Not Terminally Silly

Cycling from Mark towards Woolavington across the levels I saw a pony and cart coming the other way. So did the driver of the car in front of me. Reasonably enough said driver slowed. They slowed some more, and more, and eventually came to a stop alongside the pony and cart which was forced to also stop by the over-caution and peculiar road positioning of the car. Throughout this time I had been closing the gap but, having read that the situation wasn't going as expected, was unclipped and ready to come to a stop, which I did. The car, being now safely past the pony and cart, started up again. I clipped in and made to follow it.
Not very exciting. Except that the car immediately stopped again leaving me clipped in with no momentum. I knew I couldn't get unclipped. I leaned sideways onto the cart but, just as I did so it moved off so that the bit that I was intending to lean against was no longer there. I fell. I landed under the cart with the wheel against but not pressing down on my shoulder. The cart driver stopped. I was unhurt except for a scraped knee, the cart driver was certainly more shocked that I was. I cannot speak on the condition of the car driver as they cleared off without coming to investigate. My bike suffered a bent 'rear-mech' hanger. So no great tragedy as the cart driver realised the scenario and stopped before the wheels of the cart went over me. Heavy cart, big, had car wheels, used for hauling hay bales around - trust me on this.
And what a silly way to get badly hurt or worse it would have been. We can blame the car driver for the start-stop routine. We can blame me for clipping in too soon after the car seemed to be pulling away. Probably best to blame me, after all, I had a friend in Essex whose car got rear-ended at roundabouts twice in a year or so when he stopped to check that there was nothing coming from the right. There was nothing coming from the right on either occasion, just from behind - and both times with drivers who assumed he'd simply drive through the situation. I did the same - I assumed the behaviour of a fellow road user would be as I expected.
I do yet live. So, having failed to be terminally silly in Somerset I shall get to attempt it in the West Midlands at the weekend; this time by riding the 'Tour of the Black Country'. Cobbles, stones, gravel, sand...

David

Really Expensive Bottle Cage Nuts

Black Rat sportive 2016. The bottle cage on my down tube starts jumping about. I stop with a view to doing up the retaining bolts but, despite having the right Allen keys for the job, can achieve nothing as the bolts just spin. Fortunately I meet a mechanic at the first feed stop who sorts me out a temporary solution. "It won't last that long", he tells me.

Club run, 25th March 2017. The bottle cage on my down tube starts jumping about. I know better than to stop and attempt a road-side so fix so press on with a view to sorting it when I get back. The bolts just spin, as I guessed they would, so I phone Paul at Cheddar Cycles (good guy, knows stuff and a useful mechanic). Paul says to bring the bike in, he'll see what he can do. He can't make the bolts stay still but rigs up a potential solution - and doesn't charge me as it's not a proper answer. Thanks Paul.

Cheddar Cycles - a 'really useful' local shop

Club run, April 1st. The bottle cage on my down tube starts bouncing about. The decision is made. As the local bike makers in Bristol were going to want significant money for a proper repair it'll be time to go frame shopping. OK, I looked at a few 'new whole bike' solutions first - well you do, don't you? Nothing that I looked was going to match the rest of what I'd built onto the Scott frame over the years I'd had it (by the way - I was very happy with the Scott S40 alloy frame) so a new frame was to be the answer. A Radial Revere 1.1 carbon frame.

First few days of April - a sequence of emails fly between myself and Chris at Radial Cycles. Chris was really helpful. Advice was given (by him) and we agreed on the frame size I would buy. And I bought it. Massively reduced at £315. That's one seriously expensive set of retaining nuts! Of course, that's not the end of the expense though. I needed a new seat tube as the one I had was of too big a diameter to go in the new frame. I needed a new bottom bracket. The bottle cages from the old frame could only be used if I cut through the bolts on the down tube and I wasn't quite ready for that. Paul said he'd strip the components from my Scott frame and and build them onto the Radial for £50. Oh yes, and he was pretty sure he could get it done in under two days, which mattered. Thanks Paul - one hand duly snatched off. Plus parts; a new set of cables as the Radial has internal routing and the Scott didn't, and a new chain which needed replacing anyway. You may guess that the £315 has by now turned into more like £475. I make that almost £240 a nut, so does my wife...

