I briefly forgot that my rear dynolight is currently disconnected pending investigation and repair, so I cycled almost 100m away from Ocean Terminal before I remembered and fished a battery light out of my bag.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Commuting
Confessions of a Cycle Commuter
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Posted 6 years ago #
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I cut out from behind a roadworks sign at Haymarket and went into the path of another cyclist. Thankfully there was enough distance between us still that I could move out the way without catastrophe.
If it was you last Friday my sincerest apologies! I'll try not to be an idiot again.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Comedy of errors yesterday morning.
Got my CDF back from the mechanic with a series of post-winter repairs, but gearing wasn't quite right under load. Set off on an extended commute without tweaking it (not that I'd know how to).
Gear changes not great, so ended up crossing chain so both rings were on the big wheel. Big mistake - jockey wheel got stuck in the cassette so the bike came to a juddering halt. Had to remove wheel to get it free, so turned bike upside down, forgetting to take phone off its mount.
Phone screen stopped working. No paper maps, so took a wrong turn. Not a biggy and had a reasonably enjoyable ride almost to work, before I crossed the chain again, with the same result. Got phone repaired at lunch time and nursed the bike home.
Expect I'll need to learn how to tweak the gears and will also need to add 2 links to the chain.
Today I learned my lesson and took the hybrid out for jobs around the Bay...
Posted 6 years ago # -
Nipped out to Cockenzie yesterday with youngest in bike seat, to enjoy the weather and visit the wee waggonway museum at the harbour. Got home to find toolbag, spare tube, etc. still sitting on kitchen table.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I'm baaaaack.
Starting new job on Monday, down Granton, so I'll be cycle commuting daily (largely) for the first time in over 4 years. Must admit, I'm looking forward to that.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Hurrah!
Packing for wee several day trip on Saturday evening, decided to check the old wee pump I dug out from the bottom of a box was working - just in case. Good thing I did as it turns out to be schrader valve only. Could have been an issue!
Posted 6 years ago # -
Welcome back @steveo. Grantanamo Bay, eh?
Posted 6 years ago # -
Grantanamo Bay, eh?
Must be better than the fourth and fifth circles of hell. (gyle and Edinburgh Park)
Posted 6 years ago # -
I cut some pieces of invisible "helicopter" tape and laid them down in my shed and now I can't find them.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Doing my usual pre-flight checks with the torpedo this morning, and I noticed that the rear wheel felt like it was wobbling slightly (other, stronger riders have managed to break their swing arm or its pivots; most are fine). But the wobble seemed confined to the wheel itself, not the suspension. I thought that surely the axle bolt with its Loctite 243 couldn't have loosened; I was really careful last time I reassembled it all.
But the axle bolt was loose, and no amount of twiddling with my 13mm spanner tightened it.
This now leaves me with the unwelcome prospect that yesterday's pothole impact actually broke the axle.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Cyclingmollie This is the one aspect of invisibility cloaks that never gets examined in detail: how do you find it when you put it down?
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Cyclingmollie @dougal
This also seems to work for things that should be easy to findPosted 6 years ago # -
@Arrellcat, will you be claiming the cost of repair from the Council?
@Dougal that is an excellent point. I'm off to TV Tropes to see what they have to say about it.
@amir yes, I find things when I stop looking for them. Like I remember things when I stop trying to remember. Weird.
Posted 6 years ago # -
1) Packing my work bag the other day I was looking all over for the shirt I had selected and clearly put down somewhere in the house. Queue five minutes walking around everywhere and picking things up and putting them down again (core part of searching the house of course). Give up and pack another shirt. About 25 minutes later saying farewell to the baby and she reaches over to grab something sticking out my cargo short pockets.... the rolled up shirt I'd been carrying around for 30 minutes.
2) Long commute this morning and hit a pothole approaching Ormiston. Chain came off but I didn't notice and I pedaled twisting chain up into the frame and knackering about 2 inches of it. Get out the chain tool to find.... I'd failed to transfer the little tyre lever that acts as the lever to tighten the chain tool. Completely useless. Considering options another cyclist came along thankfully and I was able to use his. Thankfully it is a new chain and I'd left it deliberately long as I'm planning a bigger cassette at some point. Still - CHECK YOUR TOOLS.
