October 29th 2014

*

Wednesday 29th 50F, 10C, breezy, heavy overcast, continuous rain. Should brighten up later. Woke with a splitting headache and a painful right hip.Nose and chest still bunged up with frequent coughing. Am I having fun yet? No walk but it cleared to sunshine by 11am. Headed for another outlet for Heinz beanz. No stock. I was coughing up thick mucous for the first few miles. Worse than the last two days! It was awful!




Came back via another Beanz outlet to miss the last [only?] 6 cans to a lady, with an English husband, by a few seconds. I fought as hard as I could but the 'flu had badly weakened me and she escaped with her priceless haul. Or words to that effect. It's not that I really care about having more beans but it gave me an ideal excuse to go out while I was still recovering. Over-training on beans? Better not go there. 20 miles.

The only difference between men and boys is the size of their toys. I couldn't get any closer because the access track was a mud bath.


Thursday 30th 35-47F, 2-8C, white overnight frost, thick mist clearing. Lowest temperatures so far. Should be bright when the sun comes up. Still bunged up with a foul taste from all those warring bacteria. A walk might help. 4 miles in an hour and three quarters taking 81 pictures. Weak sunshine softening the autumn woods. Rain promised for later so I'd better hop on the trike.

It was a perfect day for a ride with almost no wind and continuous sunshine. I felt tired and achy all over before I left but was going well enough. Still horribly short of breath but less coughing today. MY breathing seems to improve after a few miles. It is all seems like a bad case of OCD but I feel I have to make up for recent lost mileage. It was lucky my wife suggested a warmer jacket because it never did warm up properly. 28 miles.

Friday 31st 51F, 11C, breezy, heavy overcast, thin mist, spitting with light rain. What happened to yesterday's promise of a dry but grey day? I was on a roll and shall want a refund!

The shorter stem I bought yesterday was for normal rather than over-sized bars.[31.8mm] My back has been complaining again. It seems to be stiffening as I grow older. I reversed the existing stem to raise the bars but it doesn't help. My hands have been getting pins and needles on the bars. Which feels as if I have far too much weight on them. I also have to keep pushing myself back on the saddle.

Still bunged up to the eyeballs. 3 mile walk in the mist. It is no longer raining but feels very damp. Though certainly not enough to keep me home.

A ride to the shops. I was doing intervals escaping from a bus which would not overtake on a long uphill drag. Every time she had to stop I would put some distance on her. Only for her to catch me before the next stop. Thank goodness my 'flu is slowly giving up its strangle hold! At least it stayed dry. 15 miles.

Click on any image for an enlargement. 

*

27th October 2014

*

Monday 27th 53F, 12C, overcast, windy. My 'flu has finally downgraded to a bad cold. Still short of breath with coughing fits but I'm still keen on a gentle ride later. Shame about the wind.

I managed a typical loop of 3 miles on my walk. Spending considerable time admiring and photographing a huge flock of mink gulls. I also saw a canary-yellow Yellowhammer in a hedge by the road. I'm still planning on a ride today but the wind is supposed to fall as the day gone son with a better chance of brightness later.

No chance. It remained heavily grey all day. I suddenly realised that I had left it too late to be able to return in daylight thanks to the c,locks going back. So had a mad rush, mid afternoon, to find and fit my lights. 3 x 1/2W Smart lights flashing at the rear and a brighter one at the front. The flashing Smart front light can be easily seen reflected in the road signs but throws a poor beam for seeing the road itself. Though it always guarantees oncoming drivers dip their headlights. Steady beam rarely does this because the driver has to try and recognise the light as a bicycle first.  Steady beam lights can often be a house number light. Or even a simple reflection of their own headlights. Only bikes use bright flashing lights. So it's a complete no-brainer. Even for the thickest driver.

I was going quite well, though a little breathless, with a tailwind going. Then I'd have a violent coughing fit and there'd be school meal custard and silicone snot flying on the wind.

