...giving cyclists a bad name...

Been making a mischief of myself of late, last week on salford crescent a guy on a boardman bike came flying passed me, I was taking it easy. On friday much earlier in the commute I see the same guy infront, I'm going quick that day so I closed the gap and sat on his tail for a while, we were motoring along pretty quick, I took a decent turn up front then coming into swinton I waved him passed for another go in lead - which he did. Not much later at the Height roundabout heading for the east lancs slip road he slows and looks back at me, wanting me to take the lead again I guess, so I say OK and overtake him, go down the sliproad and put the power down. Look behind me and he's nowhere to be seen. Hmm. Oh damn, he wasn't waving me through, he was going right and was checking for traffic at which point I overtook him, he probably thinks I'm a right cock. I guess he skips the east lancs section and joins the crescent later on. Will have to apologise next time I see him.
This morning on my way in I'm coming to a right turn, there's a guy (facing me) crossing the side road I'm turning into, he's already crossing so I lazily turn ready to pass behind him, bloke sees me and bricks it, starts to step back (into my path), I slow, he steps back more til he's back on the pavement he came from, I turn the corner, him mouthing off. Oops, bit late to apologise, that's another bike hater. My bad.

Multiple choice

Your names Debbie Donaghy from Rochdale, you find yourself to be the registered keeper for a very expensive Hummer behemoth of a motor vehicle. You let some fucktard of a driver loose with the keys to your beloved shitemobile and he goes on the rampage driving like the cock he is and running into cyclists.
Are you?
A. An imbecile who loans their vehicle to someone claiming to be Mr M.Mouse of Disneyland, Florida?
B. Girlfriend or other close personal friend of said fucktard and don't want him to get into trouble with the police, so say Mr M.Mouse was driving?
C. Some junkie who agrees to sign vehicle registration documents and take any flack for your dealer so he can drive around in his big orange wanktank?

Answer correctly and you win 8 points on your license and a £350 fine.

Mince factor 9

Went out with Jonnie round rivi last night, woah how slow? The down from 2 lads was awfull handfuls of brake all the way down, sliding about and generally not "ripping it" Wildeswood was better, climbing was fine, drop from the pike was another mince fest. I was surprisingly controlled down ICR, much more than usual but I guess thats cos I was travelling slower than normal. Another go down wildeswood and then decisions, which route home? I wanna get home as fast as possible, do I take chorley new road fairly flat but I'll be spinning out my 32:16 @18mph-ish all the way or push it pretty hard up chorley old road and then freewheel all the way into town 20-30mph? I went with the latter no idea if it's quicker or not.

Donk the cleaner

Me Mark and Simon went off to the peaks last weekend, had a go at cut gate, me and Mark have done this a couple times before but they've sanitised it since then and to be honest so far so good. They firmed up the 1st steep climb from langsett, I seem to remember it being a lot looser with big rocks, cleaned that, after that it's been dumbed down a bit but mickledon edge was same as ever, cleaned that for the first time. The start of cut gate has a rock field which they've picked a line through with a narrow ribbon of agregate or sommat. Again it's tamed but not ridiculously so, then a previously unrideable section has had rough slab steps put in and slabs across the boggy section, now cleanable uphill :-) After that the riverbed section has been pretty much untouched, dunno whther they are moving on to do that later tho. Loads of different lines through it, great fun. The drop down to ladybower was fast and fun and I managed to ride the (cheeky) steep nadgery stuff right at the end. The long schlep to Fairholme was boring but the plan of a quick cake stop followed by a steep climb and blinding descent spurred us on. Cakes were nice but the climb not so, this HAS been sanitised I could drive my car up it, used to be a cracking descent I heard (never ridden down it) it certainly used to be a bitch of a climb. This did not bode well for the downhill, if they'd done the same to that I'd have been well dis-chuffed. Fortunatley Lockerbrook was untouched if a little wetter than I'm used to and all three of us made it down without punctures. We were fading fast tho and every little rise on the lakeside path felt like a huge climb. The climb back up to cutgate was as bad as ever but going back down to langsett - wow superb, still a great trail. Si managed to go over the bars into a bog but aside from the mud was OK. Mickledon and hingcliff were taken at lightspeed, we got to the bottom with big grins. Good stuff.

Dave's on a singlespeed, lets punish him!

Went out on thursday for a ride round the Lee Quarry area, Graham had kindly offered to show us some natural stuff in the area so Simon, Lowey and myself met him there. After all the rain I was expecting a bogfest so I took my singlespeed but it was surprisingly dry. A quick once round the LQ red route, then off on the natural stuff, we went over to 'Kymes brew' a proper steep tarmac climb was bloody hard work on SS and my legs started to feel the toll of a weeks riding. Tarmac turned to dirt road, the climb continued but we veered off before the steep top section, going through cragg quarry was fun, whoops and stuff. Merging breifly onto the mary townley loop we went downhill by cowpe lowe where simon had to split as he'd lost a cleat bolt. We carried on backup to kymes brew and this time right to the top of rooley moor road, none of us cleaned it, my legs were shot but what stopped me was my arms, nothing left in them to heave back on the bars and get the power down. Bit boggy on the tops back over to LQ but not too bad, then down the red run and home. Good ride, I was completley shattered at the end, sore legs, sore arms, even my hands were sore from throttling the grips! I slept well that night.

Knocked up

So I've had my inbred a few years now and it's getting a bit battered and bruised, heres the obligatory chain damage, mostly from when using gears bit of chain suck and flappy on the downhills. There's a massive great dent in the downtube, no idea how I managed that, only noticed it whilst cleaning my bike one day.
Anyway on monday I rode into work, I'm lucky enough to have showers and a place near my office to stash my bike but when it's wet/muddy I used the workshop, coz a bit of water/mud don't bother them. Whilst in there a whacking great bit of pipe fell over and twatted the seat tube. Thats a health and safety issue right there but I guess I can't moan too much or someone might ask what my bikes doing there. There was quite a dent, it was below the seatpost so I pushed the post right down and it popped the dent out a bit. Hopefully frame should be fine but I was lucky, if it had been my xc120 or canondale road bike the frame would be a right off, dont think the pompy would have fared to well either. Might not leave my bike there again :-)

Swampy

What with one thing and another I haven't done an offroad commute for a while (6 weeks) and the last few weeks haven't been kind to the route. Lots of puddles, quite a bit of mud and over grown vegetation. I was a bit of a state when I got into work and late, mincing through those puddles slows you down but it was a trade off of punctuality vs getting to work looking like a swamp monster. Hopefully a couple of dry days will clear the worst and it'll be back to summer speeds. Finally got my act together and ordered some bike stuff too, a new lid, it's white with pink trim - I'm hoping I won't look camp wearing it, a new saint front mech but the main thing is some maguras for the inbred. Disc pads simply don't last round here when its wet (just ask matt) V brakes last longer but the parallel action ones get rattly, standard ones need adjusting as pads wear and the cables get full of grit so I'm giving hydro rim brakes a shot, pads cost a bit more than Vs but a lot less than discs, I'm working on the premise that back wheels are disposable, rims and freehubs get trashed in the mud but I can pick up a whole new wheel for £40ish, bargain. I'm hoping this gives me the best £££vMaintenancevFunction.