Fujitsu seem to have sorted out my ADSL/voice line, but have broken my ISDN line, and their help desk have all gone home so I can’t call them back to fix it. Time to try to persuade BT to sort it out.
On my way home from work tonight I should pass the 2000 mile barrier since I started recording my mileage in May 2003. Not too bad for a fat lazy bloke really.
BT decided it would be a good idea to take out the phone lines to my whole street this morning. My ADSL/voice and ISDN lines were down for about 5 hours. I think they are replacing the telegraph poles and drop cable, but it would have been nice if they’d warned us in advance.
To complete a fun day we had to unload 500 boxes from the back of a lorry and decant them into a storage container today. At least it was a nice sunny day to be working outside. I think I need and ice-cream to recover.
It was great to go out for a two hour ride after work tonight and not have to use lights. Took the cross bike out and did 24 miles in the end, I’ve got plans to add another 6 or 12 miles to that route when the evenings are lighter for longer, but it was a nice gentle spin this evening.
The new XT gear bits work well, all I’m waiting for now are the 105 hubs so I can build the new wheels. It doesn’t look like I’ll have them built for HonC this coming weekend though.
As if HTML alone wasn’t enough, now it’s CSS in emails. Time to tweak the procmail scripts to deliver HTML mails to /dev/null
Bath Hospitals didn’t turn up until 20:20, and even then only had 6 players, which slowed the game somewhat.
We picked up a nice easy 4-0 lead, then managed to lose a leg. Despite a pretty poor start, we managed to scrape through and win the last leg thanks mainly to 8-8-7 from the last 3 players.
Housing Admin took 8 points, Bath Hospitals took 1.
The cross bike now has nice shiney new XT cranks, bottom bracket, and rear-mech. Due to a skittles match tonight I’m living dangerously and not testing anything until I get the bike out to ride to work tomorrow. Hopefully everything will work smoothly.
The weather has been exceptionally dull this weekend. Although it’s been mostly dry, it looked like it was about to rain pretty much all weekend. Eventually it cleared enough this afternoon that I dragged myself out on the cross bike intending to do a semi-offroad route with a couple of nasty climbs in it. As I climbed up into Weston my legs persuaded me to take a more rolling road-route and I ended up doing 18.5 miles including a quick trip to the park to meet my brother and nephew and watch the balloons taking off.
Hopefully the new bits for the cross bike will arrive tomorrow and I’ll get it fettled in time for HonC next Sunday.
My package from Chainreaction hasn’t arrived which somewhat thwarts my plan to strip and rebuild the cross bike today. So thanks to the internet I’m consoling myself by listening to Mark and Lards last show on Radio1 from yesterday afternoon.
There is no beer in the house at all. I’ve had to resort to Pastis instead.
Just had a call from Chainreaction, the 24/36/48 XT chainset I’d ordered is actually a 26/36/48, which is what I really wanted anyway.
As I’ve been riding my cross bike so much, I’ve ordered it some new toys. A 2003 XT chainset and bottom bracket, and a XT rear mech. Probably a bit extravagant for a cheapish cross bike, but who cares.
Time for our “office lunch-time party” and a hefty order from the local Chinese take-away.
Well Parcelforce finally managed to deliver my parcel somewhere vaguely near me, and as I suspected it contained my brothers birthday present which I’d been told was still being packed.
I wonder if they’ll send me another one in a few days time?
Parcelforce tried to deliver a package to me at home last Friday, as I wasn’t in I asked for it to be redelivered to work on the following Monday.
Monday came and went with no sign of the package, when it still hadn’t arrived on Tuesday afternoon I rang them up. It turns out that the driver couldn’t find my office so quietly took it back to the depot. They offered to redeliver but we both agreed that would only prove to be an exercise in futility, so I arranged to cough up the 50p and have it delivered to the local post office.
Except it hasn’t arrived their either, and I still have no idea what it is.
I did a server upgrade/replacement last night and only managed to temporarily break half of the computers on site. I think that qualifies as a resounding success, especially as it only took me 10 minutes to fix them all this morning.
Hopefully the bits for my new wheels will arrive soon, particularly as I’ve just found another snapped spoke on the current wheels. Time to find another bike to commute on today.
The TV add for the new “Chip and Pin” credit card gubbins falls foul of one of my pet hates by including the line “PIN numbers are replacing signatures”.
So that’s “PIN number” as in “Personal Identification Number number”? We trust these people to keep our credit/debit card transactions secure and yet they can’t even comprehend basic acronyms? What a bunch of muppets.
Meant to post this earlier but sort of forgot, but better late than never as they say.
Unsurprisingly, due to the weather our trip to the zoo has been postponed. Probably a wise choice given that I suspect we’d have had trouble standing up outside. We’ll try again in a month or two.
If the weather forecast is correct, I very much doubt we’ll be going.
Slight confusion ensued when we ended up playing on the right hand alley (our home alley) instead of the left hand one. We slipped nicely into the lead, then lost two legs quite spectacularly, however we somehow managed to recover and eventually won 5-3, but lost the pins.
Widcombe Lost Boys took 4 points, Housing Admin took 7.
I’ve ordered all the bits to build up some new wheels for the crossbike, CXP33 rims on 105 hubs, all in a nice stealthy black. Hopefully everything should arrive at the LBS next week and I can try to remember how to build wheels. I’ve only done it once and that was 2.5 years ago.