And for the money I've got so much more of an upgrade than I dreamed I could. The first time I took the bike out was to check the setting up of the saddle position. It wasn't quite right but I managed a PB along the local flat bit without trying to go quickly. It was wind assisted. I stopped and tweaked the saddle. On the way back I came along a road that runs parallel to the first one, also flat. I didn't get a PB, I got a second, that one straight into the wind. I'm not sure if it was the effect of the lighter frame or the extra 1cm of length in the frame, but clearly it made me quicker on the flat. Further on I took on a small but steep climb; the Rhodyate, just under 300m in length at an average of 12%. I say 'took on' but I didn't really push that hard. I took 3 seconds off my previous best up there, which I put up just after getting back from climbing things in France last year. Strava position 95/1834. Not bad for a 53 year old who generally only gets out once a week. But not this weekend - time to put the bike in the car and drive to Tiverton.

Banwell Castle - the Rhodyate is the road running along the right curtain wall.

April 9th. Second time out on the bike with the new frame; the Exmoor Beauty sportive. A little matter of almost 70 miles and 1300m of ascent. At least I'd find out if I'd bought well. At least the

last 40km would be mostly downhill! And the David looked upon the bike with its new frame and concluded that it was good, very good. The distance had been suitably dispatched. The gradual climbs had been comfortably completed, the short hard ones had been fun. No one had overtaken me going significantly downhill all day. Granted PacTri Suzy had shot past me on the descent from 'The Ridge' on her way to a Strava ladies top 10 on that section but that wasn't on a significant drop, she was just going faster. Over that course I was very happy to complete with an average moving speed of, says Garmin, 15.3mph (iPhone Strava doesn't agree - they never do - but I feel that the Garmin record gave a better picture of where I know I was stopped for various reasons; mostly at the 'oh-so-slow feed station which was the one down point of an otherwise excellent sportive).

And today I got two PBs on descents, one from Bristol Airport down to Redhill and the other down Burrington Coombe. It's not the few seconds of being faster though that really delights me, it's the oh so much more secure feeling as I go round the corners. I remember getting the same feeling when I switched from the original wheels on the ScottS40 to a set of Campagnola Zondas. I'd expected to get a difference in cornering with those, it's why I'd bought them. I hadn't expected that a frame swap could improve cornering. Is it slightly reduced angular momentum due to the frame's weight (mass) difference? Is it due to the ability of the carbon to absorb road vibration? I don't know. I do know that about £475 has bought me a new experience of cycling which I just wasn't expecting. Frankly good. If I'd been buying the frame for the extra speed then the price down Burringtom Coombe would be about £120 per second chopped off - pretty good if you've got Sky's budget. I haven't. Now if any pro teams would like to buy some bottle cage nuts at £240 each...

