Bicycle affairs
30 August 2025 06:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeAccording to the figures I have cycled 263 miles since I got my new cycle computer configured at the start of June (I hadn't realised it was so recent). 33 of those miles have been over the course of the last two days, 43 in the past week, and I am definitely feeling the burn -- so much for those stupid radio promotional slots saying "anyone can do our sixty-mile charity bike ride, 'it's not your wheels, it's how you use them'". It doesn't matter how experienced a cyclist you are or how accustomed you are to propelling along a heavy bike, if you're not used to covering long *distances* you're not going to be able to do it. Ten miles with a following wind I can do at a cruising speed of 13–14 mph. Sixty miles is completely out of my league, and I've been cycling seriously since I was seventeen.
I am getting better at managing the new cycle computer. If you push the *right-hand* button (the one you hold down to 'blank' the previous trip data) once briefly then it will switch from the elongated display to the two sets of square figures for a few seconda without advancing the display to the next mode. You can also get it to display in square figures permanently by putting it into 'scan' mode, where it cycles through trip time/trip distance/average speed/max speed on rotation, meaning that the display never gets time to relapse back to the elongated single font ;-p But on the whole I find that even more off-putting.
The *left-hand* button is the one that switches between modes, and you don't really want to touch that for any other purpose. Annoyingly, the more features that get added to a cycle computer, the more different modes you have to rotate past in order to get to the one you want! The temperature display has occasionally been quite interesting, as when I was cycling back late at night in shirt-sleeves (fresh, but by no means chilly when engaged in hard physical labour) or when I was out in the blazing heat of mid-day...
I also discovered, while trying to change the time on the cycle computer clock, that it *is* possible to alter the wheel diameter configuration without physically removing the battery to wipe all the settings, which the instruction leaflet doesn't tell you! Sadly I don't remember how, as I only discovered it by accident.
Interestingly, my acquired ability to hold one signalling arm out at horizontal shoulder level for minutes at a time without experiencing excessive strain (the result of signalling at lots and lots of junctions... triceps muscles?) appears to be definitely stronger in the right arm than the left. I don't think this is because I'm otherwise right-handed; I strongly suspect that it is because in the nature of things you generally have to stand and wait longer when turning right across traffic than left!
Somehow or other I managed to lose one of my back bungee cords at the market today, though I really could not see how. I undoubtedly had two cords when I unstrapped my bag at the dairy stall; I didn't want to strap it up again (because I can't get my wallet out if I do, or get at my notebook of expenditure), so I held the two ends of the loose bungee cords in one hand to keep them out of my pedals, while slinging the bag over my shoulder. I then went to the butcher's stall a little further up the row and bought some slices of neck of lamb (to cook with the rather hard apricots which may or may not ripen) while struggling to hang onto the bungee cords. I then went over to lean my bike up against a wooden seat while I filled in my notebook, put my wallet away, and struggled to open a packet of dried figs because I was absolutely ravenous after yet another cycle ride.
When I had everything put away and came to strap my bag back up and head home, I found to my complete perplexity that I now had only *one* bungee cord, which was not sufficient to secure the bag safely on the back of the bike. I could have sworn that I never let them out of my hand while I was wheeling the bicycle around -- I had to keep them taut or it would have been dangerous -- but somehow or other, where I expected to see two cords hooked over the edge of the rack there was only one. And I couldn't find the other cord *anywhere* in the market (and neither of the stallholders had seen it or 'tidied' it while I was struggling to open the fig packet). I was literally only about twenty feet away from and within line of sight of a spot where I had absolutely definitely still had it, but it had completely disappeared. I thought that maybe I had absent-mindedly stowed it away in one or another crevice of my bike luggage, but apparently not.
So I had to go home with my leather case very insecurely attached to my bike rack by only a single rather loose bungee cord. I was very lucky not to lose it altogether on the main road, where I noticed a sort of odd jingling noise coming from behind me -- when I turned off after a hundred yards or so, I found that my bag had slipped right down and was dangling off the back mudguard, with a black arrowhead ground into the surface of the leather where it had been chafing against the tyre. Fortunately it was already pretty battered, as despite my best efforts I can't buff that mark out :-(
And my clothes also got liberally marked with oil while I was trying to sort all this out, as unluckily I had just re-oiled the chain last night -- and apparently that sort of black mark doesn't come out either. I had to spend the afternoon going off to spend yet more money locating and buying another pair of bungee cords without being certain where I had acquired the first pair (I did remember it had been difficult!) and buying stain remover, which probably won't work now that the fabric has already been thoroughly scrubbed -- never mind that it is certainly not colourfast (but by that token is faded already).
