Broken, deflated and worn out

I've had some wheel problems of late and have learned a few things in the process.

Breaking...and fixing...spokes

First of all, during the house move, I decided, stupidly to transport our three bikes in horizontal formation - flat, on top of one another, in the back of the transit van.

Lesson 1: Transporting multiple bikes horizontally is not a good idea.

Why? Well mostly because I totally overloaded the weight on one of my wheels and broke four of the spokes.

Now, I've heard that wheel building, and spoke replacement are pretty difficult to get right and it's easy to end up with a very wobbly wheel. But, with a bit of effort and a lot of fiddling, I managed to do this myself.

Lesson 2: Don't be scared of people in bike shops. If you explain that you're trying to fix something yourself they're quite helpful.

Lesson 3: Replacing spokes isn't as hard as everyone makes it out to be.

Lesson 4: When replacing multiple spokes do some serious preparation working out the spoke pattern. This will save you much time later on!

My first flat

Pretty chuffed with my wheel work, I started the ride to work an back again. I've been playing with different routes at weekend with the aim of extending my rides to make them into longer training rides.

On the first extended ride home, I must sadly report that I got my first puncture. Yes, after just over a year and about 1300 miles, I finally got my first flat!

I had a pump with me, but my multi-tool, patches and spare tube were in my seat pack...at home.

Lesson 5: It doesn't matter if your ride is short and not straying too far from home. It's ALWAYS worth putting your seat-pack-full-of-tools on.

I swallowed my pride and phoned home for a lift. Sally was most gracious and drove out to pick me, and my poor wheels, up.

Lesson 6: My hybrid with fully-loaded paniers is pretty heavy and carrying it any distance is hard work. When calling for roadside assistance be sure to get the person to drive to where you are, not to a point several hundred metres away up a hill!

Replacing Tyres

As I repaired the flat, I realised that my tyres were starting to look pretty worn. So they've been replaced now too. I still feel like the back wheel is a bit lumpy. It looks straight and true and, if anything, the bulge/wobble that I used to have in my tyre is gone. So it should be better! But it just feels not-quite-right when I do any speed in a straight line.

In addition, the, erm, well, a the bit of the bike that holds attaches the handlebar to the frame, is loose. It's occasionally worked it way loose before but a good strong turn of an allen key has sorted it out. Sadly, this time, the hexagonal hole that you put the allen key into is wearing away and I can't get enough force onto it to get it tight without it slipping. It might be a bike shop job now.

So in general my poor old machine is suffering a bit. I try to look after it but I guess 1300 miles is quite a lot for a cheap little Raleigh. Poor thing.

A Month Off

Phew, I'm finally back in the land of the living. Where have I been? Here's my excuses for not writing for a month...

Moving House

Well, the house exchange and completion went through. We got the keys to our new house on October 5th. Sally was away for the weekend and I'd been banned from moving in until she got home, so I got on with the job of cleaning and tidying the old place. We moved in proper on the Monday.

The house is great but a little rough around the edges. Lots of bits of DIY/building that seem to have been finished in a hurry. But it's ours, it has three bedrooms, a huge garden and it's in a great location.

Of course, we've had to clean up and get out of the old rented house too. Phew.

No Broadband

Moving house means setting up a new phone line and having our Internet connection set up. This meant several weeks without Broadband. Quite a nice experience really. We get so much more "real" stuff done without Google and Facebook and Blogger. We didn't really miss it at all. Of course, now it's back we're back in the habit of making good use of our "always on" pipe to the universe.

A note about providers...we were with Zen Internet, who provide excellent service, but at a cost. Our up-to-8Mb connection was costing £17 per month with a 2GB usage limit. So after some debate and research we decided to KEEP Sky TV and take Sky Broadband and Sky Talk (phone calls) too. Much as I dislike having hundreds of TV channels that I never watch. This appealed because:

• Sky Talk costs nothing and gives free evening and weekend calls.
• Sky Broadband is £5 for up-to-8Mb with a 40GB usage limit.
• Sky + (Sky's hard-disk based TV recording system), now has no monthly subscription cost.

Sky+ turns out to be awesome! VERY high quality recorded TV that you set up from the on-screen TV guide. You just find the programme and tell it to record. It'll record a whole series of the same programme. And you can pause and rewind live TV too. I understand how the technology works, and I'm STILL very impressed. Good technology, well implemented, is hard to find these days.

Holiday

We decided, shortly after the house move, to take a week's holiday. My In-Law's were off to Spain for a few nights and asked if we wanted to house-sit. With a free weeks' holiday on the edge of Dartmoor being offered we couldn't really refuse and it turned out to be just what we needed. We've just got back from this week off and we're well relaxed and trying to summon up the mental effort required to get back to work tomorrow.

We also popped to London on Friday for a couple of friends of ours who were having an engagement party. We're VERY excited that they're getting married and the party was really great.

