Not as far as I wanted to go but this (and further subsequent rides around Newcastle), was merely a data gathering exercise. I need to find out where the fun roads are and where the not so fun roads are first before doing some decent distances.

So, road down to Whitely Bay, ok. Road along to Blyth, ok. A189, FUCKING NIGHTMARE!!! Imagine a motorway with no lights on it. Then think about riding a bike along it. I turned around at that point, my memory based map not being able to remember any more. Back to Blyth, now it started getting proper fun. The road back to Whitley bay was uphill but smooth and the strong tail wind made it so awesome! I was proper caning it along for about 3 miles at 28mph! Up a hill!!! Brilliant! I passed a couple of blokes on bikes going the same way. YEEEHAAA!

Then on to TyneMouth and North Shields and then turned and headed into Newcastle and completed an ambition of mine to approach the Billy Mill roundabout (see Rogers Profanisaurus for explanation) and then headed for Newcastle. Note to self:- A193 into Newcastle is not a fun road. But after nearly dying 17 times I gave up and headed back to the hotel.

Tomorrow Newcastle town centre and maybe up to the other side of Gateshead for the angel of the north.

My GPS ran out of battery power at some point so the mileage is a low estimate. I’d check with tracklogs or memorymap but my DVD is corrupt for the former (this is the first time I’ve tried to use it since I reinstalled windows 7) and the latter has been offline for a few days now. I reckon it’s more like 55 miles but can;t check will one of the other is working. It was a bit nippy though and had to keep moving fast to keep my warmth up. I bumped into an old chap who I;ve met a few times befroe and we had a long chat this time. Roy is his name, rides an ld Colnago frame with a mixture of assorted old and new kit on it. He’s a very nice bloke, a lot like me in a lot of views he has about cars, people who ride bikes, etc etc so we set the world to rights for about alf an hour until I was freezing and set back off again.

Nice day for it though.

I’ve brought Roly up to Newcastle with me this morning too so it’s an early dart today from work and off up the North East coast to start to get my bearings and ideas of distances and times. My target for the moment is Alnwick becaue I’ve been there a few times before but that looks a bit far for a quick night ride. I reckon I’ll keep riding for about 20 miles and see how far I get and then turn round. It has been a *right* hassle getting the bike and all the kit in the car as well as all my work clothes and things.

Plus I’ve gone and left my videos USB stick in the home computer so I’m going to be a bit bored in the evening. Pants!

Hire car is a Mondeo which is pretty good. Report later.

That’s better. I’m starting to pick things up now. It’s having a working roadbike that makes the difference.

Mostly a repeat of Thursday today with some small variations. Faster today and with some bigger downhills. This was achieved with the sun in my face before I lost my bottle at not being able to see where I was going at all and knowing a car was coming up the hill.

Good ride though, still very windy mind. I moved the seat right forwards and my back feels fine now. Road riding rocks.

In other news then….

I need a high performance road bike. I could but a carbon lovely from say planet X for a grand but I dunno, I like steel a lot and I can get some very nice deals on Genesis bikes from a friend so I dunno. Or should I just leave it. It’s a hard choice.  I’m looking for something that can be ridden a long way, steel would be better I reckon.

I’ve started planning my road trip in summer. About a hundred miles a day, head up to Scotland, across to the East coast, back down to East Anglia, across to Wales and then back up to home.  Old school too. Panniers, at least two nights sleeping rough, use youth hostels or similar the rest of the time. Drink proper beer some nights. Just ride, relax, take it easy, see the country.

Also I’ve finally got my home webmail sorted to allow me to read my own mail when I’m at work.this step is critical to allowing me to take up some more intensive activities when I’m bored (which is most of the time at the moment) like bug reporting on linux systems and helping out with linux/security community issues. I’m also looking to set up a home business offering security services to local businesses who want to set up wireless/encryption/firewalls.

I totally rocked! Apart from one bit where I didn’t. Flew up the hills at the start, over to Rivington, up over the tops on the Belmont climb, down into Belmont, turn left at the Black Dog and head over to Withnall, back across to Chorley, Limbrick, reservoirs, Rivington, Horwich, Reebok, almost went home but felt a burst of energy and caned it up to Wingates. Blasted my way up to the Chequerbents roundabout, round it at warp 9, head down the country lane to Atherton, trigger the speed camera after the bridge at 33mph, mini roundabout with my knee out and back home in time for tea. Brilliant.

