Today has been fruitlessly spent fixing punctures and pushing bikes, both with a hint of desperation and a whole lot of frustration. Luckily I have found someone to blame and you may be unsurprised to hear it is indeed Satan’s chariot; the folding bicycle. Voted Transport Icon by Lentil Eaters monthly, the obligatory beard and sandals failed to recognise his bottom feeding status in the commuting hierarchy, and brazenly attempted to best me off a green light.

Hello Mr Bull? Here’s your red rag; honestly let this kind of thing slide and before you can say fucking hell, all I can smell is burnt cheese and lifelong humiliation“, Segway’s, Zimmer Frames and idling tourists will count you amongst their victims. A man is hardly a man at all if he doesn’t made a stand so I stood on the pedals, metabolised a few litres of taxi filtered oxygen and stomped off in a complex mix of hubris and vainglory.

Throwing a glance over my shoulder, he was beyond toast and heading towards carbon at which exact point a pssssttt pissed on my bonfire and the bike took on the characteristics of a fridge lolling about on a roller skate. Somehow we careered to the safety of the curb where a brief examination of the front tyre highlighted the kind of low pressure that begets hurricanes. My stormy face gurned the diametric opposite of happy-clappy-scaffold-pole rider as he breezed past marking my location, so other denizens of Beelzebub could rock up and cackle at my predicament.

Continue reading “4 Punctures and a funeral” →

Since the myth was dispelled back in March, not much has changed other than the continuing gentle slide into middle age which apes the angle of the beer repository. The other morning though, a level of previously unattained fitness visited my commute, albeit briefly.

I was at one with my big ring, but what a monster curry that had been, a real bog roll in the fridge” encounter with a Jalfrazi cooked on Satan’s own burners. Toilet gags you see, always get a laugh. No? Ok even the small commuting hillocks warrant a shift in the ’39, when weighed down with the lead lined laptop and an early morning start. But today, I was shifting upwards and onwards chasing slow moving traffic and actually having to lean the bike through corners. Those passing car drivers, mouths forming an incredulous O, were privy and privileged to see a cycling titan at the peak of his physical powers.

Even a delayed train journey in no way shattered my aura. Taxi, buses and the odd scooter were left chocking in their own dust as BigRinged’Al burst through the traffic like an incredible bursting bursty thing (it’s the simile writers day off). A deep and manly laugh escaped my huge air chambers as those impotent zoo animals in their cages were blitzed and humiliated by a biker on speed. Even my fellow commuters were little more than instantly forgotten notches on my cycing bedpost (probably should have given the metaphor boy the day off as well, apologies for that).

Arriving at work, flushed with success, I strode as a colossus through the ranks of pod based gerbils and sat astride my mighty winged chair, a God of fitness, a man bethroned by greatness, an icon of athleticism. (It appears metaphor boy may have been on the mind altering substances again). A single deep breath almost emptied the building of air such was my capacity for life.

It felt quite good actually.

Obviously the journey home was joyfully awaited with visions of Ferrari’s being contemptuously dispatched as the lights dropped green and tarmac being shredded under the power of my mighty thighs. I began to consider accessorising the bike with fins and spoilers to aid downforce, such was the potential for mechanical based flight.

But 30 seconds out of the garage, the vision collapsed, reality rushed in and the true horror of the façade was not only brought home, but had barged in and taken the best chair in front of the telly.

It wasn’t fitness. It was a 20 MPH tailwind. Which was now a 20 MPH Headwind and trees suddenly looked fast.

But if that’s what it feels like, wow it’s almost worth giving up beer and cakes for. Note the careful use of the word, almost.

Momentum as defined by the impossibly stuffy OED as property of a moving body that determines the length of time required to bring it to rest when under the action of a constant force“. Precise and yet entirely underwhelming as a description for the cyclist’s joy of the exact and opposite reaction to pedalling. If there were a caveman dictionary on the web it’d offer a more succinct: Momentum, Good. Pedalling, Bad.

Grieving for the loss of momentum, especially when it’s snatched away by a idling ped apparently holidaying in the middle of the road, will wrench out a heartfelt moan or breathless curse. So if I’m looking a little pissed off after sprinting two hundred yards to beat a long waiting light set only to axe that hard earned speed on the anvil of the brakes, guess what? I am.

Hence the reason, we unwanted detritus of the city streets coast through red lights, swing audaciously through stationary traffic and nibble up to the bumper in front with nary a finger on the stoppers. Momentum rocks my freewheel and woe betide the jaywalker who saunters out, labouring under the belief that stepping on the organic accelerator doesn’t hurt. After a week of commuting ferrying the leaded laptop of extreme weightiness, guess what? It does.

Continue reading “Momentum” →

What kind of rotten English bestows a proper noun on an already poorly constructed sentence ? (actually if I was semantically Willy Waving, I believe it’s a adjectival modifier but I’m sure someone even more anal will correct me) Well this kind of rotten Englishman so he could then rollout an even more convoluted pun. Why is the commute called Arthur? Because it was arfur (half a) commute rather than a full one, see?

I’m thinking I probably should have saved us all the trouble.

Anyway, half a commute was the only available logistical option since my London bike had been interned in the barn for some Tender Loving Percussion (TLP for short, you know there is a really interesting point about acronyms¦ no? ok, I’ll stop but my lip is quivering in disappointment). It’s lived in harsh city conditions through a cold winter, hoovering up and internalising all the shit and crud which lines the strees of our grubby capital. After only 300 miles, the brake blocks were worn to a mil of COMING THROUGH, NO BRAKES!”, the bottom bracket was “ and since you’ve already spurned my attempt to educate, I’m resorting to the vernacular “ totally fucked and the rear cassette was an amorphous blob of salt encrusted tar, horse shit and the remains of slow pedestrians.

While you could change gear, by the time the recalcitrant mech had dragged a rusted chain across the grubby sprocket, your journey would have finished or the world would have ended – whichever came first.

Nothing moved on the bike, instead gears graunched, brakes squealed and cables shuddered. It took a few buckets or water heavily levelled with flesh stripping degreaser to return it to a happy state. Individual cogs surfaced from under choking gunk, cables whistled through silky outers and activating the brake actually conjugated that verb (puts willy away, clearly no-one cares). Even though the barn looked like a triage unit ravaged by sustained small arms fire and metal eating locusts, almost nothing was broken or buggered. Apart from me and that’s an ongoing issue. And when I say buggered, I’m not talking literally just so we’re clear.

So bashed up by bikes, I’ve been seriously considering an alternative get to work strategy “ for example this solution for ˜fat people who can’t be arsed to walk�? as I believe the company strap line goes.

Continue reading “A commute called Arthur.” →