28th March 2018 Giving the Ecco boots their marching orders?

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Wednesday 28th 32F, 0C, very heavy overcast, light winds building to gales with rain, sleet or snow. The wind was already roaring in the trees on my morning walk to the village and back. I had the boots laced only as far as the ankles and was still in pain.

The tree clearance is almost complete. I'm still wondering how they are going to remove the large tree stumps. Presumably using a large excavator. The stumps with their root systems can hardly be left in the ground if it is intended to plough and cultivate the new area of field. The change is dramatic, going from a rectangle of very tall, mature trees to nothing at all.

Thursday 29th 32F, 0C, breezy, heavy overcast with overnight snow still falling. Only about an inch lying at the moment but expected to continue all day as the wind falls light. Easter is upon us but some supermarkets should be open. I set off in falling snow to reach the woods, skirted the large fields and descended, back home without a pause. The airborne flakes have spoilt most of my pictures. The boots were laced only loosely and not up the ankle. Which helped to avoid the usual pain. It snowed all day but did not accumulate to more than an inch or so.

Friday 30th 26-39F, -3-4C, calm, clear and bright. After a clear night the snow is very patchy. Walked with the boot laces almost undone and the tongues pulled out.  It was a lovely sunny day with the wind only gently increasing. Afternoon ride to the shops to catch up. Headwind going. Effortless with a tailwind coming back. Only 7 miles.

Saturday 31st 32-37F, 0-3C, bright but cloudy with the easterly wind increasing. The wind is highly variable. Going from roaring in the trees to quiet in mere moments. A handy wind direction for felling more trees. Though they relied on a tractor and rope to ensure there were no silly mistakes. Saw my first wagtails of this year foraging on a field near the road. I see huge numbers of them but almost always individuals. The Ecco boots are responding to loose laces but it is hardly practical for wandering on rougher surfaces. I left the boots clamped in G-cramps today. To apply more localized pressure from smaller, bare metal surfaces rather than broader, protective plastic, covers.   

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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26th March 2018 These Ecco boots are [NOT] made for walking!

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Monday 26th 35F, 2C, calm and overcast. A cold and grey walk and all a bit "silent spring" out there. Then  I realised the missing birds are still working to official winter time. They finally tuned up after 9.30am [CET] after my seeing only mink gulls before that.

The Ecco boots are still hurting. I'm going to have to put washers around the plastic lace hooks so I can squash the Ecco, yak, bull hide, bellows tongues in another place. Otherwise they will never [ever] break in! They've had hours and hours of being clamped really hard where I can get the clamp's screw pad to fit between the lace hooks. It obviously isn't doing the job as far as my permanently sore ankles are concerned.

This time I've tried stacks of rubber washers over the lace hooks to protect the lace hook and the leather. After more hours of being squashed hard by the clamp there was still no improvement in comfort.

Now I'm trying a line of saddle oil along the bellows tongue crease. This oil made Brooks saddles far too soft so it might just help the cause.

Now back under the hard clamping for a few more hours. The smaller, round head of the screw clamp provides localized pressure. While the flat, iron foot inside the boot spreads the load along the bellows crease. I'm screwing the clamps as tight as I can physically manage.

It's a shame the thick bellows crease is causing so much trouble because the toes of the boots feel very comfortable.

I've tried all the likely combinations of lacing. Logic suggests tight lacing would push my feet back in the boots away from harm. Loose lacing allows much more flexibility in the uppers. Neither option has worked so far.

The sheer thickness of the leather used to make the bellows tongue means it cannot adopt a nicely flat fold. Instead it feels like a hard, raised ridge right down through the inside of the boot along the edge of the tongue. Fortunately it is only the inside fold which is causing such pain. I'm not even aware of the outer ridge. My last pair of Ecco boots felt like I was wearing carpet slippers. They made the Salomon boots feel like plywood boxes! Distant shopping in the car.

Tuesday 27th 36-47F, 2-8C, thick mist clearing quickly, overcast, calm. Woken by noisy tree harvesting machinery at a distance. It must be hell for those living right next to it! The boots were no better as I limped off painfully to see what was happening.

The deep moan of a big diesel was being overlaid by the rattle of branches being chopped to pieces. With regular, deeper and louder sounds when a whole tree trunk was being fed into the machine. The limit seemed to be set at 2' in diameter because one, larger trunk was left behind as the tractor and machine moved forwards at intervals. The scale of the machinery can be judged by the tractor driver facing backwards in the cab.

All the cutter's grinding action was taking place in the smaller box in front of the huge green hopper. A vertical chute quickly filled the hopper or could be turned to load a trailer behind another similarly massive tractor. This was carted off for the chippings to be piled high where vehicular access from the road was better. It was odd to see a brown bird of prey hanging about on the ground quite near the roaring machine. Yet as soon as I clomped along the road it took off and disappeared into the distance. Birds really do not recognise vehicles as a danger.

