More thoughts on leather v plastic saddles.

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Here is a simple diagram showing the relationship between the radius of the contact surfaces of the saddle and the rider's sit bones.  The contact pressure is always perpendicular to the tangent of the local contact surface with the sit bones.

The more laterally curved the saddle, the greater is the pressure trying to separate the sit bones. If the carcase of the saddle is stiff, then padding it will not undo the forces trying to separate the sit bones. With break-in, a leather saddle eventually forms pockets for the sit bones to rest in. This provides a fairly neutral slope to the surface supporting the sit bones. It may also help to increase the area of contact around the sit bones without the use of artificial padding.

Moreover, the tension-suspended leather provides vital and local suspension for the sit bones by flexing under road shocks. The human bod has a large mass which cannot possibly accelerate fast enough to minimise road shocks. The rider's lower body remains almost static unless the rider lifts off the saddle on the rough stuff.  So only the saddle itself can protect the seated rider's sit bones from a constant and very localised battering.

A suspension seat post cannot react fast enough to protect the sit bones.  The saddle itself becomes part of the unsprung weight and can only react downwards through the entire contact area of the saddle. Still leaving the sit bones exposed to road shocks passed straight through the saddle surface. A telescopic suspension arrangement of the normally backward-leaning seat post is not even in line with the vertical forces involved in road shocks. Which usually try to lift the entire machine (and rider) vertically as the wheel rides over road bumps.

One could liken the sit bones to stiletto heels. Both have a very small area of contact with the surface on which they rest. So local pressures are incredibly high. Anyone who lived through past fashions will know the incredible damage which stiletto heels did to floors in public buildings. Several tons per square inch, on every footfall, exceeded the damage you could manage with a good hammer blow!

The same applies to saddles and sit bones. The tiny areas of skin and fleshy padding (if any) between the sit bones and the saddle become the torture victims. If the standard rails provided any suspension (at all) then every saddle would offer equal suspension. This is patently untrue despite the very close standardisation of most saddle rails. Only the amount of soft padding can alter the comfort level on plastic or carbon fibre based saddles. Real-world practice suggests that padding can easily hinder comfort over any distance. It increases friction and heat build-up in poorly ventilated areas.

Logic suggests that plastic saddles should try to emulate the properties of successfully broken-in,  leather examples. But without the usual weight penalties. The surface must be almost flat to provide local pockets for the sit bones without excessive padding. The surface must also be locally flexible under road shocks. A gently curved surface helps to maintain the rider's position more securely than a perfectly flat one. The same effect is probably achieved with sit bone pockets. A very slippery surface is undesirable. As is one offering too much drag to the shorts of the rider. Sit bones depressing deep padding may become trapped by the friction of the cover. Which is greatly increased by the great depth of padding resisting any lateral movement.

Many leather saddles start off too shiny, very hard and only gently curved at the contact points. Breaking in causes a local softening of the leather from repeated contact with the long-suffering sit bones. The softening provides the padding, reduces the angle of contact with the sit bones and provides suspension.

The plastic based saddle cannot really improve beyond the condition in which it left the factory. Despite the claims of memory foam the chances are that the padding will slowly degrade and the covering will disintegrate. The sit bones end up resting on the almost naked plastic carcase lying beneath the padding.

Only a naked plastic carcase, like the original Unica Nitor, will probably survive for as long as a leather saddle. Though at the price of being very uncomfortable on longer rides. I know this because a black, Unica Nitor 'Road' model was my first serious "racing" saddle back in the 1960s. Had they made it of much floppier plastic (or even rubber) and shaped it like a properly broken in leather saddle it might well have offered far greater comfort and popularity. Though probably with a much shorter life. It would also need lots of ventilation holes.

As a final note: I have mentioned how incredibly comfortable I find the B17 'Select'. By adding the official Brooks waterproof cover the comfort offered is greatly diminished. A much thinner and smoother nylon cover is much better. Though it is still not remotely as comfortable as the bare leather.



