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Six Seconds of Wine

2012-02-05T04:27:18Z

The Good News...

2011-11-30T14:11:31Z

...is that I'm able to ride my bike again! I've been for a short ride up and down the street. The bad news is that my knee still hurts like crazy. I'm hoping at least that it's going to heal itself with time because it has got a lot better since that fateful Wednesday morning.

In any case, I think my dreams of running my first marathon next year have probably been dashed, which is a shame. It's definitely still on the list for sometime soon though, should my knee permit.

I returned to work a week and a half ago which was, as many people warned, probably a bit too soon. It was immensely tiring for a week and come 7pm, I'd be pretty much wiped and unable to hold an intelligent conversation. Still, I survived and it let me get out of house! The dizziness has mostly gone away unless I lie on the left side of my head, which is a little worrying.

Anyway, enough medical offloading. I've started planning the replacement to the late Woodrup that was lost in the crash. Since that was pretty much my around town bike, I've decided to replacement it with the quintessential town bike: a fixed gear bike! None of the off the shelf bikes are sufficiently unique for me, so I'm going to be attempting to assemble a new bike from scratch.

This is what I've decided so far-
Frame: On-One Pompino
Fork: Surly Crosscheck (this was the fork I took to Africa)
Hub: Shimano XT Disc Hub
Cog: VeloSolo Disc Cog
As for wheels, that's to be decided but I'm probably going to get something ridiculously bright.

That's it for today, more as I decide it!

Four Stitches & A Concussion Later

2011-11-18T14:22:43Z

I've just arrived at the end of a relatively eventful week! No doubt if you've been following me on Facebook or Twitter, you'll already know what events I'm talking about.

Wednesday morning, running ten minutes late for work (late by my own standards more than actually being late), I was sprinting down St. Albans road between my house and Watford Junction where I park my bike on the way to work. Normally the traffic moves so slowly that it's safe enough without a helmet and it's barely 1.5 miles from door to door. This Wednesday morning however, as I later found out, a bus driver decided to headlight flash a Ford Ka coming the other way who was waiting to turn right. The Ford Ka didn't see me coming up the inside of the bus and took the corner - and the split second following, I have a very distinct memory of embracing the bonnet of the car with a lot of force at about 20 MPH. (If you want to see the actual junction on Streetview, check it out here.)

I don't remember much of what happened shortly afterwards so I'm just going to list what I've pieced together in some sort of approximate order-
1) Very many pedestrians helped me pick myself and my bike up off the road.
2) Several people called ambulances (in fact I think there were three ambulances and two police cars).
3) Supposedly my first reaction (undoubtedly one of shock) was to immediately start sending a message on my phone...
4) I started losing it as soon as I got into the ambulance. I couldn't remember my name, my address or my phone number. I had no idea who the current prime minister was and I thought I was late for school.
5) The ambulance took me to hospital at 9am.
6) Somehow the paramedics managed to call my sister and when I came to at the hospital, my sister and mother were by my side.
7) A CT scan, diagnosed concussion and four stitches later, I was slowly recovering. They kept me for a couple of hours to observe me and sent me on my way home at about 3pm.
(Fans of Geek on a Bicycle will be astounded that my shoulder didn't dislocate. I can reveal that it is a little sore but is very much where it should be!)

There is a picture of a broken me and my broken bicycle here.

As part of standard recovery, I'm housebound for a while - and won't be returning to work until Monday. I'm not supposed to drive for a couple of weeks and no sport for at least that long too. Whilst I can't say that I would have escaped without an injury if I had been wearing a helmet, it would certainly have lessened the impact of the concussion... I'm pretty certain the stitches on my face and general road rash all over my shoulders, arms and legs would still have been there. Lesson learnt though - I will be wearing my helmet forevermore, even if it is a slight inconvenience.

Strapped To A Wing

2011-11-13T14:10:32Z

After four weeks of delays (mainly caused by the range of weather from abysmal to mediocre) and many months of me forgetting to book, I finally managed to capitalise upon an eagerly anticipated birthday present from my other half - a microlight flight experience!

For the last four years at school I was involved in our school's Combined Cadet Force (CCF) in the RAF section and as part of that, won a gliding scholarship where we learnt how to fly motorized gliders over a four day course. At the end of it, I successfully soloed the glider. In addition to this, for my sixteenth birthday, I started going for flying lessons and solo-ed a Piper Aviation PA-28. Unfortunately budget constraints prevented me from getting my private's pilot's license but it's definitely on my life 'to-do' list.

These were both completely unlike the experience of flying in a flex-wing microlight. The closest analogy I can think of is that of riding a motorcycle versus riding in a car. One is so completely raw and exposed and the other is relatively comfortable. You sit within three feet of the engine and you can see just about every component of the plane that matters. When you're on the ground, you're barely a couple of feet above the ground and it's very obvious that there's not much separating you from being shredded by the tarmac - no safety net.

