Tales from today's commute....

[fossyant]

The suicide squad are out, two last night and one this morning - squirrels !

Pleasant enough morning, for 5 minutes. Cycling through the local recreation ground at 7.10am, attacked again by a dog. This one nipped my wrist, so I stopped. Again, another owner with no control - another elderly female with a big dog, german shepherd this morning. When the owner tells you to kick it, and it has absolutely no control, this isn't great.

Told them I wasn't setting off until she controlled it - she struggled as I set off - the dog was way too strong for her. Reported to dog warden for 'statistics'. So, that's a lab and a GS to keep my eye on from now.

Despite the stop, it was a quick commute this morning.

 

[biking_fox]

Stay safe! That sounds bad.

Chapeau to the single speed chap on the Floop this morning, sat on with me for a bit and then blasted past. I was properly gasping keeping up. (once we'd cleared all the silly 'improvements' reduced width clogged with school kids).

 

[fossyant]

Stay safe! That sounds bad.

Just stupid dog owners and it's on an estate where most generation's have been dragged up. You know it's not great when the owner tells you to kick it, rather than saying it doesn't bite !

I've changed my canti pads, and whilst these new ones are lovely and powerful, they don't scream like my others - those were handy for scaring dogs and car drivers.

 

[cyberknight]

Earlies this week so pitch black lanes ,at least I missed the rain which I hope will blow over by home time. Tomorrow looks interesting 🤔

 

[Arjimlad]

Yeah, being told to escalate a fight with a GS doesn't strike me as a great idea!

The only animal I had a problem with this morning was human-shaped, driving a Skoda, tailgating me around a blind bend then close-passing me on the approach to the next one. Duly reported. Managed to stay dry although it had absolutely hoofed it down a few times today, and before I set out.

 

[cyberknight]

its suicide rabbits for me that hide in the undergrowth and run out in front of you as i pass that are my bane , the paths maybe 2 foot wide in places with low lying grass/ weeds so its not like i can easily dodge them .Had me off before now

 

[fossyant]

Only one suicidal squirrel on the way home.

 

[HLaB]

What a change in temperature from my last few commutes, Fri was 12deg C rising to a max of 15deg C at night. This morning started at 15deg C in the morning and was 22deg C at night even though I left the office late. This morning was a bit of a sweaty mess as I did an interval on the rural part of the ride. After leaving the office late I thought I was going to be extra late. After wheeling the bike out of the bike cage, I cycled the bike under the office building and thought something didn't feel right. Sure enough, the back tyre was a flat as a pancake. So I scooted the bike back to the bike cage as there is a track pump in there. Before I removed the tube though, I took the notion to pump the tyre up and I am glad I did. After a 50mins cycle (could have been faster but I did a few laps of the building before I was confident enough that it was holding air), 25mins wait, 50mins train and 10mins back to the flat its still rock solid. I'm WfH tomorrow so if it goes down overnight I've got time to change it.
The only other thing that happened I got beeped for cycling on a road which has cycle lanes on its bottom half (I was on the top half). The road is wide and fast but the top half is steep and cyclists are fast there too. So hopefully that is the reason that the lanes dont start till the flat bit at the bottom when the road starts to rise again.

Edit, the morning after the tyre is still solid 🤔

 

[fossyant]

Nice morning for it, one suicidal squirrel again (busy little blighters stocking up for winter, I no doubt). The
calm before storm Agnes !

 

[fossyant]

Storm hadn't really materialised by home time. Windy, but the rain had stopped.

 

[fossyant]

Storm wasn't bad, and a nice morning, except this poor tree got it.

 

[biking_fox]

oops. lucky that's a park and you can go around. On the FLoop it'd be a major obstacle. All clear on my road, but a lot of blown leaves.

 

[fossyant]

oops. lucky that's a park and you can go around. On the FLoop it'd be a major obstacle. All clear on my road, but a lot of blown leaves.

Happened a fair few years ago on the Floop down Whalley Range area, had to climb under it !

 

[HLaB]

A bit of silly commuter racing from me today well I was a commuter and the other guy was an un-ladened road cyclist. I always take my time out of Stevenage town on the cycle paths (they are typically full of kids, folk walking on the cyclepath etc) when a roadie came by me. A few minutes later I saw him again on the first hill (not that you can really call it a hill) on the road just after the path network. For some reason that triggered me; he had been polite wasn't overly reckless round kids but for some reason I turned into a silly commuter racer. Typically as luck would have it, he sailed easily through all the pinch points and I had to giveway at them all so it was a wee bit longer a chase than I first thought but it snagged me a few pr's including the long drag after I passed him. On a better bike without a laptop and full guards I think I could do better but its selfishly satisfying to fly by someone who is on a better bike without laptop and mudguards.

Lol, 3 miles later Karma hit! The back tyre was as flat as a pancake. So I changed it for the spare. Pumped that up and removed it, the core came too. At least I now know what the extremely slow p'ture on Tuesday was (a loose core). At first I tried tightening it by hand but that never worked, and when I used the tyre levers to tighten it, it was the same failure (core removal). So I wedged it in-between the bits of the multi tool and managed to turn it enough, success! If that hadn't worked it would have been a patch of the p'tured tube. So me being me I had a rather hard sprint for the last 5miles to get to work on time. In honesty I don't think my boss would have been concerned with me being 15mins late.

This evening was a rather more sedate afair

 

[Arjimlad]

Lovely morning today.