southerncyclist

This morning some idiot was blowing all the crap from the footpath onto the road, even after trying to avoid him I still got stuff in my eyes and had to stop because “I was blind and couldn’t see”.

In more positive news, found underneath the house an ancient track bike. Dad says at least 1910s Matchless track bicycle. Apparently someone in the family used to ride it and my dad rode it for a while too. Its missing wheels, is well and truly rusted but over the summer I’m hoping to get it repaired and ready to ride again. I’ll post some photos when I start to repair it, but if anyone comes across this page with knowledge about matchless bicycles I would love to hear from you so please leave a msg. All I can find out is on wikipedia and that matchless around the turn of the 19th century they stopped making bicycles and started pumping out motor bikes.

Legs are dying this week but I’ll ride on.

Haven’t replaced my train ticket since the inspectors interrupted my little scam so for the past couple of days I’ve been cycling all the way from Padstow. The legs are getting a little tired but I think it is time that they are extended a little further. Been trying anumber of different routes from Padstow to Kingsgrove I’ll post the best ones up later.
Also been riding more on the weekends as my legs get the strength to do so, rode to my saturday job(10kms) and to cricket match on Sunday, just enjoying the cruiseyness.

After riding for 40mins in the mornings I can be fairly sweaty and need to change my clothes. I am rarely so stinky that I need a shower, but a change of underwear is always in order. For the last couple of months the system has been working perfectly, get to work, goto the change rooms and whacked on my work clothes.

For the last two days though there has been someone else in the change rooms of a morning, usually there is a cleaner or the random person changing. This new fellow although is of a special breed. For some unknown reason he finds it necessary after his shower to dry his legs one at a time by placing them up on the benches and towelling them off. Again not such a big deal if its done quickly, but this spaz finds it necessary to do this whilst blocking the exit and for extended periods of time. Its just fucked up how his balls and shit are dangling all over the place.

I find it pretty disgusting and almost perverted. I feel as though next time I see him I will just have to tell him to get his kit on quicker in the change rooms because I find his body repulsive.

On other notes the ride was pretty sweet this morning. My legs are getting used to spinning it up hard down this really steep street, must be around 160rpm when I hit the flat, easily over taking cars doing 60kmh. I also detoured down this street called May lane, just full of graphic art and stuff, cool to find out that there are places in Sydney like this.

Over and out

Taught myself several times this morning that if you’re not awake when I’m on the bike I’m going to run into trouble.

This morning I managed to take a corner to sharply, hit my pedal on the ground which flipped me upright and forced me over a median strip with only one leg still on the pedals. I then found myself in a rut on the road which I almost slipped over on. Finally as I’m approaching work I came to fast up behind a car, skidding the rear and just before I hit the back of the car I slam the front brakes and I endo into the spare tire on the back lol…..

In conclusion I think I have a slow leak in the rear tire and will have fun at lunch repairing it, hoping this afternoon will go better

Run into a bit of bad luck today.

First on the train, they are blitzing the train station in the mornings checking  tickets.  So this morning I got a run down about how if I’m doing what they think I’m doing with my train tickets and they find away to catch me they will be pushing for fraud charges. Well my response(in my head lol) was that I always have a valid ticket so it shouldn’t be a problem for me, but the 5minute discussion wasn’t very comfortable.

Then I get on my bike and start the trek into the city, feeling pretty tired as I’ve been pushing home a bit longer and faster this week and just as I’m pulling up to the second last set of lights before work and I slip. I was weaving in and out of traffic and the gutter was full of crap and I slipped and came down hard. I came down hard onto the side of some guys car. Luckily for me there was no damage and he was pretty cool about it but I felt like a knob. Kept on riding then I’m behind some idiot who thought being cycle safe was driving slowly once your in front of the cyclist, to the point your at a walking pace. He must have been frustrated that I was slowing him up even from behind so when he turned a corner he yelled out a lovely piece of abuse.

In conclusion some Sydney drivers are cool and will even let you use their car to break your fall

Got my bike back from The bike shed and they had a look over it, cleaned the chain and adjusted the brakes but frustratingly didn’t tighten the lock-ring until I was about to leave! I read up about the lock-rings and its not such a big deal if its a bit loose on the rear as normal pedalling will tighten the cog onto the hub, its more for a safety factor.

Been noticing all the scratches left from the stack I had because of the dog, going to repair them this weekend before the steel starts to rust! And also get a piece of fabric or something to protect the top tube when I’m leaning the bike up against things.

Started to ride a bit further home in the afternoons and my legs are just getting progressively weaker, they just don’t feel like I have enough energy. Luckily my gf is studying to be a dietian so she has given me some tips to get the feeling back in the legs. I am now eating a ’second’ breakfast when I get to work to put the glycogen’s(?) back into my legs, I got some muesli with almonds in it.

Anyways still haven’t been on a saturday morning ride in the city planned to go last weekend but the trains were out :’( so it was too hard to get in there.

over and out