Thanks

Thanks to all those who rode with me this year, either on the bicycle, or in other ways, all too numerous to mention individually. You encouraged me, gave me your wheel, fixed my punctures and tucked in errant clothing.

That's enough metaphor-stretching.

Look forward to seeing you in 2014.

Pictures from my ride on Christmas Eve. All, as ever, mean something.

 

Heart is on my sleeve

I told my osteopath I'd have a quiet December, and since the last post,as far as cycling goes, that has been largely true. A couple of Sunday rides, where the coffee/cake/bacon sandwich have been the objective. There was quite a lot of inadvertent climbing last week, rather than hard and fast miles. Together with a couple of commutes, characterised by lots of rain, muck and headwind, have made for a gradual wind-down as Christmas and the New Year approaches.

There was the small matter of my niece's wedding, where my siblings and I got together for the first time in a while, it was lovely to catch up with them all. Notice how much taller my elder brother is, he is in fact 7 feet 5.

Gandalf & the Hobbits

Then I have had the visit of my sister, her partner, and my younger brother. Wherever you live I bet you take its beauty for granted. You only really find out what a great place you live in when strangers come to town and tell you so.

We had a great night out watching the The Waterboys at the Colston Hall, and the drive into Bristol over the suspension bridge seemed to impress. But not as much as our walk over Cross Plain, Wavering Down and up the Strawberry Line.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Mike Scott. What can I say. Supreme lyricist and tunesmith. Fantastic visionary, musical pioneer. Just genius. Songs of incredible memory and meaning, played with aplomb, with Anto Thistlethwaite and Steve Wickham adding in dollops of sparkling inventiveness too. That means something.

My brother and I debated which song they would play first, he was right and I was about as wrong as it's possible to be, my guess was the last song. And if you understand the significance of this photo (apologies for the poor quality) then you too followed the raggle-taggle band in 1988.

Today I was up and over Shipham Hill just in time to see the remnants of the sunrise. It was cold, very windy, and wet. It's December, that's what you get. But the company and the coffee stop was good, and neither of us wanted much more out of the day. We didn't go far, in fact we went less than our original limited plan, mainly because neither of us fancied being blasted to kingdom come by the wind.

An easy ride, nothing spectacular.  Ordinary , but good.

You've got to promise not to stop when I say when

I'm not going to dwell on it, but I found out yesterday that someone I knew quite well at University had died last August. He was just 50 and had a wife, and two children under ten. I'd lost contact with him in the last ten years, but it was still a bit of a shock.

Today's post aims to celebrate all that is good about life, and in particular to remind you all, in my usual clunky, preachy fashion, that what is most important in life are not your jobs, your money, your possessions, your status, or even your Ultegra Di2. Nice though all these things are, what sets a happy life apart from a miserable one is the quality of your friends and family.

Yesterday I had a very odd day where I became incapable of keeping anything in perspective, and I am very grateful to Mrs Mendip Rouleur for guiding me through my own personal maelstrom. I give her a hard time a lot, so I'm going to do something I rarely do, and say thank you to her for being with me. At all.

And today, it was great to be out in the rain, the muck, the silage, the bad driving, the hedge clippings, the headwind and the potholes with three great stalwarts of the road, Steve, Martyn and Dave. I think my face may have been the cleanest at the end of the ride, but it was probably a close-run thing.

 

As is traditional on days like today, the sun came out just as the ride was finishing, but today I really didn't mind, I'd had a great day, just trundling trundling around the levels, drinking coffee and eating cake at Sweet's café, and generally enjoying myself. Here's the view from the layby on the Axbridge by-pass, just to prove what a lovely day it was.

 

 



 

Congratulations to the Princess on getting mobile, look forward to seeing you dashing off on mad adventures all over the country. SO for you, and anyone else who has been waiting a while, here's this.

 

 

Merry Christmas.

You've got to walk in a straight line

I've come in for a bit of abuse recently. It all concerns my slightly, no, my very obsessive nature, and in particular how it plays out with planning bike rides. Like many cyclists I don't like going over the same ground twice on a ride, so I do all I can to make the rides circular. Preferably clockwise, though this isn't essential. Merely preferable.

I have no idea where this comes from, just like trying to avoid the cracks in the pavement, it's something that started a long time ago. I've largely grown out of the pavement thing by the way. Although I do get an uneasy feeling if I catch myself walking on those chasms of doom.

Yesterday I was up in London to work for the day. Aside from the usual angst and frustration of the non-quiet carriage (I think one day there will be a massacre in a quiet carriage, as someone's seething, silent rage, boils over, and he [it will be a he, neighbours will say he always seemed like such a quiet chap] will either rip one of the folding tables from the back of the chairs and decapitate the transgressors, or else batter them to death with his Blackberry), it was the usual busy day.

Of course London is business made corporate. Everyone charging about as if what they do is so important and the centre of absolutely everything. Anyone with half a brain will know that the literal centre of the world is in fact Galmpton.