Returning to London is an odd experience. We drive in thinking that it's horrid, busy, noisy, etc, but after a couple of hours re-uniting with good friends we miss it. Of course, we've made good friends here in Swindon too, but we're really still getting to know people and it's not the same as connecting with people that you've known inside-out for many years. There are things about London as a city that we miss, but mostly it's the people.

Finally...

So, yes, after all that we're in the new house, broadband is back, and we're not on holiday any more. I probably have some catching up to do. I keep having "I must write about that" moments, but can't remember what any of them are now. If they're that important then they'll come back to me I'm sure.

Back in the saddle!

After the successes of mountain climbing at the weekend I'm back into cycling to work. And it feels great. Going slowly and steadily at the moment but hopefully we'll be out on training runs again soon.

Funny how this has become so important to me. I feel I have some of my identity back now I can cycle again. And with the new school term starting driving has been a nightmare - I'd much rather be speeding along on my bike than sat in traffic!

I have a new day-glo waterproof jacket too. This is great for visibility and is, in my opinion, a fairly sporty-looking thing (rather than the nerdy day-glo work jackets you can get). I found a down side today though when I went to put the recycling out before heading off to work. The next door neighbour thought I was the bin man!!! Still - gave Sally a laugh.

Music: A month's worth of new stuff

It's been a good month for music. Sally and I are booked in to see Martyn Joseph and KT Tunstall in the coming months, plus, there was a new Athlete album out that I splashed out on. Thoughts below:

Drastic Fantsatic - KT Tunstall

The catchiest of the new albums, very easy to get into. KT is a good songwriter, a very accomplished musican and singer, and she's intelligent too. We very much liked the first album and this one didn't disappoint as a follow up.

The songs are a variety of styles, there's folk, rock and roll, ballads, pop, even a hint of Latin American.

It's a great album, but I don't think it will quite have the lasting appeal of "Through the Telescope". Enjoying it for the moment though.

Vegas - Martyn Joseph

This is the album about which I'd like to say the most. I became a fan of MJ quite recently (probably after the Bush Hall gig...3 yeas ago?) and missed out on a lot of his older stuff. But he is one of my favourite musicians.

For those that don't know, he's a Welsh folk-rocker who writes about stuff that he really cares about and sings and plays with an enormous amount of passion.

This record is a bit different to some of his other stuff. MJ himself says something like "it might even make you smile". And that's true - there's a tribute to Elvis and some other nice moments, but he remains gritty, slightly angry, political, and, occasionally melancholy.

I must confess that after a few listens I'm feeling like the album doesn't have much new - it feels like a union of the last two ("Whoever it was that brought me here..." and "Deep Blue").

Song-wise examples:

• Vegas is a catchy tribute with an easy chorus, in much the same way as "This Being Woman";
• "Weight of the World" is a bit like "This Fragile World";
• "Nobody Loves You Anymore" is reminiscent of "Six Sixty Six" (though I'll avoid comparisons of George Bush and the Devil - that would be going too far);
• "The Fading of Light" seems to be an updated "Yet Still This Will Not Be";
• and "The things that we have carried here" is like "Whoever it was that brought me here..." in more than just the length of the song name.

But that shouldn't detract from the quality of this album. MJ's consistently good songwriting hasn't gone away. His percussive accoustic guitar playing makes sounds like a single instrument shouldn't. His intricate fingerstyle is beautiful as ever. And his vocals, though mostly lacking range of pitch, vary from the haunting whispers of "Kindness" to the angry growls of "Nobody Loves You Any More" .The little flourishes of percussion, harmonica, woodwind, strings, piano, even an electric guitar or two (!) add depth and interest without detracting from the key elements of MJ's voice and guitar.

I DO like this album. A lot. I will play it over and over. And the gig in November will be one of the highlights of my year. But I'd like to see him writing about something a bit different next time...perhaps a few elections, on both sides of the pond, will make for some more variety in the next album.

Beyond the Neighbourhood - Athlete

And the album I'll say the least about. Certainly the most difficult to get into!

Athlete's first album was a catchy, pop-rock record. The second, Wires, was more downbeat, but more mature. I still haven't quite got to grips with all of it but the music is excellent and it was worth spending time having it grow on me - there's some cracking songs on there. I suspect this third album is like the second. It's in the shadow of two much more easily accessible albums at the moment, but I will persevere.

Musically it sounds rich and intricate and I suspect there's some awesome songs on there - I've just not found them yet...or they've not found me.

Maybe more notes required in a few weeks.

Exchange!!!

So after a long and complicated couple of days, which I won't go into the details of here, we finally exchanged contracts on the house and will complete on Friday! Wow. We will own 5% of a house (and be borrowing the rest from the bank).

After weeks of not very much happening this is quite a sudden thing, but we're very excited.

Time to pack some boxes, book a van, phone BT, arrange broadband, move utilities, set up redirection, pack some more boxes, hand in notice on the rented house, and a thousand and one other things...none of which involve writing this blog!

Yay!