Life in the Bus Lane

I don’t think I’ve said that enough lately, but it’s true.

Fantastic ride tonight. Went out with Ian and George on the usual evening route, but instead of splitting off after 8 miles and looping back home I decided to follow Ian on through the lanes. It’s a nice rolling few miles back to Ians house with a couple of long but gentle climbs, however after that there are a couple of steep climbs that I’d always been a bit nervous of riding and had managed to avoid. Tonight they were no problem though and I very nearly flew up them. I only ended up doing an extra 4 miles or so, but there were a lot more hills which made it more of a workout. 22.5 miles in a tad over 80 minutes in the end.

After a very lazy morning mostly spent in bed, I spent a lazy afternoon fettling. The Lemond got some new Campagnolo Centaur calipers, then the Langster got the Campagnolo Veloce calipers from the Lemond. I also fixed an errant part of the decking which wasn’t sitting level. After lounging around a bit more I eventually took the Langster out for a quick spin to check the brakes, which are noticably better than the Tektro calipers I’d replaced. They also look much much nicer which is equally as important as the performance.

It’ll be an evening of pizza, beer, wine, and TV I suspect.

Hobbes survived his visit to the vets today, and is now sporting a black bandage on his leg. At least it won’t show the dirt.

Tomorrow will be a day of brake fettling as I have some nice shiny Centaur calipers to fit onto the Lemond, then the Veloce ones can move to the Langster to improve it’s currently lacklustre braking performance. That’ll probably necessitate a couple of test rides at some point in the afternoon provided the weather is suitable.

Pictures from last nights golf.

As of last Tuesday, I’ve completed twelve years as an NHS employee.

I only came here for six unpaid weeks as well.

Now with a manly red bandage instead of the pink one.

After a day spent at the vets, it’s been confirmed that Hobbes has broken two bones in his foot. He’s now back home complete with a red bandage instead of the pink one, and my wallet is £170 lighter. He’s also got to go back for weekly dressing changes until it’s healed which will probably be a month or so. I’ve also got to keep him in the house for the moment which is going to annoy him.

As he’s doing the usual cat thing of hiding whilst he heals, there are no pictures of the newly bandaged leg, you’ll have to wait until he decides to venture out from behind the stack of road bikes.

I did get out for a quick 20 miles tonight on the Lemond, slightly faster than usual due to chasing Ian and Will out as far as Saltford. They tend to ride somewhat faster than me, Will more so than Ian. It’s all good practice though.

Hobbes is currently sporting a rather fetcing pink bandage on one leg due to a suspected broken metatarsal or two.

He’s got to go back to the Vets on Monday for x-rays to confirm the break, and so they can work out how best to treat it.

Getting the back end out on a bike can be ace, especially when swooping down nice dusty trails.

However it’s less fun at 30+ mph on a sharp downhill corner when you suddenly discover a queue of traffic in the middle of the diesel-slicked road.

That’ll be time for some clean shorts then.

Luckily the rest of the 17.5 mile ride was fairly uneventful apart from trying to trace an annoying rattle somewhere on the bike, current suspect is one of the bottle cages.

Power outage at work tomorrow at 7:30 means it’ll be an early start and a manically busy first few hours.

At long last, the extension to the decking is complete. A couple of hours work tonight saw the last of it cut to length and screwed down, and it successfully passed the beer test. I did however recieve a complaint, Charlotte next door can’t see me any more as she isn’t tall enough to see over the new piece of fence.

Most of work today was spent swearing at a disk array attached to a Sun server. They are impossible to rack-mount properly, partly because by the time you’ve assembled the rails it’s actually too wide for the rack, but mainly because they actually supply bolts that are about 10mm too short to actually reach the cage-nuts. The best method for rack-mounting one is to throw it in the skip and buy something decent.

Dave Blomberg has left New Model Army after twelve and a bit years.

It’ll be interesting to see the new line-up later this year when I go to see them in Northampton.

Nothing exciting happened this week. The new decking is progressing but hampered by the weather, my ripped jersey from Monday has been repaired, and I’ve not ridden a bike properly since Tuesday. Bet you’re all glad to know that?

Took the Craftworks out for a proper spin tonight, the last time I rode it properly was at Glentress over New Year. It’s a bit of a shock to the system to ride a 40+ lbs bike with 6" of travel at each end after spending the last few months on 20lbs road bikes. I did the semi-usual route round the Uni, with the added excitment of a stand-off with a large dog in the depths of the woods.

The worst part was catching my two week old wool jersey on a tree and putting a large hole in one arm :(

The day was partly saved thanks to the interweb providing me with a copy of Achtung Bono by Half Man Half Biscuit before the copy I’ve paid for has arrived. I’ll probably spend the rest of the evening listening to it on repeat.

I must be ill, I’ve just cleaned a bike.

To be fair, the crosser was no longer black, repeated trips off road and along the canal towpath had liberally coated it in mud and dust and it was filthy. A quick dousing with Muc Off followed by a liberal soaking from the hose, and a generous application ot GT-85 leaves it looking much cleaner, and probably a good pound or two lighter.

No riding yet today as I’m feeling a little fragile after last nights activities. Drinking games are always a bad move.

I now have a front door which works properly and doesn’t open if you just happen to walk past it.

I also dug the Craftworks out of the cellar and stuck a longer stem on it which improves the fit quite considerably. It’s still as heavy as a really really heavy thing though.

First ride on an MTB for a while tonight. I decided to take the Kaboom out round the University for a gentle spin taking a few pictures along the way. It feels very odd riding a singlespeed MTB after a couple of weeks on a fixed-gear road bike, I think I can cope though.

Uni ride pictures.

Apparently there will be a new Half Man Half Biscuit album called "Achtung Bono" out in September. It’s been a long wait since their last release.