Thursday 30 June 2011

My tour

Oh dear, I'm really rather a long way from fit.  Not, however, beating myself up about it, I do all right for an old burd.  I started the week with some enthusiasm for cycle commuting, not even letting slightly iffy weather forecasts put me off, and made plans and cracked on.  Such was my ardour that undeterred by book club after work Wednesday I still planned to get on and ride it.

Last experience of trying to get to book club by bike had resulted in a somewhat stroppy e-mail to someone somewhere who might possibly have some kind of remit for signage.  I chose to ride into Manchester City Centre and follow bike route 6, a gritty route taking me through some areas I had in honesty considered no go places for a middle class middle aged Caucasian woman.  Getting lost there was both mortifying and a little scary, not wanting to stop and look at a map and therefore be seen as vulnerable.  The area has a reputation for violence.  When I say reputation, this is based on the fact that whenever you travel to work listening to local radio news you can predict that the news reporter will nearly always finish the sentence a fatal shooting / stabbing took place in the early hours of the morning with "in Moss Side".  It's that kind of place, high unemployment too and frankly I stick out like a sore thumb.  It's a vibrant area, no denying it.  Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss_Side but rightly or wrongly I find it intimidating.

So my visit plan this time was simple.  Not to get lost in Moss Side.  To this end I took guidance and advice from a work colleague on how to get from my place of work to Chorlton (place of book club).  It was a fantastic awesome route.  This bad boy.  Guardian Fallowfield Loop line.  OK, so I did get lost once and have to retrace steps and yes, it did add 20 minutes to my journey (I timed it from the point I was unsure to the point I returned there ...). 

All in all, yesterday I left the house at 07:15 to ride the 8 or 9 miles to work, then left work at 5pm for another 8 mile journey, and at 9pm was leaving Chorlton for the 5 mile ride home.  Frankly I was pooped, slept like a baby (but without the bed wetting and crying), and drove in this morning!

Wednesday 29 June 2011

Nearly Naked

Such a nice day, that not only did I decide to cycle into work once again but paused half way through dressing ... and stopped.  It felt really strange to have the lycra shorts as my outer layer instead of adding on a pair of baggy shorts or 3/4 length trousers as camouflage.  Add to that the T-shirt without a wind stopper of any variety and I felt I had left the house in the buff.  As a general rule, vanity prevents me from exposing my hind quarters to the world without adequate covering, but sod it, it's early when I set off and who's to see?

Cycled through the city centre today which is the route I do generally only when the fighting spirit and vigilance is at the top of its game.  To get through the city you have to be prepared to be a little bit nippy at the lights and a little bit assertive, a lot confident, decisive and very very clear about your intentions.  No car driver must be left in doubt as to what you're doing, and to make sure that's the case ... well, you too need to be sure of what you're doing, and that means taking on board all the information possible rapidly to make that decision and having the fast twitch ready to do what's needed.  Balance and strong indication are pretty key too.  The world of city centre commuting is very mean to those who hesitate and I don't want to have a fit and healthy corpse.

But before 8am the city centre is fairly mellow.  Enough other cyclists about so the car drivers are already attuned to the possibilities of bike riders, and enough people on foot stepping out in front of cars (and cyclists) to make sure everyone is on their toes for the preservation of life and dignity.  Well, maybe not so much the dignity in the lycra shorts.

Tuesday 28 June 2011

Beautiful morning

It doesn't feel like I've been on the bike for a bit, although I would guess less than a week.  That's the oddness of not cycling at the weekend when I opted to take the walking boots with me rather than the bike.

So this morning in glorious sunshine I'm back in the saddle, and I'm loving it. The commute to work is perfection, the hills are just enough work, not too much, not too little, the lights appear to be green, there may even be birds singing (although I suspect perhaps not in the suburbs of Salford).  I note just one near death incident, which on a daily commute is the average, and four  miles into the journey I sit up and smile.  Grin in fact.  At the same point where last week driving in the car I was waving my fist with a heart rate increased through anger I'm smiling, relaxed and remembering what a wonderful way this is to travel.

