rds of the price of the Slacks.

[1] 20 yards up the road and back.

I managed a proper ride today for the first time for over a week, and what a relief it was.

Having escaped from work early I got changed and headed out on my usual route. The path through Rainbow Woods has been cut back making it an alltogether more comfortable experience. The route down through the woods was wet and slippery. I almost went over the bars when the front wheel suddenly dug into the track pitching me forwards, and crossing the numerous roots and moss covered rocks was an unpredictable experience. I just got home before the rain got too bad as well. I feel a lot better for getting a few more miles in.

Also a new pair of Wellgo pedals arrived which look good, despite Chain Reaction sending Gunmetal coloured ones instead of the black I ordered. I’m not that bothered as I almost ordered the gunmetal anyway. I’ll probably fit those later and give them a try out tomorrow.

Well, it’s better than yesterday at least. Things are progressing slowly, but at least the progress is in the right direction.

Got a nice new Truvativ Gigapipe DH Bottom bracket courtesy of Matt at Chelmer Cycles. Describing it as “beefy” would be an understatement. Originally it was intended for the Inbred, but given that it would probably double the weight of the Inbred I think I’ll pop it into the Stiffee and move the RaceFace Signature XS one into the Inbred.

I eventually got home around 11pm last night, still got no real food in the house though.

The recovery process for the server is continuing in parallel, but is somewhat hindered by the size of the data file (13GB), and the fact that our Finance department haven’t yet processed the order for the data recovery.

I’m off to kick people.

I now have to deliver the dead server to Bicester. What fun.

Put it this way, it’s about 4pm and I’m just about to eat breakfast, which given that I’ve been up since 7am is not good.

I hate computers.

I’m just helping cure cancer, honest

and this just has to be seen by everyone….

I don’t know what was worse, the cubs waking me up at 05:30 on Saturday or not riding a bike at all over the weekend. Both were pretty horrifying in themselves.

It was the 2003 District Friendship camp, we (28th Bath scout leaders) were running backwoods cooking again (I think this is the 4th year now). We ran 4 sessions on Saturday for about 80 kids and 10 leaders, cooking stew, bread, and a cake. The stew was done in tin foil instead of the more traditional dock leaves, the bread was cooked in a spcially constructed oven, and the cakes cooked in half an orange. All this was done over an open fire. It all went fairly smoothly, the only real downside was that I headed down into the working area about 7am and didn’t emerge until 6pm, making it a long day.

It didn’t rain too much, apparently it was quite sunny on the Saturday but I missed most of it by being hidden down in the trees. Today was quite nice but kept threatening to rain, but in the end nothing much fell out of the sky. I feel slightly more human now that I’ve had a shower, all I need now is to catch up on my missing sleep.

I’ve just realised that yesterday was the first day for quite a while when I didn’t ride a bike at all. Infact I don’t think I even touched a bike yesterday. It was raining when I got up so I didn’t ride to work, and I went out to put the tents up for camp as soon as I got home from work, and didn’t get back until late.

Probably won’t get anywhere near a bike until Monday now.

Not my idea of fun. It did give a chance to scare people though by taking my t-shirt off while working and thereby exposing various tattoo’s and piercings.

Hopefully it won’t rain so much when we are actually camping.

be very very afraid.

It’s windy and raining this morning. We moved the camp to July to avoid this after the quagmire that was last year, and the weather has ended up following us.

It’s still damn hot. The galilean thermometer in my front room hasn’t dropped below 26^oC for the last few days. It’s almost too hot to go to bed at the moment.

We Brits are pathetic when it comes to temperature aren’t we?

No riding tonight, so I settled for Jestives and red wine while sat in front of the telly instead. I shall have to ride Friday morning to make up for it though.

Tomorrow night we have to try to set up all the tents for camp this weekend, I think we’ll have 6 to put up, two for the scouts, two for the cubs, and two for the leaders although we provide our own tentage. Unfortunately the weather forecast doesn’t look promising.

It’s still hot, it’s also started raining, and we are still a crap hospital according to various measurements which have virtually nothing to do with the quality of the medical care you will receive.

There was an good comment this morning from the Chief Exec of one trust which narrowly missed 3-star status. He said they would just stop providing the services which caused them to miss the guidelines this year. The sad truth these days is that as a patient, you are nothing more than a government statistic. The government don’t seem care what level of treatment you receive, or whether we actually cure you, as long as we “deal” with you within a fixed timescale.

