#BloodyEverything

Today I am one of those #BloodyCyclists but put it this way, you are a cars length further up that queue than you would have been if I’d been sat in my car in front of you.

It’s not actually a great day to be a #BloodyCyclist either. No blonde female trainee accountants have a pop at me but somehow in between cycling in this morning and tonight, some b*st*rd has managed to stonechip a two miles stretch of road around Borrowash.

#BloodyLooseChippings are very little fun on a bike and I’ll now try to avoid this stretch of road for a month or so until they’ve been dispersed somewhat. Even then, after the cars have scattered most of the loose stuff, it will still be loitering at the side of the road to reduce grip for cyclists. A few warning signs that they were going to do this would have been nice. The road didn’t even need doing. We have some roads with huge craters yet they resurface ones like this that are in good shape.

Things didn’t get much better when I hit the end of the queue to get into Nottingham, which was in Bramcote. Having already had to embarrassingly use the pavement to avoid the worst of the chippings, now I have to use it again to avoid the gridlock.

Oh well, things can only get better, unless at the pool they’ve got half of it closed for swimming lessons and it’s six to a lane in the remaining half again. Which it duly is. #BloodyCityCouncil. Cue some very pissed off customers, some who only stay for five minutes before abandoning their swims. I manage fifteen minutes. They really do know how to minimise revenue.

Finally a park session with the dogs, which oddly is the least stressful part of the evening. I’m shattered after all that and I’m relieved when L offers to cook, even after her manic run with Sweatshop for which she was hugely nervous. She does get incredible adrenaline problems when she thinks its going to be fast. I knew she’d be fine. She was fine.

(Wednesday 22^nd May)

Teflon Corner

I have a bit of a bike problem this morning, I fall off it. It happened on the notorious ‘Teflon corner’ at the end of our road at work here on Pride Park. I kind of forgot it was wet, despite the fact it was raining. I went round too fast and leant over too much on a corner that has claimed practically every cyclist in our office and a few others who we've seen hit the tarmac from nearby offices.

The corner is always the first place in the Northern Hemisphere to ice up in winter and we’ve seen many a car spin on it. It has zero drainage and I’ve no idea what it’s surfaced with (we assume Teflon) but it’s a temporary surface to go with the patchwork of surfaces and exposed drains that makes up the roads and pavements around here. We’ve been here three and half years now and all the building work was finished over a year ago but still they haven’t put a permanent surface down. Anyhow, don’t worry, the bikes fine.

With the park now reopened, L and the boys ‘sniff out’ the impressive gravestones that have appeared outside Bruce Wayne’s mansion. I would nip down to get a few photos, if it wasn’t for the massive ‘no photos’ sign and the security guard, although some have appear on the internet. I hope Doggo weed up it.

I take the flatter but freshly stone chipped route home, to avoid putting my bruised body through the hillier route. It's not too bad at first, all the stones have now been swept to the sides by the cars, into the cycle lane of course but by not riding in the cycle lane it's not too bad. Until the downhill stretch into Risley that is, where there's loose stones everywhere. I had a few iffy moments there but managed to keep the thing upright this time.

It’s also a crash strewn day at the Tour de France, so I can feel some empathy with them. Particularly for Tom Boonen who limped across the line some time after everyone else had finished, luckily for him he didn’t have a stone chipped Risley to put the icing on his already bad day at the office.

Much better though from Mark Cavendish, who appeared out of nowhere to the win the stage and on a uphill finish as well, which is far from his natural habitat, making it possibly the best of his sixteen Tour de France stage victories (so far), particularly as the route planners (loads of uphill finishes), the officials (docking him points) and the other riders (blocking him) appear to have it in for him. Then he dedicated it to his dog Amber, who sadly died yesterday. Sob. Bless.

It’s been a good tour for Britain so far, three riders in the top seven and none of them are Cavendish. Dave Millar is fourth, Bradley Wiggins fifth and Geraint Thomas seventh (as well as leading the best young rider category). Heady days.

Dog class tonight, at a hobble. Somehow I manage not to hold MD back, who is simply brilliant this evening.

(Wednesday 6th July)

No Olympic Games Tickets

Apparently all payments for Olympic Games tickets have now been taken. Did I get any? No. I’m hopeless at gambling though. I never win anything in a raffle and seemingly even when I gamble £3,500 on twenty different events I still come up with zilch. Mind you not one person at work has got any either, so perhaps it was a postcode lottery.



L drops into work for the first time this week and then drops out again to go to an audio books talk in Bilborough by a guy who dictates these books for a living and who used to be on Playschool. Gordon Griffin. No I don’t remember him either. I wonder if he’s read any Stuart McBride.

I run home, a bit. A mile and half to the bus stop and then three and a half home. It went ok.

It was a good job that I got the bus for the middle bit because I discovered that they've stone chipped the old Nottingham road, again. Why? It was fine. More fine than fine actually. What’s the logic in resurfacing that road when we have others riddled with pot holes?

So I had a lucky escape. I could have been coming along that on my best bike today if I hadn’t opted to run. When the stones are fresh, apart from getting chip blasted by passing cars, which can be very painful on the legs as well as damaging to the bike, it also renders the road gripless to a road bike. Not pleasant at all.

Now I need to remember to cycle the other way through Ilkeston tomorrow and for a few months until all the stones have gone.

MD is actually very good at dog training later.

(Wednesday 1st June)