Wednesday 22 June 2011

Easy Rider

Blimey I'm a crabby old cow.  Drove to work today after two days of cycle commuting.  The reason (or excuse, make your own judgment) is because tonight is book club night and me, accompanied by the Complete Works of Shakespeare had places to go after work, and then a journey home at 9pm ish.  Somehow, though, the two days of cycling to work have turned me into the most angry motorist imaginable.  I hated the drive in.  The whole time I am prevented from moving up to the 30mph speed limit by congestion.  Every set of lights is red, and at every set the queues are so long I watch two changes before we can finally move.  Other car drivers are indecisive, or stop abruptly in front of me or get into the wrong lanes or just generally act like cretins, and I spend my journey staring frustrated at other people's exhausts.

It's the cycling that's done it.  On the bike I'm always at what passes for top speed (which for me, not so fast), nothing is ever in my way, red lights happen and I stop but never ever ever have to sit through more than one change of the lights.  If car drivers are acting like cretins it affects me much less because I'm so much slower, not dependant on most of their actions and basically only being vigilant for those who edge too near the kerb or do the usual stupid move where they overtake the cyclist and turn left (this is a daily occurrence on the bike) causing me to brake / swerve / feel heart rate rise.

In the car, however, the calm cyclist who just focusses on her own journey becomes a raving nutter lunatic who shouts, who waves her fist in the air even, and is generally a rather assertive driver.  She's not nice.  Realisations like this make me think hard about cycling to work more often, but then, there's always the excuses ...

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Audience Participation

There was me thinking cycling to work was a solitary occupation.  The kind of thing poets and philosophers might happily participate in.  Long periods of no company but your own, in your own world, free to muse on the accumulation of litter around the Lower Broughton McDonalds, free to consider the state of the pot holes and drainage as you circle Cheetham Hill and to contemplate the permanent all season puddle along the Alan Turing Way.

Imagine, therefore, my surprise at finding my ride from work was in fact a spectator participation event.  There I am, minding my own business, pedalling steadily away through the roads around the Salford Student Village, being mindful of progress across the roundabout in readiness for the one and only minor uphill on the way home when suddenly, there it is.  A shout.  A coach style "Pick it up" is yelled at me from the side of the road.  And indeed I do pick it up, because that was the plan anyway.  Still, nice to feel part of something bigger.

This morning, in  honour of the start of British Summer time (I believe the finish is next week) I am wearing light weight walking shorts over my lycra.  Do not be fooled, this was not through some misplaced belief the weather would actually be sunny.  Indeed it related more to an anticipation of rain.  The lightweight shorts will not flap like sodden sails around my legs when the rain starts and in showers will be quick drying too.  But short they are, and the shortness is noticed.  Hoots happen.

Monday 20 June 2011

Stopping traffic

Cool.  Not done this for a long time.  Stopped traffic, and not for any wrong reasons (wrong being falling off in front of cars).  Today marks the start of bike to work week.  http://www.bikeweek.org.uk/.  Well, actually I believe yesterday was the official start date but given I only work Monday to Friday today is my official start date.  Despite Saturday's over the handlebars incident I felt cycling in was not just an option but positively desirable, given the clement weather and the need to keep going on the fitness work.

So dressed in pink, off I go on the hybrid bike heavily weighted down by the pannier bag of clothing to change into on arrival at work.  A bit of gravity keeping me on the ground was, methinks, desirable.  The Aldi bright pink women's cycling softshell jacket is a wonderful thing, mostly for its visibility to traffic, and its indication that the rider is female.  I find motorists have a very different attitude towards me wearing this to wearing my mundane grey.  I strongly suspect they give women a bit of a wider berth and perhaps some polite distance and respect, maybe seeing us as more vulnerable and in need of protection.  Whatever the reason, I like the result.

Turns out it's quite a warm morning and at a handy set of red lights I proceed to begin the striptease.  The lights go green and to my amusement the driver next to me is watching me undress as opposed to watching the lights and it's only when I turn to make eye contact with him and gesture in the direction of the lights he continues on his journey.  I finish stripping off the bright pink, and I'm down to the pale pink clinging T with the words "Shakin' my arse" on the back.  Love this T-shirt dearly.  But yes, I stopped traffic.  Me.  At 42.

