Fell Off My Bike

Well, actually I didn't. I encountered a patch of black ice whilst turning right at a mini-roundabout and the back wheel skidded gracefully out from under me. The bike and I described a graceful arc down to the ground, where we lay on our sides for a second or two thinking "What the hell just happened?" Luckily there was nothing coming. There never is - it's a mini-roundabout in Shieldfield, near the patch of grass where the local kids like to set fire to stuff on Bonfire Night, and it's blocked off for cars, but not to bikes, which merrily pedal their way to and from the city centre, except when it's icy. (On the left is a nice picture of the sort of morning it was, as seen from the Civic Centre.)

I was fine, if stunned. It's winter and my current cycling rig is:

base layer,

middle-layer / fleecy jumper (on very cold mornings),

cycling jacket,

knee-length cotton socks from Primark (not cool but keep your calves nice and snug),

trainers,

thermal gloves,

helmet,

balaclava (again, if really cold),

padded shorts if it's really cold,

and, most importantly, thick fleecy jogging pants. (Also from Primark. Cheap and who cares if they get muddy?).

I had plenty of padding and walked away with nothing worse than a bruise on my right outer thigh.

More importantly, I had plenty of stuff in the panniers, which provided a nice gap in between the bike/my left and the road, so the bike wasn't harmed. (Lucky - I skidded with the gears-side nearest the road.) I heal for free, but I have to pay to get the bike repaired.

Anyway, I'm currently off the road, simply due to the fact that it's now so cold all the roads are icy, and my bike is a hybrid, not a mountain bike. Excellent for commuting and touring, not so good for anything requiring extra grip in slippy conditions. I'll be back on it soon, though, and when I am? I'll be on the main roads until winter is over.

If for no reason other than, for two nights afterwards, I would fall half asleep, find myself having a cycling dream, then waking up with a start as I dreamt about sliding off.

The second time this happened, I distinctly remember thinking: "Hey! Not fair!"

I'm Back...

...and indeed I have been for a while. Two weeks.

The States were great. Wedding was lovely, Buckeyes won their football game, my family are fine. And I love New York. I love it because you can walk around it, I love it because of its history, I love it because they take pizza and cheesecake with the seriousness that both require.

Mostly I love it because - well, I love America, and Americans, though I was not fond of their last administration. But sometimes the sheer cheeriness and earnestness gets a little overwhelming when you come from a culture where shop assistants ignore you unless you ask for help, and taking things seriously is a rarity in social discourse. New Yorkers are funny, talk fast, and say stuff they don't mean. The guy behind the counter at the World Trade Center memorial sold me a keyring and looked me in the eye maybe once, because he was busy kidding his friend that he was a psycho about to go on a rampage.

I could have hugged both of them.

Foundation Stone of Diving

I haven't blogged on diving of late, largely because I've not been diving. I don't know how to use a drysuit, largely because I have neither the money to buy one nor to afford the training course to learn how to use it properly. I rely on 7mm of neoprene all round to keep me warm under the waves, and the North Sea is getting a little cold for that.

Still, I feel the need to blog on diving, so I'll use this post for a piece of knowledge that I'd call the foundation stone of diving knowledge. (Anyone with a working knowledge of physics will probably laugh themselves silly at this point.)

Gas compresses under increased pressure, and expands when pressure is decreased.

From this physical fact comes so much of what we learn when we dive: don't hold your breath, breath out into your mask if it squeezes on your face, the deeper you go, the more gas you consume (and the greater the risks of the narks and the bends), do a Valsalva manouevre to stop your eardrums popping, don't hold your breath.

Doesn't make sense?

It will.

