The dog ate my footwear

A contemporary reworking of the classic excuse offered up by lazy school children who couldn’t at least be a little more imaginative. A bloke I was at school with would regularly regale the terrifyingly northern Mr. Baxter with tales of alien invasion, a small boys’ single handed saving of the planet and the unfortunate collateral damage of his “Algebra 20 Hard Questions” being discombobulated by a frazzling death ray.

He still received the standard punishment of detention and a meeting with Baxter’s much feared “metal slipper“, but fair play to the fella for trying. It was only last night I remembered my oft slippered pal, during some ‘excuse brainstorming‘ for why my next day London meeting would be conducted in suit trousers, formal shirt and flip flops.

The dog has previous, redesigning Random’s week old trainers into fetching open toed sandals with custom chew motifs. His recent freedom from overnighting in his cage allows access to all sorts of interesting things that can be slobbered, chewed and then eaten. This includes a book – appropriately entitled – “Natural Disasters” which he took some delight in shredding.

Already, I wasn’t in the best of moods after my first bike commute of the year. Exactly half of it had been fantastic, cold and dark but immensely satisfying and reminding me why cars are just so rubbish. As are trains, especially the ones run by London Midland that can apparently teleport between platforms.

Because otherwise, why would I be chasing trains all over Birmingham New Street with my bike on my shoulder and innumerable flights of stairs blocking my progress. Some thirty minutes after this jolly game had started, I had ended up parking the bike in the correct carriage, divested myself of outer garments and courier bags, plugged in traveling tunes and opened the paper.

At which point the driver gleefully informed us that this train was giving up at Worcester, and poor saps heading West of that better get over to platform 7 sharpish. My frantic reassemblage of commuting collateral begat an elbows out charge up two punishing stair sets and a plunge down the far side. Excellent training if I ever considered Cyclocross racing,* but not an absolutely ideal way to spend most of an evening.

Especially since the overcrowding on this final train morphed me into a bikey sardine, trapped between two overstuffed carriages. The next hour was gainfully spent shuttling the bike between suitcases, tired looking passengers and train doors as I’d hurriedly parked it in the main thoroughfare. I feel my smile of acknowledgment, when being politely asked to shift IT AGAIN, may have become somewhat forced after a while.

So when Murphy greeted me with his standard arse cantilevering tailwag and slobbery hello, I sternly rejected his advances with a steely accusing finger and an admonishment of “YOU. SHOE EATER. YES YOU. WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?”. His confused expression suggested the evidence of mouthy shoelace had been planted, and it was all a stitch up. Honest Guv.

Two seconds later, having conveniently forgotten his telling off, he dropped to the floor and began licking his willy in a “Bet you wish you could do this” happy manner.** This is the default position of the Murf assuming there isn’t any footwear to be chewily mangled. It’s hard to be angry with a pet which clearly takes so much pleasure in basting his testicles in slobber. I mean there is an animal which clearly knows how to have a good time, and no amount of telling off is going to change that.

I have avoided potential disciplinary being cited due to inappropriate footwear by ballasting myself down with the spare pair from the office. Climbing the last gruesome hill before home , I couldn’t help thinking if that dog continues to suffer “separation anxiety”, he’ll more likely be suffering “sharp rap on the nose with the remains of my shoe“.

Not that there is much left. He’s going to be pooing leather patches for days.

* Which I won’t. As I’ll die of heart failure or embarrassment.

** Not really. Fond of the dog as I am, there are limits to my affection.

Mad dogs and Yorkshiremen.

Dog meets Man. Man loses.

If a man is knocked over in the woods when no-one else is there, does he still make a sound. Yes he absolutely does and the noise is “uuuumpppphh”. Murphy has learned “Come” but has yet to master “Stop” or even “Swerve

Still he does reward your comatose form with a form of slobbery mouth to mouth that would resuscitate any human with even the merest flicker of life left within them. To the commentary of “Geroff, GEROFF, Yuk, Ugh, GERRRROOOOOFF“. This merely seems too encourage the pup who fails to understand that 25+ Kilos and a decent link of speed is likely to flatten anything with less structural integrity than a good sized building.

