Bodmacity

Amy and Jake are away at Granny’s for a few days. I am at home, ostensibly working, in my little garret in the loft. The sun was out earlier. I put a load of washing in the machine and afterwards put the clothes out to dry. Now it has started raining(to coincide with the Bank Holiday) and I have brought the whole lot back in.

I am working on reproducing a bug that has failed testing. This is always a very tedious process at the best of times. The good news in all this is that I started earlier so can knock off at 4pm with a clear conscience.

Yesterday I put my DIY hat on and painted the alcoves in our bedroom a nice sultry red shade. I will need to apply another coat and tidy up the edges. It looks good and will look great once the shelves are up. Six in total it will be a bit of a shelf fitting marathon.

Gorgeous morning, sunny but cool with no wind. I left early at around 6.15am. I did my fastest ever commute.

It’s amazing what a fews days rest will do. The knees are still clicking and also a little twingey. I will book up a session at a physiotherapist. Hopefully I will just have to exercise the knees. I will be gutted if I have to give up cycling :-(. I cannot imagine going back to train travel.

miles	time	average	maximum
14.56	00:51:41	16.9	24.7

Last week the weathermen forecast that the summer was over. Well judging by the hot warm weekend we have just enjoyed, they got it spectacularly wrong again, which is great! On Saturday we went to Bluewater. Jake chose a nice blue dress for his baby sister, her first dress no less. He is very excited about her arrival. I think he will be the best big brother. We have tried to include him every step of the way so that he can be as excited as we are.

We also bought Jake a new paddling pool. The end of summer sales are on and we managed to pick up a huge Thomas pool which had been reduced from £40 to £20. Needless to say Jake LOVES it! When we got home on Saturday Ames and I spent ages blowing it up and then an equal amount of time filling it up. It is definitely a winner because he loved splashing around in it and pretending to be the driver. It can also be used as a ball pit so we will have to pick up a bumper pack of balls. I’m sure his friends will love that although I’m not sure how many balls will actually stay in the pit ;-).

On Sunday we took a trip to Canary Wharf. Jake got to ‘drive’ the DLR train. He gave us, and the other passengers, a running commentary which was very funny. It was very nice walking around the semi-deserted Docklands. A few places were open to have lunch and it was great to stroll around without the masses you would normally expect on such a nice sunny day.

In the evening Tricia and Keelan came over. I filled up the pool(again) and they had a splash around. It was great, sitting in the garden, chatting while drinking wine.

The new wheel, cassette and chain feel great. In fact my average speed has improved by nearly 1 mph. It just goes to show what a little TLC can do! I do like the nice clicking sound now with the Deore hub. The wheel feels very solid and it soaked up the potholes of South-East London with aplomb.

This morning I mixed up some of my new Isotonic energy drink. It really did make a difference as I didn’t find myself waning on the latter stretches of Upper Richmond Road which is what usually happens. My knees started to feel a little sore at the start but this soon subsided.

I did my usual route to work, straight up the A20, through Peckham and Camberwell. From there I joined the LCN Route 3 which took me to Clapham Common. Again, shamefully I got lost and added another mile onto the commute.

From Clapham I headed up Battersea Rise and then took the final run down to Richmond.

Stats	Dist	Time	Av.	Max.
To work	15.70	01:02:26	15.1	23.2
From work	15.29	00:59:02	15.5	22.8

I spent yesterday evening finishing off the bike service. The first job was to adjust the brake pads front and rear. This was easy. The gears however were a different story. At least they were until I looked up on the internet how to do it. After that everything was plain sailing.

On the derailleur there are two screws marked H for high and L for low. These set how far the derailleur can travel.

The screw marked H sets the limit of the highest gear which is the smallest cog. The screw marked L sets the limit of the lowest gear which is the largest cog. To set these correctly you unclip or unscrew the gear cable then starting at the smallest cog adjust the screw until the chain runs nice and smooth. You then manually push the derailleur up to the largest cog as far as it will go then again adjust the screw.

