9th October 2017 A [deliberate] absence of miles.

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Monday 9th 38-51F, 3-11C-, calm and clear. There was a gorgeous, "Hounds of the  Basketballs" mist hanging low over the front fields when I first looked out. The top of the mist was moving mysteriously, but it was soon all gone.  My walk was decorated by brightly sunlit, autumn berries and rose hips under a feathery sky. I could hear a tractor working hard quite nearby but could not see it. Jackdaws pottered about their daily business at being jackdaws.

Not a bad day at all, weather wise. I set off in the later afternoon for the shops. Going well and cruising between 14 -16mph. Returned well loaded. The lower temperatures are much more noticeable now. My hands were fine in fingerless mitts but it would have been very different in the wet. I am wearing my skiing tights, under my shorts and cycling cardigan on every ride now. The cardigan offers a little extra warmth under a light jacket once off the trike but is too open to the wind when riding. Only 7 miles.

It may sound rather odd to wear 'proper' cycling clothing for such a short ride. However I soon learned that the damage done to the saddle area by ordinary clothing would make longer rides very uncomfortable indeed. As did cotton T-shirts once they were wet with sweat. I have spent years wandering around in wet clothes after a ride so now take measures to avoid it completely. Racing jerseys, shorts and thin, thermal underwear are an almost perfect way of avoiding dampness on a ride. As soon as I feel that prickle on my back I take something off as soon as possible.

Winter is the most difficult time because one is inevitably wearing more clothing [in thin layers] to avoid the chill. A scull cap is worth its weight in platinum under the helmet on a cold or wet day. GripGrab makes autumn and thicker winter models. Both of which mould themselves to the head to protect the ears. I find removing the cap on a long climb is like turning down the thermostat. It takes only seconds and the lightweight cap can be stuffed safely away until needed again.

I never [ever] dawdle so I am always working hard on every ride at a high cadence. So I wear proper racing shorts and jerseys which go into the wash shortly after every ride, no matter the mileage. I don't wear bibs for a short ride but braces are an excellent substitute and really raise the comfort level of quality racing shorts like Wiggle's better DHB. I can't remember the model name now but the Aeron looks similar. These have lasted incredibly well without anything more than fading of the printed logos despite tens of thousands of miles and countless washes. I bought all my racing jerseys from charity shops. None seem to offer any advantage over each other than slight differences in thickness. Shimano seemed to most likely to be found on the shelf. The Head Gardner would wash them several times before I was ever allowed to wear them.

Braces keep the shorts from catching on the nose-piece of Brooks saddles when climbing out of the saddle. Which I do as often as possible, to get a good workout and maintain my speed on short rises and longer hills. As my mileage steadily drops I have to work harder to remain fit.

A 15-20 mile ride is still well within my capacity, pushing on, while fully loaded with shopping, but without tiring. Though I haven't been much further for quite a while. This was a deliberate choice to <cough> break the cycle of [almost] living on my trike.

I deliberately developed major building projects instead. Which ensured I had a reason to stay at home rather than use any excuse to go for a ride. Or "running away" as the Head Gardener now calls it. It also keeps my mind active as I get seriously creative. The combination of regular exercise for mind and body is hopefully staving off the day when my last few, rusty ball bearings roll out of my ears.
 

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7th October 2017. Keep on bailing!

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Saturday 7th 48F, 9C, overcast, continuous rain. I knew I should have gone out yesterday. Tomorrow's forecast is for sunshine.

We really have had a run of very wet weather this year! It's been almost like a long, summer, camping holiday in the West Country of Gravely Blighted, back in my youth in the last century. One of those holidays where you return from a fortnight's holiday looking much paler and far more wrinkly than when you left! Falling asleep in the bath for an hour or two has similar, but milder, effects

It was much like one of my earlier rehearsals with the Cub Scouts. When I made an involuntary escape from the tender care of my parents. To be returned an eternity later and deposited at my own front door. Wearing only my damp underwear and a very soggy, navy blue, school gaberdine! The stuff of endless re-tellings of such legends at later, family get-togethers. I can only assume my misery was all too evidently visible at first glance.

The large, Wolf Cub campsite had been situated in the sump of a Lake District valley beside a rushing, brown river. A geographic and topographic calamity, on the Richter scale, just waiting to happen. Which meant that the overnight torrents had run quite literally down the steep hillside, through the heavy tents and over the loose canvas ground sheets. Where we innocents had lain like sleepless lambs to the slaughter under our coarse army blankets. There no lights back then because we were all victims of post war, Ever Ready batteries and torches.

Only one, fellow Wolf Cub, had escaped the deluge by deliberately injuring himself with an axe. Which had required his being rushed to hospital. A lucky escape, in my expert opinion, compared with our own, cruelly extended water torture!

The following morning was just like watching an endless replay of the much later, zombie movies. As a hundred, or so, utterly exhausted young lads staggered about in a living nightmare of sleep deprivation, saturated clothes, squelchy shoes and even more, wet weather to be enjoyed on what was previously, long, wet grass. Though it soon turned to a universal quagmire. So that many a poor young soul found they had lost a shoe on their way to the latrine trench. Unfortunately, expensive trainers had yet to be invented so the loss of one's only school shoes was like losing a limb. Or might well lead to the loss of limbs if one returned home without them. This was, of course, long before corporal punishment was reserved only for the upper classes.

Alas, the "Annual Camp" had to be abandoned before mass exposure really set in. The national 'papers might have got wind of our collective misery and torture at the hands of so many cheerful and willing, adult volunteers! The antique motor-coach was recalled and we gratefully escaped "a fate worse than death." They made me Chief Sixer after that but it was inadequate compensation for my stoicism during my suffering. I resigned my commission shortly thereafter and left the Wolf Cubs to to become just another, shiftless, civilian youth. The term "teenager" had yet to be dropped from a single, downy lip.

