The Velosolo Club

[sussex cyclist]

Of course I didn't ride with a skeleton arm hanging out of my saddlebag. That would be silly.


It folded neatly inside.


I don't know why I do the things I do. Nevertheless there's pleasure to be had in crossing them off my list.


The radius and ulna may have been a convenient size for the bag, but weren't long enough to prop open the grit box lid to make it look as if the arm was reaching out of it. Perhaps you begin to appreciate the sort of problems I have to deal with.


Mad Jack - are you home?


Looks like.


Excuse if anyone caught me doing this: "It's what Jack would've wanted."

[sussex cyclist]

A club run before weathergeddon seemed like a grand idea. "Nature loves her little surprises," Joe Walsh was singing into my ears before I'd even left the driveway. Sure enough, within a few miles it was raining despite this being the sky directly above me.


WTF Mr Blue Sky

I've found it makes no difference if you tell yourself it's not raining because it can't be raining: you still get wet. Shame you can't even trust wispy white clouds these days. Fortunately it realised how absurd it was being and stopped.

The lane was strewn with dogs walking their owners, which is the only way you can get most of them to exercise.

There was a diversion straight to hell.



It's true I was feeling a little warm, having overdressed. Hate getting that wrong.

The bike felt great. I'd recently changed the cog from 16T to 17T,


What's next, a motor?

obviously losing testosterone

if you click this you have only yourself to blame

Selfie of proof there's still some left.

[close]

in the process, but I could live with that.

At the top of the big hill that's only there to be climbed I could see trouble ahead: clouds that meant business. So I raced back home.



Actually that finger, a re-enactment, wasn't aimed at the weather gods. It was meant for the motorist that angrlly honked at me for having the temerity to be ahead of him. I don't normally let these things get to me, but exceptions can be made.


My new favourite search engine

[sussex cyclist]

'Bug in my eye', available exclusively on X.

https://twitter.com/jollygoodthen/status/491484774851416064

That's the very top of my craft, folks. It's been downhill ever since.

[sussex cyclist]

of Christmas, I managed to get a ride in amidst all the poor weather. Some heathens start counting from Boxing Day, justifying this belated post.


wind's a-howling

[sussex cyclist]

Yesterday I met Jeremy on Star, walking Molly on the edge of the village.



What began with a request to take their picture progressed to my untangling one of Molly's legs from her lead and ended with an invitation for tea the next time they passed by my house, which sits just off a bridleway a mile or so thataway. He was impressed I'd been to the castle



which isn't terribly far either, but I've found it doesn't take much to impress people with cycling feats. He might have fallen off his horse in amazement if he'd run into these guys, who'd come down from south London and were headed to Hastings in their Rapha finery.



Though I was on the home stretch when we met, I couldn't help but veer off course to the next big hill, concerned they might be able to beat me up it.



Thank god I was able to set my mind at ease on that score, though I told them it might have been a different story if I'd just come from London, too.

Dear reader, it wouldn't have been a different story.

[sussex cyclist]

Meet Jonathan. "What do you do?" I asked him. Turns out he's a film editor. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

For this morning's ride I grabbed my anytime/anywhere bike (as opposed to the ones that actually get cleaned afterwards), because we live in waterworld. This is a three year old video

that I could put on a loop. [SNOPES: hyperbole detected]

Set off feeling good, happy as always to be awheel. A few miles later, near the crest of the local top of the world, I was surprised to find myself being passed: stealth by virtue of my state of being plugged in.

As you will be aware, constant reader, I try to make a point of a) not letting other cyclists precede me up hills and b) chatting to them as I pass. At least a hello. It's only polite.

Catching him took effort, as my head start had been squandered. Soon enough I was taking his picture. The decision was then made to accompany him to the next village.

While it's far from unusual for cyclists to ride in plural, it happens so rarely for me that my mouth tends to runneth over to celebrate the occasion. It's as if I want to get all available words out before they disappear forever over the horizon.

Fortunately I left some gaps for him to talk, which is how I found out what he does for a living. (I didn't learn about the BAFTA Award and Academy Award nomination till I got home and looked him up. By the way his nephew is Alex Yee. More looking up.) He's worked on Hot Fuzz, Spooks, Baby Driver, and others, including Peep Show.

Like me, he also enjoys cycling in an upward trajectory.

There's interesting people in them thar hills.

[sussex cyclist]

Stop-and-go traffic.



Mihai and Fyzel, also on the night shift.





Connor:



That's right, I got a free pint just for stopping to chat. I hadn't the heart to tell him that I don't partake of the cow, and my wife only does if the lactose has been set free.

The next day I went to my nearest neighbour and asked "Do you drink milk?", explaining the circumstances by which I had come to acquire it. As he accepted the pint, he asked "Do you eat eggs?" He then rewarded me with a half dozen.

Thanks for the eggs, milkman.

[sussex cyclist]

Eva and Hans-Peter, on a tandem that belongs to a friend as they belong to the Darvell Bruderhof, where everything is owned in common. ("The only thing that's mine is a toothbrush.")

[sussex cyclist]

Don't look into the light!



Lil' pothole that jarred me out of a reverie the other day.

[sussex cyclist]

I'll let you off with a warning this time. You weren't speeding, but riding no handed isn't big and it isn't clever.



Press the wrong button and we can zap you with a laser beam. We're trained not to press that button.