Life in the Bus Lane

A lazy Sunday afternoon of films today, Hancock, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, and now The Matrix on Blu-Ray.

Another 20 mile ride along the canal and back tonight. I was somewhat overdressed for the weather but at least wasn’t as cold as last week. I’ve still got numb toes though, I probably need to invest in overshoes or something similar.

It’s a Pixar movie, what could possibly be wrong with it? In fact it’s possibly one of their best so far.

The rear of the 69er now has a 10mm RWS skewer instead of a normal sized one which should hopefully cure or reduce the creaking. The Bontrager branded DT Swiss hubs obviously aren’t exactly the same as the DT Swiss 240s as I had to grind one of the spacers down slightly for it to fit properly. Test ride later, maybe.

Tonight was the first ride with my new lights, and I’m very impressed. By turning them on in "race mode" a quick press of the button flicks the light between high (700 lumens) and low (175 lumens). Low is more than adequate when there are other sources of light such as street lights, and high is just superb when it gets darker. Hopefully they’ll prove to be more reliable than my previous lights.

One downside is that it interferes with my cordless computer and stops it working, hopefully it won’t affect the GPS when I get around to fitting that as a replacement.

Michael Rennie was ill
The Day the Earth Stood Still
But he told us where we stand

For want of anything interesting to say, I’ll post a random picture of two of my bike collection instead.

Kona Unit and Trek 69er

A trip to the LBS today saw a set Light & Motion Seca 700 Race lights come home with me, I’d finally got bored with waiting for the Hope lights to arrive so bit the bullet. They’ve been charged, briefly tested in a dark house, and weather permitting will be christened on Wednesday evening.

I also fitted a slightly longer stem to the Unit to go with the H-Bars, and thanks to the summer flooding of Chain Reaction have ordered the parts to convert the Bontrager Race X-Lite wheel on the back of the 69er to 10mm RWS bolt-through which is rumoured to cure the annoying creaking.

The rest of the day was spent playing Lego Batman which is fantastic, almost as good as Lego Star Wars, and far far better than Lego Indiana Jones.

Thanks to a simple switch of microfilter, my ADSL is now running at 5.5Mbps instead of 3.5-4Mbps, and seems far more stable. The best tenner I’ve spent for quite a while.

Nowhere near as much travelling today, and a much more intimate venue. Support came from the rather good MJ Hibbett & the Validators complete with a rendition of “Hey Hey 16K”. Nigel seemed on much better form tonight resulting in far fewer lyrical cock-ups.

As with last night, there were surprisingly few people sporting Dukla Prague away shirts.

Setlist:

Fuckin’ ‘ell it’s Fred Titmus
Lock Up Your Mountain Bikes
Restless Legs
Running Order Squabble Fest
Petty Sessions
The Light at the End of the Tunnel (is the Light of an Oncoming Train)
Bogus Official
Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo
Four Skinny Indie Kids
Totnes Bickering Fair
Blue Badge Abuser
Look Dad No Tunes
All I Want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit
Ode to Joyce
The Best Things in Life (end)
24 Hour Garage People (98p for the Pringles)
Trumpton Riots
Tending the Wrong Grave for 23 Years
For What is Chatteris
Paintball’s Coming Home
We Built this Village on a Trad. Arr. Tune
Vatican Broadside
National Shite Day

Took Problem Chimp to Ideal Home Show
Electricity (OMD)
Joy Division Oven Gloves

A fairly lengthy trip today, I spent a good five hours or so sat in various cars in order to get to Norwich, however we were rewarded with nearly two hours of biscuity goodness, although Nigel did look a little unwell at times.

Setlist:

Evening of Swing has been Cancelled
Fuckin’ ‘ell it’s Fred Titmus
Running Order Squabble Fest
The Light at the End of the Tunnel (is the Light of an Oncoming Train)
Uffington Wassail
Four Skinny Indie Kids
Petty Sessions
Took Problem Chimp to Ideal Home Show
Bad Review
On Reaching the Wensum
Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo
Blue Badge Abuser
Secret Gig
Paintball’s Coming Home
Trumpton Riots
Look Dad No Tunes
The Best Things in Life (end)
This Leaden Pall
Restless Legs
Everything’s AOR
Tending the Wrong Grave for 23 Years
24 Hour Garage People (97p for the Pringles)
We Built this Village on a Trad. Arr. Tune
All I Want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit
Vatican Broadside
National Shite Day

For What is Chatteris
Song From Under The Floorboards (Magazine)
Joy Division Oven Gloves

A classic which was long overdue another viewing.

After much deliberation, I’ve almost made a decision over which front light to buy.

A trip to the LBS yesterday meant I got to play with a Light and Motion Seca 700 Race which was very impressive, however I didn’t buy it as I don’t need it for a week or so and I still want to have a play with a Hope Vision 4. If the Hope arrives in the shop by next weekend I’ll have a look at that and buy the best, if not it’ll be the L&M.

The only downside is that the L&M kit all went up in price last week, which means another £25 on the Seca 700 units, and makes the Race £50 more expensive than the Hope.

I fitted the H-Bars to the Unit this morning and went for a test ride.

They are very nice indeed.

A group of us helped out stewarding at the fireworks in town last night, however because I was stuck on the west stand and had to watch the crowd, I didn’t actually get to see anything. Mind you neither did anyone sat in the seats at the top of the stand, so I’ve recommended that they cordon those top few rows off for next year.

We did at least get pie and chips afterwards in the bar which went some way to compensating for the lack of view.

Despite castigating Raoul for a similar thing a few weeks ago, I’ve just purchased a pre-enjoyed set of Jones H-Bars which should be here in the next few days.

It’s also that time of year again, so for the fourth year running I’m off to help steward the Round Table fireworks in town in exchange for a plate of pie and chips afterwards, they’ll also pay the scouts some money for us.

It’s taken me a while to get around to watching this, but it was definitely worth the wait. A fantastic film and a very enjoyable couple of hours.

I’ve still not managed to buy a new bike light.

My aging Lumicycle set are a bit feeble these days, and my Rush HID only lasts about 10 minutes despite buying a new charger and battery a year or two back which has hardly been used.

Originally I intended to get a Hope Vision 4, but that’s out of stock at the moment so I’ve been looking around to see what else is out there and have ended up confusing myself to the point that I don’t know what to buy any more.

Current options are the Hope Vision 4, Light and Motion Seca 700 Race or Ultra, and now the new Lumicycle LED lights which look to be very good value, but not actually available yet.

Decisions, decisions, decisions…

It was a rather soggy start to the night despite the forecast for fine weather so we ended up queuing outside in the rain for a while. Inside the Roadmender was absolutely packed, but we managed to find a spare bit of wall near the front to prop ourselves against.

The stage at the Roadmender isn’t the biggest thing in the world, and proved to be slightly cramped for the 11-piece Bellowhead and slightly restricted their on-stage antics, however they still put on a superb show.

Setlist:

Jordan
Jack Robinson
Whiskey is the Life of Man
Spectre Review
Kafoozalum
I Drew my Ship Across the Harbour
Widow’s Curse
If you will not have me, you may let me go
Fakenham Fair
Roll Her Down the Bay
Bruton Town
Unclothed Nocturnal Manuscript Crisis
Trip to Bucharest/The Flight of the Folk Mutants Parts 1&2
Cholera Camp
Rochdale Coconut Dance
Sloe Gin

London Town
Frog’s Legs and Dragon’s Teeth