Hot and muggy last night so we slept with the bedroom window open. So I was woken several times by torrential rain and howling gales. So I slept through my alarm this morning. When I eventually scraped myself out of bed, I took one look at the weather and decided to put on some extra layers before venturing out on my bike, but of course it was still very muggy despite the wind and rain, so it turned out I was rather overdressed and ended up extremely sweaty. And to top it all, I missed my train so was late to work.
It's the first time I've been out in properly wet conditions since fitting the Kool Stop dual compound brake blocks and first impressions are a bit mixed. They seem to offer absolutely no grip at all at first but then suddenly
lots of grip (presumably once they've "ploughed" the water off the rim). That's something I'm going to have to get used to. Quickly.
Unlike Ham, I saw few other bikes out this morning, but the bike store at work was about half full so there are at least a few reasonably hardy souls among my colleagues. As usual, the wet conditions seemed to turn lots of motorists into even bigger morons than usual. Among the most notable incidents, I was nearly taken out by a taxi driver outside Victoria Station who decided to cut across the road from the taxi rank to go into the station itself without so much as a glance behind (probably distracted by the newspaper he was reading at the time
- I really should have taken his number or something, but couldn't be arsed), and then I was nearly taken out by another taxi driver on Victoria Street who decided to do a U-turn without looking what was coming the other way first.
Note to self: now would be a good time to oil your chain, like you meant to do over the weekend, you idiot.
d.