Went for a spin on the Inbred tonight. Fuck it was hard work. I had no energy at all on the hills, and it’s still damn hot out there.

However thats now 11 consecutive days of proper riding totalling 142.25 miles, along with another 16 miles commuting. One downside is that my body is now a bit fucked, partly from crashing at the weekend, and partly due to not having had a rest day recently. I think I’m turning into matt02 ;)

I might ride tomorrow night, I won’t have time to ride Thursday, and Friday to Sunday are doubtful as well due to Scout camp. So that might be an enforced 5 day rest, longer than I’d like but somewhat unavoidable.

I did manage to spend an hour in the sun after work topping up the tan and finishing off It’s Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong, a worthwhile read if you have a chance.

Actually it was over 100^oF, but PWEI didn’t write a song called that.

Went for a ride this afternoon to clear my head, met Mike D up at the bmx track for some comedy chain-falling-off moments (Mike) and a complete failure to leave the ground (me). Despite what the photos may show, Mike was actually jumping the doubles cleanly.

As you can infer from the title of this post, it was very hot today. Climbing up Bloomfield Road was a nightmare due to the heat, and once I left the BMX track behind the heat sapped me of energy so I just pootled along slowly.The trip down through the woods was nice as it was in the shade, and good singletrack is nice whatever the weather.

Whilst failing to photograph Mike in the air, the counter in the camera wrapped round from 9999 back to 0001, admittedly Marc took the first 9000 or so photos, but 10,000 pictures isn’t bad going for the little thing.

I think I’ll go riding to clear my head.

One downside of losing weight is that you need to buy new clothes. I had to get a couple of pairs of shorts today as my old ones were a bit too bit and had a habit of falling off if I didn’t do my belt up tight enough.

Other than that it was another damn hot day, and I went on another nice ride. Did about 26 miles over the Uni then across and down into North Stoke. Took it gently as my left arm is still sore from the crash yesterday which made it a bit painful on the rough stuff.

Shower time.

Hot and sunny out today, so around midday I decided to go exploring on the bike. There is a route known as The Rockies to the group of us who used to ride it years ago, it gets it’s name from the two descents which are covered in wet loose rocks, and I’d not ridden it for a few years. Equipped with plenty of water, a map and compass, and the GPS, I headed out into the hills. All was going well, the first descent was dispatched with little incident, I took a minor detour in Inglesbatch when I couldn’t remember the route, but soon found my way. It all went horribly wrong when I reached the top of the 2nd descent.

I started off OK, then after a few feet there was a small dropoff, about 12″ or so, onto what I thought was damp but solid dirt. How wrong I was. It proved to be 6″ of sloppy gloop. My front wheel touched down and stopped dead, I then proceded to perform a nice face-plant into the rocks, landing with most of my weight on my left arm which was headed for the rocks. It now has a large lump on it, several cuts, a couple of holes, and lots of grazes. It also seized up after the crash meaning I ended up having to ride the last half of the route mostly one-handed and I couldn’t grip the bar comfortably. Luckily there wasn’t much technical riding left, so it didn’t cause too many problems. It’s a little better now I’ve flushed the mud out of it, scrubbed it as clean as possible, and drowned it in antiseptics. I shall apply a lager and red wine poultice (internally) this evening in the interests of aiding the healing process. Hopefully it won’t keep me off the bike tomorrow.

Managed another ride tonight making it seven rides in the last seven days. Not bad going.

Had a nasty hangover this morning, however the ride this evening seems to have cleared it up nicely, it’s amazing was a fast sprint home can do.

Rode home via a nice big hill, turned 1.25 miles into 11, finished off with a 6-mile sprint home along the cycle track. Hot and knackered now. It did take me just over 100 miles so far this month.

It’s hot, I’m trying to juggle various engineers to move kilostream links and replace routers, and all I want to do is go out riding in the sunshine.

Luckinly I’ve got the bike and riding gear with me, so as soon as 5pm arrives I’m out the door and off into the hills for an hour or so. I can’t wait.

I had an email back from Hope this morning suggesting lubricating the pistons with a small amount of Silicon grease, something to play about with this weekend.