Posted 6 years ago # -
misjudged a chicane nr Magdalene Gardens on Mon night - have a magnificence multi-coloured bruise on thigh as a reminder.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Confessions of a sort of bike packer: this time I will remember to stretch, I said. Every morning, like the gods of flexibility were checking up on me, and again in the evening.
Reader, I did not stretch. Ow.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Arrellcat, will you be claiming the cost of repair from the Council?
Not on this occasion, as I had merely forgotten the correct method by which one tightens the torpedo's rear axle. That said, I did have to extract the main bolt and run my M8 die down it to clear out the failed threadlocker, which is not an activity I am minded to do when I'm half an hour late leaving for work in the morning.
@unhurt, is there a way I can stretch out my calf muscles without stressing my Achilles tendons?
Posted 6 years ago # -
> About 25 minutes later saying farewell to the baby and she reaches over to grab something sticking out my cargo short pockets.... the rolled up shirt I'd been carrying around for 30 minutes.
I spent a good couple of minutes frantically looking around the courtyard of Steampunk Cafe in North Berwick for my helmet a few weeks ago. Had I put it down somewhere odd? Could someone have taken it by mistake? Surely it couldn't have been stolen??
You can guess where I found it.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@jonty I once lost my phone. I was talking to @sheeptoucher at the time and had to interrupt the conversation to look for it in a slight panic. Would you like to guess how I was speaking to him?
Posted 6 years ago # -
This morning I tried to open the wrong D-lock from the pile hanging on the work bike racks.
Key totally stuck; apologetic note left for the rightful owner.
Annoyingly I'd stuck an identifying label on my old lock which had broken but hadn't done the same on my new one.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Stickman
I'll come and cut it off gratis if you need that. Just let me know.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@IWRATS: thanks for the offer. I have a spare key for my lock so will just give the victim of my ineptitude my lock and leave the bodged lock to rot along with the many others.
Posted 6 years ago # -
My ride to a meeting in Loanhead this morning will teach me to pay more attention to threads about new infra. It took me an hour and twenty minutes from Mussy via Whitecraig, Dalkeith, Bonnyrigg, Rosewell and Rosslyn. Why did I come that way, asks my client? What other way is there I replied and they described a wonderful new cycle path that got me home in just 25 minutes. I had no idea the Straiton Pond path even existed, though to be fair, my Spokes map from 2009 doesn't show it.
Time for a new map and to pay a bit more attention to threads on CCE.
Posted 6 years ago # -
It's a delightful and under-used path, that. I think the long-term intention is to stretch it to Musselburgh.
Posted 6 years ago # -
That would be great. A connecting path to Whitehill Road, the one behind Fort Kinnaird that connects up with the QMU path and the rest of the Musselburgh cycle path network, would be perfect. It's a one mile gap.
If I had used the Cycle Journey Planner (above) I would have found out about it before I left. Doh!
Posted 6 years ago # -
I missed my turn this morning still only took 25 minutes. Compare with £4 and 55 minutes yesterday.
The best thing is the showers here are much better than the one at home!
Posted 6 years ago # -
Update: the owner of the lock I bodged is more handy than me and managed to get the stuck key out.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I've given up cycling along the canal in the morning to Colinton and now take the Slateford Road/Allan Park route to Craiglockhart. At least I have some room and the traffic next to me is going the same way, and there isn't a body of water to fall into. I tried the canal this morning though and met bodies of children riding abreast, children on the wrong side, children scooting. I am very happy to see children cycling to school, but it makes for an uneasy commute on the canal stretch. Not to mention impatient cyclists riskily overtaking.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Yep, much impatience evidenced on towpath...I stopped to let a meandering family assemblage past, only for MGIF-man to seize his opportunity to shoot through the gap, narrowly missing toddlers. What-can-you-do faces all round.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@rosie, @snowy, agreed. What amazes me is that there seem to be very few actual incidents despite the near misses. Children do not seem to get impaled, despite their aberrant behaviour, dogs largely unscathed, rowing coaches do not get chibbed despite drunks shouting and no one goes in the drink under a barge (some unwelcome swims on the aqueduct). Having said all this, tomorrow I intend to go on road then NEPN to The Fort. Hopefully no diversions due to repairs.
Posted 6 years ago #
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