Low sun You never learn.

Either that or he just doesn’t care 😉 Properly icy this morning which made this afternoon’s ride swing between amusing and bowel clenching. It’s a good job the brakes don’t really work on a CX bike or I could have been in some real trouble.

Just walking the dog Bright light

As it was, I hurtled down frozen roads and scared a few dumb birds in the local woods with some ad-hoc cycle based beating. Not sure they are entirely legal trails, but since no one shot me I have added them to the list for further investigation. That’s the woods, not the birds. I shall be likely investigating those with a nice side of roast potatoes.

Talking of food, two weeks off the bike and a diet based entirely on whatever crap is placed in front of you, while you’re working your tail off, has not given me the turbo sprint or immense stamina I was hoping for. I feel some of the blame for this must be laid firmly at the door of full fat Coke.

You see, the South African’s refuse to accept the existence of fizzy drinks without a thousand calories in them. Or parts of a dead cow that don’t overhang the plate on both sides. “You want vegetables with your steak sir?” “Where do you suggest I put them?* Tell you what bring me a spare plate and a larger pair of trousers and we’ll be good to go

A man came today and tried to introduce a sub prime bathroom experience by designing a “water based luxury experience” that would have cost about the same amount as the whole house. This did not sit well with my self imposed temperance approach to the weekend.

Still wine is basically one of your five a day isn’t it?

* Thankfully the waiter failed to offer the obvious alternative receptacle at this point.

Updated the bike page..

again

Looking for a picture of the Jake, I typed in “Kona” to my Flickr Photostream. What was returned reminded me of lots of dead relatives turning up unexpectedly for tea. I think I’m up to about 30 frames now in seven years. I don’t know for sure as a) I dare not look and b) the spreadsheet of shame has been mothballed onto a memory stick labelled “Pandora’s Electrons”

Can’t afford any more bikes. Have walls to knock down.

This commuting lark.

This week is worringly my third anniversary of an employment period I was absolutely not going to extend past the first twelve months. It is also my fourth winter commuting by bicycle, although the frequency has dropped from four times a week to once a month. Assuming I can be arsed to ride that often.

Which I should as it is now far easier then when I was playing with the traffic in London. The bike friendly train company solves the logistics puzzle of two bikes for one journey. No longer is my commute tediously extended by a half clothed dash between buildings in order to abandon grubby steed, grab a shower and finally trudge over to my place of work.

And this is the first Yuletide period I’m no longer convinced every motorist secretly wants a dead cyclist for Christmas. Riding the Kona is fast, fun, and almost entirely without a high ratio of traffic cockage. So I can only explain my rubbish commuting statistics to a combination of the lazy bastard gene and a nice car parked outside.

Two weeks ago, I made a determined effort to greet the frosty pre-dawn blackness with a powerful light and slightly weaker legs. The lightening sky promised one of those perfect autunmnal mornings with a low sun bathing the countryside in soft glowing rays. I nerver got to see that once my new light comically dived into the bushes, and left me making a speedy – if terrifyingly dark – progress down the biggest hill of the commute.

Five minutes of searching for the remains proved conclusively a rear light maketh not a useful torch. I slunk home, hit the shower and grumped workwards into the car. It’s taken me all this time to raise the enthusiasm to try again. And the faint hope of a repeat sunrise was dashed by the kind of drizzle that doubles suicide rates.

First I was too cold, then too hot, then a bit frightened on dropped bars and wet roads. It was one of those mornings where getting on with it distills simply into counting the alternatives, and finding none.

But then days like this remind me that the choice is really between being dry and warm now or fit and fast come spring. And with a 1000 feet of climbing on silly racing ratios, even one or two twenty five mile commutes a week are going to put me firmly in the second category.

