This morning's commute and other commuting stories

No, wankers that take other people's shit is why insurance is so high.

So lovely out there early morning at the moment. Even stopped for a 7am Nero.

4 Attachments

Commuter question - need to bring in a meringue pie (don't ask) to work and am hoping to put it in a big box strapped to my front rack. But I imagine delicate baking + potholes are not going to be friends so does anyone happen to have an intelligent hack for carrying fragile things on a bike or do I give up and take the tube for the day.

Make a large jelly and put it on the rack under the pie to act as shock absorber. Eat jelly for breakfast at work. Win.

When I used to take cake into the office, I'd put it in a box on a layer of bubble wrap, and then use kitchen towel to 'pad out' the cake. The benefit being the kitchen towel can be used afterwards for fingers etc.

Then the box on the rack with a padded jacket under the box / over the rack.

Let your tyres down a bit, choose your lines, cake makes it in one piece.

Was half expecting to have mick taken out of me (I could see the jelly idea actually working, with say a sheet put across the top) but this is very helpful - thank you!

Yeah or that, whatever

Let your tyres down a bit, choose your lines

MTB thread is over there mate

Coming home today I got chatting to someone and missed my turning, so I just went with it. 7 miles turned in to 25 miles. Which given the lovely weather, nice, just a shame I had a backpack on. Still 18.2 mph ave is respectable for an old twat on a fixie. It’s raining tomorrow.…

1 Attachment

Did the meringue make it?

What method did you use? Jelly or padding?

...

I know I try to make you all jealous with pictures of my commute.
Well today there are no pictures, just words.
I left mine at 04.45 this morning and set off. Over the field at the end of my road there was an almighty battle going on. A flock of around 20 rooks were mobbing a buzzard that had obviously come looking of eggs/chicks. I stopped a watched for a while, there were wave after wave of rooks giving it large, but Mr Buzzard wasn’t for giving up. Well not at first at any rate, eventually he gave up and flew away. Gawd I love my ride to work. Later on a saw a peregrine falcon as well so extra awesome today.

Rooks are very territorial.
ETA - I get peregrine falcons in a SE London postcode :-P

Mine wasn't bad. I left at first light and as usual the sheep in the lower field lined up by the fence to salute as I passed by. Just behind them I could see a couple of the young weasel pups toasting crumpets on an open fire. Up above not one but two golden eagles were flitting from cloud to cloud, their calls so reminiscent of my Grandmother's cackle when she had got one over on the parson again. By now the mists had lifted and the grass turned a lustrous emerald blanket as far as the eye could see. In the lay-by the early doggers were out and waived cheerily as they always do.

When I started my commute this morning, it was a spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobble streets silent and the hunched, courters' and rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.

Fuck it my next instalment will be about the bit where I ride past the sewerage works :/

Got half pulled out on by a car from a side road and was a bit trigger happy on front brake. Put myself over the bars, very heavy landing on my right elbow and ribs. Don't think anything is broken but its painful. Rubbish timing as the weather is improving.

We all love a bit of follow-up. Realised that the box I wanted to take it in wasn't large enough for the whole pie; had to improvise and decided to hang it from a square canvas bag down the side of my pizza rack (like where you'd attach a front pannier) instead because journey was not crazy long. Probably ended up being better for it from an impact minimisation perspective and the meringue was absolutely pristine!

Lovely weather for commuting today. Got shouted at by someone in a rented basic-as-shit Merc, in Hackney, I think because I was making better progress than her. Full of people like that on that part of the commute - they seem pretty chilled elsewhere.

Didn't spoil my mood! :-)

I am genuinely feeling a bit sad about commuting by bike. This morning I saw a bike have to take evasive action to avoid a bus that turned right in front of them, then had a taxi driver deliberately swerve at me because I took exception to his driving me into the kerb on Regents St. My commute is a bit central-London tastic (Oxford Circus, Piccadilly, Trafalgar Sq) but a combination of obvious driver inattentiveness and aggro is starting to make me feel not super happy about my choices.

Now I am reading Will's musings in the voice of Richard Burton.

I popped into Brixton Cycles for a tube on the commute. I didn't ask about the recent trouble with their electrics but the lights were on!

I heard they were struggling to pay for the repairs, so this is just a reminder that they're a great shop and deserve your business if you need something.

crud catcher to the rescue! well, sort of...

1 Attachment

I finally managed to get my phone out quick enough to catch the noisy bugger!
It’s not the one that lives opposite us or the one that lives down the road, it’s the one that I can hear in the woods on the morning commute.

3 Attachments

Well played not including a golf club quotable description.
Years ago I drove a band from Canada around on tour. For the first night of the UK leg they booked an air BnB in Cobham (I think) and there was a peacock roaming the village. I had to explain to them that this wasn't the norm.

Went past the D day stuff in Portsmouth sea front this morning. Holy moly is there a lot of police. Must be none anywhere else in the country today!

Quite funny seeing them all lined up in front of a 20ft fence in 10 meter increments.