A Strange, Orc-Like Race...

...specially bred to keep the Scots out of England, was the Pub Landlord (Al Murray's) verdict on Geordies.

He may have been right. One night last week I was cycling home clad in my usual winter gear, in which I have a minimum of two layers of clothing all round me. Except for my face, though I do wear a balaclava for the entertainment of passers-by. As I was chugging along past Heaton Park thinking "bugger me it's cold bugger me it's cold bugger me it's cold, hot chocolate here I come", a man cycled past me wearing Lycra shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt.

If civilisation as we know it ends, the North-East will carry on as normal. Clearly the loss of heat and power won't bother Geordies in the least.

I think they've all got extra layers of subcutaneous fat under the skin for insulation, and the rest of us will just never achieve their immunity to cold.

Even so, cycling dude? Lycra is not a good look.

Cycling Past Frozen Water

Would be lovely if I was mountain biking past a frozen lake. As it is, it's March and I'm cycling past frosted-over puddles on the roads. Will this winter ever end?

Back Off My Bike Again

Fucking snow and ice.

Whee! (Back on my bike)

Well, this week the overnight temperature finally rose above freezing on a regular basis, and I happily de-mothballed my bike and got pedalling. Albeit with a brief detour to the bike shop to get it fixed after I managed to bugger up the gears whilst trying to lubricate the gear cables.

I've finally done the sensible thing and bought a proper maintainance stand, like the one in the picture, to hold the rear wheel off the ground so I can maintain it. (To lube the gear cables, you need to "shift the gears until the chain is on the largest sprocket, and then stop the wheel from rotating. With the wheel stopped from moving, shift your shifter all the way in the opposite direction, as if you were going to shift to the smallest sprocket. The rear derailleur should now be stuck on the largest sprocket, which will give you enough slack to fully release the cable from the frame." Thanks to the internet for that.)

£17 in the Edinburgh bike shop sale, it will be worth it for the amount of time it will save me when trying to maintain the bike. It is easy to shift the gears "on land" when the wheel is held off the ground and can spin freely, and an absolute bugger to try doing it any other way.

More importantly, I'm back on my bike, no more spending £11 a week on a Megarider bus ticket for me. This is good. There are few sadder sights than a cyclist deprived of a bike, waddling about on two feet instead of gracefully swooping about on two wheels as Nature intended.

So I had my first ride in to work for 2010 on Monday. And I had to yell at two pedestrians on the footbridge over the Central Motorway on the way in. This footbridge is the bane of my life; people, especially students, WILL NOT realise that it is split in two for a reason, namely, so that bikes can go over it. I don't ride my damn bike on their half of the path, now, do I?

It would be nice to think that people are rational and, if they are going to wear hoods over their heads whilst listening to music on earphones, thus depriving themselves of peripheral vision and hearing, they would be extra careful to look around themselves when walking over a bridge with big blue "cycle path" signs and pictures of bikes helpfully painted on the footbridge, especially if they are going to step out onto the cycling half of the footbridge. Alas, no.

Looks like another fun year of cycling and irritability awaits.

Normally I Post This Stuff On The Other Blog

The other blog being the Lonkblig of infamous repute. However, this fits better here: the 10 worst cycling crashes ever. Do not read if squeamish.










Right now this damn blog's a misnomer anyway. I'm neither cycling nor diving, thanks to the weather, and it sucks. I've seen people out and about on bikes, but they're either a) on a mountain bike or b) accident statistics waiting to happen. I just keep my fingers crossed that the temperature gets above freezing regularly soon. I will cycle in wind and rain, but not ice and snow.

As for the diving? I'm starting to hallucinate the smell of wet neoprene, like a coffee addict doing detox hallucinating espresso.

It's as well I gave up on that whole "trying to be normal" thing a while back, now, isn't it?

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!"