I gave the E4 another kicking earlier, hopefully this might ease the problem with the lack of lever travel. I’ve got a meeting to go to tonight so in about 5 minutes I’ll go out on a ride, stop off at the meeting, then ride home again. Hopefully I’ll be home early enough to not need lights.

Damn it’s humid out there, seemed to make the riding harder than usual. Nice ride though, the singletrack flowed nicely and no trees jumped out on me this time.

After the bad start to the week I decided to take the afternoon off to use up some time owing. Having departed this morning just as my neighbours started loading a removal van, I arrived home just as the last box was squeezed in, so I bid them farewell and arranged a belated goodbye drink for later in the week. I then had a wander round town picking up, amongst other things, a small tripod for the camera. It’s short enough to just fit into my Camelbak Blowfish, and was only £18 from Jessops.

Then it was ride time. The ride up the hill was interesting due to the roadworks. Half of the dual carridgeway is coned off, leaving one lane which is too narrow for cars to safely pass a cyclist. In the interests of not holding up the traffic I was a naughty boy and rode up the pavement. After a nice run across the top of the hill, I dropped down into the woods for the descent back to town. The bike and I flowed as one down the track, twisting and turning with precision, popping of the roots and drops with ease, and then proceeding to collide with a tree. My shoulder is now missing a patch of skin and is a bit sore and stiff. The rest of the descent was incident free, and the disc rotor stayed true. I then played “dodge the suicidal school escapee” on the road home as they all made their dash for freedom.

I wonder if the finish of todays stage of the TdF will be as eventful as yesterday?

As far as the start of a week goes, this morning was a really shitty start….

Went for a nice gentle spin on the Inbred today. Rode up the hill to the top, and instead of riding along the naughty footpath, went roadie-chasing along the main road. They didn’t put up much of a fight and were soon left far behind. Once round the back of the Uni, I took the upper path through the woods, then walked up the top of the tram line and had a quick play around on the quarry at the back of the golf course. It’s a bit tricky to get into now as it’s fenced off with barbed wire and the access thorough this fence is a bit on the narrow side. Anyone would think that they didn’t want you in there.

After a quick play around there, I rode down the tram line right from the top (I usually join it about 1/3 the way down) and managed to pringle my rotor again. The E4 on the Stiffee never does that, but then the Stiffee has discs front and rear, whereas the Inbred has a V-brake on the back, and also has a C2 rotor instead of the usual E4 one. I might see if I can fine my spare 185mm E4 rotor and give that a try on the Inbred to see if it makes a difference.

Went for a leisurely ride today. Pootled up to the BMX track, I don’t think I’ve been there for getting on for 14 years. It’s looking distinctly the worse for wear these days, but I went round it a couple of times anyway. After that I headed along to Rainbow Woods and pottered round there a bit, then took the usual route down via the back of the Uni and had a quick explore down in the woods there.

BMX track pics

Just time for a shower and some lunch, then it’s the prologue time trial of the Tour de France this afternoon, so I’ll sit and watch that on telly.

I see that Marmite is now labelling itself as “Xtreme Sandwiching”, seems strangely apt.

As of yesterday evening we now have a 2M NHSNet/Internet connection at work, 120M downloads from Microsoft now take about 10 minutes instead of over an hour.

The internet is still full of the same old crap, it’s just faster crap now.

Even more torrential rain tonight, started about the same time as well (6pm). We were meant to be playing golf, the rain started just as we paid and continued for about 30 minutes, by the time it stopped the course was too waterlogged to play on. We’ll try again next month.

In better news, I’m 4.5lbs lighter than I was 4 weeks ago.

The last couple of days at work have been really shitty, so I decided I needed to go out for a ride tonight. The weather didn’t look too promising, but I went anyway.

The good bits:

My fitness is improving, I rode everything a gear or two higher than usual.
The Fox Forx are back to full working order, with a full 105mm of super-plush travel.

The bad bits:

The rain. Absolutely torrential from about half-way round. Coming off the hill through the woods, I was riding along an inch-deep river instead of a path. I got totally soaked.
The rain managed to wash 6 months worth of stale sweat out of my helmet pads and down my face, so there was a constant stream of salty water running into my mouth, which actually made me feel sick towards the end of the ride.

Despite that, it was still damn good fun, and the stresses and strains of the last few days have vanished into thin air, or more precisely, very wet air.