First 'biggie'of the year

Route and section - not quite the intended Jack and Grace Cotton Audax

Last night I was told that potential partners for doing the Jack and Grace Cotton Sportive out of North Bristol had evaporated. Ah well, I thought; do the club ride instead. I even but a post on FB to say I'd be there - but it wouldn't post. Thanks FB!
So there I am this morning driving to Clevedon to the club ride thinking as to whether doing the Audax was actually a better idea. I could see from the motorway that it was raining in Clevedon. Decision made.
I got signed in just in time to have missed a wave of starters with 20 minutes to go before the next group left. I decided to go on my own - I'd doubtless be on my own for most of the day, I might as well start like that as well. Feeling good. Wind at back, flat road, 20+ mph and I started reeling people in. Going well. Arrived at the first check-point. Fortunately there were others there as, due to complete inexperience of audax rides, I had no idea what to do. I didn't have my glasses either so I couldn't read the writing on the card. Some friendly guy sorted me out with a pen and I wrote the last post time from the postbox which he said I should. He could have told me to write down which royal's crest was on the front. I'd have been no wiser, but fortunately audax folk aren't like that, it seems.
Lovely flattish roads heading north through south-west Gloucestershire. What a route! Pretty villages, open countryside, wind behind. More 'others' getting reeled in. Arrived in Berkley. Popped in the grocers to borrow a pen to write down the name of the cafe on the corner (friendly guy had also told me I needed to do this). Conversation in the grocers turned to how far; "60 miles! - I 'm jealous that you can" says a lady customer - who I then get to read the next instruction to me which says I have to stop at a 'sign in' in Epney after 48km. Good, good. Where in Epney? Nothing on the card; should have the course notes for that and of course, given the late decision to ride the audax, I hadn't got them.
Nice person number 4 helped me out. I reeled in a fellow audaxist and asked him if he knew where we were stopping. "Pub. In Epney. Anchor I think. You'll see the bikes outside". With that we parted. It was 'The Anchor'. There were cyclists. Signed in, washed the outside of my bidons off, as they were now carrying about the same weight as one of my cycling shoes in mud, and carried on. The route was now across the wind and therefore a bit slower. But not much - still going well.

The Anchor at Epney - with cyclists

Approaching a roundabout on the south west fringe of Gloucester I glanced down for directions. Blank screen. My Garmin had turned itself off. Oh yey! No route card and no Garmin. This just got harder, lots harder. It shouldn't have gone off - it wasn't short of charge. It wasn't wet. But it had. It did re-start and re-load the course but it never gives directions when this happens, just a trail of purple across the roads and when the roads get thin the line gets invisible. It rapidly went invisible. There resulted a trek around the recently built 'domestic zone' of any new town in Britain; which this time happened to be called Quedgley. Forwards and backwards. Exploratory. Lost. Eventually decide that the only course of action was to get on the A38 and head south with a view to turning off and hoping to re-hit the audax route further on.

Lost in Quedgley

It worked. south down the A38, east on a B road towards Stonehouse (always reminds me of the politician, John Stonehouse, though for the life of me I can't remember why I remember him). On a corner a minor road joined from the left and there were people emerging from it that I recognised as folk I'd briefly interacted with and then gone on past earlier in the day. Back in business then.
Now at this point you might think that I'd cycle with these folk with a view to being certain of the route. I meant to. I didn't work. For the first of a number of occasions from that point of the ride I found that I'd left them (and subsequently others) behind fairly quickly - but I had a strong purple line so I wasn't too worried. I certainly wasn't concerned enough.
It all went swimmingly well as far as the next sign in point - a farm shop cafe. You can see where it is on the section at the top of the blog - the spiky bit at 92km. Where I left the route in the final section I don't know. I was happy that I was following a purple line except that I got to a junction and had a choice or orange roads; not good. I hung around for a while to see if anyone would ride past; surely someone would - then I could just follow them. No one did. They wouldn't though would they. They were on the right route.
Nice person number 5, an elderly lady who lived at the house on the junction, was happy to direct me towards Aztec West (where I'd started from) though not entirely sure of the roads towards the end. It worked. All I needed was nice person number 6 to give me the final directions. Back. Arrived. Hooray. It's all closed! Bad! Arrives nice person number 7, one of the riders of the audax,who was happy to direct me to the signing off check-point, just about a mile away the other side of the M5.
Perhaps I will learn the lesson. The route was supposed to be 64 miles, I did 71. In Quedgley I must have taken a 'long cut' as I got to the farm shop cafe 4 km too late. From there it was supposed to be about 20 km, By the time I'd been to the last check-point and back again I did 32.  On the plus side I'd powered round the 71 miles I'd ended up doing with a very few cyclists going past me and then staying in front of me all day. Of course, they didn't get the chance at the end.
For the record there's rather less of Gloucestershire now than there was this morning. I brought quite a bit of it home attached to my bike, me, my helmet, bidons... My wife just emerged from the bathroom. She says that 'The next time I come home wearing Gloucestershire could I please spend longer rinsing down the bath". Seems fair.