20th November 2014 Google's protection racket?

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Thursday 20th 41F, 5C, another almost still and very grey day. I'm going for a lightweight ride to a target about 20 hilly miles away. Hopefully it will stay dry. I have deliberately fitted the Vetta SL saddle just to see how I get on. Stripping the Trykit carrier [1.3lbs?]and swapping the heavier Carradice Camper saddlebag for the 'Junior' will save a few pounds. As will leaving the massive 2lb+ Abus lock behind.  Though will take my TZ7 camera as always.

A very pretty, private suspension bridge over the moat at a stately home near Assens.[Brahesborg Slot/Gods] The bridge walkway has recently been removed due to rot. There were some fierce, original spikes pointing upwards beside the suspension bars to stop trespassers sneaking along the outside. The raft below suggests that the walkway will eventually be replaced. A beautiful lake circles two other sides of the grounds. With extensive woods beyond that. A large cobbled courtyard and road close the last side. The vast farm buildings nearby are very impressive.  

I don't usually worry about extra weight given the usual addition of daily shopping loads. By the time I have finished I expect to have removed at least 5 or 6lbs.[~3kg] Some people obsess over "saving" a mere few grams and will cheerfully pay £ks to reduce the weight of their machine by 100g. This, despite many riders making excuses not to lose weight themselves.

Immature Triffids on the path to the woods.

Anyway, the Vetta saddle was fine except that I had set it as far back as possible quite by accident while working in the semi-darkness. Which made it a bit of a stretch to the hoods. Just beginning to notice the Vetta saddle's firmness after 30 miles. Wearing tights under my bibs doesn't help as the seams lie in the wrong place. The lightness of the trike was very noticeable. Particularly when accelerating and climbing. Bit short of breath today. Only 36 miles so far. I was sprayed and rained on at halfway. Going out again. Plus 7 more miles with all the "junk" back on. The Brooks instantly felt more comfortable than the Vetta. I have some thin memory foam which I intend to use to check my sit bone spacing when in the normal riding position on the trike. 6001 miles for the year so far. Not a good year and far too late to make up the shortfall.

Friday 21st 41F, 5C patchy mist, heavy, patchy cloud, almost still. I seem to have a recurrence of the 'flu symptoms. Headache, coughing, snotty nose. shortness of breath and occasional dizziness. Went for a pleasant walk. Saw two birds of prey.

After a minor resurrection, the Ventus GPS logger battery now seems to be on its very last legs. A great shame as I now have no alternative. The G730 has been discontinued. I suppose I could break it open and run it off alternative batteries. Though as it is USB charged that might be a problem when it is connected to the computer to download my routes. I am planning another ride today to make the most of this quiet period. Days without wind are far too rare to waste. Even on me.

I refitted  the Brooks saddle, worn with my best bibs, for more comfort. Rode down the main coast road to Fåborg. A young chap on a TT bike overtook me but he ignored my greeting as he passed. I chased him for several miles at 18-23mph but the wind was not in my favour. It stayed sunny for most of the day. Later I saw a recumbent trike on my way back. I haven't seen one for ages. He gave me a wave.  I looked in a cycle shop but every single saddle on the extensive bike display was narrow and heavily curved.

The climb up from Faldsled to Jordløse should have been good fun but is a very long drag. Not helped by the appalling condition of the marked off cycle lane [broken verge] in many places. [Farm?] traffic has ripped up the already, very coarse tarmac over earlier white  line road markings. Making the cycle lane on the verge almost unrideable! I used the smooth road surface as much as possible but there was a lot of traffic. Forcing me back onto the "ploughed" and heavily ridged cycle lane at frequent intervals. The drudge of climbing continuously for so long was broken by a huge tipper lorry with matching trailer which just would not overtake. Almost dark by the time I reached home but I had all my Xmas lights on. 53 miles. I wonder whether they chose red for rear lights because of its similarity to blood?

