Blast around Kent
I was cycling with my
mate Gethin who lives a few streets away from me. His
bike is the one in front. A couple came up to me as
we were enjoying a cream tea in a teashop in Chilern,
to ask me about the bike. The man said he was
interested in the spindly design and the woman said
she was interested in the short wheel base.
Look, it's a space frame, not spindles, and if you
look carefully at the picture above you can see that
the 'wheelbase' (the distance between the centre of
the wheel), is almost identical between the bikes. So
there.
Anyway I got 32 miles before getting a puncture.
WHAT?
Still, couldn't have
happened in nicer place, eh? I wasn't expecting a
puncture, on my puncture proof tyres, so I didn't
have a kit. We were only a few miles from Geth's car
(at the end of the ride) so he just rode to the end,
drove back and rescued me. Cheers Geth!
I got home and checked the tube. Phew, not a puncture
after all! The road was bumpy in that section and it
must have damaged the repair patch from the last
puncture on the tube from the knobbly tyres. So the
Marathon Pluses are not at fault. Mental calmness
restored.
I now need to talk to my bike dealer about my next
service. It's going to involve this and this, something like this and probably this.
Marathon Plus - first ride
The main news though is...no puncture!
I was at a meeting in Berkeley Square today. On the way out, the plasma TVs in reception were showing BBC and Sky News. Here's what I saw. Auntie Beeb had a look inside too!
And in other news, mudguards and replacement block sunglasses have arrived (not a moment too soon, the tree pollen today was terrible). I'm ready for summer now!
New Tyres...at last
It was a bit hard to fit
these tyres to the wheel, plastic levers would not
have cut it this time. Hopefully they won't have to
come off anytime soon....
After I had a slice of pizza from a very foo foo pizza shop (Fiat 500 in the front Window?, with foccacia stuck out of its windows? Foo foo, I think so); I thought, hang on, maybe my small wheeled bike shop is a foo foo shop too. The other one I use is in Battersea, and Bike Fix was in a terribly trendy pedestrianised street in WC2, and there's another one Velorution, that is more or less in Soho. Hmm.
No Tyres
My new hope (because if I do mail order they won't come any quicker) is Bicycle Workshop, who say they'll order some pluses for me - which is what Bike fix should have said 2 weeks ago.
I see a high proprtion of
civil servants on this petition. I wonder if that
suggests that proportionally, more us us are
cyclists?
I've read some reviews of the SLVR saying that the
sound from the speaker when playing music, is tinny.
It certainly is if you hold it in the air, but if you
put it on a table or cup it in your hand, you get a
much fuller sound.
Links and stuff
A380 seating plan wow.
I think I'll take the bus tomorrow. Can't believe that Bike Fix didn't have my new tyres in today, this is the second time they told me to come and then not had them. Last chance on Friday guys!
Oh yeah, hope you like all the badges, RSS etc, I consider this site to be phase 1 complete now. All my pictures, I wanted up from my holiday, are up. Phase 2 is moving over all my travelogues from my old website - gonna put those in a new blog I think, then the old site will be deleted (bye-bye Freeway, twas over-kill for me!).
Bike upgrade
Something has to change, my puncture rate has been so high since riding a Moulton that I must have been doing something wrong. So I've ordered some Big Apple tyres. Perhaps I should have considered Marathon Plus tyres, but I'm not sure about their rolling resistance, so those will be the last resort. Th big Apples are 50mm wide, so wide, I'm not sure mudguards will fit, I'll have to see.
