We are the Champions

Went to the pub quiz this evening and felt that the questions were really easy, luckily the other teams didn't :-)

We came second in the first quiz which means we have £8 of drinks behind the bar and came first in the second quiz winning us the entry fee pot of £48.

Now what to spend my windfall on?

Brrr

It's turned a bit chilly on the bike recently, not so much during the day but after it gets dark when coming home from Evening Classes or the Cinema.

I've installed the thermal line in my coat but I haven't put the liner into my trousers yet since the engine can keep my legs warm.

I've had to disconnect the audio cable from comms unit on the bike because the cable must have come loose and is resting against an HT lead and every time the engine passes 5000rpm I get a loud buzzing in my ear. I'm thinking about building a box to hold the starcom controller, my ipod and all cabling to make the installation cleaner, I'll see what maplins have at the weekend.

Hop-along Cassidy

I decided to go to A&E after work tonight because my ankle is still painful after twisting it yesterday on the walk.

After much hanging around I finally got to see a nurse. Then I waited some more, then I saw a second nurse. Then I waited some more, then I saw a third nurse. Then I waited some more, then I had an X-ray. Then I waited some more, then I saw the third nurse again.

I learnt two things tonight, when going to A&E bring a book aid bending your foot over 90 degrees tends to tear tendons.

I have to keep my leg elauated cud put ice packs on it.

Ouch

Yesterday I lead the walk for the Ramblers to cover for Jo who was unable to lead the walk.

It was a small group, only 10 of us, but it was a very nice walk and we were lucky with the weather.

About a minute before getting back to the car park where we started the walk I tripped and twisted my ankle quite badly (I heard something crack but I assumed it was a stick or twig which had tripped me) but it wasn't hurting too badly so I decided to walk it off by climbing the hill in front of me instead of sitting down for a few minutes to let the ankle recover..

In hindsight that was a mistake, the climb was steep putting a lot of pressure on on the joint which in turn became more painful with every step. I reached the top of the hill, lent against a wall to take the weight of the foot and promptly fainted, apparently I was out for about 20 seconds, I woke up with gravel in my mouth and I nice big cut on my chin.

It's been about 18 hours since I tripped and my ankle is still painful, especially when going down stairs, although it is much more bearable on flat surfaces now. If it still hurts by the time I finish work tonight, I'll head to Addenbrookes to get it checked out.

I reckon Jo owes me way more than a J20 for leading that walk now, I should get danger money.

New Toy

Went to the BMF End of Year Show in Peterborough on Saturday.

The show is definitely going down hill,no manufactures were there, it was just a lot clothing resellers and food stalls.

But I did pick up a new toy while I was there, a Starcom1 Digital Comms unit as a reward for getting a new job a couple of months ago, not that the new job isn't it's own reward (in case any of my new colleages ever find this blog :-) )

I can now use the phone and listen to my iPod while riding. Who knows, if any of my friends ever get around to getting a licence all I would need to get for bike-2-bike comms would be a radio (hint Matt).

I think I have everything setup and working now. The crackling phone calls seem to have been solved by moving the phone to my top pocket and further away from the HT Leads, it makes you wonder what all those RF spikes are doing to my tender areas which are much closer to the engine than my phone ever was.

The only problem I still hare is that if I try to sing along to the iPod, the Starcom thinks i'm trying to talk on a radio or phone and so mutes the music feed :-\

When will I, will I be famous

I can answer that
I can anwser that

Following on from my "Deer Me, That Was Close" post late last night, I got contacted by Chiltern FM for a quick telephone interview.

I've done that and the radio guy is going to get some quotes from a Highway Safety Office before putting together a "becareful out there" type of news slot but I don't know when it's going out.

Who knows, maybe the public will strongly related to my smooth seductive voice and ability to recount harrowing experiences calmly and clearly and demand more reports from the Biking Adventurer. Soon I'll have my own regular spot on local radio, then promotion to national radio before being sent on exciting missions with my reports being syndicated worldwide.

OK, I might be getting ahead of myself a little, but it could happen.

Deer me, that was close

I was coming home from the pub quiz tonight, we won £8 incidently.

Coming down the St Neots Bypass I can just about make out a small green light at the side of the road, at first I thought it was a broken bottle reflecting my headlight.

Then the bottle moves into my path and very rapidly turns into a deer. I slam the brakes on, the front of the bike dips enough for me to lose track of the deer in the headlights, as I come to a stop and the bike rebounds to it's normal position and there is the deer standing 1 foot in front of me.

I don't think it even knew I was there, it just carried on calmly walking across the road as is it was strolling though a field.

Stupid animal, but it was a perfectly executed emergency stop finishing in first gear without locking either wheel - perfect I tell you.

