This morning's commute and other commuting stories

I've somehow achieved my good deed today by being observant, which is strange because I couldn't tell you the colour of my front door.

Spotted a flowery sleeve of a tiny jacket hanging out of a pannier around brixton and took note of the bicycle too since it was in a fetching shade of forest green. Continue with my mindless commute but then spot the jacket on the floor on the cs7 and luckily spot the bicycle again a minute up the road.

Rider has been informed and now i'm going to ride the karma high all day.
#csb

Last night had a nice little chat with scooter guy about how we both wear safety glasses and how they're handy for trees, rocks, etc. Wished each other well. Didn't get his number. sigh

Just remembered I was a terrible human being yesterday.
Cars were at a standstill and the guy in front wasn't willing/able to filter. As I went round him he wobbled and hit the deck as he didn't get out his clips. I was already past him when it actually happened and I just carried on :/ I could easily have stopped and checked he was ok but I didn't.
Today I will help an elderly person across the road to rebalance the universe.
Apologies fally-over chap.

Just go to the same place at the same time and wait for him every night. Will be well romantics.

Totes

had a comedy moment this am, with a guy carrying a 4m long cardboard tube walking along the pavement... he suddenly turned 90deg to cross the road and it swung out into the cycle lane right in front of me

Riding to work this morning, about 5:50 near where Mark Bolan was killed, (Barnes Common) cunt in Transit misses my handlebars by about 3 inches, get to Lavender Hill and I'm sure the same van had hit a guy on a bike!!!!

Too Much Awesome Arse Power.

I always wondered what MAAP stood for

Turns out my karmic reward from this morning was to completely snap my down seat tube.
Good thing I have a frame spare for a build I never started. Time for a full heart transplant.

Edit: Too busy whip skidding and not learning the correct names for bike anatomy.

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Is that your adventuring bike?

Too Much Awesome Arse ... no, wait.

Bad luck, but that’s the seat tube not the down tube.

#inbeforeschick

As if I'd ever pick up on a mistake on a mechanical detail. :)

Report that shit!

Sorted.

I, on a slightly mad impulse, travelled to Fredrikstad, Norway for their Tweed Run this weekend. Glorious weather, beautiful country, clean air.

By contrast, since I've got back the congestion and pollution has just been more noticeable. Ugh.

Was a old beater frame turned into a fixed gear. Has a special place in my heart as the first bike built from frame up, even had to get the bottom bracket rethreaded from swiss to english.

The adventure bike is safe indoors.

despite my previous boasting of being hardy, the 9degrees this morning felt a lot cooler than 10! .... i'll be l/sleeving from now on i think :-/

also todays air quality seemed really bad on the leeds ring road - blurggggggg

♪-idiot-soup-on-the-roads-♪-must-be-the-schools-are-back-♪

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n2j-AobMCU

Damn didn't know you could do that. I sold a frame because it had swiss threads-pretty sure the dude bought it for the BB alone.

Normally they only snap when you clean them.

Most odd.

The Swiss have a thread?

Neither did I.
I actually imported a new BB with swiss threaded cups from america for the project and handed it all over to my LBS. To make things more complicated i think the cups or the shell were too wide and scraping against the cranks. Somewhere in all the fitting and filing the threads got mangled so they called their frame builder friend to rethread it for the supplied british cups.
Knowning this would have been good before i imported the bb!

Evidence above of me trying to avoiding frame failure by cleaning my bike.

I'm sure if i did bother to wash it I would have seen a massive crack months ago. It has been very... musical for a while.

The Swiss have a thread?

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/cribsheet-bottombrackets.html
Very close to british threading but in metric. Slightly bigger shell, slightly fewer TPI.