I think I’ve overdosed on Guinness.
No bad thing really.
Spring is in the air, although I suspect it won’t last. Went out for a ride after work and managed most of it without using lights which was a bonus. The Diesel tyres are still working well but could do with a tad less air in them. I’ll wait to get some beefier tubes first though as I suspect I’d pinch flat rather quickly otherwise.
Nothing much has changed. Half a million emails to read, one dead server to resuscitate, a funny smell in the server room, and a continuing absence of shelving so everything is still stored in crates. At least I have a key to the front door now though, but only because I stole somebody elses.
It’s pouring with rain and freezing cold. So I rode to scouts and back. I think I might manage to dry out and warm up by about easter.
After a visually challenging start to the morning when I managed to put both contact lenses into the same eye, things fortunately got slightly better.
We wandered down to Clarks Village in Street for a spot of shopping, I limited myself to a new hat to replace the one I hadn’t been able to find earlier. We then headed in the direction of Cheddar for a pub lunch and a wander around. We took the scenic route back to Bath over the hills and through the mist. Not the best weather, but at least we didn’t get rained on.
Back from a couple of quiet days staying with my cousin. Only cycled about 17 miles partly due to a closed tunnel, and partly due to it being fecking cold. Got back to find a package from Chainreaction containing a pair of Roach shorts that are more like very baggy trousers, be interesting to see how they cope when on a bike.
Only one day left of my holiday now, then it’s the weekend and back to the madhouse known as work. No doubt I’ll have two weeks worth of work to do on Monday morning, and my nice rested, relaxed state will soon be shattered. Such is life.
But not entirely unsurprising.
Happy birthday to Matt.
Lets just say that we didn’t win the skittles, but I did win half a frozen pig in the meat draw.
Housing Admin 1 - Widcombe Old Boys 5.
It was a nice evening, so I decided to take the scenic route to Scouts which takes me about an hour. I rolled down the hill to the hut just before 7:30 and thought it a bit odd that none of the lights were on. Even more odd was that there were no kids milling around waiting to get it. 7:35 and I get a phone call which says “Hi Rich, we’re at Bannerdown in case you’ve got lost”. I calmly pointed out that they’d neglected to tell me that we weren’t meeting at the hut, and that I couldn’t be arsed to ride up to the top of another big hill when my lights probably wouldn’t last long enough for me to get home again.
At least I got a nice 12 mile ride out of it.
Went for a spin on the Craftworks to try out the new tyres. Compared with the Fire FRs they certainly roll much better on tarmac and hardpack trails, but aren’t quite as grippy when the going gets soft, which resulted in a couple of comedy crashes when the bike disappeared from under me.
On balance, for most of the riding I do they are the best compromise tyre. For pure XC stuff, I’d either try the Gravitys, or more likely ride a different bike, and for more downhill/freeride style riding I’d go back to the Fire FR’s.
Bards won 5-1. I won’t say any more.
Went for a gentle spin on the cross bike this afternoon. Only did 19.5 miles, just enough to get the legs working a bit, but not take up too much time. On the way back I popped into the LBS and picked up two new Continental Diesel tyres for the Craftworks. Despite being labelled as a 2.5″ tyre they are narrower than the 2.4″ Panaracer Fire FR tyres they replaced. More importantly they look far nicer in plain black rather than the black with ugly red stripe of the Panaracers, and weigh about 250g less each. Weather permitting they will get a proper test tomorrow.
Reacquainted my love/hate relationship with singlespeeds today. Went for the first proper ride on the Inbred for nearly five months. Given the fact I’ve been riding geared bikes for the last few months, it took me a few miles to stop pressing imaginary shifters looking for a lower gear.
After 20 minutes of cursing and swearing I made it to the top of the hill and ambled along the top and back down the otherside. Due to the remaining melting ice and snow it was nice and muddy under tyre. The trails were virtually empty as it was mid-afternoon and so I took the option of exploring a slightly different route through the woods. I only crashed once in the mud which was a bonus.
I could get used to this singlespeeding lark again.
Today I have mostly fettled.
Firstly I replaced the PSU in my main PC as the old one had died leaving a strange smell in the room. Then I had to rebuild the laptop which had got a little confused. Finally I stripped and rebuilt the Craftworks after it’s escapades in the corrosive environment known as “the north”. Remarkably most of the bearings were fine. The rear chainstay ones are getting a bit notchy and will need replacing at some point, but they’ll do the job for the moment.
I also managed to get three parcels today, a new wireless Xbox controller, a new jacket, and a Monty Python DVD box set.
This weekend was Northumberfest III, and for once I was able to attend. For various reasons there was some last-minute replanning when MikeD was unable to attend, and so Lolly took over the vacated passenger seat in the car.
The weekend comprised lots of driving, lots of drinking, and some riding. Saturday we rode about 6 miles in snow around Rothbury. Sunday we split into two groups. One group went to Thrunton woods, the rest of us rode into Alnmouth, along the beach, and back to Alnwick. A nice combination of road-salt, snow, sand, and sea water, guaranteed to trash drivetrains and pivot bearings.
Thanks to Andy for organising everything and keeping us full of food and drink,
and thanks to T for putting up with us.
Same again next year?
Some pics from the weekend are now up.
Update
Andy, Bez, Grant, Lee, and Tom also wielded a camera for the sake of posterity.