And so was my commute this morning. I’ve seldom known anything as much fun, and perhaps I shouldn’t have watched the Google video of NYC bike messengers, it clearly has inspired me.
So this morning I cycled a bit recklessly, and I think it would be fair to say that I cycled like an idiot… but it was FUN! Serious fun, I jumped every red light, streamed through oncoming traffic, shot up Notting Hill, chose Oxford Street for shits and giggles, hung onto a bendy bus as another oncoming bendy passed within inches of me. And I had a whale of a time. And on the whole, I had no more near misses than usual, except today I had a grin on my face the whole way. I LOVED it. Still, I think I’ll reserve such behaviour for when I’m feeling very alert and energetic, this is certainly not the way to cycle when you have even the slightest ill weather or mood about you.
That was on Ruby too. Have I said how she rides yet? Nope, of course I haven’t. I haven’t been blogging as I’ve been too busy riding her and grinning. She rides like a dream. Well, ride is one word, I think of it more as flying… I don’t really feel the road, nor my legs… I just drift along on the breeze, sometimes feeling a bit like a comic book hero and as if I’m the one creating the wind as I spin up to some crazy but stable cadence (152 without a wobble the night before last) and whizz up a hill. She descends well, the control and confidence boost she gives is just something else entirely, and I honestly feel invincible on the machine.
All of the procrastinating I went through over wheels, and the Neutrons are awesome. That said, my Cannondale has Fulcrum Racing 1’s, and those are also awesome… different horses for different courses though, the Fulcrums love sprints and to fly, the Neutrons love climbing and eating up country miles.
On the idea of a fixie/single speed, I think I’ll go for the Surly, unless I find more inspiration in the meantime. Perhaps a Soma or Independent… I’ve even thought about a Vanilla because they’re beautiful, but a beautiful bike won’t make a great winter beater road eater… so the Surly Steamroller is currently the head of the pack for the next bike purchase.
What else has happened, well concerning other things I’ve chatted about here I’ve gone and exported all of the email from The Bat! into UNIX mail box format, and then imported all 17,000+ emails into Gmail. I should’ve done it years ago, it’s wonderful already. That single thing has meant that now when the computer boots up, I let it go straight into Ubuntu, there’s no reason not to and I enjoy using Amarok for music even more than I enjoy Winamp.
What else? Mmmm. Oh yeah, I did the London to Brighton bike ride last Sunday. The ride itself is 58 miles and includes a couple of significant climbs, Turners Hill being mentionable, and Ditchling Beacon being the one that commands respect in everyone who approaches it. My time this year was 3 hours and 7 minutes from start to finish, so we (3 Dynamates and myself) were munching breakfast in Brighton before 9:30am. Then at 10:30am we set off to Eastborne (because that’s on the way to London!*), lunch there shortly after midday (and the coastal road is a bitch, flat he said, but no… there are cliffs, and cliffs roll up and down the whole way), and then onto the train station. Just to discover that all trains were banned that day by Southern Trains, and so we now had the prospect of an 80 mile cycle home having already done 80 miles. I managed another 27.8 miles before I had to call to be rescued… the 3 other dynamo’s made it to a deserted train station another 8 miles down the road and got home via jumping on the train whilst there was no-one to tell them not to. Me, I waited in a layby to be picked up and driven back to a place where there would be less pain. Still, 107.8 miles in just over 6 hours, with a new personal best for the L2B… I feel dead proud for that slice of fun.
* And if you don’t know the geography, it goes Brighton, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Holland, Eastborne, Venezuela, Africa, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon… and then London.
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