On the Reebok roudabout there were so many cars coming I had to stop, when A gap appeared I pushed off hard and my foot slipped so I fell onto the bike and my foot came out of the pedal. So there I am, wobbling away, sprawled across the bike, in rush hour, on a major roundabout. Not very many people were impressed, especially the guy who had to drive round it again because I made him miss his junction. oops.

Apart from that though, I felt great.I do feel a bit stretched out on Roly, maybe move the seat forwards all the way. might have to get a shorter/higher stem.

Went down the hotel pool at 8. There was only two lanes! A slow lane and a fast lane. This clearly had left the normal middle lane meanderers in a confused state so they all moved into the fast lane. It say ‘FAST’. At both ends. Look! So I would do a length. Catch the person in front, stand there waiting for them to get maximum distance ahead and then just as the person behind me reached my end, I would set off and then catch the other person again at the other end, repeat. If all the slow people all created a convoy and swam in a big line (since they were all clearly as slow and dangerous as each other) it wouldn’t be such a problem, I’d at least get two lengths before having to stop and wait again but no, they space themselves out equidistance. Added to all this, at least one of them had decided the best place for swimming would be RIGHT DOWN THE FUCKING MIDDLE. Not such a major issue apart from her generous floating aids meant she acted as a sort of crabbing oil tanker which even slowed down the other slow people.

After about 20 lengths I’d had enough and was just getting out when I noticed them all huddle at one end together, have a bit of a conflab and then move en masse to the whirlpool thingy. Great! I got my head down and knocked out a quick 20 more laps. Stopped for a rest and then this girl got in. Now one problem with being a blind gimp is that when I go swimming I can’t see fuck all. I can make out shapes but ask me to read something or identify someone without my nose touching them and you’ll be on a very slow boat to nowheres-ville. So the only thing I could make out was that she was possibly quite pretty and certainly very skinny. Pants, that’ll slow me down. It turns out not. Actually she was shit hot fast. Easily as quick as me in long distance mode and even when I opened it up a bit (to impress her like), she responded in kind and kept away from me for a good 4 or 5 laps. Good swimmer too (way better than my crap technique) and understood lane etiquette. Good girl!

Obviously if she was impressed I’d have no idea and without her actually talking to me I’d have no idea if she was giving me the eye or not (moot point obviously). I notched up 2k in the end and my shoulder was (and still is) hurting from my extra effort laps. Those last couple of flat out sprints were probably a bad idea.

Next morning I see a woman looking at me in the breakfast hall. She’s certainly got the right build and the right colour/length of hair but like me she’s wearing glasses (although not of the eye warping intensity that I’m used to) and I catch her looking at me a few times. I expect this is the woman and she’s wondering if I’m the man.

Got up this morning wanting my breakfast, had some alpen a piece of jammy toast! Oooh ooooh and a cup of coffee.. Errm yeah. Then I got my chameleon out and set off down the road. I knew the bike would be fine because I spent an hour or so sorting everything out yesterday. I even rode it around the block a few times to make sure it was spot on. Why then, does it start making this horrible whirring noise 10 yards down the road? Looks like the rear cog is a bit worn, the teeth are hooking.

No matter, I made sure my pimpino was ready for a rider yesterday as well so that will be fine too. Again ,ten yards down the road the rear brake starts rubbing and could I stop it? Bizarre, no matter what I did the wheel just kept rubbing. The whel is perfectly true, I even removed it and placed it in a wheel jig to check, it’s absolutely perfect. Back in the bike and it’s rubbing at one point. No idea why. Got frustrated in the end, changed back into my maintenance clothes and set to work getting a road bike built up.

At about 3pm, after having dinner and doing a load of jobs around the house, it was ready to roll. Admittedly, it’s not the most beautiful bike in the world and something clearly need some fine tuning but it actually rides rather well. Not bad for stuff I had lying around. It’s quite light too.

All bikes need a name right? So since Roly donated the frame I’ll be calling it that, at least till I snap it. Not sure what I’ll be doing for a decent road bike. Might buy something off the shelf, I’m enquiring around at the moment. Took this one out for a quick 30 miler up some hills though and despite it being quite windy I managed a 17mph average. A bit slow but then I was a tad reluctant to really cane it up the hills, it being a new build and all.