A ridiculous and entirely unnecessary episode... and I simply do not see how it can have happened. Where can that thing possibly have *gone* in such a short space and time? The only possibility I can think of is that one of the children running around in the market picked it up off the ground and went off to play with it somewhere, and I only suspect that because it's a possibility that can't be tested.
I am getting better at managing the new cycle computer. If you push the *right-hand* button (the one you hold down to 'blank' the previous trip data) once briefly then it will switch from the elongated display to the two sets of square figures for a few seconda without advancing the display to the next mode. You can also get it to display in square figures permanently by putting it into 'scan' mode, where it cycles through trip time/trip distance/average speed/max speed on rotation, meaning that the display never gets time to relapse back to the elongated single font ;-p But on the whole I find that even more off-putting.
The *left-hand* button is the one that switches between modes, and you don't really want to touch that for any other purpose. Annoyingly, the more features that get added to a cycle computer, the more different modes you have to rotate past in order to get to the one you want! The temperature display has occasionally been quite interesting, as when I was cycling back late at night in shirt-sleeves (fresh, but by no means chilly when engaged in hard physical labour) or when I was out in the blazing heat of mid-day...
I also discovered, while trying to change the time on the cycle computer clock, that it *is* possible to alter the wheel diameter configuration without physically removing the battery to wipe all the settings, which the instruction leaflet doesn't tell you! Sadly I don't remember how, as I only discovered it by accident.
Interestingly, my acquired ability to hold one signalling arm out at horizontal shoulder level for minutes at a time without experiencing excessive strain (the result of signalling at lots and lots of junctions... triceps muscles?) appears to be definitely stronger in the right arm than the left. I don't think this is because I'm otherwise right-handed; I strongly suspect that it is because in the nature of things you generally have to stand and wait longer when turning right across traffic than left!
Somehow or other I managed to lose one of my back bungee cords at the market today, though I really could not see how. I undoubtedly had two cords when I unstrapped my bag at the dairy stall; I didn't want to strap it up again (because I can't get my wallet out if I do, or get at my notebook of expenditure), so I held the two ends of the loose bungee cords in one hand to keep them out of my pedals, while slinging the bag over my shoulder. I then went to the butcher's stall a little further up the row and bought some slices of neck of lamb (to cook with the rather hard apricots which may or may not ripen) while struggling to hang onto the bungee cords. I then went over to lean my bike up against a wooden seat while I filled in my notebook, put my wallet away, and struggled to open a packet of dried figs because I was absolutely ravenous after yet another cycle ride.
When I had everything put away and came to strap my bag back up and head home, I found to my complete perplexity that I now had only *one* bungee cord, which was not sufficient to secure the bag safely on the back of the bike. I could have sworn that I never let them out of my hand while I was wheeling the bicycle around -- I had to keep them taut or it would have been dangerous -- but somehow or other, where I expected to see two cords hooked over the edge of the rack there was only one. And I couldn't find the other cord *anywhere* in the market (and neither of the stallholders had seen it or 'tidied' it while I was struggling to open the fig packet). I was literally only about twenty feet away from and within line of sight of a spot where I had absolutely definitely still had it, but it had completely disappeared. I thought that maybe I had absent-mindedly stowed it away in one or another crevice of my bike luggage, but apparently not.
So I had to go home with my leather case very insecurely attached to my bike rack by only a single rather loose bungee cord. I was very lucky not to lose it altogether on the main road, where I noticed a sort of odd jingling noise coming from behind me -- when I turned off after a hundred yards or so, I found that my bag had slipped right down and was dangling off the back mudguard, with a black arrowhead ground into the surface of the leather where it had been chafing against the tyre. Fortunately it was already pretty battered, as despite my best efforts I can't buff that mark out :-(
And my clothes also got liberally marked with oil while I was trying to sort all this out, as unluckily I had just re-oiled the chain last night -- and apparently that sort of black mark doesn't come out either. I had to spend the afternoon going off to spend yet more money locating and buying another pair of bungee cords without being certain where I had acquired the first pair (I did remember it had been difficult!) and buying stain remover, which probably won't work now that the fabric has already been thoroughly scrubbed -- never mind that it is certainly not colourfast (but by that token is faded already).
A ridiculous and entirely unnecessary episode... and I simply do not see how it can have happened. Where can that thing possibly have *gone* in such a short space and time? The only possibility I can think of is that one of the children running around in the market picked it up off the ground and went off to play with it somewhere, and I only suspect that because it's a possibility that can't be tested.