samuri.co.uk

Bike: Pimpino
Distance: 26 miles

Great ride! A load of snow dumped down over night and I felt I should get out in it before it either melted or got packed down and turned to ice despite my knee giving me plenty of pain. So I popped a couple of ibuprofen down my gullet and off I went. Everything looked brilliant. I took way too many pictures. Only a few were worth keeping though.

Off up to Rivington, spotted quite a few riders about, one guy on a green singlespeed and another chap on a municycle!

This new Maxis tyre is great, very grippy and it’s not so wide that it rubs on the stays like the continental did. No punctures neither today, which was nice.

More pictures on my flickr page as usual.

Bike: pimpino
Distance:25 miles

At last! A proper ride out on the bike, and well worth it too. It was great! Really enjoyed myself despite it being very windy and very cold. My hands on the way back were blocks of ice. Pimpino is now running perfectly for the time being. The new Maxis rear tyre is very fast and grippy too. Great ride, long may it continue.

edit: Oh how typical. I’ve woken up with my knee on fire. Great! No riding bikes today then.

Distance: 1 mile

Another swim. I’ve put 1 mile but it was actually 2200 metres. I was going to aim for two miles but my neck started hurting because my swimming technique blows (sic). I do the front crawl and I’ve never been able to breathe on my right hand side so I have to breath on my left every 4th stroke. I should fix that really, actually learn how to swim properly rather than just splashing through the water like a wounded hippo. (I’m being a bit unfair to myself here, I’m usually the quickest in the pool and I’m usually the one swimming the furthest – Actually, just like everything I do, I’m typically near the front for distance and speed but because I’ve no idea how to do things properly this is usually just a result of brute force and stuborness rather than any skill – I should learn how to do at least one thing properly in my life before I die. Sounds like a target to set myself). I’ll ask the question at the idiot place, see what they think.

Pool was empty tonight after 8 and all the aerobics ladies had got out. Just me, a girl and a bloke and the girl moved to the slow pool after I’d caught her a couple of times (No need for her to have done that though, she was pretty quick and with only three of us in the lane it wasn’t an issue, especially since she, unlike a lot of swimmers, actually stopped at the end to let people past if she felt she was holding people up.) I can understand ladies not being very keen on having blokes queueing up behind them in the pool though, the chap behind does get a birds eye view of the person in front’s crotch and although I try to be very gentlemanly about it and look at the floor, when I know I’m close to someone I have to keep looking forwards to make sure I don’t crash into them.

Swim
Distance: 1 mile

Yeah, yeah. A swim’s not a ride, but expect a lot more of them if things continue as they are. I’ve not ridden a bike for 9 days now, looks like my new job is going FANTASTICALLY. I expected at this point to be bored stiff at work but to have a hundred superb photos ready for processing, have a terribly sore arse from riding my bike far too much, have half a novel already in draft form and be especially relaxed and laid back. It went wrong somewhere. I’m actually typing this from an office in Newcastle, that I can get to my website is a miracle in itself, our security policy obviously hasn’t yet managed to come down on that one but give it time. 

You’ll notice I said the word ‘Newcastle’ too. I might have mentioned the word ‘Blackpool’ also. These are places my new company has been telling me to go, a lot.  And neither of them are very close to my house. In fact, at least one of them is a fucking long way away. Out of 12 working days with this company, I’ve spent 5 of them away from home with many more to come. What a great choice I made. The being bored bit was a laugh too, so were the suggestions that I’d be working from home half the time,   as well as being the last one in the office if I was still here at 3pm on Fridays. They work flexitime here and staff of my grade get to monitor their own and take it when they feel the need which is great because in 12 days I’ve already notched up two days flexitime because of the hours I’m working but I can see no obvious time I can take them.

So I’m stopping in a hotel on an industrial park in West Newcastle which only has a bar and a (free) gym to keep me amused at night so I’m going with the gym for the time being. I’ll try for another mile tonight, maybe bring my bike up next week and try scouting around (at night) to see what riding is worthwhile. I’m assuming riding over to the coast which is only a couple of miles away and then riding up and down that will be the best bet. We’ll see. I’m told there are some very rough areas over that way. It’ll be like being back at home.

