samuri.co.uk

I’m waiting for a lot of things. Some are secret, some aren’t.

Non-secret things are….

Bike somewhere between Germany and here, for me.

Kaffenbike to replaced the sadly broken Roly, awaiting new stock.

My son’s bike, currently on it’s way to Newcastle, I will collect in a week or so.

Some sort of justice in the world.

I should expand on a few things.

Roly snapped, I’m quite sad. He was a good bike. Very fast, very light, but quite clearly, not really up to samuri abuse standards.

A pity, but I need a touring bike for summer and I need a bike for now so I think for a bit, Ribble are doing very cheap alu frames with scratches at the moment, and then I figured a Kaffenback, a steel hardcore road frame from Planet X would do a nice job. After all, they’re supposed to be cross bike capable. Obviously they’re out of stock. Ho hum.

‘End or April, start of May’ they say. few weeks off then. I can ride my Chameleon till then but a singlespeed mountain bike isn;ty the best for racking up mileage, I could buy a cheap ribble frame and have a bike back tomorrow evening but I reckon it’d be false economy. I’ll wait for the planet X,  A few weeks of mountainbiking coming up then I guess, until my german bike arrives.

Jump to justice in the world and I really shouldn’t be saying this where I can be traced but… I helped a neighbour move house over the weekend. Now I offered a while ago so can’t complain too much but it was *really* hard sitting in the cab of the lorry as we were driving along listening to him slag off cyclists and cycle lanes and the like.

JESUS! you know I’m a very keen cyclist, and then when I’m helping you shift a shitload of furniture, something which took up my entire weekend and I’ve done completely free, you’d think you’d at least have the manners to respect a few things. But apparently not. A few pointers then.

Cycle lanes are designed by the council, not cyclists. Councils get grants to create cycle lanes, so they create loads, they don’t do it to keep cyclists safe, they do it to keep the money coming in.
Every single cyclist in front of you, is one less car in front of you. That’s an important one.
Yes, each road user group has shit users in it, cyclists included, try not to tar the entire group with the same brush. As far as I can tell, all the people you hate are shit road users and woiuld be shit in a car, a van or a lorry, just because they’re on a bike does not make representative of all cyclists.

Oh, and the generally accepted term for ‘paki’s’ is actually asians, or as in the case in question, ‘Britons’.

HTH.

Bike: Roly
Distance: 44 miles

Took my bike up to Newcastle and very glad I did too.

Back to hotel, got changed and out by 6pm. Headed down to the Tyne at Wallsend, investigated the Hadrian way and other cycle paths running alongside the river, didn’t take me long to determine that they’re all full off broken glass and youths until they get near the city centre. Rode up to the Millenium Bridge, looked at all the pretty girls, over the bridge and then caned it up through Gateshead and Low fell to the angel. Realised then I;d forgotten my camera, never mind. Carried on through Bisley and then up a fairly big hill to STanley, cracking views across the hills to Newcsatle from there.

Back down towards Newcastle, long hill. My secondary rear light fell off at this stage and a car drove over it before I could recover it. Plus my bike started making some fairly worrying noises. Proper loud creaking. I hope Roly isn’t broke. I’ll check things out when I get home. Got lost and chased down a cycling guy on a proper nice carbon bike to ask him the way home. He sorted me out, nice guy. Back over to Gateshead through the Metro centre, through a well dodgy estate, over the little swing bridge under the Tyne Bridge and then back to the Hotel through Jesmond (more pretty girls – bit young though, all uni students) and Benton.

Ace, ace ride. Great weather if a little windy and much further than I anticipated. The hill leading up to Stanley is a nice climb too. Pity about my back light and I am worried about that creaking. Hope it’s the bottom bracket or a pedal.

Got back to the hotel, packed the bike back into the car, had a pint and then went to my room to watch Goodfellas while eating my rock and roll lifestyle meal, some cheap pre-cooked pasta from ASDA.

