On the commute today

[SoreTween]

Moist

[ian]

Very moist.

I may have dried out by the weekend.

Idiot in a chavmobile tried to throw some litter at me. He missed, on a account of the passenger window being mostly closed. Top tip, when attempting to chuck stuff out of the window, make sure it's open.

[Andrij]

Yesterday
Having cycled over 1,000km in June, and 600km over the first 9 days of July, I convinced myself I'd earned a day off and took the Tube.  I felt fine, just wanted a day off

Today
Got on the bike.  Had a couple of wobbles, then started feeling paranoid.  Movements of other vehicles and pedestrians I'd never think of twice were filling me with dread.  After just over a kilometre I turned back for home - couldn't face a 40km round trip in such a state.    No idea what's gotten into me, but hope it's passed by tomorrow.

[TigaSefi]

The tube is full of people being ill!!

[SteveC]

Yesterday evening (apart from being moist as several have pointed out) was notable for being overtaken (by a car) just once. It was very quiet.

[Andrij]

I got back on my bicycle today, and survived.

The commute was far from the most enjoyable I've ever had, and the tight right turns filled me with dread rather than the usual worry, but no wobbles and no panic.  No idea what got into my head yesterday, but it's obviously on the way out!

[DuncanM]

As I was stuffing my waterproof into my pocket in Abingdon someone with a bike approached me and asked if I had a puncture repair kit. After turning his bike upside down and fighting with the "quick release" (made distinctly un-quick by the lawyer lips), he then basically stood back and let me sort out the wheel - snakebite puncture, probably from going up a kerb. I found the hole by listening, roughed up, stuck on Park glueless patch, tube in, tyre on and pumped up medium hard (my mini pump could only produce a certain throughput of air, and it wouldn't seal perfectly on his valve stem, not helped by the wonky screw in bit). 10 minutes all in.
That's my good deed for the week!

[TheLurker]

Good... and bad.  Starting with the good.  Got to watch the Patrouille Suisse practicing their display as a I rode home.  They fly the world's prettiest fighter jet, bar none; the Northrop F5 .  Pretty much 2/3rds of my trip - cue much coasting and wobbling over the road. Wheels down as I was half a mile off home.

The bad, or at least the icky.  Got an unintended game of slug tennis* this morning.  Left calf splattered with squashed slug.  Ewww.  Thank goodness for workplace showers.


* See French Revolutions: Cycling the TdF by Tim Moore.

[TheLurker]

After turning his bike upside down...

Burn the heretic!! 

[DuncanM]

After turning his bike upside down...

Burn the heretic!! 

I couldn't refuse to help him at that point, even if I had wanted to!

[Andrij]

I nearly ended up in a police report today.  Coasting toward a red light, I moved over toward the kerb as I heard sirens behind me.  Suddenly I hear the roar of an engine, and think "emergency vehicles slow down at junctions, not speed up".  The the squeal of brakes as a car pulls across the lane, onto the pavement to my left, back onto the road at the junction, turns left.  It was not a police car, but a car the police were chasing.  Gave me quite a fright.

Once I started breathing again I looked behind me for the police.  They had slowed down, and at least one car looked like it was going to turn left down a side street.  Between the layout of the streets in the area and their distance from the junction where the perp turned, I seriously doubt they caught up with him.

[sg37409]

Legs pretty wrecked today after club run last night.  That and the (unusual) headwind today made it a slog.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

I've given up on my Etrex 30. Despite a couple of full resets, it doesn't record/ save tracks any more and loaded tracks are not displayable or even findable on the device, despite being visible in the right locations when connected to a laptop.

Its replacement is HK's Etrex 35, which seems to eat electrons at a great rate of knots. There are some UI hassles to be adapted to. We'll see how it turns out but I may be looking for a non-Garmin alternative down the line.

The last couple of days on fixed have settled that I won't be doing LEL on fixed.

[TheLurker]

Happy bunny.  Mostly side wind and some sections of tail wind on the ride back, but, even more importantly, didn't get held up at a single junction which gave me a sub 53min run and with an average speed a gnat's under 17mph.  I'll take that. 

[CAMRAMan]

Drenched! It pissed down the whole 8 miles. The rain stung my face it was so hard. I poured water out of my shoes and had to wring my socks.

Still better than driving though.

[sg37409]

It rained for me on yesterdays commute, and that was the 1st commute I can remember where I didn't have mudguards. I forgot how crap that was.
Dry but a lot cooler today, steady jog in against the easterly soon warmed me up.

[sg37409]

The Trials of Life by sg310, on Flickr

[DuncanM]

Nice cruise in this morning, until I got about half a mile from work. There was a nearly stationary queue of traffic, so I move over to the gutter so I can see past the traffic (to see if it's going to be worth going on the cycle path). BANG!  hisssss....
I had run over a drain, resulting in sn*k*b*t*s front and back. I guess the slots were wide enough to let the wheel drop through - I was lucky I was going slowly and straight enough that I didn't get thrown off (on the other hand, if the traffic was moving as per normal I wouldn't have been on that bit of the road).
Sigh.

[Si S]

That's two days running I've had to haul the anchors on for the same kamikaze cat, not sure who's using their lives up 

[DuncanM]

Nice cruise in this morning, until I got about half a mile from work. There was a nearly stationary queue of traffic, so I move over to the gutter so I can see past the traffic (to see if it's going to be worth going on the cycle path). BANG!  hisssss....
I had run over a drain, resulting in sn*k*b*t*s front and back. I guess the slots were wide enough to let the wheel drop through - I was lucky I was going slowly and straight enough that I didn't get thrown off (on the other hand, if the traffic was moving as per normal I wouldn't have been on that bit of the road).
Sigh.

I ended up having to get a lift home, because after replacing the back tube with a spare and fixing the front one (the other tube was too far gone), when I went to pump it up (or more precisely, after I had pumped it up), the pump unscrewed the valve core.  I guess I need to add pliers to my bike toolkit, but seriously - what's the point in removable valve cores in an inner tube?

[hatler]

I had two instances of that recently on Mrs hatler's bike so I used a bit of threadlock to secure the inner.

[Salvatore]

On his Tuesday commute home Nuncio managed to remove the wing mirror and number plate of this car, as well as smashing the windscreen and damaging the bonnet. And he smuggled some gravel from the scene by embedding it in his scalp. The car was driven right across his path while he was descending rapidly.



From his description his bike's frame/forks are out of alignment.

Oh, and he has no broken bones, no concussion, just a few stitches in his head, and plenty of cuts, bruises and spectacular grazes.

[hatler]

Ooooooooooooooooof !

[Nuncio]

I'm not sure I damaged the bonnet.

She didn't see me at all, I didn't notice she'd slowed down to turn right into a drive and smear raspberry jam on my pate.

[Si S]

Ouch GWS