Saturday 22nd 38F, 4C, still and grey. The clouds parted for a short walk. Nose still bunged up. Judging from the continuing gunfire the guys with the guns are still battling against the overwhelming resistance of the local wildlife. Perhaps they should call in the drones to take out the leaders?

Rode to Assens under a heavy overcast. The gunmen were still fighting a losing battle with the wildlife as I passed. Several shots were fired by gunmen only 5 meters from the road and 10 meters from houses. So they were obviously fighting from house to house at that point.

You have to admire the drooling idiocy and sheer laziness of the Danish supermarkets. Details would be too tediously boring for my readers but total customer indifference, advertising fraud and utter stupidity is perfectly normal Danish supermarket behaviour. IME. I wonder if having display racks the entire length of a football pitch sized supermarket is legal from a fire safety point of view? Just wondering. 21 miles.

Talking of dodgy business practice: I see Google is going into the protection racket business. Instead of bombarding every website with its tasteless and infantile advertising shite it will offer to blank them out with patterns if you pay a "subscription." Yeah, right! Since I never asked Google to bombard me with tasteless and infantile advertising shite in the first place why the hell should I pay them not to see their tasteless and infantile advertising shite?  And, if I won't pay their protection money will they send da boys round to break the legs on my computer desk?

One day those who work in advertising will command the same respect as pedophiles, toxic waste dumpers, communist dictators, Google, Microsoft, Apple, investment bankers, estate agents and serial killers.

Sunday 23rd. A sultry 42F, 6C, windy, light rain and heavily overcast. More of the same then, but with more wind and rain. A bit cold on the hands, what with wind chill and evaporative cooling, as I strolled down the road and back. My nose bled at half way, due to over-ambitious blowing, but I survived to tell the tale without losing consciousness.

The traffic in the lanes was nose to tail and all travelling at high speed in the semi-darkness as I returned. It reminded me of an overblown presidential convoy in a Hollywood blockbuster. They can't all be running booze from the German border, can they? Only 10 miles to keep the circulation going. I really must sort out some more pictures!

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17th November 2014 Burning Saddles!

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Monday 17th 47F, 8C, light breeze, incredibly dark, very heavy overcast. It is supposed to be less windy today and mostly dry. Though it seems to be raining at the moment and there are rain drops all over the windows. Even at 8am[CET] it is too dark to see much outside. The DMI radar is showing a belt of rain over south Fyn. "It" drizzled on my walk.

Left after lunch into dry but uniform grey. Almost still but enough of a breeze to help me home. Not feeling very energetic at the moment. Probably still weakened by the 'flu. Only 17 miles.

Tuesday 18th 46F, 8C, light breeze, light drizzle, heavy overcast. Why isn't aggressive overtaking of a cyclist or pedestrian classed as threatening behaviour? If I wave an iron bar in the high street the police will be called and I may well be arrested. If a driver uses threatening behaviour with a 40 ton, articulated lorry in the high street he/she goes completely unpunished. Drivers can cherry pick which laws they adhere to with a vanishingly small chance of prosecution. Murder by vehicular "accident" would be a difficult case to prove. The driver can claim the default "avoiding a cat" almost with impunity. Cyclists and pedestrians may not cherry pick. Yet many drivers perceive cyclists as "getting away with murder." Welcome to the twilight zone of "might is right." It never stopped drizzling. Another rest day.

Wednesday 19th 41F, 5C, drizzle with light winds and heavy overcast.

I have retied the B17 'Special' lace yet again. It is difficult to keep the lace taught in the longer term despite my decades of experience with knots. I am using a multi-turn, clench on one end. With a figure of eight knotted loop at the fixed end but the lace is only just long enough. There isn't much room between the inner saddle cheeks either. I chose this lace for its thickness, roundness and attractive colour and  appearance against the leather. The lace has shown no tendency to cut the leather so far.