More thoughts on Brooks saddles: Not all Brooks saddles are equal. Certainly not on width. I have suffered for thousands of miles on a B17 Narrow and then for tens of thousands more on a NOS 'Professional'. Finally I bought a B17 out of desperation. It felt like an expensive risk at the time if it didn't work. I bought a pre-aged 'Select' in fact. To avoid the usual breaking in time. As a high mileage rider I was already sore enough not to to have to go through that all over again!

The B17 'Select' was the vital therapy I desperately needed. It was quite literally able to undo the pain caused by other saddles. I am a fairly skinny runt these days, whatever the mathematicians may say about dodgy BMI factors. So you can't say I needed the support of a wider saddle because of my excess weight. In fact I needed the width of a B17 _only_ because my totally unprotected sit bones needed a saddle precisely that wide. The proof lay in the discomfort caused by narrower models of still highly respected Brooks, leather saddles.

So don't lump all Brooks saddles together until you find your own perfect, leather saddle width. It took me tens of thousands of miles and literally years of cycling to finally relent and buy the wider B17. Now I don't even notice I'm sitting on a saddle. Blessed relief can be yours. Just don't imagine that just any leather saddle will do. It must fit you just as a precisely as a leather shoe must fit you for any expectation of comfort.

If I hadn't bought the B17 'Select' I would probably still be forlornly trying to find a comfortable plastic wedge. I was almost drawn in by the plastic saddle bullshit. The bike shop's measuring device said I needed an even narrower saddle than those I already found horribly uncomfortable. So much for pseudo science, commercialism of overpriced plastic torture implements and cycling! Even Tupperware doesn't charge that much for a simple plastic moulding! Ikea could do proper plastic saddles for small change in a range of tasteful cover materials. It hardly matters what covering is used. A plastic base can neither breathe nor give by a micron.

Like me, you probably thought that a wider saddle would make you look like you had a horribly dated 70s leather sofa stuck on top of your saddle pin. You probably still clung to the illusion of some sporting pretensions as you plodded along at your own, unique pace. So you suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous saddle misfortune out of some false pride. Why suffer when an old cure is at hand? Try a wider, Brooks leather saddle. If it doesn't suit you can almost guarantee to recoup your losses on eBay. So what have you to lose?

Much as I'd like to recommend the Nidd, despite it fulfilling most of the criteria of a B17, it is much too hard. It also much too unforgiving thanks to its laminated bum patch. Without it, it really might trash Brooks' hold on the leather saddle tourist market. The Brooks wins because it develops enough sag to provide bum-shaped comfort and some desperately needed suspension. Your average B17 bod sits more upright than those who pose on their uncomfortable axes. More weight falls on the bum. Less on the hands and pedals. This redistribution has to be compensated for in increased comfort. Not being forced to sit on a block of unyielding wood which hammers the already painful sit bones into agonising submission You wouldn't get away with this cruel and unusual treatment even in Guantanamo!

The Nidd might as well be a plastic saddle because of its reinforced plastic undergarment. It breaks the age-old saddle rule of allowing a natural, organic material to reluctantly respond to stubborn, oft-repeated, human contact.  It might actually respond to having the glass fibre (?) patch ground away with a Dremel or a similar tool. The very thick leather could then be modified with moisture and localised pressure to match the owners's unchangeable anatomy in quick time. Perhaps there is a solvent which will remove or soften the reinforcing patch but leave the leather unharmed? It may be that the patch only reduces stretch but has little real impact on the leather's stiffness. How can one tell? Without an sample to test, which has no applied reinforcing, it is impossible to know.

One owner claimed that the saddle was unaffected by being deliberately exposed to months of English rain. If the saddle was already comfortable then this is a very good thing. If not, it leaves only the extended pain of a very long breaking-in period as a means to (only) potential comfort. Is there any other sport which demands such unnecessary pain of its participants? Does a runner buy ill-fitting shoes to punish themselves in the vain hope of some miraculous improvement months down the road? One which will allow the same shoes to be worn for several years, or even more, without the need for purchasing a new and sickeningly uncomfortable pair all over again. We are back to an alternative reality unique to cycling. Was cycling really invented in Sparta?

