Leaving the office tonight resulted in a moment of panic that many seasoned cyclists will understand. It was a late finish (for me) so I was quite tired as I packed my bag and put on the winter kit. It was totally dark when I made my way down the stairs, across the car park and towards the bike shed.
“Hmm, that bike shed looks quite empty…” I thought.
“Wait a minute mine isn’t there…” I panicked!
“IT’S GONE, SOMEONE HAS STOLEN MY BIKE!” I raged.
“Ah, wait a minute, there it is over there!” and the relief flooded in.
Mon and Tue were both early starts for me this week, with me leaving the house just after 6am. I’d also had a late finish on Wed so was pretty exhausted by the time my alarm went off on Thur. Not to worry I didn’t need to rush home too early so turned over in bed and had a nice slow start to the day. This meant I got to the office around 8:45, by which time the bike rack that I usually use was full up. Imagine: it’s the middle of January, it’s cold, it’s dark and there are still so many people out using bikes to get around. It’s brilliant.
Anyway, not to worry, that rack over there still has a few spaces so I’ll just park it there…
So in my defense, after a long day in the office, it’s easy to go into autopilot and not think too clearly, or to open my eyes look around and see the big picture. It’s definitely not the effect of ageing, cycling keeps us young after all 🙂
Winter at Last?
After being such a tame winter so far the mercury took a dive in the middle of the week. Wed night dropped below zero and I was a bit concerned as to what the roads would be like on Thu/Fri. I can put up with wind and rain quite happily but icy roads still make me a bit nervous. Thankfully no snow was forecast and when I looked out of the window in the morning I was delighted to see that the roads looked nice and dry. After my leisurely start I put on the winter gear and headed out in a cheerful mood.
In fact it was an absolutely beautiful day. The wind had dropped down from earlier in the week and there was a nice dry crispness around. It certainly has got colder though, with my garmin device recording -2.6C in the morning and -3.6C coming home.
With the temperature falling as I approached home my thoughts turned back to last week and my frozen brake cable (freezing-my-bs). With all the other maintenance jobs on the bike I haven’t had time to change the cable. I did however squirt a liberal amount of GT-85 down both ends of the cable. I’m not sure if this has helped disperse any moisture down there or if it just wasn’t cold enough, but the good news is that the cable never froze.
I’ll let you know at a later date what gear I use for winter (including the one piece of equipment that I couldn’t be without now). Today it was just perfect and I got home without feeling the cold… well apart from my ears.
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