Tying a saddle flattens the spine. Particularly when supporting the rider's weight. Using your fingers or thumbs to press a saddle top is quite unlike a normal rider's load on the leather. Tying also avoids the need to repeatedly re-tension the nose nut. A sagging saddle seems to force only one position on the rider. [In the middle of the sag] It also increases the relative height of the rear cantle plate and reinforced nose area.

 Pushing oneself backwards brings one in direct contact with the hard rear edge. Pushing forward simply removes the ideal sit bone support and throws all the rider's weight on the soft parts of the crutch. Which is biologically and genetically unintended for such a purpose.

An ideal leather Brooks saddle is at its most comfortable when it is only just broken in but before the spine starts to sag. The widest, flattest part of the saddle, where the sit bones normally rest, has then become pliable enough to spread the load and avoid hammering the bone contact areas. This is when the leather saddle offers some "hammock" style cushioning, increased contact area and local flexibility under load. While the still-relatively flat, saddle spine continues to offer the greater overall surface area to reduce the contact loading per square unit of area.

The Vetta SL was/is the only plastic saddle I could/can ride without instant discomfort. Note its generous width and very flat rear. Its plastic form is covered in thin foam and vinyl. [The foam is rather prone to denting and the vinyl poorly fixed in places] I still haven't confirmed whether this was the lady's MTB model but a solitary website suggests it is. Despite having rather narrow sit bone spacing [according to the memory foam test cushions in the bike shops] I seem to need a wider, flatter saddle to enjoy any degree of comfort. I find a B17 far more comfortable than the slightly narrower 'Professional' model. Why would the small difference in width matter if I have such narrow sit bone spacing??? Good question! Probably because the sit bone spacing test cushions are completely worthless! [IMO]

I am not remotely convinced that the usual test cushions are very useful as a guide to saddle choice. Being set so low on a completely flat bench it is very difficult to lean forwards enough to achieve a normal riding position. Not without one's knees hitting one's chest: Which just means these memory foam testers are more pseudo-scientific bullshit from the same makers of uncomfortable saddles!  

A proper [sit bone] measuring cushion should be fixed on a basic saddle form mounted on very  basic stationary bicycle stand. With widely adjustable handlebars vitally necessary so that the subject can set up a reasonably normal riding position. With their feet still safely planted on the floor for complete control and stability. The question then arises how much lateral curve should the test cushion "saddle" have? The curve across the width is one of the most vital parameters relating to measurements of sit bone spacing.  

Riding high mileages quickens a leather saddle break-in but greatly increases the risk of a sagging saddle spine. Those who complain of discomfort during an extended break in period may not be riding long or far enough to achieve any break-in of the leather.

Tightening the nose tension nut/screw on a leather saddle is often a complete disaster and should be avoided as much as possible! The increased tension just causes the sit bone, support areas to slope forwards. Which is the very last thing you want if long term, high mileage comfort is desired. The ideal form is a sunken, smooth dip just under the sit bones.

Tying the saddle, with a lace, seems to overcome the re-tensioning problem by actually raising the seating area triangles. This much is all too obvious if you simply squeeze the saddle cheeks together until they meet the frame rails. Tensioning a leather saddle at the nose only causes indented "creases" which pass right through the seating area at the rear. I call this a "delta form" and consider it highly undesirable. My Brooks "Professional" was so maltreated and has still not recovered despite repeated soaking and reshaping with packing under the leather top.

Anyone would think it possible to design a much better saddle in a cheap, stiff, man-made material simply by gently sinking the sit bone support areas slightly. Yet the manufacturers insist on building their saddles on a stiff, moulded plastic or CF base always with smoothly curved top surface. Leaving no room for the potential extra thickness of cushioning material on the sit bone support areas. The default curve is only a desperate attempt to try and support a wider range of sit bone spacing without admitting it is a complete disaster for most riders. The curve actually forms a wedge which tries separate the sit bones. Being stiff bone they do not want to be separated! All the smooth curve does, in practice, is to cause heavy localised loading and increased discomfort! The saddle's resistance to the sit bone loads is always perpendicular to the applied load.