I have put the Brooks Professional and the Nidd in half a bucket of water to soak overnight. The Professional was rescued by soaking previously but the results were spoilt by my riding it too early. I need to raise the steep slopes in front of the seating area again. As the image alongside shows.There really is no proper, level support area for the sit bones. As glancing at the far side of the saddle will show. All the support surfaces are forward sloping. Forcing the rider to constantly slide backwards to stay in the correct position on the machine. Sliding forwards will only subject the rider to the raised spine. In an anatomical situation where the body is ill-equipped to enjoy continuous support.

The Nidd is a complete unknown. I hope soaking it will make it malleable to modification by pressure in the seating area. At the moment it is far too hard to be usable despite having had some 200 miles of riding put into it before it became too painful to continue. Both have had their tension nuts slacked off to the minimum before taking their bath. Even if the water bath therapy fails neither saddle was usable in its present form. Neither saddle owes me so much that they can't become experimental subjects.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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25th January 2013

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25th 21F, -6C, heavy overcast. It started at 12F, -11C, but is slowly warming up.The DMI promise -5C all day with winds gusting to 30mph later. Eek! My recent habit of waiting until after coffee to go out means I tend to catch the higher winds after a still, but very cold, night. Going out so late also means I push lunch into mid afternoon. The coffee and rolls seem to sustain me for hours so that doesn't matter so much as the fact that it is getting quite dark by the time I've had a shower and written up my daily ride diary.

The other downside is that I tend to waffle on all morning before being released onto a startled world. I haven't been doing any photography either. The inspiration which comes from longer rides to new pastures is absent. The snow continues to lie. Without offering anything but more drabness under a grey sky. This really is the worst time of the year for my kind of chocolate-box, landscape photography.

Taking endless pictures of rusty chains and sprockets is unlikely to amuse for long. I leave the chain on until the weather breaks. Or the gears become foolishly unreliable. Doing any kind of mechanical work when the shed is constantly 5 degrees C below freezing is not a lot of fun! What takes a few minutes in summer takes forever and quickly goes bad when the roads are still covered in salt. I find it best to put everything off until a thaw and some rain. When I drag snow in on the trike and my feet it can lie there on the shed floor for weeks. Putting a fan heater on in the shed only leads to rapid condensation and rust. The metal doesn't feel any warmer and makes my hands ache with the cold. I can't work with small screws and components in gloves. Not even the latest, rubber coated, cloth gloves designed for the job. 13 miles. No data from the watch despite recording 2 hours elapsed time. I wore it around my wrist inside my glove to avoid chilling the battery.

26th 22F, -6C, the promised wind has finally arrived! The trees in the garden are all bending back and forth. I wonder if I can find my skiing goggles? I couldn't, but went anyway. The roads were covered in deep drifts in a few places. As there was no stock of organic milk at the first village I had to go further afield. The wind was cutting but I couldn't shield my face properly with my oversized gloves. Lots of cars were cutting much too close on the main road. Even though I was riding in the cycle lane. 21 miles.

27th 33F, 1C, overcast, windy. Some overnight snow has drifted in the strong winds. The trees are all moving about again. Some snow forecast for most of the day. Temperatures set to rise slowly with rain possible during the week. I have just been outside and the snow is incredibly wet and heavy. Sticky as hell to push about compared with the previous fluffy stuff. 100mm (4") deep in places and very hard work even with our plastic snow scrapers/shovels. The broom was instantly overwhelmed and very difficult to clear of snow. It is lucky there wasn't more of the is wet stuff! The weight is tremendous.

I left mid-afternoon into horizontal, wet snow driven by a 20mph wind. The roads and any south facing surfaces were plastered in several inches of snow. The wind was over my shoulder on the way back as I was bombing along at 16-18 mph through 2-4" of wet snow. Adhesion was much lower than when it was colder. I had to snick up a couple of gears when I climbed out the saddle to crest a few low hills. The brakes were very poor as well. Only 6 miles.

