On the commute today

[fuzzy]

Had a great view of a roadie being nearly wiped out by a Jerk inna Merc on Marlow High Street.

delivery lorry parked and taking up the opposite lane. Roadie is just drawing adjacent to the lorry when the Jerk coming the other way spies a parking space opposite the lorry. he goes for it, completely ignoring/ oblivious to the presence of the roadie.

Jerk heard me call him a cnut as I passed. Roadie was having palpitations.

[matthew]

Me for the first time in too long. Since getting a car I hadn't ridden to the office* but todays weather was just too good.


*n.b. I have only been in my base office for about 10 days in 10 weeks so there haven't been that many opportunities to ride in.

[Moultonaught]

glorious commute in Oxfordshire/Bucks borders and then across London in the sunshine on the new fixed commuter.  I'm really enjoying riding fixed again. My legs aren't feeling the change to regular fixed riding as much as my (lack of) core muscles which are having to work in ways they are not used to 

[Si S]

Cruising along and got passed by the Warrington road club guy and I let him go, he got stuck at the temporary lights so I was about 3 cars back when they changed and could see put him in an effort to close the gap to the tractor in front and I thought 'I'll have a bit of that', massive effort to get on his wheel but he graciously towed me up to the tractor and we enjoyed a nice social cruise all the way to Stretford.

[TheLurker]

See also "Today's Motorised Moron".

In other news, lovely close view of a heron as I rode over the bridge at Quenington and a stunningly bright (in full sun by then) large roe deer out by Poulton fields.

[Si S]

I had a bit of an extended commute as I had to pick up some bike bits, very nice cruise along the bridgewater canal, apart from the punctures but the goo took care if it and I had just had to top the rear. Really felt the lack of a water bottle by the time I got home.

Not a lot in the legs this morning

[hatler]

I'm delighted to say that I should be contributing to this thread on a meaningful basis once again fairly soon.

[Jakob W]

Congratulations! OTOH, sorry to hear your professional ski tour bum plan didn't work out

[Jurek]

That sounds like excellent news, Hatler.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Not an actual commute (although it did take me back to my "office") but being out just after 8 a.m. on a weekday on familiar roads is interesting. In a good way. More bikes than cars queueing at the lights!

[hatler]

Congratulations! OTOH, sorry to hear your professional ski tour bum plan didn't work out

Yeah. That's a real bummer. I could have done with a foot loose and fancy free season in the hills.

[hatler]

That sounds like excellent news, Hatler.

Not only excellent, but also rather necessary. There's only so long one can live on a redundo payout. The slightly scary thing is that it's slap bang in the middle of the City. All my previous cyclo-commuting was heading away from the Big Smoke.

[Jurek]

That sounds like excellent news, Hatler.

Not only excellent, but also rather necessary. There's only so long one can live on a redundo payout. The slightly scary thing is that it's slap bang in the middle of the City. All my previous cyclo-commuting was heading away from the Big Smoke.

I'm sure that you'll be fine - though I must confess I'm glad my commute is mostly against the flow...

[hatler]

Anything to get my legs working again on a regular basis has to be good.

[PaulF]

I'm delighted to say that I should be contributing to this thread on a meaningful basis once again fairly soon.

Great news!

[simonp]

Not today but yesterday - a 60 mile round trip.

[Steph]

Seen today on a ride into Crawley, outside Costa's in the County Mall: a servicing stand. Pillar with two arms for hanging up a bike, with tools on wires and a track pump bolted to the ground. Great and welcome idea; I give it a maximum life of two weeks before destruction.

[Kim]

Seen today on a ride into Crawley, outside Costa's in the County Mall: a servicing stand. Pillar with two arms for hanging up a bike, with tools on wires and a track pump bolted to the ground. Great and welcome idea; I give it a maximum life of two weeks before destruction.

Seems like an odd place for one.  Usually they're the sort of thing you find in cycle hubs (which confusingly aren't something you build a wheel around) and on railway stations where they're trying to win a cycles-not-actually-travelling-by-rail award.

[Steph]

It's right by the Sheffield stands, which were actually reduced in number so the coffee shop could extend outside the Mall to cater for junkies.

[TimO]

Seen today on a ride into Crawley, outside Costa's in the County Mall: a servicing stand. Pillar with two arms for hanging up a bike, with tools on wires and a track pump bolted to the ground. Great and welcome idea; I give it a maximum life of two weeks before destruction.

They installed a couple of those, outside of our bike storage areas.  The pumps didn't work for very long, because they don't bother with actually replacing the seals.  The tools sort of work, but are painfully difficult to use, because of the heavy duty cabling.  There is some use, in times of desperation, but 99% of those involve the need for a pump, which they virtually never sort out.

At one point, they replaced a failed pump with a much heavier duty one.  That lasted longer, before failing due to a lack of any maintenance.

[Steph]

Well, the POBscrotes on BSOs were riding round it and trying to see if they could jerk the cables free...

[TimO]

Well, the POBscrotes on BSOs were riding round it and trying to see if they could jerk the cables free...

It would be rare-ish to see scrotes on BSOs in South Ken, and even less likely on Campus.  If they did appear, Security may notice them, and chase them off eventually, so I doubt our work stands would provide them with enough amusement.

There's actually a proper work-stand, provided by the BUG, at the back of the bike store, but apparently even their pump was knackered, the last time I talked to someone about it. 

[Si S]

I really should know by now to test whatever is you've fettled before the first commute of the week. I fitted a new shifter on Saturday so the old one could go to torslanda with the rest of the goodies for a new commuter, obviously didn't seat the gear cable properly and only had the top few gears so a delay while roadside indexing occurred.

[sg37409]

1st sandals commute, yeh ! 

Got a head shake from another commuter for stopping in a traffic queue I presume and forced him to wobble around me. Auch well. 

[DuncanM]

Yesterday's commutes were much faster than normal - hanging onto the team TT guys with the club has clearly made me faster! Exceptionally hot, and very little traffic (presumably down to school holidays).
As I overtook a dad and 2 kids I got told to tuck in - dad thought I was his son riding in the middle of the road! He apologised, but I thought it was funny.