Over a century of leather saddle experience is being completely ignored by every artificial saddle manufacture I know of. A comfortable, just-broken in leather saddle is quite wide at the rear, almost flat across the back but has has the vitally softer and slightly sunken sit bone areas. Leather saddle's comfort levels are legendary amongst high mileage riders. Not simply because they are made of leather but because they take on the shape of the rider over time. Everything else about leather, except appearance, is a disaster waiting to happen. They are ridiculously heavy, badly non-waterproof and subject to further, unwanted change/breakdown over time. Worse, they cannot be frozen in time at their very best [and most comfortable shape.] From that point on it is all bad news.

How difficult can it be to duplicate this "just broken in" classic leather shape with modern materials? Most "modern" saddles haven't changed since the bare plastic Unica Nitor broke the universal leather mould back in the 1960s. Another half a century of experience has simply been thrown away in the search for easy profit! Note how prices for short-lived, uncomfortable, plastic based trash continue to escalate well beyond the price of skilled, hand made, selected leather saddles. Keep taking the money!!!

A bare, saddle shaped, low temperature, thermoplastic saddle base could be warmed with a hair dryer or heat gun. Then sat on in the rider's desired position. Probably while wearing, thin but lightly insulated shorts to avoid burns to the nether regions. The plastic instantly becoming a perfectly rider-specific and comfortable shape as it cools. Without the need for the trashy cover materials and "Patented" variable density foam presently used to decorate the ridiculously overpriced, non-human formed, default curved, plastic bin fodder!

The plastic could easily be be moulded thicker at the rear and spine but left thinner and much more flexible at the vital, sit bone support areas. Thereby further increasing comfort. The bare plastic form could easily be textured in the mould to suit the particular rider's taste for degree of "slipperiness" when sat on. The downside is that the crooks producing their endless ranges of inhuman, non-human saddles would quickly find a shrinking market. The endless quest of every cyclist for a comfortable saddle might finally be over.

Saddle soreness is by far the major cause of cycling discomfort and arguably the reason most people give up cycling altogether. Or is the major factor which greatly limits their maximum possible riding distances before their pathetically designed saddle "cuts them in half!"

Yet these same pseudo-science manufacturing frauds keep churning out variations of the same bit of overpriced, upturned, plastic roofing gutter by the million! Saddle design and manufacture is not remotely rocket science. Today's enthusiastic cyclist probably has as many discarded saddles as I do. Now close to 30 and still counting. All of them too uncomfortable to ride for long distances even in their best bibs.

In my own extensive experience even a regular a bike/trike rider's crutch does not toughen up by very much. Nor do artificial saddles ever break in. [At all!] So one goes on searching in vain for something which seems to match one's own personal sit bone geometry. Only to find that particular model is now discontinued as the bullshitting hype rises to a raving crescendo in the subsidised, magazine reviews and the graphics grow ever more lurid. The fact that the Tour Pros get free saddles in exchange for hype/sponsorship should be outlawed by the UCI. But you always get the crooked politicians you deserve.

All saddles could be thin, bare, ultra-lightweight, carbon fiber reinforced, thermoplastic plastic "plates" with gently rolled edges. AND, be as comfortable as a perfectly broken in B17 at 1/4 of the retail price. But let's not let good design get in the way of profit.

"To ride a bicycle is to be badly beaten and robbed."  

Meanwhile, back at the pig ranch: Only 15 miles today. It was dark grey, but dry, with a light easterly wind. Modesty prevents me from sharing a picture of the vast bin bag  dangling off the saddle almost to the ground and filled to the brim with empty boxes. Not much weight involved but it brings a whole new meaning to; "getting one's leg over." <cough>

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10th November 2014

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Monday 10th 46F, 8C, breezy, overcast, distant mist and raining. The forecast is rain until mid afternoon.

It always fascinates me how paths and tracks wander from the straight and narrow. Were there once obstacles in the way? Perhaps ancient trees or woods which once forced a detour? Re-routed streams which no longer demand a change in direction to reach a ford? A drained marsh? [Very commonplace in Denmark] Or claims to land which demanded respect from weary foot and horse travelers?  