28th 35F, 2C, grey overcast, breezy. Promise of brightness later. The snow is still lying about but showing signs of melting. It's all 'orribly wet out there! The Venus GPS watch went back for a refund. It promised so much but failed to clear the hurdle of reliability. The roads were saturated with puddles and wet slush.  I was water-boarded by one of the local Electrickery Maffia in his van. He demanded a £200 call-out fee with menaces. Said he'd come round and fit six mains sockets in our tiny rear hall, at ten times the usual retail price for parts and £400 per hour labour charges including beer and fag breaks, missed football matches and travelling time. I said they had already carried out this particular threat and that I'd given at the office. 16 miles, fighting injustice. (I'm a cyclist. It goes with the territory)

A couple on a tandem were killed in Bristol. On past sentencing form the perpetrator of double, vehicular manslaughter will receive a caution for being slightly naughty, get a small smudge on his license, but not lose his basic, inalienable human right to drive just as he likes. Oh, and a fine of less than £50. So that's all right then.

29th 38-40F, +3+4C, very, very dark and breezy.

I was mulling over the repeated nightmare of bike and trike security after that Trykit trike was stolen in London. The insurers insist that expensive bikes (and trikes presumably) are secured with Gold Standard locks. The irony is that all Gold Standard locks weigh a ton!

The owner of the machine has already paid dearly for every gram less of extra lightness. Why else would they spend that much money except for lightness? So they burn several thousand dead squid getting the weight of their machine down by a bare few grammes to the physically achievable. At least, not without reverse engineering the alien technology of that UFO which crashed in the local park last week... but then has to carry 3-4 kilos of locks around their neck? Locks which can be easily broken, by a professional thief, in just a few seconds? Liquid Nitrogen, dirt cheap bolt croppers, car jacks and diamond cut-off wheels on dirt cheap angle grinders, anybody?

Complete amateurs, who happen to have lost their bike lock keys, can undo a £100+ lock or "unbreakable" chain and padlock in a couple of minutes. Even in a busy high street and go completely unnoticed. This does not compute! It is a complete alternative reality! Elvis is still in the building! Father Xmas and his elves walk amongst us! Lance Armstrong really is an evil Venusian. Sent to undermine our faith in cycling. To help us to destroy our own planet by going back to the wicked car. All to regain some status on the road. Cyclists are to car drivers as women are to the Taliban.

Q1: Why is there no infallible, lightweight securing device yet available? We can send a robot to Mars, etc.. You can even change gear by battery but can't deter a thief with a simple, completely reliable bike alarm? Why isn't every bike compulsorily GPS tagged and easily traceable by a free app? Imagine the savings of mass production by Chinese slaves and global standardisation. Would the bike shops and household insurers really go bust if they couldn't replace all those missing bikes?

Q2. Why bother to lock your bike against the professional slime when it is so easily stolen by these specialist thieves? The police don't care. Hundreds of thousands of bikes are stolen every year, in every country around the world. The sums involved are completely staggering! Ring the fuzz to say that a van full of Eastern Europeans are emptying all the bike racks in the shopping centre and they are far too busy searching for their wacky baccy. Or attending to football match hooligans from the front row sideline.

Q3. What games are the insurer's playing with their customer's minds? Demanding 3-4 kg of approved locks on a top quality racing bike will almost literally double its kerbside weight! When surely the whole purpose of owning that incredibly expensive machine is ONLY its incredibly light weight? See me, see my carbon bottle cage, pal.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch: Yesterday I had a go at Wiggle over the difference in price for their listed products between different EU countries despite using the same currency. It looked to my naive eyes as if they were charging for EU postage while pretending they weren't.  Their email response provided a link to their pricing policy.

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/h/option/productpricing

Which seems slightly at odds with every other online EU bike dealer with which I have dealt. You pay the price shown on the website plus postage. The difference is that Wiggle offers "free" (6 day) postage on top of their (increased taxes) list price. With other dealers you pay postage on top of the website price and variations in EU country VAT rates are ignored. Buy from Germany and you pay their lower VAT plus modest postage charges. The savings can be considerable but are not guaranteed.

