Reverse Cycling
Well, not quite, but I'm going to write this blog in reverse order...
1) Decided cleaning the bike can wait til tomorrow. Feeling a bit shaky, whether because of electricity, fatigue or hunger I'm not sure! Time for some dinner now, I think [8:19pm]
2) Got irate at the, erm, wazzocks round here and their 'parking'; on the pavement, on the right hand side of the road, at a T-junction seems to be popular. One of the culprits this time was a police car... I'm tempted to take their number or something...
3) Saw an orange 'Range Rover Sport'. Oddsbodikins, it really is an axis of evil, that car. Can't think of a single redeeming factor, so I'll leave you to imagine the rant I could go off on.
4) Rode out a rather scary thunderstorm at Andy's; we think the side path got struck by lightning at one point, but not sure about the house - the power did go off and interrupt Team America though. When it started raining inside it was quite interesting too.
5) Back to Andy's for plenty of tea, bacon sandwiches (well, just bread and butter for me), and headache pills. We had to go out to the shops to get more bacon so I went along to stand and look menacing and protect the bikes on the back of the car. Seems to have worked.
6) Idiot: driver of TH White van, playing loud 'dance' (?) music and spinning the tyres in his hurry to be off to his next exciting adventure...
7) Inspiring increasing ire: Land Rover Discovery 3. What a ridiculous vehicle. Particularly in non-metallic black. I don't care if the diesel version 'only' uses as much fuel as a huge saloon car of five years ago. And having a personalised plate that almost spells out something that might be your name really isn't classy. Having the audacity to park next to the proper Land Rover was a bit much, too. Though I'd've paid money to see them actually drive it along the Ridgeway. For the uninitiated, the Discovery 3 resembles a cross between a van, a London taxi, a horsebox, a deformed hearse, and the taxis in Judge Dredd. It has no pretentions to being a genuine 'country' car, unlike previous versions - no roof rails, not even a spare wheel on the back. It makes me very irritated indeed, and I have no idea what Land Rover wants us to think of it these days. Wazzocks. Whilst I'm ranting, might I wish some kind of conscience upon the woman in Bath yesterday, driving a huge Volvo SUV (with darkened windows, of course) whilst talking on her hand-held cellphone?
8) Rather groovy: A Land Rover Defender driving up the Ridgeway - genuinely offroading, that is. Bunch of kids in it, who must've been having a whale of a time, and a great solution to the bike transportation problem - just get a huge roof rack and chuck them all on. I certainly regarded anything with an engine with some envy by the time I'd got to the end...
Speaking of stuff with engines, there was a C-17 flying around all afternoon. Which was moderately interesting. Oh and there was a helicopter too.
9) We covered 'only' twenty miles, but boy it was hard going... Really steep hills up, which were really not fun at all; really steep hills down, which were really really scary; flat bits on which I was too tired to get up any speed. Think I might wuss out and spend some time on towpaths...
10) The off-road tyres are really good off road, but I wouldn't want to use them much on tarmac; lots of noise, lots of drag. Like driving an off-roader on the road, which would be silly if one did it all the time, wouldn't it. [Disclaimer: only if it was on off-road tyres, by this reasoning]
11) So, the Ridgeway, which was a whole new experience. I was a little disheartened to be told by Andy, just after completing the steepest ascent ever, that this was known in bike magazines as the 'hard route'... and we weren't even halfway around our circuit...
12) I was up at around 7:30, which is way earlier than I can remember getting up for years, except perhaps last summer when we went to Weymouth for the day. I discovered that the town's a bit hazy at that time in the morning, and that the sun shines right into our kitchen in a way that makes standing by the kettle/toaster most uncomfortable. Anyway, met up with Alex, Andy & Vicky, got the bikes together, off we went into new and exciting lands. Kind of.
1) Decided cleaning the bike can wait til tomorrow. Feeling a bit shaky, whether because of electricity, fatigue or hunger I'm not sure! Time for some dinner now, I think [8:19pm]
2) Got irate at the, erm, wazzocks round here and their 'parking'; on the pavement, on the right hand side of the road, at a T-junction seems to be popular. One of the culprits this time was a police car... I'm tempted to take their number or something...
3) Saw an orange 'Range Rover Sport'. Oddsbodikins, it really is an axis of evil, that car. Can't think of a single redeeming factor, so I'll leave you to imagine the rant I could go off on.
4) Rode out a rather scary thunderstorm at Andy's; we think the side path got struck by lightning at one point, but not sure about the house - the power did go off and interrupt Team America though. When it started raining inside it was quite interesting too.
5) Back to Andy's for plenty of tea, bacon sandwiches (well, just bread and butter for me), and headache pills. We had to go out to the shops to get more bacon so I went along to stand and look menacing and protect the bikes on the back of the car. Seems to have worked.
6) Idiot: driver of TH White van, playing loud 'dance' (?) music and spinning the tyres in his hurry to be off to his next exciting adventure...
7) Inspiring increasing ire: Land Rover Discovery 3. What a ridiculous vehicle. Particularly in non-metallic black. I don't care if the diesel version 'only' uses as much fuel as a huge saloon car of five years ago. And having a personalised plate that almost spells out something that might be your name really isn't classy. Having the audacity to park next to the proper Land Rover was a bit much, too. Though I'd've paid money to see them actually drive it along the Ridgeway. For the uninitiated, the Discovery 3 resembles a cross between a van, a London taxi, a horsebox, a deformed hearse, and the taxis in Judge Dredd. It has no pretentions to being a genuine 'country' car, unlike previous versions - no roof rails, not even a spare wheel on the back. It makes me very irritated indeed, and I have no idea what Land Rover wants us to think of it these days. Wazzocks. Whilst I'm ranting, might I wish some kind of conscience upon the woman in Bath yesterday, driving a huge Volvo SUV (with darkened windows, of course) whilst talking on her hand-held cellphone?
8) Rather groovy: A Land Rover Defender driving up the Ridgeway - genuinely offroading, that is. Bunch of kids in it, who must've been having a whale of a time, and a great solution to the bike transportation problem - just get a huge roof rack and chuck them all on. I certainly regarded anything with an engine with some envy by the time I'd got to the end...
Speaking of stuff with engines, there was a C-17 flying around all afternoon. Which was moderately interesting. Oh and there was a helicopter too.
9) We covered 'only' twenty miles, but boy it was hard going... Really steep hills up, which were really not fun at all; really steep hills down, which were really really scary; flat bits on which I was too tired to get up any speed. Think I might wuss out and spend some time on towpaths...
10) The off-road tyres are really good off road, but I wouldn't want to use them much on tarmac; lots of noise, lots of drag. Like driving an off-roader on the road, which would be silly if one did it all the time, wouldn't it. [Disclaimer: only if it was on off-road tyres, by this reasoning]
11) So, the Ridgeway, which was a whole new experience. I was a little disheartened to be told by Andy, just after completing the steepest ascent ever, that this was known in bike magazines as the 'hard route'... and we weren't even halfway around our circuit...
12) I was up at around 7:30, which is way earlier than I can remember getting up for years, except perhaps last summer when we went to Weymouth for the day. I discovered that the town's a bit hazy at that time in the morning, and that the sun shines right into our kitchen in a way that makes standing by the kettle/toaster most uncomfortable. Anyway, met up with Alex, Andy & Vicky, got the bikes together, off we went into new and exciting lands. Kind of.
posted by Z31 at 7:57 pm
3 Comments:
It's like 'Memento' with bikes. And more neurophysiologically plausible.
TCH
Actually I hear that Memento is actually quite neuropsychologically reasonable...
Oops, too many actuallies.
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