After another morning of the boots being clamped at the tongue folds I put the boots back on to work in the garden. Climbing ladders to trim apple trees and generally wandering about gave the boots a different form of exercise. I laced the boots only to the bend at the ankle and this seemed to help. Still a long way to go before they become comfortable. No amount of clamping seems to flatten the fold in the thick leather tongue. I'm not sure the synthetic saddle oil made any difference. The image [left] shows the thick fold today after days of fierce clamping. No ride today.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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24th March 2018 Look Mummy! I'm Napoleon!

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Saturday 24th 38F, 3C, light winds, mist and light drizzle. My boots are still hurting. A large, brown, bird of prey was moving around the shattered stumps of the felled trees. The contractors are now turning the same trees into chippings with a huge machine. Back to clamping the unwearable Ecco boots.

Afternoon ride to the shops. No sign of the promised sunshine. Moron driving far too close, fell asleep when the car in front of him indicated to pull into a car park. Swung wide straight into my path without a care or exposing a single brain cell to active use. Darwin was right. So are self driving cars. Only 7 miles, still not out.

Sunday 25th 40F, 4C, overcast, misty and calm.

Always the Napoleon delusion. Never his batman: Next time you see a cyclist do not assume a bicycle is all they can manage, or afford. Many cyclist are car drivers, van drivers, sports car drivers and even lorry drivers. Some are pilots or even astronauts. When you see a cyclist, never assume that they are riding the hundred yards to the shops. As you are behind the wheel of your stinking car. They may be 10, 100 or even 1000 miles "from home."

You have absolutely no way of telling yourself anything about them. Except that they choose to ride a bicycle for all its clear benefits, except weather protection. What you think of cyclists says a lot more about you, than cyclists. Many treat cyclists with an overt form of racism. If they seem lower on your rigid [non]sense of human hierarchy, than yourself, in your hundred yards car journey, then you are sorely mistaken. A car does not give you status. Though it may well label you as "a complete waster."

Car adverts are often some strange, alternative reality. They are often filmed on closed roads in a "poor" country and early in the morning to give the illusion that traffic will not exist for you alone. Except to turn their heads to admire "your ride." Or your fantasies about avoiding traffic and your ability to find short cuts that no other human being on Earth could possibly know about. I expect the advertisers believe in human abduction and flying saucers too. Probably  because they are aliens themselves. No human being with an ounce of morals would ever work in advertising.

In truth it's just another car to carry you more slowly across town than bicycles. Just as they have for decades in every town and city. Your laziness, as a short distance, city car driver, contributes to global warming and places massive demands on the health services. You are contributing to the ill health of yourself and countless children and adults along your route. As your "admirable ride" pours out toxins and soot particles.

For decades it was lead poisoning too. Because the car builders, politic-ooze and petrol companies were all in cahoots and nobody really cared as IQs fell steadily. So that future, short distance, city drivers wouldn't have enough marbles to build a realistic view of the world.

As they fight for personal supremacy according to their vehicular-specific delusions of hierarchy. And, so that they looked down on all cyclist as a hindrance. When, in reality, every cyclist speeds the traffic by not being a total moron behind the wheel of a big chunk of stinking, rusting toxicity. One of billions of toxic and dangerous boxes which kill hundreds of thousands of innocents every single year. Dictators, terrorists and gun manufacturers would give their right arms to have that much killing power. Except their hands are always too busy doing something else they'd rather you didn't know about.

Remember this, as you ride the world's slowest, hundred yards to the shops. Along will all the other lazy barstewards with delusions of grandeur. Road rage is just one of the symptoms of your serious delusions. See a psychiatrist. Or just get yourself a bicycle for the hundred yard run to the shops.

Short journeys are terribly wasteful of fuel and far more damaging to the cold engine and exhaust which never gets a chance to warm up. Every cyclist and pedestrian, can smell your foul unburnt fuel being spewed out of your standard issue, "sporting" waste overflow pipe as you pass them on the straights between
traffic lights.

If you really were Napoleon you wouldn't be driving yourself the hundred yards to the shops. Not in that stinking death trap. Would you?

"I'm a tree!"

Sunday 25th 40F, 4C, overcast, misty and calm. Despite the painful boots not having been improved by more hours of clamping, I walked a large loop around the fields. This may not be a good idea because the farmers have been spraying. Even on the other side of our field boundary hedge yesterday afternoon while I was working outside. I have been having headaches and dizziness again. Typical symptoms for this time of year. A large brown bird of prey was having a dogfight with aggressive crows as it flew away from my clomping presence on the road. A Chaffinch was drowning out a sweet Yellowhammer's song in a roadside tree. The fields were well furnished with skylarks just being skylarks. Nothing else, comes close.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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