Just a ride to Assens today for a ton of shopping. I had a look at bike locks in the flesh. None was remotely acceptable by weight. Those that were reasonably light were probably vulnerable to a pair of quite ordinary pliers. 19 more miles and still ranting. :-)

30th 40F, +4C, light breeze, rain forecast all morning with a storm headed our way tonight. I'll see how it looks later. Somebody badly needs to tidy the shed! Or tidy the shed badly. Either would be an improvement. This usually falls under the heading of chaos theory. Junk always expands to fill the space available. It was too boring so I raked at the puddled drive to try and drain it into a distinct channel. No small task with 50 metres to work on.  The drive was wrecked by the fibre optics broadband internet company. I still managed 10 miles mid afternoon. Lots of flooded fields from the thaw. Lots of cracking on the roads as well. Very little snow left now.

The alleged double killer of the couple on a tandem in Bristol was allegedly driving while disqualified and without insurance. He has been remanded in custody until late February. This seems unusually harsh for an alleged double killing of mere cyclists. Normally, cyclists don't count as real human beings in the British injustice system. Perhaps the double killer couldn't afford a decent ambulance chaser?  Otherwise he would be up at the golf club celebrating his release and the dropping of all charges by now. What a Silly Billy! Can thee ride tandem, lad? Thought not.

Now that's a puddle!

The wind was so strong that poor old Mr Higgins nearly ended up in the drink!

31st 41F, +5C, mostly overcast, still windy. No visible damage from the storm except for a neighbour's trampoline which went walkabout. Due to start raining again after lunch. I'm still aching from yesterday's playing with gravel and water on the drive. Unaccustomed exercise is only good in moderation. I was bashing away for several hours with a pick and a road builder's heavy tar rake. I bought the rake years ago when I was landscaping our rocky rural garden using hand tools and and a builder's wheelbarrow. Several wheelbarrows, in fact, because I wore them out carrying rocks.

The largest rock was the size of a mini and standing on end like an enormous potato. Right where I intended to park the car by cutting into the slope. I had to dig down beside this massive rock and then flop it over sideways by hanging from the end of a 20' long steel pole and a rusty length of narrow-gauge railway line. I'd have been quite handy at Stonehenge. Though it took years for the damage I did to my shoulder joints to subside.

The ground was so hard it took a pick to get every single teaspoon out of the ground as broken gravel. I moved the equivalent of several double decker buses of this stuff over a couple of years. Raising a big new terrace 20 yards away with all the debris. My wife became an expert dry stone waller using the cleaner stones. As you can gather from all this waffling I'm still waiting for coffee before I go out. The sun is shining brightly now. Though it's probably still gusting to over 20m/s. Or 40 mph.

The first few miles were amusing. I was cruising at 22-25mph and hardly needing to pedal. Coming back was not so much fun. Still lots of flooded fields and woods. Ice still clinging on top of the earlier formed ponds and puddles. My first 1000 km milestone has passed. I arrived home just before it started raining. 19 miles.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

18th January 2013 Ventus G1000 GPS watch.

18th 24-27F, -4--3C,  a light breeze at first, heavy overcast, feeling bitterly cold today. I was well wrapped up, as usual. So only my nose and cheeks felt the cold. The same supermarket was out of organic apple juice today despite it being on special offer. Isn't this a form of fraud on the company sponsoring the offer? If the idea is to make the customer interested and pleased with the product being discounted what price no stock on the customer's attitude to the same company and product?

I found a Ventus G1000 GPS watch and heart-rate monitor in Netto. Discounted to 200DKK (about £20) to clear. They have been sitting enticingly on the shelf for literally ages in most Netto outlets but were far too expensive to tempt me at three times the price. I got it home and there's no software disk in the package despite it being double sealed! Grr! I made an effort today and was averaging 16mph on the way. About 14mph on the way back with an increasing head wind. Only 17 miles.

Pm. After downloading the software online I put the watch on charge for a few hours. It even has a GPS compass. So no more excuses for getting lost when it is overcast. I have yet to take it for a ride so can't speak for the rest of its potential. It worked okay when I walked to the end of the drive to check the road conditions.