And even when it’s all gone a bit dark and horrible, there’s always a guilt free bacon sandwich to look forward to. Or possibly two – this kind of physique doesn’t come without sacrifices!

Cross

Although “knackered” would be a better adjective to describe my current condition. Two hours of messing about in the local woods, and straining every muscle to remove a muddy deflated tyre has left me quite spent. And that’s before the final pull home on gear ratios that are going to make a man of me.

I have, however, discovered a number of important things – even on such a short ride:

a) My “slam into things because I’ve paid for a big fork” translates not at all to a bike with thin tyres and no suspension
b) I’ve ridden some fast steering bikes. Only I haven’t because they all feel like oil tankers now. The bar has been well and truly raised. And, er, shortened.
c) Sliding round muddy corners on 28c tyres while gripping the arse end of 12 inch bars is terrifyingly involving…
d) … and more fun that you would imagine
e) Non disk brakes don’t really work well off-road. I considered dropping anchor a couple of times until it became apparent the top tube is at the same height as my love nuts. Arresting velocity using ones testicles as braking collateral feels even more dangerous than just accelerating ever faster to an accident that’s out there and waiting
f) Closing your eyes helps. It’s not like you can see anything anyway.

Jake first ride Jake first ride
But – and it’s a big one – tracks that’d be dull on an MTB are really quite ace. And being fast on the road encourages you to explore all those paths written off as dull before. I’ve linked up more in two hours today than in the last two months, and finally a loop from home is beginning to emerge from the contours on the OS map.

Before setting off on my first dropped bar ride since puberty and “10 speed racers”, I completed the rebuild of the little DMR and took it out for a bit of skills training. I can still just about bunnyhop, trackstand and wheelie up to and past the balance point. Murphy found the whole experience quite exciting and – while I was sat on the floor rubbing my sore arse – he ate a tyre.

I’m thinking of this as a worthwhile period of dog/bike bonding. Although he’s going to be a rubbish trail dog if he just injests vital components when we’re miles from anywhere. Maybe I’ll get him a saddle 🙂

There’s some good news..

Its like that only blue
It's like that only blue

.. and some bad news. The good news is I completely failed to spend a number closely associated with the sound of a high velocity rolling pin connecting with ones wedding vegetables. The bad news is that I still appear to have bought a cross bike. Not a new one, not even close to a new one, but not one that has been ridden much either.

After the trauma of buying from a bloke in a shed, this time I’ve gone for a purchasing strategy involving someone I know. And not just someone, the renowned Seb Rogers of taking-fantastic-photographs fame. I’m giving him some cash, and his under stairs space back in exchange for a pre-love Kona Jake and a quick rag round some of his local (Mendip) trails.

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice a chainring count of ones less than optimal, and a rear cassette with cogs ranging from “small” to “dwarf”. So an ideal set of ratios for an area of the country that is reasonably well known for not being entirely flat.

Seb’s also throwing in the amusingly named “suicide levers” which may prevent almost certain death on the first off road descent. Yep, I’m definitely taking it off road, although my innate honestly forces me to admit that a) it’ll be lame off road and b) I’ll be going even slower than normal.

So does this mean the end of the trusty Roadrat? At 3000 miles and 28 months, it is both the longest serving and longest riding bike I’ve ever owned. Obviously in AlWorld(tm), this makes it just about the perfect time to sell it. Dunno tho, the Jake isn’t costing much, the Roadrat owes me nothing, and when is an extra bike ever a bad thing?

Still I may very well be hating everything duo-wheeled tomorrow after rotating up and down the Malverns with nary a tube. Fitting tubeless tyres wasn’t exactly difficult, but I hadn’t factored three tyre levers into the purchase price. One of which shattered in such a manner, I’m pretty sure there’s a bit embedded in my skull somewhere.

But it’s like the cross bike. I mean, really, what can possibly go wrong?