Muse Drinking Game

I was re-watching HAARP the other day and trying to work out a Muse Drinking Game. Don't know if it's got legs though, this is as far as I've got:

• Drink every time you see a teenage girl with heavy eye make-up and a look of desperate yearning. (Bonus drink if the cameraman then zooms in on her chest).
• Drink every time you see a group of fans containing one guy with glasses who looks a bit bewildered and another guy going completely crazy regardless of what everyone else around him is doing.
• Drink every time Matt Bellamy plays the guitar whilst standing on one leg.
• Drink every time Chris Wolstenholme starts headbanging.
• Drink every time Matt Bellamy plays the guitar whilst holding it above his head.
• Drink every time Dom Howard grins crazily.
• Drink every time one of the other two musicians on stage looks faintly surprised to see a camera pointing at him.
• Drink every time Matt Bellamy points one finger at the sky whilst adopting a faintly messianic expression (NB for this one, only take sips, unless you don’t have plans for the following morning and / or a liver donor lined up).

Amazing Reflective Gloves

I missed a step out of the "How to Make Reflective Gloves" post earlier: you need to seal the ends of the tape to stop them fraying, either by sewing them down or sealing with glue or nail varnish.

Here's a picture of the final result.

Oddly Specific Instructions on Glue / Annoying Bike Noises

I recently bought some superglue and found the following instruction on it "Not suitable for sticking rear view mirrors to car windscreens". I suppose there could be a legal issue here since it would be dangerous if the mirror fell off whilst you were driving, but it seems so oddly specific. As a friend commented, "They might as well also put 'Unsuitable for Sticking Anvils To Ceilings".

And here's this week's contribution to cycling: Fixing Annoying Bike Noises.

1. Annoying squeaky noise coming from the brakes.
Two possible causes: a) Bike mechanism needs greasing. Simple – apply grease to the bolts on the brake mechanism WITHOUT getting any on the brake pads or wheel rims (wipe off if so). b) Problems with the brake pads. You need either new brake pads, to toe-in the brake pads, or to check the tension on the brake cables. Instructions for all can be found on the 'net.

2. Annoying rattly noise coming from the chain accompanied by difficulty shifting the gears.
One possible cause (there may be others I have yet to encounter): the gear cable is loose, usually on the rear derailleur. This is particularly likely to be the case if you twisted the cable barrel adjuster by mistake whilst removing the cable housing to grease the gear cable. Find the cable barrel on the derailleur (it’s a black ring where the cable goes into the derailleur mechanism) and tighten it, then try again. If the chain doesn’t rattle and the gears shift okay, you’ve fixed it. If it does still rattle, you may need to tune the gears, in which case a) find some online instructions (Google is your friend here), or b) talk to your friendly local bike mechanic.

3. Annoying rattly noise coming from somewhere on the bike you can’t identify.
Try greasing all the mechanical parts (brake mechanisms, gear shifters, chain) WITHOUT getting any on the brake pads or wheel rims (wipe off if so). Ride the bike again, see if this cures it. If not, go over it looking for loose bolts i.e. mudguard bolts, pannier bolts, and tighten them. Try again. If it’s still rattling, bike shop time.

4. Annoying rattly noise coming from the front gear derailleur
Two possible cause: a) the chain is being stretched too far over on the rear sprockets i.e. it’s on the smallest front chainring and the smallest rear sprocket, or vice versa, and is caused by the chain rubbing against the sides of the front derailleur. Fix by shifting the gears, usually by shifting the front derailleur (if you’ve got the chain on the smallest front chainring and smallest rear sprocket, you’re probably going fast enough to shift onto the middle front chainring). b) the chain has failed to shift from one front chainring to the next. Click the shifter back to the position for the original chainring, pedal as gently as you can and try again.

5. Annoying pingy noise coming from somewhere.
If you have a bike computer, lift the front wheel off the ground, spin it, and see if the pingy noise corresponds to the magnet on the wheel spoke brushing against the sensor. If so, push the sensor out very slightly, and check again (be sure you haven’t moved it so far out it doesn’t pick up from the magnet). If this doesn't fix it, your guess is as good as mine.

6. Annoying flicking sound coming from the wheels.
Stop and have a look at the forks / mudguard / pannier rack to see if there is anything stuck on them i.e. a dead leaf. Remove it, pedal off.