Bike: Pimpino
Distance: 26 miles

I did intend to go for a proper long ride but various incidents sapped my will to ride any further so I turned for home like a gayer.

Incident 1.
Impressively close to my house this one. I was riding along Wigan road towards Borsdane woods and needed to turn right into a side road. Checked over my shoulder, there’s a Zafira miles away coming towards me, no problem. Nothing coming the other way so I stick my right hand out for a second or two. Check over my shoulder again, the Zafira is closer but still loads of room so I move into the middle of the road, hand still out. I approach the junction and just as I’m about to make the turn I do a lifesaver[1] and as I’m turning my head the zafira clips my fingertips of my right hand. He’s FUCKING OVERTAKEN ME! I nearly shit myself it was so unexpected. I mean, it’s not really unexpected, it is sunday morning so all the god botherers are driving off to their mornings hypocrisy but FUCK! I shouted a string of obscenities after him but I doubt he even noticed. I was properly shaken for ten minutes afterwards. Daft old twat.

[1] Lifesaver – For those not in the know, you should be. It’s taught in motorcycle and cycle proficiency classes and it’s a look over your shoulder just before you turn just in case SOME STUPID HALF ASLEEP OLD CUNT WITH HIS HEAD IN THE CLOUDS decides to overtake you despite you signalling right because for some reason what you’re doing is of no importance to him. The fact that you’re highly likely to turn right in front of him and go straight under his car is clearly too difficult for him to anticipate.

Incident 2
This is actually a series of incidents. Has the snow and ice gone round your way? It has round ours mostly but Borsdane woods is 2 miles of sheet ice covering the entire path. I lost count of how many falls I had. I was getting very bored with coming off by the end. Plus I’ve apparentl forgotten how to speak Wigan as at least three blokes talked to me, presumably to impart their opinion of me trying to ride a bike along a river of bumpy ice and I couldn’t understand any of them. (That’s not really an incident, more of an observation)

Incident 3
This was really the decider. ANOTHER FUCKING PUNCTURE!!!! That’s 4 in three rides. Piss off. And these Halo rims are quite narrow so once the tyre starts to lose pressure the tyre squirms around like crazy. Need to find what’s doing it today.

In other news….

I’ve finally got a storage hook at the Velodrome, not that I’m going much at the moment but it means I can stop all that messing about with carting the bike backwards and forwards when I do go. It’s a right earner for the drome too. They’ve turned someone’s office into a storage room, lets say they can get 50 bikes in there, they charge £100 for each hook for a year (and they go lightning fast – the girl phoned while I was out on my bike to say there were only 25 left from the original 50 and when I phoned back about an hour later there was only 5 left).  So that’s 5 grand a year for a room that would normally be stood empty. And they don’t have to bother heating it any more.

I still haven’t sorted most of the site out neither. I must admit, I’m struggling to understand why the header image won’t display, I’d best have a look at that now.

Bike : Pimpino
Distance : 27 miles

Well I’m doing very poorly so far. Snow and job and that. It’s interesting. I took a job to give me more free time to ride my bike and stuff and I’m riding less, WTF??!! We’ll talk more about my new job later, and believe me, it’s not all good.

Back to the ride then. Fucking fast is a good 2 word summation. I reckon I clocked a 20mph average here, and this is on a fixed wheel cross bike *which had a slow puncture for the last 4 miles!!*. But I loved it all. The first three milesor so were BALLS OUT!!! It was ace! I could hardly breath at the end of it but I had a good 15 minutes of skimming car bumpers, slipstreaming large vehichles and generally putting the shits up a group of placid drivers who think they can pretty much ignore cyclists.

NO MF! We’re here, we’re fast and I WILL be right up your arse unless traffic is light.

This is the third puncture in the same place over two rides.The tubes seemto have a small holeon the inside, like it’s something on the the rim that’s causing it but I’ve spent a good twenty minutes rubbing my hand over the troublesome area and can find nothing. If iot happens again I’ll pullthe rim tape off and check again.

Pimpino is running splendid at the moment, loving it.
Job not running splendid, in fact I’d leave now if I had something to go to. I’m rapidly determining that public sector is not for me. How people work in that environment all their lives is beyond me. I’ll stick it for say….three months, just to make sure I’m not missing anything but after that I’ll whore myself out to the biggest payer.

