Remember the old adage that dog owners begin to resemble their pets ? (I assume it is dogs, as it’d be hard to imagine even the most facially adept animal lover morphing into a double take of “ say “ a goldfish). Whatever, the very same process has transpired between me and my tyres.

First thing this morning, first commute for two weeks, the ˜rat front was partially flat and a strange shining orb was lurking in the sky, looming like an alien craft. Putting two and two together and coming up with a conspiracy theory, it seemed obvious that green eyed monsters had both taken over the free world and still had time to let my tyre down.

After some brief yet grunty action with the plastic pump of piss poorness, I’d punched 120 PSI into the soft tube on the dozy assumption that this’d provide sufficient inflation for both out and back trips. Obviously what I’d forgotten was with this much pressure, the tyre bounced and jumped over all but the flattest tarmac and my teeth will now require much expensive dental work due to unplanned yet frenzied mashing.

Flat legs mimicked the tyres as three hours MTB’ing in the Flanders of South East England had sucked the gas from these vital cycling appendages and the will to live from the rest of me. Actually, my expectations were so low, that any ride not ending in hospital or custody could be deemed broadly positive.

Because jumping on a bike before going on an extended MTB jaunt has recently led to broken bits of Al being littered over uncaring trails. Since we’re off to Scotland on Wednesday for five days of riding and five nights of drinking, this seemed a disturbing portent.

Anyway, I survived through the power of extreme mincing and rapid fire excuses while making real life contact with two people who’d been unluckily washed up on the Hedgehog. It’s like Second Life in here without the celebrity endorsements.

Here’s a picture of Duncan riding a trail that I came to think of as where the f*ck is it? Still at least this meant it couldn’t be as muddy as other 19.5 miles of which mostly all was mud flingingly gloopy and yet strangely fun.

Finding the London bike was a bit of a challenge since a) I’m nearly officially old and have rapidly reducing memory and prostrate function, b) I parked abandoned it while pissed and c) the thicket of bikes made it an almost Stanley like plunge into its’ grimy heart to finally dig it out.

At which point I realised both tyres were on the soft side of usuable. My mobile pumping Viagra is a difficult hybrid of gas powered and manual inflation. It’s fairly rubbish at both but, if pushed, I’d have to plump for it being particularly useless in the wanking elbow scenario. Good job I’ve put all that time in on the Wii.

My final ode to flatness was a bendi-killer-bus doing his best to achieve the unwritten target of two dead cyclists a day. One second of inattention triggered a further three seconds of abject terror as 18 metres of Al-crushing tonnage threatened to grind me flat against the curb.

I know one thing that isn’t going to be flat later tonight “ it starts with B and ends in my belly.