Back from a cycling holiday

Got back from my latest escapade on the bike last Sunday, it's taken until now for me to recover enough to post about it! Down from Edinburgh to Almouth over Friday to Sunday last week. 150 miles in three days, including one day (Saturday) with a 60-mile trip.

It was a mighty amount of fun, despite a grand total of seven punctures, and much beer was drunk.

More details as and when. In other news, I finally got round to putting reflective strips on my cycling gloves. There's a reason for this: I wear black gloves, and at night it's difficult for drivers to see my hand signals before I turn. Hopefully the reflective strips will solve this problem. For anyone wanting to do this themselves, it's surprisingly easy. Go to your local haberdashery shop (I used Fenwick's in Newcastle) and buy a strip of reflective / fluorescent ribbon and some double-sided iron-on backing, such as Bondaweb. All you need to do is cut strips of ribbon and Bondaweb, put them across the palm and back of the gloves, and iron them on with a medium-heat iron. Dead simple!

Diving Terminology, Part I

As one continues to dive / read diving books / hang about aimlessly on Scubaboard.com, one accumulates random diving terminology, which I shall attempt to eludicate here for the enlightenment of all.

Here's probably as good a place as any to throw in an important disclaimer: I'm not a trained diving instructor and I have a grand total of 13 dives under my weightbelt. If you seriously want to learn to dive, go learn from the nice people who have trained specifically to do that. Don't rely for your safety on anything I say here. If you would like to point out something I've got wrong, please do so, I welcome all polite and helpful correction. (Impolite correction can bugger off.)

So, a term for your enlightenment:

Nosebreather. Rather derogatory diving term for non-divers. So-called because divers breathe only through our mouths, since that's where the nice large mouthpiece connected to the air tank goes in. To answer a question I've been asked, yes, the mask covers your nose (as I am demonstrating to the left, here) partly to stop the water from getting up your nose, but more importantly, so you can breathe out through your nose to blow air through the mask and get rid of any water that might have leaked into it. (Yes, the mask does stay on if you do this - you hold the top of the mask and look up whilst blowing out. Like so.)

Diving opinion is divided on the merits of diving vs non-diving partners. Those favouring divers as partners wax lyrical about the joys of floating effortlessly through some of nature's most awe-inspiring sights with your loved one by your side, and having a partner who understands the need to have the smell of wet neoprene permeating the house for two days. Others point to the frustration that occurs when your beloved appears to have been inexplicably replaced with a wetsuit-clad moron who seemingly cannot understand the simplest hand signals and keeps wanting to stop to look at the pretty fish.

For their part, non-divers display a bewildering inability to grasp the importance of not drinking on a Saturday night so that one can rise at 6.30am on Sunday morning to get changed into a cold layer of thick neoprene whilst standing on a towel behind a stranger's Land Rover so you can go submerge beneath the grey North Sea. On the other hand, obliging nosebreather partners can be most useful in terms of acting as surface support, keeping an eye on the car / kids / dog, and making the all-important thermos of hot tea. Thus the debate rages on.

More diving stuff as and when I can.

In far more important news, today the Oldest Friend and her hubby had their first baby! A little girl, 6lbs 9oz, mum and baby doing well. Yay! Can't wait to see the little one.

Nearly Got Myself Killed

Nearly got myself knocked off my bike on Sunday. At first I thought it was the fault of the driver, who seemingly turned left into an off-road from the roundabout which I was trying to cycle across. Then I drove across that roundabout later that day, and realised that the furthest left (inside) lane is for turning left only, not going straight across, which I was trying to do, as I would normally go straight across a roundabout on the left hand side of the road.

So who was in the wrong? Me, probably, although I didn't signal left, and maybe the driver should have picked that up.

The moral of the story: always check how the lane is marked - or, alternatively, avoid big roundabouts like the plague.

So I Can See Things Like This

It occurs to me I have yet to blog about diving. So, here goes with an answer to a question I have been asked a few times: Why do you go diving?

Black-Tipped Reef Shark just off Meeru Island, seen in August this year.