Anyone got ‘em?

How much fun was it? Got a tooth coming out on Monday (again), it’s near enough to the front to be visible so faced with the option of

1. Looking less beautiful than I do now
2. False teeth
3. Bridge
4. Implant

I’m going for option 4. Clearly I’m passing down the path of greatest masochistic impact both to my wallet (you could buy a *really* nice bike for that much!) and to my rapidly dwindling patience for the succession of european dentists that seem to be rotated daily at our surgery, not to mention the sheer bowel loosening pain that the procedure entails as the aforementioned Spaniard/Irish/Hungarian dentists fressh out of dentist school slashes randomly away at my gum with a scalpel to expose the bone before drilling a dirty great titanium bolt in.

It’s a well known fact that I can’t make any plane journey without being identified as ‘fairly suspicious’ and being subjected to one of the standard body searches ranging from ‘a good old fondle of the crotch’ to ‘violently intrusive cavity search’ but after this procedure I’m sure I’ll be setting off the metal detectors every time I try going on holiday to the extent where the question ‘why is dad walking funny?’ is no needed.

Maybe I should just live with the gap, it probably won’t be long before another tooth needs coming out and I can hardly afford to spend £1200 each time the dentist needs to top up his Bahamas fund.

It wouldn’t be quite so galling (ok, well it would but it’s a nice opener), if they hadn’t *just* spent over an hour drilling away at this particular tooth and glueing a fake one on top of the root. You’d think before undertaking such a process they’d check that it was worth doing. I mean, you’d have to be a pretty poor professional to fix a crown and then say it all needed to come out a few months down the line. Obviously when I say ‘you’d’ and ‘then say’ I’m suggesting that this might actually be the same individual who carried out both actions which clearly isn’t true. No, my surgery uses the ‘British Gas blame disemination’ technique which involves ensuring that each and every engineer that visits your property (or mouth), is always an entirely different individual from the last and indeed, any previous visits. It’s entirely feasible that the person that installs your condensing pipe in the afternoon, is a completely different one from the chap who ripped out your boiler in the morning.

“Oh no, only Bob can install pipes, I’m a boiler remover.”

You get to the stage where you can’t even remember which dentist has done which shoody piece of tom foolery in your mouth (even if you could you’d be struggling to remember if it was Armdando or Armundo) and then the receptionist will roll her eyes at her colleague to say ‘he can’t even remember which dentist he had, anything he says from this point onwards can be ignored’, and end up angrily having to pay up for being royally rogered all for keeping a smile on your face.

This is hilarious.

Sleeptalkinman

Bike:Pimpino
Distance: 27 miles

Excellent ride, really quite good. Very snowy on the ground though and hard work like crazy in places. Met Vortex Racing from STW and many others, seem like nice people.

Click the pictures for more.

In other news….
Boiler is now working. Three days without heat or hot water was interesting. Surprisingly the lack of heat wasn’t a major issue despite it being very cold. Just wrap up warm and put two pairs of socks on. We could save a fortune in money and energy if we all did the same. Bit crap not being able to get a shower though. It was fantastic coming home and seeing the steam coming out of the condensing pipe, I rushed upstairs and had a nice long hot shower. The cause? British Gas installed the drain pipe horizontally so the water collected in it and froze. Thanks. The fix? British Gas came and cut the pipe off. Thanks.

I start work at my new job tomorrow. Bit nervous, I’m worried I won’t like it but we’ll see.

Also my son gained his youth accreditation at the track on Saturday, well chuffed I am, hope he keeps being interested in that. He’s starting to get quite good and while it clearly needs a fair degree of parental and financial commitment to pursue a hobby on the track, I’m right behind him.

I think that’s it. Oh, I’m still making changes to the site so bear with it, no doubt the site won’t work sometimes as I battle with some simple html/css format but tough shit basically. I don’t think anyone will really care to be honest.

Bike: Crosslight
Distance: 15 miles

Oh dear, not going so well so far. Very snowy and difficult to ride into day but still a lot of fun. And now our boiler has packed in so no rides until that’s sorted, brrr it’s cold in here, best drink more alcohol to keep the cold off.