Tales from today's commute....

[martint235]

I asked him what size tyre he needed and I got the response "a race one", I had a 28mm on me but he was too busy phoning a taxi to drive him home to let me help him. I don't think it was the right size by looking, I think it was a 28-35 and his tyre looked 25mm maybe.

I am still in shock people don't carry these basics about.

As someone who had to walk 6 miles home a couple of weeks ago due to not having the pump set up correctly and not having checked that my gas tubes hadn't been used, it is easy to forget. However your one doesn't sound like that, just someone without a clue.

 

[subaqua]

went to take bike out of door this morning and noticed front was flat.

nevermind I thought I will pump it up and see if it stays up. gave it 5 mins and no noticeable deflation so decided to ride to work.
got 10 mins in and the tyre had gone flat.

stopped and changed tube ( i found the culprit- a tiny nail) but in doing so pulled the wires out of the plug on the dynamo- yes i know pull the plug not the wires.
sorted that though and only got to work 15 mins later than planned . result.

tube now fixed at the comfort and warmth of my desk

 

[Frood42]

I asked him what size tyre he needed and I got the response "a race one", I had a 28mm on me but he was too busy phoning a taxi to drive him home to let me help him. I don't think it was the right size by looking, I think it was a 28-35 and his tyre looked 25mm maybe.

I am still in shock people don't carry these basics about.

I have Marathon Plus tyres (700 x 28 according to the tyre wall), I carry a pump, I have spare tubes and levers at work, not had a problem yet...

I have had to change the tubes on both the front and back once due to slow release of air, but I did that in the warmth of the office, I don't fancy removing Marathon plus tyres by the road side, I can do it, but they can be a bit of a pain to get on and off if you are out of practice...

The most likely cause of the tube issues was the bike shop leaving the too big inner tubes on the bike, I could find no other evidence of a problem...

The tyres have done me very well, both on and off road.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

Saw the direction of the wind this morning and binned my normal route, thought I would end up doing 25-30 miles, but got carried away once I realised the wind wasn't to bad and it wasn't raining. Ended up doing 43 miles.

 

[andrewpreston]

Revenge of the Cycling Gods!

Had to use the car today.
Normal car commute is 20 minutes . Normal bike commute is 55 minutes. Today, due to roadworks, motorway congestion and sh*t weather the drive took 1 hour & 10 minutes.Late to work!
I'd have arrived 15 minutes earlier by bike.

Serves me right!

 

[BSRU]

Something strange might have just happened, more than likely I'm being a little paranoid.
Quick squirt home, on the main road with two lanes, me going slowly straight into the headwind, a red Mazda 323(W388 WMA) slowly driving behind me making no attempt to use the free lane to my right.
I turn left, the Mazda turns left, I turn left again into a narrow alley with parked cars making it a tight squeeze for a car, the mazda follows me.
I turn left again, the Mazda turns left again, another left onto the main road and we have completed a loop and still the car makes no attempt to overtake.
So I turn left off the main road again, the Mazda follows me. So I decide to follow my usual short cut, which cars cannot take, by taking a right into a very narrow alley, Mazda obviously cannot follow me.
On checking the rear view camera it is quite obvious the driver is very interested in where I am going, when I turn right into the very narrow alley, he slows down and is staring right at me realising they cannot follow me any more.
I have been doing a little loop like that for years(mostly), this is first time it appears to have outed someone.

 

[Nocode]

Something strange might have just happened, more than likely I'm being a little paranoid.
Quick squirt home, on the main road with two lanes, me going slowly straight into the headwind, a red Mazda 323(W388 WMA) slowly driving behind me making no attempt to use the free lane to my right.
I turn left, the Mazda turns left, I turn left again into a narrow alley with parked cars making it a tight squeeze for a car, the mazda follows me.
I turn left again, the Mazda turns left again, another left onto the main road and we have completed a loop and still the car makes no attempt to overtake.
So I turn left off the main road again, the Mazda follows me. So I decide to follow my usual short cut, which cars cannot take, by taking a right into a very narrow alley, Mazda obviously cannot follow me.
On checking the rear view camera it is quite obvious the driver is very interested in where I am going, when I turn right into the very narrow alley, he slows down and is staring right at me realising they cannot follow me any more.
I have been doing a little loop like that for years(mostly), this is first time it appears to have outed someone.

Somebody eyeing-up your bike with the intention to work-out where you live/work and steal it?

 

[BSRU]

Somebody eyeing-up your bike with the intention to work-out where you live/work and steal it?

Possibly but their ability to follow a bicycle without being noticed was non-existent, although having a mirror made it easy for me to keep tabs on the car.
Also the town centre is a maze of alleyways and shared paths so impossible to follow me in a car.

 

[Frood42]

Something strange might have just happened, more than likely I'm being a little paranoid.
Quick squirt home, on the main road with two lanes, me going slowly straight into the headwind, a red Mazda 323(W388 WMA) slowly driving behind me making no attempt to use the free lane to my right.
I turn left, the Mazda turns left, I turn left again into a narrow alley with parked cars making it a tight squeeze for a car, the mazda follows me.
I turn left again, the Mazda turns left again, another left onto the main road and we have completed a loop and still the car makes no attempt to overtake.
So I turn left off the main road again, the Mazda follows me. So I decide to follow my usual short cut, which cars cannot take, by taking a right into a very narrow alley, Mazda obviously cannot follow me.
On checking the rear view camera it is quite obvious the driver is very interested in where I am going, when I turn right into the very narrow alley, he slows down and is staring right at me realising they cannot follow me any more.
I have been doing a little loop like that for years(mostly), this is first time it appears to have outed someone.

I would be a little paranoid as well if I was being followed about like that...

 

[andrewpreston]

BSRU. I think it worth a police report. We all know that there are some weird folk out there and having evidence of a pattern could prove useful.

 

[stowie]

Fairly uneventful except for the wind which was astonishing when it bounced off the high rises on Stratford High Street.

On another note should us cyclists local to Stratford take a sweepstake on when the CS2 extension may be finished? It appears an amazingly slow process, maybe they are resurfacing it using a teaspoon? I am tempted to throw the cones to one side as, even with a bit of a rough surface, it would be easier to go down it than weave through the traffic.

 

[DCLane]

Ended up doing both commutes on the 'heap of junk' bike - a Viking Targa DD24

It didn't do too badly either! http://www.strava.com/activities/90790278 (36mph max on a £10 bike ) and http://www.strava.com/activities/90850892

Why? Because the dippy lady who organises our C2W scheme sent my voucher to my home address, rather than my work address - which she said she'd send to and I'd asked her to . I was supposed to collect my new C2W bike today but couldn't as a result

 

[HLaB]

It was such a nice evening, so I left work early (4pm) and did a proper ride. I was just going to make the most of the light but it seemed to last for a while so I decided to head as far south as possible before the light ran out; that was at a place called Catworth. Ended up going a wee bit further to the Kimbolton Junction. My pace started to slow then, doh, then I realised, the battery in the main light was failing and I switched to the identical front light and my pace went up threefold.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Lovely commuting today, for the first time this week I was powered by porridge rather than petrol, I've driven the last two days, this morning though it was dry so got the bike out and had an easy ride to work, tonight I found out why the morning ride was so easy, headwind home, but the drivers were behaving themselves and I was on the bike and enjoying myself.

 

[martint235]

Really good ride in this morning. Beautiful sunrise. Thought I was going really quick but when I got to work found out it was average.

Catford is officially the end of London. The drop in temperature as I came off the South Circular to head up to Perry Hill was tangible!