Landfill? Malawi!
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Commuting
Confessions of a Cycle Commuter
(1669 posts)-
Posted 6 years ago #
-
@IWRATS - thanks for the link! ....actually i exaggerated a little to emphasise my puncture woes :)
plus, if the puncture is easily found i sticky it and keep the tube as a super-spare backup one - but what a great link and a fantastic cause, i'll keep a big envelope open for any inners and will post them off when full.seems a shame that manufacturers dont hook up with them and put a label on the inner tube box about this....
Posted 6 years ago # -
@rider73
You could imagine bike shops collecting old tubes and sending them off, but who wants a massive sack of dead components in their retail space? Times are hard for bike shops right now. Not as hard as for the average citizen of Malawi mind.
Posted 6 years ago # -
agree @iwrats !
Posted 6 years ago # -
Fell off whilst cycling at slow walking speed across the bridge over the Western Approach Road (between Exchange Square and Rutland Court). Landed on my feet but ended up with a hole and oil stain in my jeans :( It's slippery after that brief snowfall earlier this morning!
Posted 6 years ago # -
Heading down Craighouse Hill at close to the speed limit in the dark, less than five minutes after leaving the house this morning, I encountered a new pothole right in the cycle desire line and hit it with an almighty bang that would have shaken my fillings out if I had any. By the time I got to the Myreside Rugby Ground the front tyre was flat. I pushed the bike disconsolately back up the hill and swapped out the inner tube at home before setting off again (in daylight, which felt a bit strange).
Ever since that incident, my rear disc brake has been squealing every time it's applied.
Posted 6 years ago # -
“Ever since that incident, my rear disc brake has been squealing every time it's applied.”
It’s possible more damage than the puncture(?)
Posted 6 years ago # -
@chdot - indeed. It's going back on the stand tomorrow when it's light and I don't have to be at work 20 minutes ago... I wonder if I got some grease on the disc at some point when I put the bike on the stand to take the front wheel off. I hope it's that trivial, anyway.
Posted 6 years ago # -
It's not proper footering with a bike until you've cut yourself on something that should technically be too blunt to cut skin, right?
Asking for a very clumsy friend.
Posted 6 years ago # -
“Ever since that incident, my rear disc brake has been squealing every time it's applied.”
Is that a euphemism?
Posted 6 years ago # -
Applied to what, we ask - fearing the answer?
ETA: @snowy you were post #1000. Think this means you win the opportunity to confess anything you wish, however shocking, and have your sin(s) forgiven.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Monday got two flats on Schwalbe Winters. Decided to leave it for later inspection and use another bike.
Tuesday didn't clip iPhone onto handlebars in case the bike fell over. I put it in the Brompton bag. Crossing the M8 my audiobook on the history of Europe since 1945 stopped. Looked for phone to see what was wrong. No phone. Walk back along the A89 and see phone in dry bag lying on the carriage way. Nothing hit it while I was approaching but something sure had hit it before that. Not only was the screen smashed but the casing was bent way out of shape. I managed to get the SIM out. Trip to Apple Store for a new iPhone. It's nice and black but I miss the old 5s. Boys like the busted one. I'm slightly worried because the idea of beautiful ruins was an interest of Albert Speer.
Wednesday used the Longstaff. Brakes were a bit grabby. Half way there the wheel stopped turning. Inspection showed that the right hand side of the rim had worn out and bulged. Removed one brake pad, let out some air and bent the rim back a bit with self gripping pliers. Later in the day I found that I had left the pliers by the roadside and they were gone by the afternoon. Wheel made it home. I have a spare but it's in my dad's garage.
Time to whip out a Hohner Special 20, hit the Devil's Interval and start playing the Blues.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@weefolding bike, excellent confession and your solution of playing the mouthie is far better than the Five Hail Mary's I was tempted to suggest,
Posted 6 years ago # -
You haven't heard me on a harmonica though. I'm starting to prefer a chromatic. Too big to carry in your pocket but has all the notes. Also the Hohner CX-12 is very, very black.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Ah, the Hohner CX-12, is black, unlike other harmonicas which are only very, very, very, very dark grey (father ted though that was about priests' socks)
Posted 6 years ago # -
I've got a Golden Melody with a bright red comb. Super Chromonica Deluxe has a pear wood comb. Lows are blue, Rockets are green and Crossovers are bamboo.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Starting to think we could have a CCE Open Mic night...
ETA a confession: post-bump on Saturday I am now very aware that one of the main points of impact was One Buttock. I am sitting funny.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Ouch unhurt, maybe have that buttock seen to?
Posted 6 years ago # -
Wouldn't that just make it hurt more?
