Alternative uses for a tyre lever

Rescuing a wedding ring from a plughole.

One of the advantages of cycling is that it keeps you trim and healthy, although sometimes you realise that you’ve lost weight from unexpected parts of your body, such as your fingers. Whilst washing my hands at work my wedding ring flew off my finger, performed a triple roll around the basin (whilst I frantically grabbed for it) then dropped down the open plughole. I suppose work basins don’t have plugs because employers are worried that we’ll all try and flood the building :-/

And the perfect tool to rescue the ring? The trusty old tyre lever…

Park riding

I managed to make the Dynamo park ride again on Saturday for the third time this year! When it works it works really well and results in a good workout. This ride in the second group out didn’t work quite as well – we were fast enough, but not very smooth, we didn’t give a few riders anywhere near enough room (despite lots of shouting within the group) and there were some of the usual “do we overtake or not?” moments with cars. All things that need to be addressed on the road (which we did) – I always think the emphasis should be on ‘smooth’ over erratic pacing but faster overall progress round the park. Having said that, it’s difficult to maintain the smooth through-and-off over rolling terrain when you have 8 riders of slightly varying abilities, but that’s where the effort should be focused on the park ride – we were getting there towards the end, and I was as guilty as anyone else of varying the pace!

There was much talk of racing after the park ride, typically from the 3rd Cat riders as the racing schedule, particularly in the Surrey League, seems to have lumped a quantity of 3rds-only road races towards the end of the season. It’s been a particularly fallow summer for 3rds road races, with the emphasis on the calendar seemingly being spring and autumn. I’ve entered a few road races and may have another go at the Hoggenberg as well. I’m still not off the ground with my plan to score some points and realistically just want to go for a top 10 finish in one race, or at least spend time in a breakaway. With that in mind I opted for a turbo session on the Sunday instead of a road ride. Ouch! Overdid it slightly on the hardest of the 3 minute intervals and had to back off – that never normally happens. I think a combination of slightly tired legs, a mild hangover and extremely humid weather resulted in my HR suddenly spiking and the lungs requesting that I back off, now please, as in immediately, before melting into a pool of salty water. Thank you very much.

We ended the weekend spending a fun evening with the kids watching Jack Black in School of Rock. They thought it was fantastic that a teacher could come in and refuse to teach the class anything other than rock. I think they’ll be disappointed when they get back to school in September!

You can't hang an old bell on a new bicycle

or is it "you can't hang a new bell on an old bicycle"? Anyhow, it's a Dutch phrase I remember having heard once implying that you can't tart something up a bit and expect the overall result to look fantastic. Thinking about it, I'm sure it's the latter phrase.
Well, I've hung old components on a new frame. Or is that hanging a new frame on old components? Whatever, I think the end result is quite good...

Time for change?

It’s been a while since the last update and I’ve been busy with a few things – trying to buy a house, a holiday in Cyprus and a new bike frame.

The house is the most problematic – although the economy is still looking wobbly the demand for family houses in the Wimbledon area is high, with many buyers seemingly in the same position as we are, having sold their houses and househunting from a chain-free position. I’m amazed at the speed with which offers are made and how quickly the asking prices are being exceeded at the moment. The situation seems exacerbated by the limited availability of new houses - a situation that has been building in London (no pun intended) for years - and a reluctance of homeowners to sell until they perceive that the market has risen again, even though it means the house they are wanting to buy will be more expensive. Too many people seeing property as a long-term investment in pure financial terms. I saw a great sketch by the comedian John Bishop (edit: no it wasn't, it was Alun Cochrane) the other day, where he pretended to be talking to a home-owner worried about negative equity and suggested that, as much as the homeowner might be worried about the falling value of the house, they could perhaps “just live in it?” So I have no idea how much longer we’ll be renting for, how likely we are to succeed in bids for houses, how many ‘house investors’ we’ll be up against or how many more family houses are likely to appear on the market over the next few months.

At least I’m feeling fairly relaxed after a week-long holiday in Cyprus. We stayed in a really nice hotel near Paphos on the south-west of the island and enjoyed seven days of great food, hot sunny weather, lovely swimming pools, hot weather, fun, relaxation and hot weather. Did I mention the hot weather? We experienced a Cyprus heatwave, with temperatures reaching 46 degrees on two days! As relaxing as the holiday was, I wouldn’t go back to Cyprus in a hurry – too many low-cost tour operators and unsympathetic construction have turned much of the coastline into a concrete eyesore selling cheap full English breakfasts!

Finally, the new frame. I had it built up in Sigma Sport (they did a great job, very neat in the detailed bits) and I reused most of my old components. I’ll post a pic soon, but for now here is a stock pic of the frame. I’m certainly not keeping this for ‘best’ use – it’s going to be ridden and races as often as I can manage. Speaking of racing, I messed up and am only on the reserve list for the Surrey League 3rds race this weekend at Walliswood. Heavy rain forecast the night before and drizzle on the day will probably make it a puncture-fest so I may just choose to have a lie-in instead!