Cyclokairos

I was anchoring a 4 by 1 relay, a few weeks before the start of my GCSEs, when it happened. A meadow of a grass track; “undulating” to say the least. In the lead, 20 metres to go, my right quad and pelvis had a disagreement, the resulting fracture causing me to collapse in a cartoonish heap. My P.E. teacher, thinking it nothing more than a groin strain, proceeded to straightened and bend my leg several times – that, I can tell you, was painful. My right side hasn’t been the same since. The knock on effects leading to a general physiological asymmetry – a physio once recoiled in horror at the sight of my misaligned spine. Incidentally, doped up on painkillers, the exams went well; and that’s the advice I always give my pupils: drugs + exams = success. Just kidding, just kidding.

My bike set-ups have to be pretty spot on as a consequence of my askew body; my right side (particularly the lower back and knee) soon complains if the saddle position isn’t just so. Strangely, it’s with flat pedals (which you would expect to give the greatest freedom for my body to find a satisfactory position) when things are most likely to flare up. Riding The Blue Bike the other day resulted in a little distress; the saddle’s been tinkered with for the next time, but meanwhile, yoga and riding The Black Bike (with its clipless pedals, which always seem to help slotting things back in position) has sorted things. 

The Black Bike itself has had a creak or two of late also. Applying more than the usual force to the handlebars and chainset (above normal force – very un-Cyclokairos!) brought about creaks in the what seemed to be the stem/headset area and down at the bottom bracket/chainset. I removed and re-greased (with copper ease) the bolts securing the handlebars between the stem and its face-plate – no, still creaking. The same was done with the headset bolt and the one securing the stem to the fork steerer tube – success, well, until I replaced tarmac with rough stuff on a recent ride, and a creak, albeit not as loud but still an annoyance, returned. The bottom bracket isn’t a notorious creak-show press fit one, but your ever reliable threaded type; fresh copper ease here and on the chainset bolts (that was the cause of a creak on another chainset I have) worked, and still worked once sealed road became grassy track.

The grassy track was a new one for me – a bridleway out near Little Alne that’s been on my bridleway-bagging list for some time. It runs along some gallops at first (starting at its opposite end to Little Alne) then farm fields, where wildflowers at the margins had the attention of a number of insects.

Then on to Wilmcote, almost; before the rise into the village, a left turn into fields and a bridleway I’ve ridden a few times. Back in June, it was teeming with marbled whites and I was hoping for the same this time. Nada, res, rien – moved on to the next stage of their lifecycle?

Some strimming had been done of the hedges, leaving lengths of flexible, woody stems – “Best avoid them”, I thought; bugger…..

And in my cack-handedness, in removing the rear wheel, I managed to pull the free hub off (new fangled technology and it’s lack of nuts that used to keep these things in place – if we have to keep one type of hub, I’m voting cup and cone). With a tyre lever, I pushed down the pawls as I slowly rotated the free hub, and bob’s your uncle. I was pleased with my on-the-fly-mechanics, a local resident less so: