Hats off

Friday night I thought I'd make an emergency dash to the allotment between showers.  Parking down my road at weekends is a nightmare, so once you have somewhere to park the car, you don't move it unless you really have to.  So, the bike beckoned.  Shoved a trowel and a few seed packets in the panniers and bunged on a pair of walking trousers with the bottom leg bits zipped off to avoid dangling in chain issues and was on my way.  On my way, but feeling something was not quite normal.  Took a minute or two to realise I'd gone out without the bike helmet on.

Not, it's not against the law to go into the streets bare headed so as it's just a couple of miles I thought I'd go with the flow.  Which is not logical reasoning at all.  Funny thing was that I felt much more aware of and vigilant about what was going on around me, and suspect in some ways its because I could hear everything much more clearly without the helmet, actually had a better sense of direction as to where car engine noises were coming from.  I was much more apprehensive about roundabouts etc..  Now, in my head, I know that this doesn't make sense, I know that on the bike I have to be mindful of my safety at all times, and I know the percentage of accident options available out there means the helmet will only save your life in a teeny percentage of incients.  So, why more mindful because I'm not wearing the helmet?  Danger is danger after all.

It's nice though, feeling the wind in your hair.

Route Plan

Plan, plan and plan.  I have anal retentive tendencies towards planning bike rides.  Not one to wing it and hope for the best, I like to minimise the chance of failure and try to plan for all eventualities.  Other than rain.  Obviously.

So, I've had a frustrating few days trying to work out just where I can ride my bike as I make my way down the country to the Cotswolds for a Saturday evening barbeque.  It turns out that the various websites out there want you to pay money for sharing a bike route.  The world of cyclists suddenly turns out really quite mercenary. 

I am also very specific in what I want.  I want to be off road, or mostly off road.  I want everything to be legal (bridleways not footpaths) and I want a hill.  If possible I'd also like challenging terrain.  A bonus would be a cafe and a toilet.  And I want all this in easy reach of my final destination.  How hard can it be?

A check of my OS map collection at home reveals a good scale walking map ... for the area just north of where I want to be, and a driving type map for the area with old fashioned colour schemes.  I adjust my eyes to look for pink lines instead of green, and do search after search online for possible routes which take me to link after link to books I don't have the lead in time to send off for, and GPS routes I don't have the equipment for.  Finally courtesy of a county council website I think I have found the route.

Now I just have to hope it doesn't rain.

No overtaking

Word from the physio yesterday for my journey home yesterday evening was no overtaking.  Condemned to take it easy and to amble home avoiding jolting pains going through my lower back.  No easy task with standing starts from red lights being incredibly different as any pressure going through the left leg gave a jarring pain through that back muscle.  Very ouchy indeed.  No out of saddle, no hard acceleration; instead a sedate and somewhat boring journey.

Of my two routes home from work on the bike, one is a frenetic city centre ride, always on the alert for cars doing unexpected things without signalling.  Do I hear people gasp at the thought that car drivers could ever ever ever do something so imperfect?  Well, yes, they do.  It involves several forced lane changes where I have to move right to the straight on lane or of course turn right by getting across lanes, and this requires me to have good control, to be looking and listening all the time and ready to make a dash for it.  The back isn't permitting making dashes safely and in comfort.  So instead I take the meandering route round the city outskirts, and the most complicated moment is ... well, actually there were no complicated moments.  Eased my bike and my back home where I took the physio's advice of hot bath, hot water bottle, and ad libbed by adding a muscle relaxing glass of red wine all of my own prescription.

Too competitive

Today I am sat at my desk with a heated wheat bag snuggling around my lower back.  And similar to having a hangover this is a self-inflicted injury and therefore, by rights, I cannot complain!

I get more peeved on the bike than I ever do driving the car where I am a peaceful patient, laissez faire kind of a driver.  It peeves me to see other cyclists disobeying the rules of the road.  Specifically, riding through red lights.  It doesn't make any sense to me at all.

So, this morning, a younger gent on a Cannondale bike walzes past me at red lights, waits briefly at the junction and then moves forwards across a lane at a time, all the while the lights are on red.  And I see red.  I see him accelerate, I see him reach cruising speed, the lights are now green and I change up a gear, I press on the pedals and suddenly there I am, in pursuit.  I hover behind him, assessing his speed, decide that if I overtake him I can indeed continue to pull away and will not simply die a death and have the humiliation of him accelerating past me.  And I do it.  I'm dressed in pink.  At the lights he's waved at a mate of his in the traffic queue.  We have witnesses.  Hopefully his nuts shrivelled as the move played out.

Later on, he did of course move past me again at red lights, and stay ahead as he went through two more sets of red lights.  But the moral high ground is all mine.

Oh, and I seem to have slightly pulled a back muscle in my moment of chimped up competitiveness, but all is well, the physio has laughed at me, advised and loaned out the hot wheat bag thingy.

As charged

I feel so guilty.  Such neglect.  After last Wednesday night's bike ride I have done very little.  Well, to be fair, I have cleaned the mountain bike, pumped up its tyres and oiled its chain, even sparing a little lube for the hybrid ... just because I could.  But somehow I have failed to get out on the bike at all ever since.

It's a litany of excuses which make me blench slightly.

• Thursday - Oh, I won't cycle to work because I'm going to cycle to the Lowry tonight to go to the Roger McGough performance. 
• Thursday evening - don't feel like cycling.  Won't.
• Friday - Oh, I won't cycle to work because I'm going straight from work to the Take That concert which doesn't finish until late and I'm worried about leaving the bike somewhere safe all that time ...
• Saturday - Oh, I've got a naughty girl letter from the council about my allotment, best I prioritise that over the bike.
• Sunday was a classic.  Sunday, bike outside house, Jason and his bike outside the house, all looking very promising indeed.  I shut the door.  Jason asks do you have your house keys.  I say yes, check my pocket and imagine a look of horror came over my face.  Locked out without house keys, his spare set and my set both inside.  Dammit.  Efforts instead went into sorting out how to access my home, ending up both bikes wheels off, and in Jason's car (thankfully he did have his car keys), and travelling to the other side of town to acquire the spare set from my guinea pig sitter.  Got home feeling drained,  humiliated ... oh, and it started raining.
• Monday, I don't think I even bothered to find an excuse.
• Tuesday the weather forecast for this afternoon looks horrid.

So there we go, take a bow, the queen of excuses.

Unfamiliar machine

The unfamiliarity of my bikes has been a little odd this week.  Trying not to find it reminiscent of my fairly long departed husband's first symptoms of his brain tumour where he just instinctively felt his spanners were in someway "wrong".  It's a disconcerting feeling, a familiar friend turning into something just a little alien, not unfriendly or threatening but different.

This, however, with reference to my bikes is easily explained.  The hybrid has new tyres and the ride is not just bumpier due to the fact I have actually got them at a reasonable pressure, but also "twitchy", although I am re-training my brain to think responsive instead of twitchy.  It's taken a little adjusting to, and a mile or two before I felt the confident 95% in control feeling I generally have on the hybrid which is a safe old sofa of a thing.

Yesterday I got on the mountain bike.  Not to climb any mountains (none of those where I live) but just to do some muddy trails.  Getting on that bike after having done more riding on the hybrid is always a surprise.  I feel crouched over the bike, like I've somehow overgrown the handlebars, and yes the front end feels very "twitchy" (ok, ok responsive) in comparison to the hybrid.  It's just different dimensions and I settle down quite quickly.  The worst thing about getting on it is the realisation that I'm now seriously cycling.  This is completely due to the change in saddle.  The hybrid has an amazing arm chair thing going on. It is wide and it is gel padded and frankly I would challenge anyone to find it uncomfortable.  The MTB has a thin hard saddle which is perfectly fine and comfortable and fitting for me provided I get my posture right.  I'm sure it's good for me, but nonetheless always comes as a surprise.

Yesterday was a first for me.  My bike riding is generally restricted to a) travel from A to B or b) fun, getting out on the hills or challenging myself over whacky terrain.  Yesterday I got on the mountain bike for a purpose unheard of before.  I got on it for "training".  Gasp.  What is this training of which you speak?  Frankly I felt I hadn't stretched my body for quite some time, and worried I was losing fitness.  So, deliberately and knowingly, I got on the bike with the ambition of getting in a minimum of an hour of heavy breathing, preferably with some leg hurting work to accompany it.  Nice to find a relatively free traffic ride, but weird trying to find any kind of lung exercise in a very very flat track.  Oooh, I think I can find a link to my route ...

Ah yes, here we go: http://www.cycle-route.com/Worsley flat loop.  And by the end of it, all was well.  Very well indeed.

Main Mechanic

I find mechanical issues frustrating.  There's an angry woman inside my head doesn't really understand why I don't already have the mental tool kit to handle the simple thing called bike mechanics.  Something missing perhaps in my upbringing, those lessons in fine tuning gears were as missing as were the lessons on applying make up and using hair straighteners.

So, it was really quite a feat for me to take the brave step of purchasing new tyres and new inner tubes for the Trek Hybrid commuter bike.  The bike is possibly 8 years old, maybe a little more, and is indeed on its original set of tyres, although inner tubes have come and gone as needs and punctures dictate.  The bike started to feel a little sloppy in handling like the road and bike and indeed tyre and wheel were looking to part company, and although some of this can be attributed to lack of air in tyres, it did seem reasonable to look at a replacement programme. 

Is there something in a man's head which makes replacement of tyres a really simple job of just going to shop, picking them off the shelf, taking home and fitting to bike?  For me, not so much.  For me it's a carefully considered research, using online reviews, and finally posting on message forums to gather in thoughts and opinions.  Only after a matter of days am I in a position to purchase.  Then of course I need to find the best price.  Finally the new tyres and new inner tubes arrive.  Now, being a self declared numpty as far as mechanical aptitude is concerned, I have from somewhere deep in my brain dredged up some information about rubber deteriorating over time; hence the new inner tube decision.

I was going to fit them myself.  Of course I was.  But as there happened to be a bloke in the house itching to get his Christmas present Leatherman out it was a no brainer to make it a joint effort.  The joy of this is that I could offer helpful criticism.  Lots of helpful criticism.  And sound pompous.  Oh, you really want to start work taking off the tyre at the same place as the valve. etc. etc. etc. Surprised I didn't get a Leatherman inserted somewhere quite painful.

Tyres fitted, and then we read the instructions.  How much pressure?  Wow.  The tyres are as tight as a botox forehead.  Amazing, and I can feel every piece of gravel on the road.  The front mudguard however on yesterday's trial run is rubbing against the tyre which pre-empts possible future disaster of creating hole in tyre and of course adding to the resistance which frankly I don't need.  Lots of frustrating attempts to adjust mudguard, all kinds of tools out (no hammer though), and eventually I just remove the damned mudguard.  It is summer, after all.