The supermarket crooks are still blaming their suppliers for not having stock of special offers. I haven't been able to find Heinz beans in any of the supermarket chain outlets claiming to have special offers of Heinz in stock. I wonder why the lying bar stewards bother to advertise special offers when they can't get stock? It only leaves a very bad taste in the customer's mouth. Heinz beans vanished from the last independent outlet years ago when they were taken over by another chain. So we were rather looking forward to getting some after all this time. Fat chance. Four, perfectly normal, stock items not on the shelves too. I can remember being told decades ago by the BBC that all supermarket ordering and stock levels are run completely automatically by computer. So what is the excuse for not having lettuce, bread, crackers and butter? Is bread and butter out of season in China or South America where they get their stock?

It was an interesting experience riding home in the pitch dark. I so rarely need to do so even in winter. I discovered that I no longer need visual clues to ride a trike in perfect comfort under all conditions. Adverse camber and inclines are handled by my internal automatic pilot. It was a headwind on the last 10 mile leg home which slowed me a little. <cough-spit-snot> 22 miles, no Beanz and that's a Fakta!

Tuesday 28th 50F, 10C, windy, but promise of some sunshine.

I was just reading that it is becoming commonplace for amateur cycle racers right down to 13 years of age to take painkillers. These are mixed with strong coffee in their bottles to improve their performance and given to them by their proud parents or trainers. Apparently they have learned this trick from the Pros. Everyone knows how what the Pros do is copied slavishly by the amateurs.

It seems that the Pros routinely use the same technique towards the end of races. So there's another nail in the coffin of Pro cycling, money laundering, advertising and endless cheating. It's time the practice was not only made illegal but back dated where past blood and urine tests can prove this cheating occurred.

And, if you are not good enough to compete fairly on the strength of your hard training and natural talent then get out of the damned sport! Why should anybody "clean" even bother to compete against a cheat like you? There's always work as a male or female prostitute. According to the newspapers 13-year olds are always welcome in the ranks of "service providers." Many use the funds to support their drug habits. So everyone's a winner! Except the local cycle shop losing out on your parent's endless expense. To provide the new 10k carbon bike you need every 3/6 months just to compete under UCI [Utterly Corrupt Incumbents] rules!

Started the day with a 3 mile walk in bright sunshine. Saw some Redwings but no vast flocks of gulls.

I left on the trike late morning for Assens. International headlines about my miraculous recovery from Man 'Flu were pure hype according to insider information. The paparazzi were wasting their time camping outside the trike shed in the hope of an exclusive. Whatever.

Tame cannon fodder.

Yet again I was going well only to be confronted with violent coughing fits. To quote the sage of YouTube; I haz finally mostly got Heinz Beanz. They were incredibly well hidden but the third chain outlet had seven tins. Consuming one tin for Christmas dinner over the next 7 years will be a rare treat. Sunshine out of a cloudless sky. 22 miles.

Click on any image for an enlargement. 

*

22 October 2014

*

Wednesday 22nd 42-52F, 6-11C, sunny, cool, misty, quiet start to a gorgeous day. A delightful 3 mile walk snapping away at the landscape while the mist hung about on low ground. [Actually I compose each picture carefully but do take rather a lot of pictures.] The forecast is dry with light winds so I really ought to have a longer ride today. The north westerly wind is moving the trees now but it shouldn't limit progress too much if I choose my direction carefully.

Lots of different birds around at the moment. Often foraging in mixed flocks. Redwings, Chaffinches, Yellowhammers, Blackbirds and Sparrows are all common sights. I saw a thrush yesterday which is a very rare sight indeed!

Rode down to Falsled on the south coast. I was heading for Fåborg but decided to avoid the traffic and enjoy the quiet rural lanes instead. Lots of nice hills going both ways by two different routes. I was using the small chainring quite a lot to keep my cadence high. Early sunshine gave way to rather a lot of grey cloud later. It started spitting on the way back but petered out again. I had taken overshoes and a change of jackets but never needed them.

The Crapeye 'Cadence' computer was having another off day. I tried polishing the contacts with my glove but it can never be relied on to make it work again.

The head has to be rocked to close a switch via a pin on the back to change between screens. So simply waggling the head in the shoe, to make better contact, is highly likely to cancel the day's mileage total. [It needs a long press to cancel any screen total]

They probably thought it was a bright idea but it was very badly executed. I have never had any other computer behave so erratically. Not even the £5 throwaway jobs at the supermarket.