It still surprises me that anyone would follow my blog actively enough to register their interest. While the blogs page views continue to rise steadily [now well beyond 250k] average visitor numbers are still quite modest. I am never sure what will hold a regular visitor's interest. Is it the photography? Or the rambles about cycling and tricycling? What about my regular rants? It is difficult to know. I have been advised to just write about what interests me. Rather than seek popularity by deliberately trying to please. Pictures of kittens and topless models may bring in the big crowds but are difficult subjects to keep in context with cycling. Though I do see an awful lot of cats and even kittens on my rides.

It took all morning to stop raining and remained heavily overcast. So I left mid afternoon. Rode home in the dark again. Using the quiet lanes rather than the busy main roads. Fortunately I remembered to take my lights. I looked like a Xmas tree from the rear. With a bright flashing light below the saddle for long distance visibility and one light on each lower seat stay. [As now required by law on trikes.] I could [and should] have taken a more powerful headlamp to light the often muddy road ahead. I bought a super bright, rechargeable, diode bike/head light in a supermarket special offer for only about £20 but haven't used it on the trike yet. Only 15 miles.

Tuesday 11th 42F, 6C, bright and still. A completely different day is promised after days of breezy overcast. An early start. Have just sorted out the plumbing in the bathroom and felled some trees. The Head Gardener has upgraded me to part-time superhero. Not sure about any extra perks though. I have plans for a slightly longer ride today.

It stayed weakly sunny all day until the last leg into a cold wind. Going well until I turned into the headwind. Cruising at 16-20mph for the first 25 miles. Half that on the way back. 48 miles.

Wednesday 12th 50F, 10C, gales, overcast and misty. Easterly winds gusting to over 30mph. Still not feeling well. Deaf with tinnitus. A rest day.

Thursday 13th 50F, 10C, still, misty, with grey overcast. My 'flu symptoms have almost gone except for a completely blocked left ear causing severe tinnitus. It is making me feel dizzy and nauseous. Even worse than yesterday. Took a slow and rather wobbly walk up to the woods. Light drizzle was accompanied by a thin, niggling wind from the southeast. I didn't feel like much of a ride today. Only 7 miles.

Friday 14th 50F. 10C, misty, heavy overcast, light breeze expected to increase to windy later. Possibility of light showers. It was spitting at first but soon stopped. Walked round the rural block. 3 miles. Feeling a bit better today but my ear is still blocked with tinnitus.

Rode to Odense to collect my replacement Salomon walking boots. The Goretex membranes had given up on the originals. Making them soak up the dew from wet grass like blotting paper. Headwind going. Crosswind coming back. Several suicidal motorists overtook me on hump back hills and blind corners. All survived to tell the tale. A mere few seconds delay in all cases would have left them with a perfectly clear road ahead. From my higher viewpoint I could easily see approaching vehicles. I even tried to warn one PWVM [Psychopathic White Van Man] by frantically flagging him down. Total waste of time! He overtook me straight into the path of a lorry on a twisting hump and missed it by inches.

I saw a police motorcyclist in a village where the average driving speed [for all vehicles] is twice the legal limit. If they had a speed camera facing both ways they could clear the national debt! 44 miles.

Saturday 15th 47F, 8C, windy [15 mph base with 35mph gusts] and a heavy overcast. Went for a walk to try out my replacement boots. Very comfy and waterproof. Just about to enter the woods when WW1 broke out! Severely shell-shocked with PTSD I shall be queuing for a refund as soon as I have finished the shopping. This is not my idea of "excused boots!" A headwind going. Tailwind coming back.  Too many driving lunatics to be even worth a mention. Loads of hunters out today. Perhaps I should buy an orange hat? 17 miles.

Sunday 16th 47F, 8C, very windy and overcast again. After a damp and windy walk the weather worsened. No point in a ride today.

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