Posted 6 years ago # -
Left home this morning with a nagging doubt that I was missing something, but couldn't think what. Got to work to find that the missing thing was my tie. Luckily, I have a spare tie in my locker for just such eventualities. Unluckily it had been in there some time, squashed against something else, so had developed a severe crease across the front, so the tip pointed forward like Dilbert's. Luckily I had two hours to sit on it and try to flatten it out before my first meeting. Unluckily that was my first meeting with a very important executive on whom I needed to make a good impression (to give an idea of how important, she has several tens of thousands of people working for her...).
It still had a major crease in when I went into the meeting. I am going to take more care of my emergency tie in future...
Posted 6 years ago # -
I couldn't quickly find either pair of current full-finger glubs this morning and grabbed the nearest pair of fingerless mittens from the glove bag, but it turned out to be warm enough on the way in to not need them. It was a bit colder through the rain on the way home, resulting in slight numbness.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I couldn't find my keys this morning. It is bad when this happens as garage key is on my set of keys and err later the key for my bike lock is also on this set of keys. retrieving the bike involves a Footer involving going out the back door and through the garage from back then round through the side door to lock garage back door and back out the side again.
This delayed me so it was raining from the get go and traffic was very tailed back and being badly driven.
On homeward journey I waited at work until the rain abated so was not bad, bit windy lots of mad driving and parking.
Keys found in the cutlery drawer tonight.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Greenroofer - you could have just not worn the tie and brought it up immediately and said "Hey I had to take my tie off. You know that it's not safe to wear a tie when operating heavy machinery.... and my part of the business is a well oiled machine"
Then give a double thumbs up. Receive promotion.
I don't have much experience of your area of work but I can't see how that'd have gone wrong.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@arobcomp, I employ the hurricane Higgins defence - tie makes my neck itchy, indeed I am allergic to them, shame as I have some nice ones. Wore a tartan one recently to a funeral which was fine.
Posted 6 years ago # -
The funeral or the tie?
Posted 6 years ago # -
Both
Posted 6 years ago # -
Riding a velomobile when it's absolutely chucking it down certainly keeps you dry from about your chest to your toes, especially with the foam spraydeck in place, but not so much the back of your head if you don't have the roof on. I was perhaps a mile away from home today, in the midst of some of the heaviest rain I have ever cycled in, when my waterproof cap* blew off, owing to a combination of external wind, the windblast created by me doing 30mph, me having forgotten to wear my cycling glasses today, which would otherwise have helped hold it on my head, and me using the spraydeck which meant I couldn't quickly reach up to catch it.
Since it seemed likely that it would have blown off the road in the wind, I decided to ride home first, put some warmer things on and come back to look for it. Well, my cap was still on the road. It had been comprehensively run over and left for dead, the plastic in the peak broken in two places.
Back home I washed it, then pulled the (pieces of) peak back into place. I can't set it for it to mend, but it seems to hold its shape well enough for me to avoid spending £25 to replace it just yet.
* Bought in Wales in the summer of 2015 two days before I aborted my Chester to Carmarthen tour because of it absolutely chucking it down every day.
Posted 6 years ago # -
me doing 30mph
[standard noises of awe]
but yes, SO WET earlier. Had to leave early on an errand to Princes Street and I was wet through all my layers on arrival.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I was going at 20mph through cowgate heading east yesterday morning, without trying. Wind assist. Given it is a 20mph area not sure why some drivers felt the need to overtake me . .? Perhaps to give me the pleasure of undertaking them at th lights
Posted 6 years ago # -
Not quite sure where to put this one...
Perhaps this morning wasn't the best day to try out the new enormo-panniers. I'd opted to take the Elephant Bike because it's reassuringly stable in strong wind, and, despite its weight it seems easier to ride into the wind (I think because it goes more slowly).
Anyway, the enormo-panniers have no robust way of securing their flappy covers, so I spent a lot of the ride fretting as the wind blew the covers open and then the firehosing rain poured into them. I'd put my clean work clothes in a plastic bag for life inside the pannier, and was extremely surprised when I got to work to find that they were still dry, even though there was some water sloshing around inside the pannier.
Tomorrow I'm going to put my stuff back in my Ortliebs, and put the Ortliebs inside the enormo-panniers. This isn't as crazy as you may think: the problem with the EB is that its rack is thicker than the racks on my other bikes, and I'm getting fed up with continually adding and removing the little spacers inside the Ortlieb clips as I swap back and forth.
So the enormo-panniers aren't great in wind and rain. They are big. And cheap.
Posted 6 years ago #
Reply »
You must log in to post.
posts