Moron Drivers, 1

Dear moron drivers I encountered today on the A1 northbound: The outside lane is intended for overtaking. Therefore, if you are not actually overtaking anyone, you should not be in it. Otherwise we end up with a long line of traffic in one lane, whilst I sit IN THE CORRECT LANE trying to keep my speed below 60mph so as not to undertake you. MOVE INTO THE FUCKING CORRECT LANE. And thus, the empty space in the inside lane will be filled, because the space on the road is being used more efficientl,y the flow of traffic will be faster, and general peace and harmony shall reign.

I swear, just driving a car brings out my inner Jeremy Clarkson. Which scares me.

In other news, I did a practice ride tonight out along the Coast Road. I'm in training for a cycling holiday in three weeks' time. Did one and a half hours on the bike today. So far I feel fine, we'll see how I feel tomorrow!

Weddingpalooza (and Babypalooza)

Let's see... Right now, I'll be going to my cousin's wedding in November, my best friend is marrying in 2011, and a friend sitting opposite me at work just got engaged.

A friend of mine just had a baby (well, the baby's mother actually had the baby, science has yet to advance that far I fear) and my oldest friend is due in the next few weeks, plus another friend and his wife are expecting a baby next year.

It's just a wedding and baby palooza at the moment! I am due to be chief bridesmaid at Best Friend's wedding. Hitherto I thought this involved just standing there and looking more ugly than the bride, but it turns out there's more to it than that. Mainly involving trying on lots of dresses. (Wedding dresses are heavy. I swear today's session counted as weightlifting.)

In other, entirely unrelated news, Muse's new album, "The Resistance" is now out. Wahoo!

Cake Obsession

Recently someone I know who reads this blog suggested it was missing a mention of cake, baking being one of my other passions. So,

CAAAAKE!!

The problem is, there is not a lot one may say about cake which is not boring, at least not to non-bakers, whose eyes tend to glaze over if one talks at length about the benefits of muscovado over soft brown sugar. I know this because it once happened when I was having a conversation with my Dad, which was a tad inconvenient since he was driving the car at the time. Cake is one of those things which is best appreciated with the mouth and not the eyes, which is a problem, barring some as yet unforeseen improvement in blogging technology. Still, should I think of something interesting to say about it, I will post it here. My next cake will probably be a Plum and Almond Sponge, should anyone be interested.

In other news, James The Invisible Wine-Giving Housemate has moved in. We still haven't met, but no doubt it will happen tonight.

And a contender for Best Metaphor of the Year: The Big Issue's film reviewer on a film whose name I've forgotten: "About as refreshing as a cup of warm treacle".

Merlot For Me

Today I came home to find my housemates sitting round the table with two empty wine bottles before them, planning to start a "House Wine Club". Essentially we all pay £2 each and get a bottle of wine for the house each week.

I'm not sure if this is the best idea ever, or something likely to create work for the local Alcoholics Anonymous chapter, or both.

Wow, I made a blog!

Yup, on top of the technology curve, surfing along the crest of the wave of new innovations, and torturing metaphors unnecessarily, that's me.

Here is where I shall blog my innermost thoughts. Since my hobbies are cycling, diving, losing weight and drinking beer whilst talking crap about comics (yes, I'm aware those last two are somewhat in conflict), these will probably feature heavily, along with the odd wine-soaked rant on the crap state of what might laughably be called my love life.

Here's a starter.

Things you never expect when you lose weight:

1. Your feet shrink. I've gone from a size 7-8 to a size 6.5. I thought this was just me until a weight-losing friend confirmed this.

2. Your navel changes shape. Seriously. Look at a person with toned stomach muscles, and you'll see that, at the very top, there's an upside-down half-moon shape of skin and their navel is shallow and oval-shaped. Seriously. You just look. I mean it.

3. You lose your ability to drink. Which would be logical given that I have lost around 13% of my original bodyweight, thus having less blood volume to dilute the booze.

More gems / random crap as and when I have time. Enjoy.