Madison national championships plus some sprinters for small name people who you might not of heard of, Mr Hoy, Miss Pendleton and others were all riding. I anticipated it being packed but the velodrome was more than half empty, bizarre. Anyway, a thoroughly splendid day out. Pretty much continuous racing, loads of exciting stuff going on. The Brits totally wiped the floor with everyone else, we’re still clearly the world champions in this field. Chris Hoy made it all look so easy, he’s clearly a very smart rider as well as being awesomely fast. Victoria did similar.  Most of the rest of the pro brit riders just walked it as well. Very impressive. The Germans, it has to be said, were trying hard.

Anyway, well recommended and I took thousands of pictures fromwhich I selected a few for publishing. Enjoy. More on my flickr stream.

That’s my litespeed roadbike snapped. Just got it out to get it built up and found that. Maybe I should buy a brand new road bike for once. Bit skint at the moment though. Not sure what to do right now. I am seriously pissed off though. No riding since Sunday.

Got home on Thursday after not doing any exercise whatsoever up North, no time to ride a bike then. So I figured I would work till about 2 on Friday, recover some hours out of the mountain I’ve built up and go for a ride Friday afternoon. IT WAS CANING IT DOWN! All day, it never stopped. So I figured I’d use the time to build up my roadbike and sort out the chain on my chameleon. After finding that crack I was so disallusioned I just gave up, had a nap, played on the xbox for a bit.

Off to the velodrome today not to ride but to watch Sir Chris and Miss Victoria. I’ll be taking my camera but don’t expect any decent shots. And then back home by about 4-5. No riding time then either. And the forcast for tomorrow is more heavy rain. PISS OFF!

No record of my booking. But I’ve had the confirmation email! Not got it with me though have I? Shit! OK, just book me one now. No rooms free (I don’t believe this for a second, the hotel is fecking huge). I ask if there’s anywhere else in the area, girl just shrugs her shoulders. Great. Sit in my car for a few minutes getting angry. Try the pub at the end of the road, that’s full too. Drive around a bit, see a premier Inn, that should be OK, after all, Lenny Henry goes there.
Sure enough, there’s Lenny in the foyer, he’s not moving much admittedly. Yes, they have one room free. It’s the disabled room, no problem for me as long as they don;t try and kick me out when someone in a wheelchair turns up. Obviously I’ve forgotten my credit card PIN so I have to pay by debit card (130 quid!).

Get to the room and here’s where the real fun starts. It’s for disabled people so every thing is really low. The beds, the bath, the sink, the desk, the cupboards, I feel like going around on my knees to make it easier.

Now here’s some proof that the people running the hotel are nasty bastards. The telly, which it should be pointed out was a massive 14″ portable, was right up there on a top shelf where I had to stretch to reach on the on button. How someone in a wheelchair would be expected to do that I don’t know. I get my ASDA pasta and fruit out and start up my laptop and decide I’ll watch ‘The big Lebowski’ while eating my dinner. i’m already wrapped up in the quilt because the room is ice cold despite the thermostat saying 25 degrees.

Well that was a load of shit. Oh, I also found out that the wireless is chargeable so no internet for me.

I decide to drown my sorrows by going to the pub over the way (which doubles as the resturant for the hotel). Beer is ok priced but the staff are all as miserable as fuck so I sit in the corner with a gob on for a bit and then go back to my room for an early night. The bed has been made for a dwarf! My feet hang over the edge and my head bangs on the headrest (it’s lucky I’ll not be having sex in it), pus it’s so soft my back is going to be killing me in the morning. As I go to turn the lights off I realise the light switch by the bed is *right* next to the alarm call button for when I fall out of my wheelchair, that’ll be fun when I’m grouping around for it in the pitch black.

At least the breakfast was nice, if a bit slow. I get to work, find the booking email and rant away down the phone for a bit. The guy did actually sound hugely apologetic especially when he found out I’d had to drive around a strange town looking for somewhere to stay. He said he’d give the hotel a kicking.

Only one more night there. Not looking forward to it. I may delay my arrival, go and get something to eat from somewhere nice first or something. Somewhere that has wireless so I can actually read my emails and play imobsters.

I was only saying how it wasn’t that bad last week.

Oh, and if you fancy buying me a present, get me a pair of these. I’ll look like a cock but I like them.
Dromarti Shoes

I LOVE riding at the track. What I dislike, it has to be said, is queueing for over 40 minutes in post football match traffic. I should sue manchester city for the loss of time I experienced by not arriving in time to start the session at 6. I’ll never get that time back you know.

Good session although there was an extraordinary wide range of abilities there tonight. Normally Sunday nights are for fast and experienced riders but tonight it was clear some riders had never done an SQT before. Ho hum. Still good though.