I digress. Once again Monmarduman  and I failed to hook up for lunch (he was busy doing something important I think ;-) ) so I was left to wander the streets of Cheapside to hunt down some lunch. Which meant M & S food on Cheapside. Where I continued my statistical monitoring of the self-serve tills versus the manned ones. I join one queue at the same time as I watch someone else join the other, and see who finishes their transaction first. So far it's manned till 42, self-service 0.

Think about it, if you do something hundreds of times a day, for a living, you are going to be faster than someone who only does it, at most, daily. At peak times the manned tills are, well, fully manned. All be women usually so I think we need to re-thing that nomenclature.

Walking back to my office, I passed this window.

Every PC on display, and there must have been a couple of dozen on them, had this little bit of motivational bollocks written on them. You always know when one of these straplines is utter claptrap if the exact opposite would make no sense whatsoever. I think most of this sort of thing is a waste of time.

If anyone thinks about it at all I suspect they are like me, and poke fun at it. For instance, did you know that First Great Western are "Transforming Travel"? If my experiences over the last few weeks are anything to go by they are living up to their aspiration, by making the journey from London to Bristol as unpleasant as possible. But I don't think that's what hey had in mind.

First Bus on the other hand have moved on. They are now creating better journeys for life. Presumably because travelling on any form of motorised transport in Bristol feels like a lifetime.

I made it back to the office safely despite all the black cabs trying to run me over. This was my circular route. You see, I can't help myself.

But that's what a strange town will do to you.

Back to cycling next time, Promise.

Tempting Fate

Back at the end of April I found myself off work for a day when I had expected to be on it. Work that is. I didn't want to just sit around the house, but I was finding it quite hard to concentrate on anything, so of course the only option was to go out on the bike.

It was a nice sunny day, a bit windy as I recall, but it was one of the first days that I wore shorts after a long, long Winter. Recalling the Christmas party conversation, I resolved, and succeeded in doing A pair of trousers. Which of course includes Draycott Steep, considered by many, including me, to be the toughest hill on the Mendips.

I was on one that day, for all sorts of reasons, so it's no surprise that I got up that hill fairly easily. It was a marked contrast to most of the cycling I had done up till then in 2013. I hadn't done the miles, my health had been sub-optimal and it had not been a good time generally. In fact, the optimistic target of 6000 miles I had set myself for the year, a jump of about 5% on 2012, seemed such a long way off that I had all but abandoned hope of achieving it. Despite two thirds of the year still to go.

What do you do in circumstances like that? Well according to Jennifer I should just write it off as one of those years, and come back stronger next year. Good advice. As was the advice of another friend who told me to enjoy the cycling, and not worry too much about hitting targets and achieving goals. Definitely the basis for a more contented life.

Unfortunately, those that know me know that I don't ever give up. It's one of the things that define me. And causes me a lot of grief sometimes, as well as a lot of amusement and bemusement to friends, family and work colleagues. C'est la vie. That's French. One for you ;-)

And yet something seemed to happen over the Summer. I did adjust the target slightly, to beat 2012 by 1 mile, but it still left a very tall order to be filled. I had another couple of tough months, got pasted in the Tour of Wessex and beaten up in the Dragon Ride and wrecked in sundry other sportives I did in June. But when I came back from the Pyrenees in July, and the weather improved considerably, I started to get a modicum, then a smidgeon, and finally a full complement of form back.

By the time I came to do Ride London, I was flying, enjoying my cycling and just starting to believe that I might not have to write off 2013 at all.

So much so, that the sad, obsessive weekly mileage target figure (the number of miles I need to do per week to hit the annual target) started to come down. From a seemingly impossible 160 miles per week at the start of July, to about 100 miles at the beginning of September, it has, as of today, reached the very doable figure of 19.27 miles per week for the last six weeks of 2013. Yes 116 miles is all it is going to take.

Now, being of a somewhat superstitious nature I now feel that the fates are well and truly tempted. What could possibly go wrong now? Easy. Well, cast your mind back a few years to the Winter of 2010, when it was practically impossible to ride a bike, or drive a car come to think of it, because of the appalling snowfall we had in November and December. I sneaked my target in the last couple of weeks.

I have also been playing a bit fast and loose with my front wheels. This picture, showing my wheel on the commute last Friday night, with its very effective spoke reflectors, records the last time the wheel saw service.

The wheel had been juddering a lot in the last couple of weeks since K-1 came out for the Winter. So I consulted the experts, the Internet and Paul at Cheddar cyclestore who duly confirmed that the rim was very badly-worn. So, not wanting to tempt fate I decided to have the wheel re-built. While I wait I decided to substitute one of the old wheels that came with K-1, tyre, inner tube and all.

Despite pumping up the tyre, and it seemed OK last night, I soon discovered this morning, five miles out, that it was a bit on the flat side. Nothing too bad, but sub-optimal. I checked my pump, thinking I'd add a bit of air, only to find the pump was seized and useless. I decided to press on, metaphorical fingers crossed, and hope I wouldn't get a puncture and have to call on the sleepy Mrs Mendip Rouleur to come and get me.

