Not the best of starts to a new year.

So then, where to start? It's been a difficult couple of weeks to say the least. My Grandad died on the 10th a death which was not unexpected but still came as a shock. Then on Wednesday the 19th my Nan (other side of the family) died. That's a lot to take in. I was struggling with it quite badly on Wednesday, but having travelled to Essex on Sunday to see my Nan, essentially to say goodbye I kind of reconciled myself to it all. It ain't nice. It's never nice. But I'm glad that I at least got to say goodbye to her.

On top of that back in December my poor old Dad broke his leg again! Thankfully not the same leg as when he had his bike crash, but he's broken it in exactly the same way necessitating the installation of a Lizeroff frame (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilizarov_apparatus) poor bugger's only ended up back in hospital due to an infection, Luckily it turned out to only be on the surface and hadn't penetrated to the bone. But... Fucking hell!

Apart from all that, my electric bikes have gone up the shitter! First, one broke down on me Tuesday morning when I was halfway to work. So I had to power it shanks only the rest of the way, and then all the way home. Surprisingly I got home 5 minutes quicker!

I got my other electric bike out of the shed to use for Wednesday's commute only to find that the power, once turned on, kicked in immediately leaving me pretty much a passenger! That was, to say the least, a tad disconcerting. So I ended up riding an electric bike, without power, to and from work for the rest of the week. That's a round trip of about 18.5 miles a day. Well fuck that then!
Today, I went and bought a new bike. It's just a bike, there's no electrics, no bollocks (apart from my aching ones) and not a lot to go wrong.

Got the fucker up to 21mph on the way home too. The electric bikes very rarely got past 20mph unless I was going downhill. So it turns out I don't really need them. Out of adversity and all that.

Erm, that's it. Can't think of nowt else I can say right now. But I don't want to let this blog lapse again.
Tomorrow I might show you some new toys. Everybody loves toys, don't they?

iHate Motorists

and they hate me.

Every day I have a near miss on my bike. When the average motorist sees a bicycle in front of them the red mist descends and they simply must get past it. Thing is, I can go a bit faster than the average cyclist. My speed averages out to about 17mph so a lot of drivers are taken by surprise when they realise that they need to go a little bit faster to get around me. And of course, once you go faster, everything happens faster. Only, because the driver hasn’t necessarily taken in what’s going on further down the road they then find themselves having to make panic reactions in order to avoid a crash. These reactions generally involve swerving back towards me. Motorists in general, are unthinking arseholes with little to no regard to the safety of anyone else on the road.

As for van drivers… Cunts!

My stupid fucking bike

is a bit of a cunt!

Since the summer I reckon I've had to spend about £350 on keeping it on the road. The latest debacle. (after my spectacular icy flight of death) is having to have the entire chainset replaced. Chain, rear cogs, and chain wheel all shiny and brand new and looking lovely. Of course I'm £50.00 lighter too! :!

Still riding home I find that without power I got the bastard up to 25mph. I'm chuffed about that!

I think I might start blogging again.

And for my first post in what? Two Years will be a question.

People that voted Tory. What the fuck were you thinking?