Today’s weather was brilliant (for London in October). It warranted a ride.

Not that any other day didn’t but I’ve been filling my time for the last year with things other than bikes (mostly).

Headed west on the Ribble, passing my future flat (Nov 10th if all goes to plan), towards Oxford on the A40. Why? Well I was stuck for ride ideas and I’d read omcoc.blogspot.com, who’s author Edward rides the same road for training. Being totally unoriginal, I thought I’d have a look. Failing that, I was going to ride laps of Richmond Park. Another option I want to try is riding south, following the introduction to Matt Seaton’s “The Escape Artist”, hitting Westerham Hill. It’s okay folks, I still hate climbing, I just need “excuses” to ride.

I ended up logging a very short trip (~15k each way). I think maybe I’ve lost my bottle when it comes to riding in fast moving traffic but the A40 during the day isn’t at all pleasant. I moved to a cycle track next to the A40 but this ran out somewhere near Uxbridge. Stopping to take a photo (below) I noticed Dan was finally alive, which meant I could deliver his air matress. So I headed home after 1hr:15min.

Like I said in an earlier post, I prefer riding the fix to the roadie through London city. It’s crazy nimble, it doesn’t wear out brake pads and I don’t care so much about damaging it with my fat arse and a bag stuffed full of inflatable bed and pump!

Lowlights of the ride to Dan’s new place in Hackney (Google Maps: ~22k each way) other than the spinal damage from carrying the bed include the cnutbtichwhroe in the black new Mini that decided I don’t exist and she can drive through me to turn left off Marylebone. You’re lucky I was too busy avoiding you to take your plates cnutwhroe. Almost doored in Islington which is odd because near-doorings are much less common here than in Melbourne. Of course the roads are much wider in Melbourne which helps reduce the risk. 1hr:18min

On the way back I had one the coolest things happen. I rolled passed a taxi at a red and stopped behind a bus. The taxi beeped so I turned around, expecting to be lectured about something. I walked the bike back as the taxi driver gestured.

“Is that a fixed gear you’re riding?”

“Yeah”

“What sort of gear ratio do you use?”

“Um.. 46.. err.. 46-16”

“Is that okay for around London?”

“Ahh.. I’d probably drop it down a bit from that”, I say, thinking about my knees and the stop/start nature of riding London.

Green light and we separate. That conversation cheered me up no end! Thanks Mr. Taxi Driver! 1hr:06min missing Essex Road for the second time.

I’m only able to give times, no speeds as I managed to lose my speedo. Process: Fit new sensor kit to Raleigh, realise there’s no magnet so use old one, accidentally reset speedo by using wrong button combo so 19,000k+ becomes 0k, ride to Subway, never see speedo again..

If anyone finds a Cateye Enduro 2 in Ealing, I’d love to have it back, thanks!

Finally.. she rides!

After a stack of confusion surrounding Mavic freehubs mating to Shimano cassettes (fscking proprietary wheels needed a ?2.50 spacer!), two weeks of a stinkin’ snotty cold (the saga continues), an MRI, too much work and some house-hunting, the Ribble was finally on the road today!!

Immediately noticeable: I’ve been riding fixed gear for the last few months, but I know that on this bike, I can coast. The result is a very odd feeling of waiting for the pedals to kick you into your pedal stroke.. but they don’t. The handling is quite a bit different too, as I’m going from 54cm top-tube with 80mm stem track bike to a 58cm top-tube with 100mm stem road bike. The bars are heaps chunkier and overall it feels like I’ve moved from a VW Golf to a Land Rover – the bike just feels “big”.

The gears were not adjusted this morning so I dropped the chain and suffered a bit of clicking and slow changes but tonight I spent some time in the bike room at work tweaking the gears and on the way home the shifting was crisp perfection!

It was odd but when riding through peak hour on the road bike I was much more cautious than on the fixie. I actually missed the ability to slow the bike down with my legs. “What’s this? I have to use the brakes??”

Perhaps it was tonight’s rain or perhaps it’s because I’m babying a new(ish) bike but I felt much more comfortable lane-splitting and sh1t on the track bike – maybe the Ribble’s wider bars put me off or the apparent ‘loss of control’ without leg brakes, or the fact I’m riding SPD-SL again and not SPD?

Big thanks to my lovely Mum for sending my beautiful black carbon SPD-SL shoes over.

Speaking of shoes, the stiff soles of the road shoes (I’ve been riding my old Nike MTB SPDs for 18 months) combined with the much stiffer frame and freshness of the setup made for a blast of a ride once out of W1/W2 traffic hell. This bike feels so damn solid and just rockets along! I’m sure it’s like when a climber gets a new, lighter, bike – I had the same feeling of speed, power and efficiency on the flat.. nothing was going to waste. Woo! Not long now and I’ll probably be getting my arse handed to me by some hardened pommie racer types..

“CCTV cameras have filmed numerous cheeky drivers doing battle with the infamous rise-and-fall road bollards of Manchester – and losing.

The 3ft-high barriers which sink into the street to let Metroshuttle buses through, have been installed because of the area’s high road casualty rate.

Yet drivers are risking their cars – and their safety – by following buses through, despite warning signs.”

www.dailymail.co.uk – drivers fail to beat the bollards

Click here to view the video directly