samuri.co.uk

Bike: pimpino
Distance: 31 miles

Commute. See below. It absolutely chucked it down the entire ride in. I was completely drenched when I got there. My coat, shoes, gloves and helmet were all still sopping wet when I left work too despite being in a reasonably warm room. Lovely putting them back on although the coat went into my bag because of course, it was quite sunny. Obviously the wind had changed direction too and was now back in my face for the return journey.

I got to work at 7, buy the time I got out of the shower at twenty past, two other cyclists were in the changing room. When I went past the bike shed at twelve, there were 4 bikes racked up and three more just leant against  the wall which was a bit bizarre. It is a site campus but it’s completely open, anyone can drive in and have a root about and bike theft has been reported in the past. Mind you, two of them were older than me. There’s another bike shed round the corner with plenty of space in it, if you get in late, just lock your bike up there surely?

Anyway, this mass of bikes had me worried about queues for the showers so I asked one of the blokes who works in my office what was the normal case and he said he’d never seen so many cyclists on one day but confirmed that arriving around 7 would always guarantee both showers be empty and they never usually got busy before 8:30. he also confirmLd that after the summer months nobody cycled in.

Leaving a copy of Singletrackworld out on my desk has done the trick too. I now know all the cyclists in the office as they all saw the magazine and stopped for a chat. There’s actually quite a few including the IT director . Funny that leaving a copy of the ride out on my desk didn;t work like that….

Great ride home too, no incidents of note although I want to change the bit through Newton, this new method may give me an extra mile and some more offroad (cyclepath), but the right hand turn in the town centre is crazy. Big line of cars behind me (obviously they start undertaking as soon as I indicate right), big queue of cars coming the other way, none of whom are prepared to let me cross although they will let cars go, (they must all be going home to Leigh), so I want to try and find something that avoids it altogether. Back to streetmap.

Edit: A negative defecit still dances tantalisingly just out of reach. each time I think i’m going to get it I miss a few days or it rains the entire Atlantic oceaon on me or I’m told out of the blue that we’re spending the entire weekend somewhere not very fun and it drags up again. Plus we have a 2 week holiday coming up where I’ll not be doing any riding. I need to commute more often.