Later, family holidays inevitably involved sheeting rain and even frequent storms! By which time I was an acknowledged expert in tensioning storm guys, placing crossed tent pegs and setting flysheets. We spent many a holiday almost alone on a bare camping field listening to the roar of torrential rain on the tent roof as it kept redoubling its efforts. We were still there, often long after everybody sensible had up stakes and gone home to begin their dehydration therapy.

At least I had learned by then that the top of the field was arguably safest. Provided, of course, there was some shelter from the vicious sou-westerly gusts! If heaven is reserved for the good, then eternal camping is almost certainly where the really bad ones go. What it says about me, and my repeated living hell, is open to conjecture.

Don't even get me started on my winter camping trips to Snowdonia! Where a level of abject misery was achieved which [almost] eclipsed all previous drenchings.

Imagine, if you will,  the combination of an all-cotton, two man, mountain tent with A-poles, ridge pole, cotton flysheet and days of heavy, continuous rain. The whole lot to be carried by our hero, alone. To be enjoyed long after all hope was lost of a single dry hour. Let alone a whole day of kindly, leaden overcast and occasional, heavy showers.

Even proofed, Egyptian cotton gains weight which puts a terminal McLardy's victim to shame. The weight of my mountainous rucksack was probably against international human conventions for fit young marines, the SAS and special forces. While my personal hero was always on the back of a long queue of skinny runts of the litter. I was once described by the local Job Center as too under-muscled for serious work. They had left my file open on the public desk while they went for a fag break. They weren't half cross when they returned. To find me reading their glowing report of my failure to fully emulate Arnie. In my case I had, quite inadvertently, invented near invisibility merely by standing sideways on to the confused observer.

What did they know? I had just previously been carrying endless 1cwt sacks of cement for 50 yards each time, for a vast, indoor tiling job at a local meat factory as a builder's labourer. In between ferrying bags of cement I was swinging a sledge hammer or a navvy's pick for hours on end to break up old concrete floors. That was so long ago my thrice bankrupt employer hadn't heard of wheelbarrows or even sack trucks by then. Though he had heard of pneumatic drills and had me use one of those for a while. Of those who expressed a preference I'd always vote for the sledge hammer. It was quieter for those born without natural ear plugs! Pardon?  

Meanwhile, back in inclement Snowdonia: I called in at a Youth Hostel and desperately requested shelter and warmth. To be told they were closed for the winter. Well, of course they were! Who would be daft enough to wander the roads of North Wales, carrying twice his own body weight in saturated clothing and camping gear, during the year-long, winter monsoon season?

Sunday 8th 40-50?F, 4-10?C, and now for something different: Clear skies and calm with all day sunshine promised. I wonder if I'll be allowed out on my trike? Nope. Too busy. Though I did enjoy a slightly chilly walk supervised by a low, gibbous moon in the east. The first gunfire of the hunting season erupted later.

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1st October 2017 It's getting worse.

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Sunday 1st October 54-60F, damp start but light winds turning to sunshine. Not a bad day but too busy for a ride.

Monday 2nd 52-58F? Very heavy overcast, rain and gales. Not a pleasant day at all. No ride again. Tried to fix the recalcitrant washing machine for the third time but without luck. Both I and the machine, are martyrs to built-in obsolescence. 

Get your laughing gear around this!

Tuesday 3rd 51-?F, 11-?C. Heavy cloud and breezy. Another wet and windy day is forecast. It stayed dry for my walk as pheasants strutted their stuff out in the middle of the remaining stubble fields. Small flocks of birds moved restlessly between the tilled fields and the hedges. Many of them looked like Skylarks but they were too fast and distant to be sure. I've just realised this is the first day I didn't spot any swallows. I rode to the shops to avoid starvation and dehydration and returned heavily laden. 7 miles.

Wednesday 4th 51F, 11C, dark, heavy cloud and intermittently breezy. A wet day is forecast with high winds later. It stayed dry but rather windy for my walk. Past the marsh pond and the up through the woods. Where harvesters had obviously been busy cleaning the fire breaks of weak trees. There were countless mushrooms of all sizes and colours littering the floor of the forest.

A pair of deer dashed off as I exited the roaring beech trees and out onto the ridge. Then it was on down towards the main road via the last remaining stubble fields. A day of heavy rain but we didn't notice the promised wind. The temperature never changed.

A pretty Fly agaric mushroom in the woods.

Thursday 5th 47-50F, 8-10C, cool, dark grey and raining. More rain promised all morning. Possible showers this afternoon. The rain didn't stop all morning but it brightened up in the afternoon to sunshine. Leaving our 100 yard drive covered in standing water and every hollow in the fields flooded. The lawn has become rather soggy and is best avoided.

Afternoon ride for seven miles. First ride this autumn with leggings and my winter MTB boots. I was overtaken into the teeth of oncoming traffic, on a blind bend, by a deranged white van/minibus driver. The wheelchair lift on the rear suggesting that they were a cross between patient transport and mercy killers. I just pray no patients were aboard or it would have been a real, white knuckle ride! 

Friday 6th 47F, 8C, almost calm. Heavy, early overcast is moving away. Leaving broken cloud. The forecast is sunshine for this morning. It was a beautiful morning for walk. With a cloudless sky, bright clean sunshine and a light breeze. Luckily I wore my gaiters because the tracks were very wet and muddy after yesterday's heavy rain. I climbed a track in the woods towards the exit and took photographs of the flooded, stubble fields on the descent. The crisscrossed tracks from the harvesting provided added interest and reinforced the undulations of the corrugated landscape. A pleasant, sunny day. Spent tidying the shed. [Again?] 

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