Back On Two Wheels

There was a definite thrill when it emerged from its cardboard box, all black and shiny and 2012.  It took half an hour, less, to get it unpacked, the pedals put on, the handlebars and saddle adjusted: thank God for allen key technology.  So I went out, a bit wobbly at first, down to the nearest cycle track, just a few hundred yards away.  This was a mistake, because the schools had just come out, and it was busy with kids and their parents; besides, it's not well maintained, so the track itself is narrow, overgrown at the edges, and it was necessary to get onto the grass to let pushchairs, kids and parents past.  Towards the end of the path, some bastard had tipped rubbish, with broken glass amongst it, I had to dismount to skirt that.

Then back towards home on side streets, which are hazardous because of the parked cars with room, just, for a cyclist and a van, say,  to get by, with only a few inches of wiggle room.  Concentrating on all of the above  made getting used to the 18 Shimano gears - configured in a way that's totally novel to me - rather interesting.  The brakes are fierce, another technology that's advanced a long way since my Shanghai bike was designed.  I didn't have long, and I was a bit bewildered with all the school kids getting in the way, and the general novelty of a new bike, so I came back home quite soon.

When I got home my legs felt kind of springy, wobbly and heavy all at once, and I was breathing somewhat - the last 500 yards is quite a hill, though the gears meant it wasn't a killer.  I looked at the clock...  I'd been out just ten minutes.  I looked up the route on google maps later, a touch over 2 miles.  I was disappointed to find my nice new front tyre on my nice new bike was plastered in dog's shit, (which is incredibly adhesive), no doubt picked up during forays into the grass on the "cycle path".  A nail brush was quickly recruited as a bike-tyre-shit brush, (with no chance of a return to its former occupation, mind).  I decided to regard the shit as lucky.



Comments

  1. AlexThu Sept 27, 08:41:00 pm BST

    It's a good thing you're doing. Stick with it and you'll be lovin' the bike in no time! Got an android phone or similar? Check this site for tracking you rides and following your own progress...

    http://www.endomondo.com/profile/4649049

    add me as a friend if you take to it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Garry NixonFri Sept 28, 06:33:00 am BST

    Cheers mate. I was looking for something like that - it was fiddly, trying to work it out on google maps. That's really cool. I'm aiming to get to about 1 hour or 12 miles a day, initially.

    ReplyDelete
  3. cjdTue Oct 02, 12:29:00 pm BST

    Good luck with the cycling... I did quite a bit of cycling a little while ago and ended up with a really bad coccyx, it has taken about a year to recover from, so get a good seat. (By quite a bit... I went mad for a week). Saw Steve F for the first time in a couple of years.. he's in good fettle. BTW... are you interested in antique cameras?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Garry NixonTue Oct 02, 01:22:00 pm BST

    My knee's a bit stiff, which I hope will pass.

    Had a bit of craic with Steve on Facebook, I think it was, that would be a couple of years ago, too. Glad he's doing well. Withnail to your I, back in the day, I used to think.

    How do you mean, "antique cameras"? That's a big subject. The only camera I really "need" is a Rolleiflex, but I'm holding off on that. If a Leica M came my way, cheap, I wouldn't turn it down, either. Or a Hasselblad. I'm actually planning to sell a few cameras, like an Agfa folder I've decided I don't like, and a couple of Ilford Sportsmans I bought by mistake. Like I said, big subject, don't get me started.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leech or flatworm? Ants and Swiss Chard

Image
For the 2nd time in a week or so, (1st time regarding dwarf beans ), I'm following Alys Fowler's advice, this time with regard to Swiss chard .  Long story short, after midsummer plants which often bolt if planted in spring will resist the impulse to do so, probably because of shortening days; (I say shortening, but in Glasgow, in July, we're still getting 18 hours of daylight).   I got a packet of Bright Lights , at a good price, (another reason to wait until July before sowing, lots of bargains, I've noticed). But where to sow them? Most of the 2nd bed is under a tarpaulin, but it wasn't quite big enough to cover the whole bed, so the last 5ft or so went under a sheet of plastic, (in the background of the photo in this post, here .) Transparent plastic was a foolish idea, weeds were growing underneath it, so I covered most of it with sheets of metal from the old shed. I decided to leave the tarp, but use the area beneath the plastic for the chard. Who-ah there...
Read more

"Chevy Chase. Fuck ever happen to him?"

Image
As Paulie Walnuts said in The Sopranos. It got me thinking. As it happens, he's been working steadily , but you can see what Paulie means. It's like that with film and television actors: you don't see them in anything for a year or two, and you wonder if they're dead or perhaps on a lengthy charlie and booze session. Or maybe doing proper acting on the stage? Only appearing on the telly gives them meaning to us. That video with Paul Simon was on one of the cable music channels the other day. It always makes me smile. As for Paulie and the rest of the crew, the clock's ticking. Of course, America already knows how things finish, but we don't. My mate Ian was telling me about a friend of his, visiting the States a few weeks ago, flicking through the channels in his hotel bedroom, he hit on a repeat of THE final episode, just beginning. What a quandry! He watched it, as it goes, but kept shtum when he came home.
Read more

Sex Sells Cars

Image
That's my mate Stewy, who nowadays mends really expensive hospital equipment when it goes on the blink. But years ago, he had a modelling contract with Lada cars. I think it all ended badly, for him and for Lada.
Read more