The Crapeye contact pins seem to corrode too readily when the slightest bit damp. They go visibly chalky! Being on the bottom the pins naturally collect moisture even the lightest rain or mist. Which is just daft at the asking price. There is nothing worse than glancing down to check your speed and seeing the damned screen showing 00.00!

I hate the mileage digits too. Tiny, tall and thin so it impossible to differentiate between 0 and 8 except in a good light with a magnifying glass! The cadence reading has stopped working at all now. Probably another contact problem. More overpriced, over-hyped, cycle accessory crap! 40 miles. Which I could only check when I finally arrived home when I downloaded  the Ventus GPS USB dongle. The Crapeye had stopped showing readings at intervals all day. Just as it always has done from new. It's a damned good job I don't have to rely on it!

Thursday 23rd 53F, 12C, rather breezy, heavy overcast. 3 mile walk. Staying on the roads because I have no useful walking boots. Rode to the shops with a tail wind. Then fought a headwind for 10 miles before turning for home.

Atlantic Cod fillets "Packed in China"?? Does not compute. We care about what we eat and buy the organic options whenever possible. We eat lots of fiber, vegetables, fruit and fish products. Carefully avoiding crap is part of our dietary standard of behaviour.

If I wanted my dinner to be packed in a toxic atmosphere, by slave labour, under a toxic political mafia, in a toxic environment, using recycled, toxic water I'd probably go out and look for Chinese Cod fillets. I didn't. Or didn't think I had. I bought "Atlantic Cod fillets." Even if they were caught in the Atlantic, what about the Carbon Footprint of sending frozen fish half way around the world and doing it not once but twice?

Sadly there seems to be no trading standards or consumer protection in Denmark. Otherwise the supermarkets would be endlessly prosecuted for having no stock of the "special offers." Quite often they will actually take a normal stock item off the shelves during the offer period! Then return them to the shelves after the event!

Not to mention constantly ripping off customers with wrong prices at the tills compared with the shelves. And, not changing the shelf price labels or removing them altogether. So that no price is shown at all. So then you have to ask at the till whether the offer is still valid. There is obviously no point (at all) complaining aloud about highly misleading product descriptions and such doubtful commercial behaviour. Organic fruit and vegetables are often labelled incorrectly. So the the naive customer arrives at the till before they notice they have ordinary, [spray poisoned] produce. Danish fruit and veg often have red labels just like the registered organic products. Another crafty ploy to confuse the busy shopper!

Another example: Finding edible, cherry tomatoes is all but impossible in Denmark. Yet the packaging clearly say "Cherry Tomatoes". They don't [ever] taste anything like tomatoes. Not even remotely. Often they aren't even remotely red! I wonder whether the Red Cross still do food parcels?

Having scrubbed the contact pins with a clean cloth the Cateye Cadence computer is suddenly working again. Until the next time. 20 miles.

Friday 24th 52F, 11C, grey overcast, windy. There won't be much to report today. I have severe man 'flu. After several days of headaches [unusual for me] my right nostril exploded into chronic over-activity last night. NASA is already reporting unusual, glistening slime trails crisscrossing the lawn from its forestry depletion sensing platforms.

I'm trying to build up to a walk but have calculated that I will probably require two boxes of tissues per hour/mile covered. I am still struggling with the logistical problem of disposing of so many contaminated tissues. I'm planning on dragging a bin bag along for later disposal at a toxic waste dump. I pray I have enough strength to manage a fully loaded sack on the return journey. Reports of my symptoms may be exaggerated by the popular press. Hopefully, my rural isolation will offer some crumbs of comfort to those of a nervous disposition. I was too ill to go out and it rained. So another rest day.

Saturday 25th 50F, 10C, got up early. Still feeling awful after a sleepless night. Dark. Very, very dark. It was still dark after 9am CET! My nose stopped pouring but now my chest is rattling and I keep coughing. Rest day. Null points.

Sunday 26th 52F, 11C, overcast and windy. Much lighter than yesterday. Supposed to stay dry but cloudy with 30mph gusts all day. Cabin fever may force me to have a walk today. It might help to clear my chest. I made it to the woods and back. A mountain bike has left his trail on the track. The pheasants have finally dispersed. Despite feeling a bit better I wasn't remotely well enough for a ride. Rest day.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

*