19th 27F, -3C, overcast, breezy and cold. Some drifting onto the roads in the wind but no new snow overnight. The wind was much stronger and horribly cold today. The equivalent of at least -20C. It seemed to be blowing in all directions and even felt strong in the middle of the forest. The organic apple juice had come in so I dragged 6 litres home in addition to all the other stuff. The three bags were so heavy I must have been carrying 30 lbs or 15 kilos. The supermarket roofs were shedding vast quantities of windblown snow. All over me as I loaded my heavy bags onto the trike!

The Ventus GPS watch gave up recording my route after only 10 seconds. So I must be doing something wrong. The instructions are horribly complicated but, just understandable, with multiple layers of menus.

Why couldn't they make route recording as simple as a unique button press with constant and visible confirmation? Their excellent GPS logger is only a matter of sliding the one switch to on. The rest is taken care of automatically. Then displayed around the edge of the Google Earth map/satellite view of the route with speed, altitude, time and distance all plotted against each other. All it takes is to insert the attached USB plug into the computer. While the watch seems to be trying to be as complicated as possible. As if the designers and software writers were desperately trying to impress each other. And failing. I'll keep trying. The watch is so bulky I couldn't wear it inside my Aesse jacket cuff. So I wore it outside the jacket cuff but inside the cuff of my Dintex glove. Only 10 miles.

20th 20-22F, -7--5C, overcast but clearing to pale blue, almost still. I have been playing with the GPS watch again. My rest heart rate is 65bpm seated at the computer. I tried a couple of minutes of stepping on a 10" high step to push it up to mid 80s. By concentrating on relaxing I can push it down to 60-62 bpm. So, it seems I am still alive. I just hope I'm not tempting fate! I haven't measured my BP for a couple of years. The "Head Gardener" tells me that checking my BP will only push it up. Perhaps she's suggesting a sort of home grown, white coat syndrome? Though it has nothing to do with "dressing up as a nurse." (She wont) Now I need to find a way of fixing the watch to the trike instead of attached to my wrist. Then I can read the screen in some comfort. Without having to stop and adjust assorted cuffs up and down and don my reading glasses.

This is a cropped photograph of the computer monitor since there is no way to save the screen as a Jpeg image. 

Don't they know that old farts suffer from lack of accommodation? And, I'm not talking about the luxury of having too many trikes and too little storage space. It has to do with age hardening of the Mk1 eye lens(es). Since taking up triking, instead of working constantly indoors, my eyes have adjusted to relaxed distance viewing. But I still need reading glasses. Which is odd, considering I could use the computer for 10 years without any glasses at all. According to my present £5 (supermarket bought) reading glasses I'm midway between 1 and 1.5 dioptres now. I need the latter to read today's popular, microscopic print on food packaging and instructions leaflets. I'm a martyr to lost misplaced reading glasses. (like so many of my generation) So now I have a retaining cord around my neck. With my failing memory I may need a cord around my trike at this rate!

Note how the watch is showing the wrong time and date in these images despite being set correctly hours before leaving. This has something to with "Dual Time" which I have now zeroed to match "Home Time." I wonder if they ever put the watch into the hands of ordinary consumers before releasing their over-complex masterpiece? 


It should be a bright, sunny morning with a slowly building NE wind gusting to about 20 mph. So I really ought to make the most of it. Go NE young old man! Do it now! (After coffee and rolls to stoke the old boiler) The thermometer is still stuck on 20F at 9 am. I must get going but there's a German gardening programme on the box. So time is standing still while I waffle on...

I fought a cold headwind and blinding sun for the first 15 miles. Then the road turned north and the wind felt far colder. The Ventus watch behaved itself today and recorded speed, heart rate and altitude graphs as well as a textual data and drawing the route on Google Earth. Fortunately it even agreed with the Ventus GPS logger. The heart rate sensor is large, heavy and clumsy but passed almost unnoticed under several layers of clothing. My average heart rate was 105, with a minimum of 61. Rather more worrying was a colossal 224 bpm plateau over the first couple of miles. Not that I noticed anything. At all! Average peak HR was around 130-135 when climbing hard or getting out of the saddle. About the same as when I was chasing a keen young chap on a smart MTB.