I exercised my voucher with microlight school Clearprop at the Blackbushe Airport in Surrey. It took a few attempts to actually get flying - this sort of vehicle is very weather-dependent (and especially wind-dependent).

As for the actual experience, after a short briefing, we took off in what seemed like mere metres. All it took was a gentle push forwards on the bar and we were up in the air. In some sense, the control system, although different from most fixed wing aircraft (no joystick or yoke), is more natural - it's directly connected to the wing. This is called weight-shift because the action of manipulating the centre of gravity shifts the wing itself and this causes you to turn. There is no rudder so yawing is non existent. This makes flying in windy situations difficult.

Turning is much more physical (or feels that way) than most fixed wing aircraft too - requiring you to pull down on one side of the bar. This felt quite unnerving for me too, having dislocated my shoulder several times before - in the brief period between having my hands on my lap and holding the bar, there was a substantial amount of pressure on my arm from the wind. Luckily it stayed in its socket and I managed to approximately steer the aircraft in the right direction.

As for landing, this was a terrifying experience. There's no safety (as psychological as it might be) of having a big shock absorbing undercarriage underneath. As we came down to land, my eyes grew to the size of lightbulbs as we rapidly approached the ground.

An epic experience and one of the best birthday presents I've ever received. I'm definitely considering picking up the lessons again this next year.

Photos on GeekOnABicycle.

Chronicles Of A Commute: Episode 1

2011-11-09T01:39:35Z

So after a (very) long hiatus, I decided to cycle into work again on Monday, cycling from Watford to Old Street. This is not an inconsiderable distance but compared to my summer internship commute to Canary Wharf from Watford (26 miles each way), it's easier at just 21 miles. Sunday evening was, as always, a series of minor and major procrastinations where, although I was meant to be getting my bike ready for the journey in, I decided to go visit friends, listen to music, watch television and tidy my room.

Waking up bleary eyed on Monday morning, I somehow convinced myself that today was going to be the day I cycle in (the first time is always the hardest - both from a logistical and a psychological point of view). In my pyjamas, I started rummaging around my 'box of bits' in our garden shed looking for my sturdy pannier rack which went with me from Cairo to Capetown (on my bike for the first four weeks and in my suitcase for the last four months when it became obviously useless). I came out, defeated, with another, much less sturdy pannier rack that attaches to a seat post. This loyal pannier rack was what had taken the load of my school books and uniform when I first started commuting in the fat days.

Grudgingly attaching the pannier rack to my carbon seat post (and ever conscious of the increasing probability of my seat post shearing in two horizontally), I managed to fill my panniers with all sorts of 'necessities' - almost everything I needed except for a hoody which I decided would take up too much space. Walking out onto the road in my cycling Android jersey, a delightful gift from my friend at Google, I realised that short sleeve was perhaps a bit short sighted.

Rolling twenty metres down the road, strange noises already started coming from my bike and when I braked to a halt, there was an unnerving juddering. Investigating further, the pannier rack had already come askew and the edge of one of my pannier bags was rattling against the spokes. This is something I was very used to when commuting to school but it took a small leap of faith that my panniers would make it to work in one piece. As for the juddering, it merely seemed to be alignment of my brakes and in true Kenyan style, I figured it would be fine to get me to work.

Sure enough it was, and really the only difficult I had was that the pannier partially unclipped itself at a couple of points during the journey. The handling of the bike with a seat post mounted rack was quite sketchy - my road bike is much lighter than my mountain bike was and the pannier rack must have moved the centre of gravity much higher. Every time I stood up to cycle, the bike was start oscillating quite wildly.

As I got to work, it became harder and harder to unclip. I realised somewhere near Euston that my left SPD clip was missing a single screw. This meant that when I twisted my foot to unclip, the cleat would stay where it was and just rotate around the single retaining screw. When I finally got to Old Street it took a good five minutes of hopping around on my bike to unclip.

The commute overall was pretty damn slow. I left home at 08:30 (admittedly late) and reached work at 10:10. Normally I leave home at 08:25 and reach work at 09:15 when travelling by train. While the distance was slower, the traffic was pretty horrendous and there was no real clear stretch of road. Part of the reason for the traffic is that I was on Euston road - which skirts the congestion charging zone (and presumably carries a higher volume of traffic after 07:00). The frequent traffic lights also kill average speed - at least the route to Canary Wharf has relatively few interruptions!

In a nutshell, I'm not convinced that commuting to Old Street is worth it for me - I might do it a few times a week because of the fitness element but it certainly doesn't compare to public transport when it comes to convenience. At least not in the same way that commuting to Canary Wharf did.