Sunday 19 June 2011

I flew

Oh yes, yesterday I flew.  In many ways.  I flew up the hills, with a steady gentle pace simply pedalling away from the long suffering Jason who had elected to accompany me on the trip to the Marin trail.  With apparent ease climbing the fire roads at a pleasant maintainable tempo.  Down the swooping single track descents I flew, letting the bike roll over the rocky muddy grassy gravelly terrain, following my nose along the undulating tracks.  Then over the handlebars I flew, the bike stopped and I was a little slower, stopping a couple of feet further along on my hands and knees before rolling over and taking a moment to take on board my recumbant position.  And the worst part of the fall is the painful fingertips making typing an uncomfortable chore ....


Oooh, and here's me before the fall in the "Can't Stop" T-shirt which turned out to have some truth in it.

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Zipping up

I'm in the mood for buying clothes.  After all, my weight has now come down to 62 kilos and my bum has finally reached dimensions I feel are civilised and worthy of new apparel.  The range of women's bike clothing for the non lycra brigade is not encouraging.

I cycle in padded shorts underneath a outer layer which protects my modesty and in winter my calves from the cold.  Outer layers I have worn with some success have been the fat face brand of three quarter length trousers, although each pair only lasts one cycling season.  The short length means no chain capture issues, and the material is relatively well wearing.  The later version had toggles at the waist to adjust so you could get them just right, after all, riding the bike can have you at a peculiar angle compared to walking trousers, and bulky belts are not great.  I find high waisted really useful too, anything that doesn't interfere with breathing when you're using every inch of lung capacity.  The major advantage to these has been the zipped pocket on the leg.  Trousers with convenient places for car keys.  The last pair had zipped front pockets too which opened all kinds of possibilities for carrying loose change and the odd chewy bar.

Finding a replacement has proved difficult.  I have some Asda George supermarket 3/4 length capri pants but they wear out a lot quicker and none of them seems to think having pockets which stuff doesn' fall out of is a priority.  I was aghast to find this year's fat face model didn't have zippy pockets on the legs so the hunt has been on.

Surf / beach shorts were suggested by some women online, but looking at them, the sparsity of pockets was appalling.  Does no-one out there feel a need to keep their car keys somewhere secure?

Crag hoppers looked like offering some possibilities, but again when you look closely they tend to have one zip pocket at the back.  Just where you sit on the saddle.  No thanks, I don't think so.

Don't get me started on cycle specific / mountain biking clothing.  Frankly they just don't make it for girls.  I have one pair of supposedly women's specific shorts and I've never seen anything more badly proportioned.  Oh, and what is it with everything needing to be black or white for us girls.  What's wrong with red or blue or brown or green or indeed patterned.  See what I did there?  Yes, didn't request pink.

Finally in desperation I have purchased online a pair of Columbia walking shorts.  They have a zip pocket on the leg.  Not really sure they'll have the stretch for the cycling movement, but I can but try.  Sigh.

Tuesday 14 June 2011

White Van

Imagine my surprise.  Hooted at by a white van.  Not, to my amazement in a get out of my way cycling filth fashion but as a tribute to my legs.  Well, that's the way it came across to me anyway.  A man of discernment one imagines, particularly given my chosen costume for the commute.

Heavy old hybrid, baggy top and unfeasibly baggy shorts.  Lost a bit of weight since I invested in those.  Altogether quietly happy to hear it.  It's a long time since I attracted any kind of whistle or cat call, and there's a certain age over which these things are welcome rather than irritating.  I do realise though that some women could find this intimidating, aggressive, or threatening, and ponder over what an appropriate reaction would be given the bigger picture.  However, I can only react as I react which is to smile to myself, not turn around, and just continue with my two wheel journey.