This readout is a bit worrying! 224 bpm is foolishly high  before stabilising. I was riding normally into a cold headwind until I stopped beside the road to check in the saddle bag. They say that one should aim for 220 minus one's age in years as a peak heart rate. Perhaps I need to warm up somehow before setting off? I had a period when I was getting regular chest pains. So I asked to have my heart checked by the quack. They plugged me in and reported that I had a remarkably healthy heart. The pains were probably muscular and eventually went away.   

I was able to wrap the watch strap near the centre of the bars. Wedging the strap between the Campag cables stopped the whole watch from rotating on rougher roads. The detail on the screen is rather small for my near vision. Particularly when riding into the blinding sun with my eyes watering! Though much easier to read than the silly little Cateye Strada Cadence computer with its tall and very narrow digits. In most lights I find it impossible to define the difference between 0 and 8 on the daft little screen on the Cateye!

When it is actively recording the Ventus GPS watch toggles between various screens and shows a heart and and antenna symbols to confirm I exist. I was able to walk several yards away from the trike into a shop without the HR monitor losing range. So I'm quite chuffed to have all these bells and whistles for only £20 equiv.  Though I had a hot shower as soon as I returned my nose was still stinging hours later. I can't imagine any useful protection for my nose since I have to "blow it" so regularly. There's a disgusting parallel there between my slow pace and a snail's slime trail.  39 rather cold miles.

21st  24F,-4C, quite windy, brighter than forecast. The wind is making it feel very cold. Waiting for coffee and rolls before venturing out. Same as usual, there were smoking drifts across the road where the hedges were missing. One driver had lost control and ended up in a field. Their car was being pulled out as I passed. (or rather waited because the tow truck driver was using the entire road)  A bitterly cold, strong crosswind was making life uncomfortable for exposed skin. The Ventus watch battery was flat when I was about to put it on! It showed battery full with 8 hours reserve yesterday pm. Perhaps it was working overnight? Only 13 miles.

22nd  26-29F, -3--2C, heavy overcast with a cold and strong Easterly wind. The Ventus GPS watch battery was completely flat again this morning. I had made sure it wasn't recording anything and was fully charged last night. No way to replace the battery as it is sealed inside the waterproof case. It will have to go back to exchange it for a new one.

Saw both Fieldfares and Redwings in the same area today. I disturbed their foraging going in both directions.

My heels were dark purple and hurting like hell when I walked on them back at home. I was wearing my thickest loop pile socks and GripGrab overshoes as usual. I had applied heel cream before donning my socks. The shower seemed to help and I have applied more cream. I wish I knew whether my heels are rubbing. Or whether it is cold air being pumped through the shoes with the pedalling action. My feet don't feel cold while I'm riding. 19 miles.

Pm: The Ventus GPS watch won't take a charge at all now. After hours of charging it is still only a showing a battery reserve of a couple of hours.

23rd 25-26F, -4-3C, overcast, light breeze. Still cold, but the recent winds have dropped.  The Ventus watch is showing 8 hours reserve power this morning. Weird! Now I have to reset all the choices including setting the time all over again. Which were all lost due to the flat battery. I had to go outside to reset the compass which had refused to point correctly despite repeated re-calibration indoors.

If "White Van Man" is so notorious why don't they ban white vans as an experiment in traffic safety? You can't ban knuckle-dragging psychopaths from driving because it would be against their human rights. Just as it is a basic human right for all psychopaths to drive Audis.

Just a ride to the shops. The Ventus watch kept stopping and had to be repeatedly restarted. It recorded nothing of value. No route map nor data. A drunken, drug abusing, knuckle-dragging psychopath passed me in a traffic calming chicane at high speed in a 40 kph speed limit. But he was driving a shitty, old, bright red, rusting, Volkswagen Golf. So justice has already been served. 19 miles.

24th 12-29F, -11--2C, overcast, still, but with an occasional breeze to make it feel even colder. A 22 mile shopping trip in weak sunshine. The coop had no promised fish from a special offer. Now the Ventus GPS watch can't communicate with its software. It's going back! Life is too short to be wasting hours on such junk.

     

Click on any image for an enlargement.