1st September 2017. Oven-ready cyclists?

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Friday 1st September, 45F, 7C, calm, bright with thin cloud. Slight risk of showers. Well, at least I remembered to change the month in the heading this time. So I must be running on all cylinders for a change. Though I thought I'd lost it yesterday when the teeny teenager on the supermarket checkout gave me 10 Pall Mall. When I'd actually asked for paracetamol. I haven't seen a policeman in several years so can't really say whether they seem any younger to me. That used to be the litmus test in Gravely Blighted.  Where there are more policemen than people. Probably due to the obscene inequality between politician's basic salaries and average incomes.

A famous Danish Cycle Tour racer, whose name must remain nameless here, is putting his name to a range of supermarket, sporting cycling clothing. As it is all jet black one may presume they won't need to re-dress the corpses as they pile up at the funeral parlours. They will be "oven-ready" so to speak. So that's all right then, just as we go into the long, dark winter months. That time of year when many cyclists see [even dirt cheap, ultra-lightweight, brilliant LED] lights as optional. Just as certain others see brakes in much the same <cough> light. Or, rather, lack of it in both cases.

Dim bulbs the lot of them. Much like EverReady batteries. Which were often flat before you ever got your hands on them. This led to a multi-trillion, TV advertising campaign for a certain other battery. You know the one which usually came last in most tests of competing and ridiculously cheaper batteries. The advertising in every break, for several decades as I went through a cruelly extended, impressionable age, came as close, as any other, to my wanting to join a lynch mob for advertising executives. Whom I number amongst predatory pedophiles, estate agents, politicians, people traffickers, despots, and all religious leaders, in no particular order.  

Supermarkets often sell a set of [approved] bike lights for about the same price as a couple of "big names" choccy bars or bags of "big names" crisps. They say "you can't put a wise head on young shoulders." Some of them will probably end the winter without any head at all! At least, judging by the number of idiots riding around in black hoodies without lights after dark. Everybody knows hoodies aren't cycling fashion. Except for crash test dummies.

Gloves are unfashionable too it seems. You would not believe the sheer number of young scooterists you see riding along the country roads. With one hand in their jacket pocket and the other frozen solid[ly] to the throttle grip.

Now I'd better go for an autumnal walk before I get into any more trouble. I walked to the village and back in quiet conditions. Only three drivers risked my life on a blind bend. While the owner of a rag-top Mercedes sports car had fallen <cough> fast asleep with their elbow and chin resting on the windowsill. To the young woman commuter who just missed me: No I don't want to have your babies. I hardly know you! And, it was our first [and nearly last] date.

In breaking news: The EU has banned most vacuum cleaners from heavy metal rock concerts. Fortunately for metal fans Whirlpool washing machines are still alloud.[sick] Vestas wind energy and Tesla are getting together to store wind power. It would have been infinitely better to have had consumers store that energy in their private electric cars. But the Danish government has deliberately priced electric cars well beyond reach of all but Danish [coal] millionaires.

A Dutch firm is investing £160 million fitting solar panels to low income homes in the UK. Gravely Blighted's ex-Etonian toffs had deliberately ensured that the feed-in tariff was set too low to allow other than the middle classes to benefit from small scale solar.

Funnily[?] enough Denmark seems to have similar ex-Etonians in charge when it comes to handing out fat, solar tax breaks to the middle classes. Who did so well out of the income from the energy they generated that they could repay their 100% loans to install the panels on their coach houses and gazebos and still be in the black within 3 years! This at a time of minus returns on savings? A "nice little earner" denied to the poor. Shouldn't this be called "corruption?"

The Chinese energy minister is visiting Denmark to discuss energy alternatives leading to potential investments in the billions. I just pray the Chinese don't notice the total absence of electric cars and solar panels on ordinary houses when they do "the sights." Perhaps they'll do a <cough> lightning installation of panels on HC Anderson's house? Then tell the Chinese a load of <cough> porkies [fairy tales] about their <cough> green credentials. Just nobody mention Poland. Which is rapidly felling its last heritage forests to supply wood chips to the few Danish power stations which don't burn coal.  

Late morning ride to the shops. If any vehicle was keeping to the speed limit it certainly wasn't obvious. Plans to build a trout farm on the frequently flooded section of the newly resurfaced road have had to be abandoned due to winter salting. So they looked at a possible salmon farm but the 150% EU funding just wasn't there.

It seems the Danish public water suppliers have been ignoring the testing for past farming toxins simply because they were banned years ago. Of course it takes time to trickle down from the farmer's fields to the deep wells, but somehow they had never thought about it. Dugh?

The BBC is headlining on the attempted theft of a £22,000 watch from a footballer I had never heard of. Seventeen BBC sports "commentators" are credited with the story. £22,000? Isn't that the current average price of a season ticket? What's all the fuss?

A British Cycling magazine has got into trouble for labelling a picture of a lady cyclist "a token attractive woman." What would they have called me? "A token old fart on a tricycle?" 😉

Talking of which: The Overboard "saddlebag" is proving very useful. It has taken a little time to perfect my loading technique but there is almost no damaged shopping so far. I found a draining board tray in plastic yesterday but couldn't make up my mind on which colour to buy. [Imelda Syndrome!] I think a cut down tray would be ideal to support the Overboard bag where it overhangs the Trykit rack shelf. I still haven't remembered to keep my camera out to show the bag when fully loaded. It usually sits in a protective plastic case in the bag.

17 miles today, going quite well again. Keeping up a high cadence helps. Not sure the high "cadence" on the blog is such a good idea. ;-)

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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