Fat Bloke on a Bike

Well, the shop has given up.   So has ISON, the UK's repairer for all gold plated bike bits.  The Rohloff hub, that is the single most expensive and '...guaranteed to take you around the world, Wayne...' magical bit of German engineering and advertising chicanery on my Koga bike, is currently on its way back to the manufacturer in Germany for repair.   Cyclesense do agree that there is a problem.  Whilst some oil consumption is normal the hub was dry of any lubricant other than a wet mist clinging greasily to the internal gears.  Repairing it is beyond ISON's ability which seems to be limited to changing oil seals.  An email was carefully crafted and sent to Herman, Rohloff's slippery customer service agent and part time TESCO delivery driver who promptly, cos that's what German snakes do, sent a reply.  Here it is: Gud Eferning Zykelzenssssss, Ein customerz haf gebroken our fantastish mekanizm?  Het iz flippenfloppen?  Mein Gott!  Ziz i...

This year wasn't the year for riding to Vienna, and wasn't the year for a lot else.   Yeah, the Vienna ride has been put on the back burner until a vaccine is available so perhaps that'll be summer 2021 then.  Which has meant that this also wasn't the year for the coast to coast warmup ride and wasn't the year for the pre big-one 250 mile cycle ride from London Alan's gaff in Kent back to York.  A completely banjaxed year cos of the Covid crisis resulting in a general shutdown of the tourist and service industries.  The army have been called in.  It's like I'm a cameraman in the film Cloverfield, this time in real life but without the rat runs and explosions in some dystopian rubble strewn cityscape.  However, like the film's monster I'm pretty sure that this microscopic fecker is going to get all of us before my camera battery runs out. Don't get me wrong.  I fully support what has been done to get this killer bug under control except I fund...

I'm in the 3rd bike shop today looking for the bits I need to fettle my old Dawes Audax Giro. I'm amazed at just how basic some of the bike shops here in York have become.  Gone are the days where as a lad I'd wander down the street to Boswell's bike shop with pocket money in hand.  What that man didn't have for a bike could be written on the back of a fag packet.  Inner tubes, tyres, frames, handlebars, crank sets, pedals, etc...  Yes of course, all the main bike parts but also little gem parts for derailleurs and wheels, a selection of varied length stems, bottom bracket ball bearing sets with small tubes of grease;  fine springs and all the fripperage anyone might need to put an old cronk (1) back on the road. Initially I went to York Cycleworks.  It's a big new shop in Fulford.  Plenty of new shiny stuff hung up on the walls.  Too much of it nowadays battery powered methinks.  I wander across to the service desk and say 'perhaps you might...

Today is my birthday.  I've recently been dreaming of a day somewhere and sometime in my future.  Of a place that looks like the end scenes in the film 2001 a Space Odyssey.   I'm sat alone in a bright room.  Perched in a high backed chair nurturing a lukewarm cup of tea.  With coiffured bright white hair to the sides of my pate and a bald shiny sun-blessed top which, other than for a few fine wisps, is bereft of hair.  I'm trapped in a frail body watching TV with a sightless thousand yard stare.  Someone comes into the room.  My now greyed and fading eyes start to twinkle.  A big beamy toothless grin appears and somewhere in the happy realisation that someone has just entered the room I say, "I'm 100 today don't you know".  Oh dear.  I think I've mentioned it before but my brother once upon a time asked our dad what it was like being over 70.  He said, 'I've still got the mind of a 20 year old but my body is broken'.  Or ...