(In my sleep I grind my teeth)

Friday was the kind of day that you show your mettle as a cyclist.

I was at the dentist first thing, so I looked out of the kitchen window as it started to sleet and steeled myself for the ride two miles up the hill in the opposite direction to my office. It's fine. I would normally have been at my desk at the time it started to sleet, but that's fine too.

What's a little weather to an all-year-round cycle commuter like me?

I slogged up the hill into the driving sleet/snow. My hands froze as I locked my bike up outside the dentists, but that's okay. I stepped into the reception.... and my appointment was on Monday.

Ah.

A five mile cycle through the sleet and into the wind to the office, and of course the sun came out as soon as I got to my desk.

Naturally, when Monday came around....it was raining.

...and all I got for my troubles was a scale and polish and a couple of x-rays.

Pah!

even when the paths are all crookedy...

As I was cycling to work this morning and enjoying the change in the seasons that was apparent in the cooler air, it occurred to me that this September marks three years since I first started commuting by bike.

It's only a little under 4 miles each way, but I've just checked back and, in that time I've covered a frankly unbelievable 4,500 miles.  Just cycling between home and work every day has racked up all those miles (and thanks to the tea leaves around here, I'm on my third bike too).  That 4,500 miles is about the distance between Nottingham and Delhi (there's a restaurant here called "4550 Miles From Delhi", but Google tells me it's actually only 4,185 miles, so.....actually I've cycled past Delihi. Would you imagine you could cycle to Delhi in 3 years?  Well, it's only 8 miles a day, so it's definitely do-able. Shall we do it?).

4,500 miles? That's mad.  I don't even really count the time as exercise, to be honest.... I've run something like 3,200 miles in the same period too.

Cycling is in the news at the moment, with Jeremy Vine posting the video of a car driver screaming abuse at him as he cycled in London... which I'm told is something that every London cyclist can relate to.  Well, that mostly just makes me feel grateful that my commute is mostly along dedicated cycle paths along the Trent.  Not much road rage along there; it's mostly geese.  That's Nottingham for you, me duck.

I'll be gone and you'll forget...

I had my bike stolen this week.

At some point between going to bed at midnight on Monday night and coming downstairs a little before 7am the next morning, someone came into our garden, ripped the hasp of the padlock off the shed and stole our bikes. It was a pretty clean job: nothing else seemed to be missing and I couldn’t even find the screws they’d pulled out of the door to get around the padlock. They’d just come in through the back gate and probably left a couple of minutes later with our bikes. Job done. They would have clicked on the security light as they passed, but my bedroom is on the other side of the house, and I doubt I would have seen or heard a thing anyway. For all I know, my cat might have popped by for a tickle from them, the floozie.

Unfortunately, these things happen. I’ve been told that I seem remarkably phlegmatic about the theft, but to be honest, what can you do? Far better that someone breaks into my shed and nicks the bikes than tries to break into my house and nick some stuff that isn't as easily replaceable. It’s not very nice to know that someone has helped themselves to my stuff, for sure, but it feels somehow far less personal that they only went in the shed. The bikes were insured, so it’s mostly about the inconvenience.

Thanks to this burglary, and because my bike is the main vehicle for my commute, I was forced to drive to work for a couple of days this week, and I have been reminded quite how much I hate it. It’s not just the traffic, either (although it is that too: I left work on Monday night at exactly the same time as a 50-odd year old guy who rides a bike as though he’s riding a penny farthing. As I was sat in a queue of traffic at the last set of lights before I turn off the main road for home, he cycled serenely past me. So, apart from anything else, it’s just quicker on a bike, even when there isn't much congestion). I miss getting up in the morning and feeling first-hand what the day is doing. Having that fifteen-or-so minute gap between home and the office or between the office and home, when the simple act of pedalling seems to clear the mind and relieve stress. I might not exactly feel the wind in my hair, but I do get to see the turning seasons and the baby bunnies and things like that. It just felt wrong coming to work wearing a proper jacket rather than my bike stuff. Maybe I’m just a creature of habit and hated the change to my routine (showering at home in the morning? What fresh hell is this?).

Luckily for me, I had another bike in storage: the road bike that I used to use for triathlons and decided was a bit too lightweight for a daily commute. It was locked up in the storage facility with C’s really expensive bike. Last night, when C. got back from Turkey and was able to let me into the storage, I picked up that bike, pumped up the tyres and was happy to get back in my normal routine this morning. Then it becomes about the smaller inconveniences: I still have my bike lights, but the brackets they sit in were on the bike; my D-lock was attached to the bike... stuff like that, and because I got the bike on a cycle-to-work scheme, I have to inform my employer of the theft, but they clearly haven’t built a process to handle that….. ugh.

The police have told me to keep an eye on sites like eBay and Gumtree, as stolen bikes apparently often turn up on there and they don’t hold out all that much hope of catching the culprits otherwise (it happens a lot round here, I'm told.... so perhaps I'm lucky that, in all the years we've lived here, this is the first time for us.  For ages, I actually used to keep my bike under a cover outdoors, for goodness sake.

If I do see our bikes listed, it will be interesting to see how much they’re asking. I’m not sure a fairly heavily-used and very dirty commuting workhorse that you need to be a giant to ride will be worth all that much.

What a shame if it turns out to be barely worth the trouble stealing it.

everybody feels entitled...

I'm cross.

Cycling home from work this evening, I came over the Suspension Bridge at the Trent and headed down on the final half-mile stretch towards home.  There's a corner here where the road turns and joins the much larger road that heads over Trent Bridge.  The traffic flow is to the left, and to turn right, you have to cross the road at some traffic lights.  To get to those lights (and also to a pedestrian crossing), you have to hop onto a little stretch of pavement and head around the corner.

As I came off the bridge and up onto the pavement there, I could see a lady with a toddler and a pushchair coming in my direction.  I'm lit up like a Christmas tree with lights and fluorescent clothing at this time of year, but she had nothing to mark her out.  Still, I saw her and immediately slowed down and moved right across the pavement to take up as little room as possible and to be as far out of her way as possible.  As I passed, she paused to remonstrate with me for riding on the pavement.  She was pompous in her manner and used suitably patronising hand gestures as she told me in no uncertain terms that I had no business riding on the pavement.

To some extent, I understand where she's coming from, especially with a toddler in tow and a pushchair.  I get it.  The thing that's riled me is that:

a) She was absurdly pompous
and
b) Actually she's wrong: the pavement is dropped here *precisely* to keep cyclists off the road on a dangerous corner with traffic on the main road flowing in the main direction.

I didn't bother starting the debate with her and just kept going, swearing under my breath.

I saw her, assessed the danger, slowed down and gave her as much room as possible on a piece of pavement I have every right to be cycling on.  Maybe there are reckless cyclists around here, but I honestly don't think that I'm the problem here.  Be sure to have a lovely evening though, you sour-faced, supercilious cockwomble.

Grrr.