Project Europa Stalled - again

The time has finally come, I have both spare cash and free time to do up the bike frame that the thieving scumbags decided to leave for me when they cleaned out my shed so I went into cambridge and got the first few bits I needed, a bottom bracket and cogset and the tools needed to fit them.

I decided not to get the grease I need to fit the bottom bracket since I have had a tub of Lithium Grease hanging around since about 1998 almost completely unused, except that now I need it I can't find it anywhere and due to emergency Ramblers duties I didn't have time to go to cambridge to get some more so i'm going to have to wait until next weekend before I can actually start fitting the bits & bobs (complicated cycling term) to the frame.

Ce sera sera

PYW Social Calendar

Last night was the Social Events planning evening for the winter program.

On the way there l decided to have some fun and went via the fens, I love the fens. Pretty good surfaces, long straights and lots of sweeping bends and sharp S-bends, and best of all, hardly any traffic.

The meeting was held at The Cuckoo in Alwalton.

I had two suggestions,

1) an evening at the dog track which has been put in for early march

2) a 21 mile Night Hike around Rutland Water which is going to be April 19th

After the planning was completed, we hung around for a while finishing off drinks before we all started heading home.

I had planned on coming home via the A1 but if you think Motorways are boring in a car, you should try riding a bike down them. So I ended up going home via the Fens again which are even more exciting in the dark

Camping Weekend

The camping weekend was great fun, there were 6 of us camping, Me, John, Gordon, Roger, Katie and Wendy.

I got up at 6am on the Saturday, I had a shower and read a copy of MCN for 30 minutes or so while I waited for someone else to get up.

When Katie and Wendy got up I put the kettle on and made us all a cup of tea.

When everyone else got up, we headed over to Hayfield to climb up Kinder Scout, it was cloudy for most of the day but it never really rained so the walking conditions were good. The hike was about 11 miles long with some great views when the clouds lifted. It was Wendy's first hilly walk and she was suffering from a cold so she did really well. We still completed the walk quick than we did when the ramblers did the walk as an official group walk a few months ago.

In the evening we went to The Plough in Hathersage for food, the meals were all very nice and the pub staff did everything they could to fit us in considering how busy they were, but I think the general feeling was for the price of each meal, the portions were a little stingy.

Sunday morning, I was awake at 6 am again but it was raining hard so rather than read in the tent I had a shower and then tried to make a cup of tea, unfortunately this time the stove didn't light. I gave it a few more bumps and got a tiny flame in the burner but I noticed a white vapor escaping from where the fuel lines meets the fuel tank - thats not good I thought so went to turn it off but unfortunately the vapour reached the flame before I could shut it down and the whole stove burst into flames.

Luckily I saw a tent catch fire when I was a scout and so I never cook anyway near my tent, I switched the fuel off but that didn't really help because the leak was closer to the tank than the fuel switch, I had hoped that the pressure would drop off but since the petrol was escaping and then running down the sides of the tank before burning, it was just heating the fuel tank up more and more and so the tank was pressurising, I tried water from my kettle but could get enough water on the stove fast enough to smother the flames, I then got a fire extinguisher but they were all water based and none were carbon dioxide and no fire blankets.

In the end I carried the still burning stove by the burner ring (the only part of the stove which was cool enough to handle with bear hands) over to some long wet grass which I hoped would be wet enough to smother the flames without catching alight - it was. The flames went out almost as soon as I had pulled the grass over the top - yay me, I saved the day.

I handed the stove over to the campsite warden, explained that it wasn't safe and asked him to dispose of it. I've already started eyeing up a replacement stove.

On the sunday was the Curbar Edge walk that I was leading, I met the rest of the ramblers in the car park at 10:25 and we set off on the walk at 10:50 when it became clear that no one else was going to arrive late.

I had some sweets in my pockets for the first person to find a picture of a sun carved into a rock which although situated in a Neolithic Farm site was actually made by a WWII Morter shell because the army used the Rock outcrop for target practice when training with live ammonition.

The rest of the walk went very well but in the afternoon it rained really really heavily and spoilt the views I was hoping to get on the way home which in sunny weather were spectacular.

After the walk everyone went home seperately and it chucked it down on me for most of the way :(

Camping weekend

This weekend I've gone camping with some ramblers.

I rode up straight from worki leaving as hour earlier in what proved to be a vain attempt to beat the rush hour traffic.

The an was at a standstill all the way from Cambridge. The the A614 had a major accident and was closed with no diversion information.

In the end I arrived at the campsite after dark which made putting the tent up fun but everyone else arrived late as well so we were all in the same boat.

The site is very good. Isolated but with good facilities.