Monday 13 June 2011

Slow road

Maybe in taking 2 hours 45 mins to do a 21 mile circuit on the mountain bike I was simply trying to adhere to the leisure cyclist rule: The bike ride undertaken must exceed the amount of time taken to drive to the ride destination.  Maybe that was it.

http://www.cotswoldsaonb.org.uk/bibury route pdf

Arriving late after an unprecedented amount of faff to leave the house, I set off on the route above at 2pm on Saturday with confidence I should be back at the car by 4pm.  So confident was I of this that my safety person who had been e-mailed a copy of the route and proposed start and finish time had been advised 4pm finish.  Texted her at 3:45 with an um, well, all is well but I am slow kind of a text.  It wasn't even a testing route.  You could, if you weren't being particularly discerning describe it as undulating but in reality check out the contours ... it really was as flat as a pancake other than two teeny steep ups (pushed the bike up the final bit of one of these).  Yet I dallied and I dawdled and somehow made it last nearly 3 hours.  No mechanicals, no hills, nothing wrong with me or the bike. 

I do seem to lack any short term memory of what I'm doing though.  Not a signposted trail but one dependent on carrying a map but somehow I struggle to remember any more than two turns at a time.  Sometimes struggle to remember anything other than the next turn.  So I guess there were more than a few map reading stops and starts.

You couldn't make up the beauty of some of this ride.  21 miles without seeing another cyclist or a walker.  However, going alongside a hedgeline with a field of grain and poppies to my left, from the hedgeline I see an enormous bird give just one flap of mighty wings and soar away over the field.  A hare, ears tipped with white and black pauses on the path ahead of me, then spooked by me and the bike leaps off into the field where his ear tips are visible above the poppies as he joins another hare and together they move through the grain, ears bobbing and darting as they run.  Amazing memories.

Sunday 12 June 2011

Hats off

Friday night I thought I'd make an emergency dash to the allotment between showers.  Parking down my road at weekends is a nightmare, so once you have somewhere to park the car, you don't move it unless you really have to.  So, the bike beckoned.  Shoved a trowel and a few seed packets in the panniers and bunged on a pair of walking trousers with the bottom leg bits zipped off to avoid dangling in chain issues and was on my way.  On my way, but feeling something was not quite normal.  Took a minute or two to realise I'd gone out without the bike helmet on.

Not, it's not against the law to go into the streets bare headed so as it's just a couple of miles I thought I'd go with the flow.  Which is not logical reasoning at all.  Funny thing was that I felt much more aware of and vigilant about what was going on around me, and suspect in some ways its because I could hear everything much more clearly without the helmet, actually had a better sense of direction as to where car engine noises were coming from.  I was much more apprehensive about roundabouts etc..  Now, in my head, I know that this doesn't make sense, I know that on the bike I have to be mindful of my safety at all times, and I know the percentage of accident options available out there means the helmet will only save your life in a teeny percentage of incients.  So, why more mindful because I'm not wearing the helmet?  Danger is danger after all.

It's nice though, feeling the wind in your hair.

Friday 10 June 2011

Route Plan

Plan, plan and plan.  I have anal retentive tendencies towards planning bike rides.  Not one to wing it and hope for the best, I like to minimise the chance of failure and try to plan for all eventualities.  Other than rain.  Obviously.

So, I've had a frustrating few days trying to work out just where I can ride my bike as I make my way down the country to the Cotswolds for a Saturday evening barbeque.  It turns out that the various websites out there want you to pay money for sharing a bike route.  The world of cyclists suddenly turns out really quite mercenary. 

I am also very specific in what I want.  I want to be off road, or mostly off road.  I want everything to be legal (bridleways not footpaths) and I want a hill.  If possible I'd also like challenging terrain.  A bonus would be a cafe and a toilet.  And I want all this in easy reach of my final destination.  How hard can it be?

A check of my OS map collection at home reveals a good scale walking map ... for the area just north of where I want to be, and a driving type map for the area with old fashioned colour schemes.  I adjust my eyes to look for pink lines instead of green, and do search after search online for possible routes which take me to link after link to books I don't have the lead in time to send off for, and GPS routes I don't have the equipment for.  Finally courtesy of a county council website I think I have found the route.

Now I just have to hope it doesn't rain.

Thursday 9 June 2011

No overtaking

Word from the physio yesterday for my journey home yesterday evening was no overtaking.  Condemned to take it easy and to amble home avoiding jolting pains going through my lower back.  No easy task with standing starts from red lights being incredibly different as any pressure going through the left leg gave a jarring pain through that back muscle.  Very ouchy indeed.  No out of saddle, no hard acceleration; instead a sedate and somewhat boring journey.