I get 26  quid a night for meals and things you know. It’s up to me how I spend it so I normally just call in at ASDA on the way back to the hotel and spend about 7 quid on cheap food. It’s getting very tedious now though. I wish there were some nice restaurants near the hotel, (the hotel food isn’t very good at all).  I could drive to a restaurant and I should do this I think once or twice a month. Actually I could easily drive to the retail park down the road, get something nice to eat and go and watch a cinematic film once a month. Yes.

The money for my new bike has finally been transferred, very excited now. Estimated delivery date is the 27th. Not sure if they intend to fly it over or ship it but hopefully everything will be back to normal by then anyway.

Bike: Roly
Distance: 29 miles

Very, very windy. At first I thought it would be one of those rides where the wind is always in your face but then I reached Blackrod and turned for home. WOOOOTTT!!!! Massive tailwind. I reached 45mph past Blackrod school and that’s not a particularly steep hill. Then I was keeping up with all the cars going through Wingates and eventually exploded on the hill up to the Chequers roundabout, gathereed my breath for a few hundred metres and then caned it round scaring all the drivers followed by a nice relaxing ride down the country lanes back to Atherton.

I expected the ride to be shit but it was ace! That’s 89 miles for the week already! If I can get out tonight as well I’ll be super chuffed.

I can’t remember being this excited about buying a new bike before.

Bike: Van Tuyl
Distance:30 miles

I say 30 miles but I reckon it was further. We rode a lot. Very short breaks. Only 7 of us, so crazy busy.  Only one properly fast lad too, I could take him if required.Bit easy but still good.

Bike: Chameleon
Distance: 30 miles

Nipped out for a nice offroad ride and bumped into Tim, Geoff and Vaughan at the pike so we carried on riding together. Great ride, weather was perfect, the trails were dry, dusty and very fast, good company and my new merino wool jersey from on-one seemed to do it’s job very well. As did my contact lenses and new riding glasses. I am loving this state of affairs with the lenses. It’s great.

Chameleons rock, obviously.

Bike: Roly
Distance: 24 miles

We set off to the Velodrome this morning to find it has been closed today. Looks like the painting they’ve been doing has taken longer than expected. Hope it’s open tomorrow, that’s my SQT day! Anyway, so we got home and went out for a father-son ride, and very nice it was too. Lovely and sunny and for the very first time ever I wore my contact lenses and some proper cycling glasses. It was way cool. I looked like a big insect. Sweet!

My wife has been out all day doing girly things so no proper long ride afterwards. No matter, that’s about 140 miles for the week which is fine by me.

Bike: Roly
Distance: 29 miles

Uneventful and fairly relaxed road ride. Nice sunset mind.

Bike: Roly
Distance: 31 and 30 miles

First ride was great! All round Parbold and Up Holland and the like. I never knew how pretty it all was round there. Loads of nice climbs and little streets and stuff, wellrecommened. I’ll be doing that again. Noticed a police van hidden in a little car park on top of a hill, clearly trying to stop dogging, spoilsports. Took me right back to my early morning commute I used to do when I’d regularly come across a couple of blokes giving each other head in their car….errm as it were.

In other news I’ve been having terrible trouble buying a new road bike. You’d think something so pleasurable would be fun but it’s becoming a right ballache.

Is it so hard to find a decent steel or alloy frame with Ultegra groupset and decent wheels that have more than 12 spokes for a grand? Apparently so.  I’ll nip to some proper roadie shops I think and see what they can offer me but at the moment, this beauty (and very bargainous it is too), is top of my list. Unfortunately I can;t show a picture direct because their website is flash or something.

http://www.canyon.com/_en/roadbikes/bike.html?b=1819

It looks great and has full Ultegra. Not brilliant wheels but better than most nowadays. the only real issue is it’s German so if it screws up it becomes very hard work.

Bike: Roly
Distance: 37 miles

Great ride, especially since I thought I’d not get out at all today due to family stuff.

Got home from visiting about 17:00, had a nap for half an hour and then decided to go out for a ride. headed out in a completely different direction than normal and ecided to ride over to Parbold. it’s really quite nice over there, in places. Down Parbold Hill at warp speed, over to Skelmersdale (that’s not nice in any places), Up Holland, Orrell, Bryn, home. Sweet!