Not the best tyre to ride on

I was planning to upload some text I have written on the train a while ago, but recent events need a short post first. The week that passed in a nutshell: A pretty decent on the Swobo Crosby back from Stirling to Edinburgh, pretty fast last stretch alongside the Union Canal and then Bang! The moment I could see little balls falling out of my back wheel I knew what happened, and it didn’t look good.

The good news was having a light-weight bike, the bad news was that the next taxi for a ride home was 3km away. There I was, walking along the Union Canal, and all others I had past overtaking me again, you can’t run that fast with click pedals. However, a friendly Iranian taxi driver gave me a discount and a ride and made the evening partly a success. I am still waiting for a new bearing, but hopefully by the end of the week the Swobo Crosby is ready to go.

So bike number one was out of order (wheels seem to be an essential to ride it), but there was still the road bike left, which made horrible creaking noises, but I didn’t care. You don’t get such a stretch of good weather here often in Scotland, an in the end it’s just a noise. So the commuting was continued on Tuesday night, this time on the Avanti Giro. I had to admit that riding a proper road bike makes you fast after limping along those climbs on a single gear, and with the speed came the fun. Wednesday night I took the wrong turn off and ended up in Dunfermline, and had to cheat myself back to Edinburgh on the train from Rosyth. So far every evening had been a little adventure, and Thursday morning I actually had to cycle to work, as I had forgotten my keys, money and tickets for the train in Stirling. Good times, I smashed my personal best with an average of 30.7km/h and worked for the whole day, and with good weather at the end of the day I couldn’t resist doing the double. So I did, and cycled 132km on a day with a full time job in between. It’s totally possible, and so I did the same Friday.

I’m not going to lie, I was tired, but I spent so long trying to get this job in the first place that I just had to perform to my highest quality all the time. I can’t face the job market again because I haven’t updated my resume in a long time. Neither had my friend. He didn’t even know what to include, and it wasn’t until he got in touch with somewhere like these resume services in CA did he learn what needed to be included to help him achieve the job of his dreams. And this alone is why I need to keep hold of this job. But I also wanted to cycle too, so I had to fit both activities in where I could. The horrible noise didn’t go away though, neither did the fog in Edinburgh. Stirling was sunny, Edinburgh managed to give me the experience of riding in winter again.

After funnying around the whole Saturday I made the though decision to dismantle the whole bike and rebuilt it (except the brakes, that had been rebuilt a wee while ago. The only problem was that I had signed up for a ride with the one and only Ian Ezzi, and pulling out was not an option. By 3 o’clock in the morning the bike was all ready to go, I even cleaned the toilet to do some good to my flatmates as well. Luckily the toilet was in a better state than the bike, so no degreaser had to be used here. An early start in the morning guaranteed that I started of with the right (!) tyre pressure, and after some friendly wrangling with the conductor we were allowed on the train to Dunblane. What followed was an awesome ride, even if not at the proposed 15 miles per hour, but slightly more, and the Glens made it worthwhile putting effort in on my ‘relaxed’ training ride with Ian, Doug and Greig. Until the final serious climb and the following descent from Kenmore to Amulree. Just as I was about to enter the first switchback on the road I heard a very loud bang. What followed was a successful attempt to cycle on a rim without a tyre and bring the bike to a hold out of 50km/h. It could have been much worse, I only ended up with a totally ripped tyre and tube, as well as a buggered rear wheel, and I had to walk again. Good times! Bike number 2 was finished. Fortunately I got a lift from a nice gamekeeper first and was then picked up by a keen cyclist in his car, only to catch up with Ian in Dunblane again, this time I was first. Let’s forget the fact that he had cycled and I had used my charm to get there. Charm wasn’t enough for the conductor though, as there were only two bikes allowed on the train and ours were 3 and 4 in the line. So another hour standing around in tight lycra, with a lot of drunken poeple in Dunblane. At least the day was sweetened talking to some fellow cyclists (female) on the train, and with making new plans already. When I was walking down to my flat with the bike on my shoulders I felt lucky. At least I was still walking, as the whole thing could have been much much worse. Sometimes a bit of luck helps. Hopefully I will be riding again soon. Maybe with a different set of wheels and new tyres.