Of my two routes home from work on the bike, one is a frenetic city centre ride, always on the alert for cars doing unexpected things without signalling.  Do I hear people gasp at the thought that car drivers could ever ever ever do something so imperfect?  Well, yes, they do.  It involves several forced lane changes where I have to move right to the straight on lane or of course turn right by getting across lanes, and this requires me to have good control, to be looking and listening all the time and ready to make a dash for it.  The back isn't permitting making dashes safely and in comfort.  So instead I take the meandering route round the city outskirts, and the most complicated moment is ... well, actually there were no complicated moments.  Eased my bike and my back home where I took the physio's advice of hot bath, hot water bottle, and ad libbed by adding a muscle relaxing glass of red wine all of my own prescription.

Wednesday 8 June 2011

Too competitive

Today I am sat at my desk with a heated wheat bag snuggling around my lower back.  And similar to having a hangover this is a self-inflicted injury and therefore, by rights, I cannot complain!

I get more peeved on the bike than I ever do driving the car where I am a peaceful patient, laissez faire kind of a driver.  It peeves me to see other cyclists disobeying the rules of the road.  Specifically, riding through red lights.  It doesn't make any sense to me at all.

So, this morning, a younger gent on a Cannondale bike walzes past me at red lights, waits briefly at the junction and then moves forwards across a lane at a time, all the while the lights are on red.  And I see red.  I see him accelerate, I see him reach cruising speed, the lights are now green and I change up a gear, I press on the pedals and suddenly there I am, in pursuit.  I hover behind him, assessing his speed, decide that if I overtake him I can indeed continue to pull away and will not simply die a death and have the humiliation of him accelerating past me.  And I do it.  I'm dressed in pink.  At the lights he's waved at a mate of his in the traffic queue.  We have witnesses.  Hopefully his nuts shrivelled as the move played out.

Later on, he did of course move past me again at red lights, and stay ahead as he went through two more sets of red lights.  But the moral high ground is all mine.

Oh, and I seem to have slightly pulled a back muscle in my moment of chimped up competitiveness, but all is well, the physio has laughed at me, advised and loaned out the hot wheat bag thingy.

Tuesday 7 June 2011

As charged

I feel so guilty.  Such neglect.  After last Wednesday night's bike ride I have done very little.  Well, to be fair, I have cleaned the mountain bike, pumped up its tyres and oiled its chain, even sparing a little lube for the hybrid ... just because I could.  But somehow I have failed to get out on the bike at all ever since.

It's a litany of excuses which make me blench slightly.

  • Thursday - Oh, I won't cycle to work because I'm going to cycle to the Lowry tonight to go to the Roger McGough performance. 
  • Thursday evening - don't feel like cycling.  Won't.
  • Friday - Oh, I won't cycle to work because I'm going straight from work to the Take That concert which doesn't finish until late and I'm worried about leaving the bike somewhere safe all that time ...
  • Saturday - Oh, I've got a naughty girl letter from the council about my allotment, best I prioritise that over the bike.
  • Sunday was a classic.  Sunday, bike outside house, Jason and his bike outside the house, all looking very promising indeed.  I shut the door.  Jason asks do you have your house keys.  I say yes, check my pocket and imagine a look of horror came over my face.  Locked out without house keys, his spare set and my set both inside.  Dammit.  Efforts instead went into sorting out how to access my home, ending up both bikes wheels off, and in Jason's car (thankfully he did have his car keys), and travelling to the other side of town to acquire the spare set from my guinea pig sitter.  Got home feeling drained,  humiliated ... oh, and it started raining.
  • Monday, I don't think I even bothered to find an excuse.
  • Tuesday the weather forecast for this afternoon looks horrid.

So there we go, take a bow, the queen of excuses.

Thursday 2 June 2011

Unfamiliar machine

The unfamiliarity of my bikes has been a little odd this week.  Trying not to find it reminiscent of my fairly long departed husband's first symptoms of his brain tumour where he just instinctively felt his spanners were in someway "wrong".  It's a disconcerting feeling, a familiar friend turning into something just a little alien, not unfriendly or threatening but different.