The next step is to adjust the gears. Bring the derailleur back to the smallest cog then tighten up the cable adjuster as far as it will go. The adjuster can be found at the derailleur end of the gear cable as it enters the mechanism.
Now select the next gear. If the gear engages correctly then great, job done! It is most likely that the chain will ‘snatch’ or will not move to the next cog at all. In this case, slowly turn the crank while unscrewing the cable adjuster. When the gear engages then the job is done. Try moving up and down the gears and you will see that they work perfectly, well at least they did when I did it :-).

Odometer : 1210 miles

We were in the garden yesterday on a fine sunny day. Jake had retrieved his basketball from the shed and was telling me about the game, that it has a hoop and that you have to throw the ball through the basket, which is high up on a pole.

Me: “Where did you hear about basketball, from a tv programme?”
Jake: “No, it’s not a programme it goes through my body and out of my mouth.”

Ahem ;-).

Okay, I’ve just spent two hours cleaning my bike, installing the new cassette and then putting on the new chain. Most of the time was spent degreasing the rear derailleur and chainset which were in an awful state. The actual process of fitting the new cassette, wheel and chain were very easy.

I’ve also fitted some new pads on the rear which I will need to adjust tomorrow as they are a little tight.

Tomorrow I will take the beast out for a spin. The new Deore hub makes a nice ticking sound which is slightly unnerving as the old one was completely silent.

It’s been hot and humid for two days now. I noticed this when I was on my way out of the office yesterday. Upon leaving the cloistered confines of air-conditioned niceness I was enveloped by muggy, hot, humid air.

At Richmond station I bought some Lucozade Sport drink as my legs felt tired from the previous two days exertions. I have to say that I was sceptical that it would make any difference. Difference it did make, though. Every 10 minutes I took a little sip and found I could keep and steady 17mph in 5th gear without too much exertion.

When I arrived home I was sweating profusely. I immediately went upstairs for a shower. Nice!

Jake was a little tired. He had been at Sam’s house and had obviously spent his time charging around.

Today it is hot again. I have just filled up Jake’s paddling pool and it is warming up in the sunshine. Ames is suffering a little in the heat and feeling lethargic and a little sick.

The plumber came earlier to fix the shower. He said the problem was just a big airlock in the pipes. I am a little dubious but it did seem to be a good temperature and alright pressure. He is still blaming the electrician who, he says, should have wired the pump properly.

I have just had a splurge. Not really a splurge but a shopping list of essential items for my bicycle in order to fix my broken wheel. The total cost is £167 which includes :

• New M:Wheel Shimano Deore/Mavic A319 rear wheel
• New HG50 11-32 8 speed rear cassette ‘stack’
• New Shimano HG50 chain
• Lifeline folding chain rivet extractor
• Park Tool FR5C Cassette removal tool
• Brake blocks for front and rear
• Chain whip tool
• Socks (not ‘strictly’ necessary for the repair ;-))

With the exception of the last item the rest are essential!

Initially I was thinking of taking the bike to the repair shop to get it sorted but I think it will be cheaper this way, plus I can use the tools again when I need to do other repairs. Strictly speaking I didn’t ‘need’ to purchase the new chain and cassette. But I thought that seeing as I have to take the old one from the buckled wheel it would make sense to replace it at the same time. In doing so it is also wise to replace the chain as it wears at the same rate as the cassette.

I looked up the specifications for my Ridgeback and found that the rear cassette was of the 11-32 tooth variety. Wiggle didn’t stock it so I did some searching and found it at SJS Cycles.

I’ve carried out a little reasearch into the procedure and it seems easy enought to do . I even found something on youtube to help.

I started cycle commuting at the beginning of May 2007 and this is my first major bike service so that works out at £6.18 per month. I think you’ll agree that this is not bad at all :-).

I was cycling through Clapham Common the other day and felt a big pop as though something had either snapped or someone had thrown something at my rear wheel. I stopped to investigate but couldn’t find anything amiss. A while later I heard a strange noise emanating from the rear wheel. I looked down as I pedalled on and saw an alarming buckle. The noise was coming from the brake pads which were rhythmically pressing against the wheel. So it looks like a spoke has snapped.

I cycled again to Richmond today and it hasn’t got any worse. I will either buy a new wheel or take it into the bike shop. Maybe they can straighten it.