A few weeks ago Martyn and I had been humbled by Steep End Down as we got off and walked for 100 yards on the Steep, while he sailed up it. It was the first time I had walked on that hill for years, and left me a bit surprised given my resurgence in form. Well it's one thing to fly around the levels all day, or cycle to Bristol, but I have obviously not been going up enough hills.

So I decided to have another goal, because I thought I was hard enough. Weather was grey, misty, dank, and cold. The road surface was slippery, full of leaves, and surprisingly busy with traffic. October, one of the wettest for years, has certainly left its mark, my lungs are beginning to feel the onset of the rotten weather, and all of this did not point the way to a successful ascent.

But what did I say about not giving up? And I'd learnt from Mr Down. Slow and steady. Huff followed puff, followed curse followed grimace. One of my slowest, no doubt, but one of my proudest achievements. The Steep in November. 2-1 to the Mendip Rouleur.

The rest of the ride? Who cares. A few smaller hills, lots of mud, mist, got mixed up a couple of times in Somer Valley CC's sportive, before rolling home with 33 miles on the clock. And absolutely knackered.  It's been a hard week, two trips to London, one a late night, a couple of tough cycling commutes to Bristol, one of them in sub-zero temperatures, and not forgetting my flu vaccination. OK that last bit is an irrelevant embellishment, but you get the picture.

One last thing. I picked up the bike to start the washing process and the front wheel fell out. I'd failed to tighten it properly when I put it in yesterday and had done the entire ride, including the 40 mph descent of Shipham Hill with a wheel that could have fallen out with one bump.

So I need all of you to pray for good weather, for the next week at least, as I have an ambitious plan to knock off the last 116 miles by Saturday lunchtime. It will involve riding to work twice and then again on Saturday morning, but at least it gets it done. As for the rest of the year, well I'm going to have to resort to the old sales management ploy of doing as little as possible.

Targets are always based on your achievement in the previous year aren't they? Once you have got one year's target, the last thing you do is pile the miles on. You only end up with a bigger target the next year, and who wants that?

 

In other news, the countdown has started, so here is A bang on the ear for my sister!

Textspeak

Come by train if that’s easier

If I hear more I’ll let you know

Here’s your verification code

Want Indian food or not?

 

I must have been watching you

Thank you for booking a table

A cheque will be sent to you soon

He’s denying everything

 

If you go out keep safe

Where do you want to meet?

Got to drop my son off

Payment will be taken

 

Software for your phone

For doing what you did

Any subtle changes yet?

Just politics with a small p

I should have lied like everybody else

It's Autumn, time to bring out the mudguards and the winter bike. Which in my case is K-1, still full carbon, but now starting to show it's age. Cables for gears? How quaint.

But when I'm on K-1 I'm fearless, scared of absolutely nothing.

Apart from leaf mulch, that can be quite frightening at this time of year, especially in combination with roads that are more like rivers, and covering up the hidden potholes. There was large amounts of it on the Exmoor Beast a couple of weeks ago, and even more today. Dave and I did one of our typical biathlons - a combination of steep hills and muddy lanes, and at times a boat would have been more useful.

Then of course there is the dark. That can be a bit scary, particularly if you are sleep-deprived, as I was earlier in the week, and on your second commute in a row. It's not so much the dark that scares me, more the things that come out of it. Full beam headlights attached to cars coming around corners, drivers in a line of traffic deciding to do a sudden )-turn without checking their mirrors, random wildlife (badgers/deer/rabbits/birds, I've narrowly avoided collisions with them all and more). Particularly bad at this time of year when the clocks go back, and drivers are not fully used to the change.

Potholes, definitely a bit scared of them. (see "the dark" above). Combined with surface water and a bit of leaf mulch to boot, they make a lovely puncture-creation device at best, and something a lot worse if you are hurtling down a hill at speed.

White vans fill me with dread, and as with all stereotypes I'm sure it's unfounded, but I seem to get passed much more closely, at faster speeds and with more aggression by said vehicles.

But apart form that, as I said, fearless and joyful. And the selection of cycling-related pictures from this week's escapades show.

Because the compensations, the health, the fresh air, the fellowship, the countryside, the components, the carbon, and yes, even the lycra, out-weigh all of the other stuff. And today, despite strong winds, hail, rain, mucky roads, spray, cold, and all that, it was a great day. Not just because of the outside either, it was one of those days when most of the ACG were either off doing a sportive, hunkering down on the sofa or trapped in their homes by visiting in-laws.

But Dave and I discovered a little bit of Paris at the Rock Cake café near Croscombe, all in aid of Children in Need, to which both Dave and I gave generously!

This time of year is not my favourite, despite all the beautiful colours. Less light, that's what I blame it on and I always struggle a bit with my mood in the time between mid October and the run up to Christmas. So anything anyone can do to raise a smile is all right in my book. Especially if it's for charity.

Song of the week.