This, however, with reference to my bikes is easily explained.  The hybrid has new tyres and the ride is not just bumpier due to the fact I have actually got them at a reasonable pressure, but also "twitchy", although I am re-training my brain to think responsive instead of twitchy.  It's taken a little adjusting to, and a mile or two before I felt the confident 95% in control feeling I generally have on the hybrid which is a safe old sofa of a thing.

Yesterday I got on the mountain bike.  Not to climb any mountains (none of those where I live) but just to do some muddy trails.  Getting on that bike after having done more riding on the hybrid is always a surprise.  I feel crouched over the bike, like I've somehow overgrown the handlebars, and yes the front end feels very "twitchy" (ok, ok responsive) in comparison to the hybrid.  It's just different dimensions and I settle down quite quickly.  The worst thing about getting on it is the realisation that I'm now seriously cycling.  This is completely due to the change in saddle.  The hybrid has an amazing arm chair thing going on. It is wide and it is gel padded and frankly I would challenge anyone to find it uncomfortable.  The MTB has a thin hard saddle which is perfectly fine and comfortable and fitting for me provided I get my posture right.  I'm sure it's good for me, but nonetheless always comes as a surprise.

Yesterday was a first for me.  My bike riding is generally restricted to a) travel from A to B or b) fun, getting out on the hills or challenging myself over whacky terrain.  Yesterday I got on the mountain bike for a purpose unheard of before.  I got on it for "training".  Gasp.  What is this training of which you speak?  Frankly I felt I hadn't stretched my body for quite some time, and worried I was losing fitness.  So, deliberately and knowingly, I got on the bike with the ambition of getting in a minimum of an hour of heavy breathing, preferably with some leg hurting work to accompany it.  Nice to find a relatively free traffic ride, but weird trying to find any kind of lung exercise in a very very flat track.  Oooh, I think I can find a link to my route ...

Ah yes, here we go: http://www.cycle-route.com/Worsley flat loop.  And by the end of it, all was well.  Very well indeed.

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Main Mechanic

I find mechanical issues frustrating.  There's an angry woman inside my head doesn't really understand why I don't already have the mental tool kit to handle the simple thing called bike mechanics.  Something missing perhaps in my upbringing, those lessons in fine tuning gears were as missing as were the lessons on applying make up and using hair straighteners.

So, it was really quite a feat for me to take the brave step of purchasing new tyres and new inner tubes for the Trek Hybrid commuter bike.  The bike is possibly 8 years old, maybe a little more, and is indeed on its original set of tyres, although inner tubes have come and gone as needs and punctures dictate.  The bike started to feel a little sloppy in handling like the road and bike and indeed tyre and wheel were looking to part company, and although some of this can be attributed to lack of air in tyres, it did seem reasonable to look at a replacement programme. 

Is there something in a man's head which makes replacement of tyres a really simple job of just going to shop, picking them off the shelf, taking home and fitting to bike?  For me, not so much.  For me it's a carefully considered research, using online reviews, and finally posting on message forums to gather in thoughts and opinions.  Only after a matter of days am I in a position to purchase.  Then of course I need to find the best price.  Finally the new tyres and new inner tubes arrive.  Now, being a self declared numpty as far as mechanical aptitude is concerned, I have from somewhere deep in my brain dredged up some information about rubber deteriorating over time; hence the new inner tube decision.

I was going to fit them myself.  Of course I was.  But as there happened to be a bloke in the house itching to get his Christmas present Leatherman out it was a no brainer to make it a joint effort.  The joy of this is that I could offer helpful criticism.  Lots of helpful criticism.  And sound pompous.  Oh, you really want to start work taking off the tyre at the same place as the valve. etc. etc. etc. Surprised I didn't get a Leatherman inserted somewhere quite painful.

Tyres fitted, and then we read the instructions.  How much pressure?  Wow.  The tyres are as tight as a botox forehead.  Amazing, and I can feel every piece of gravel on the road.  The front mudguard however on yesterday's trial run is rubbing against the tyre which pre-empts possible future disaster of creating hole in tyre and of course adding to the resistance which frankly I don't need.  Lots of frustrating attempts to adjust mudguard, all kinds of tools out (no hammer though), and eventually I just remove the damned mudguard.  It is summer, after all.