Autumn exercise

 

 

Not only was I able to have a pot of tea on the terrace of the third floor, but I was also able to have it stripped to the half, luxuriating in the sunshine and even feeling that slight skin-prickle that suggests that you might be overdoing the exposure!  And that after a night of quite unnecessarily demonstrative rain.

Our rain water drainage in Castelldefels is woefully inadequate and so we have to navigate (a quite apt word) sudden finger lakes stretching the length of gutters.  Other low-lying areas have more considerable expanses of water, but a regular cyclist with well worn routes, I know the danger areas and I am more than prepared and now that I have (at long, long last) my throttle attachment for my bike I am able to whisk my way to relative dryness while avoiding on-coming cars.

The only real problem is the section of the cycle lane along the front that is technically in Sitges.  Given the rather odd geography of the Sitges region it does mean that the ostensible ‘end’ of Castelldefels to the south is not actually in Castelldefels, but administratively it is in Sitges which is, in reality about twenty-minute drive away through tunnels.  Anyway, for cyclists who want a level surface and a view of the sea Castelldefels allows us to cycle along the Paseo next to the beach, until at the end of one section of the resort, the Paseo moves out to run parallel with the Maritime road.  On this particular section of the Paseo we cyclists have a dedicated cycle lane.

Having a dedicated cycle lane does not mean that all cyclists use it and keep the paseo free for pedestrians.  I must admit that when I am cycling (in the dedicated cycling lane) I share the irritation of pedestrians who have to put up with sometimes recklessly rapid cyclists weaving their way through people rather than using a relatively empty cycle lane.  This particular section of the cycle lane is in Castelldefels and is smooth and well maintained.

When you get to ‘Sitges’ the story is rather different.  During the full lockdown of the earlier part of the year the number of cyclists expanded exponentially.  Cars were infrequent and cyclists came into their own.  The dedicated cycle lane ran out at the end section of Castelldefels/Sitges and so you were forced on to the Paseo until you got to Port Ginester and the end of the bay.

The municipal solution was to create a cycle lane by using the car parking strip on the left side of the road next to the paseo as a sudden bike lane.  This was done by putting a line of rubber bumps on the outside of the lane, painting a middle line for two-way traffic and cementing the gutter area to make it sort-of level.  This means that the part of the lane next to the Paseo is ‘a bit bumpy’ to put it mildly and, although a few drains have been left in situ they are woefully inadequate and they form disconcerting obstacles.  This means, of course, that after rain there are thin gutter lakes to negotiate.  What this means in practice is that everyone uses the outside lane next to the traffic and only veers into the gutter lane if they absolutely have to.

Sometimes it takes very steady nerves and a firm belief in your right, to maintain your position when one of those so-called professional bike riders comes hurtling towards you in ‘your’ lane.  You are relying on their ability to swerve into rectitude and regain their proper lane before they hit you.

I am not a confident bike rider.  I am, I think quite reasonably, apprehensive when on the road.  I am acutely aware that all it takes is the slightest touch from a larger vehicle to unsettle me and then you discover just how unprotected the normal bike rider is.  Obviously, I wear a helmet and I am punctilious about using lights when necessary, but riding is precarious and I have a lively understanding of what might happen if another road user is unwary.  I also, as a car user, know just how loathed we bike riders are.

The first question asked in the old Highway Code was, “For whom is the Highway Code written?” to which the answer was, “For all road users, motorists, cyclists, pedestrians etc.”  The worst road users are, without doubt, pedestrians.  They are reckless, inconsiderate, suicidal, idiotic and most of the time they don’t actually realize that they are road users at all.  Then in descending order of awfulness come electric scooters, motor scooters, motorbikes and bicycles.  Everyone hates skateboards.  And rightly so.

There are, of course, different types of cyclists.  I am one of the sit-up-and-beg cyclists, back straight looking like a superannuated clergy man from the 1950s.  I wear a T-shirt when the weather is hot and a wind cheater with hood when it isn’t.  My bike is a MATE X 250, and is coloured what they describe as ‘burn orange’ and I describe as red.  It is electric and has ‘fat’ wheels, eight gears and hydraulic brakes.  It looks impressive and, in spite of MATE’s god-awful customer service, I like it.  I travel at a sedate power-assisted rate and thoroughly enjoy my daily 11 kilometers or so along pleasantly level and fairly safe routes.  I am not a ‘real’ cyclist.

‘Real’ cyclists are inconsiderate bastards.  They wear wildly inappropriate, unflattering clothing as if none of them have significant others to tell them that Lycra does nothing for them.  They also look diseased as they affect those skin-tight shirts with various hidden pockets where they can secrete the impedimenta necessary for their progress on their thin, thin wheels.  They also wear ‘serious’ helmets which make them look as though they have inexplicably attached a row of sausages to their heads in the name of safety.

And talking of safety, these ‘professional’ riders scorn the word.  They weave in and out at high speed insinuating their way into spaces that don’t exist to the ‘unprofessional’ eye.  They ignore traffic lights, ‘no entry’ signs and ‘one way’ prohibitions, they over-take or under-take with no warning and with no indication that they might be followed by hundreds of other bikes.  They pass too close and far too quickly, their lane discipline is non-existent and they assume that no other traffic exists.

I know that the preceding is grotesque generalization and the majority of riders are considerate and fair.  But that is not how it seems when you are actually cycling.  It is only in the calm after the ride that reason takes over again!

So, back to the gutter-lakes.

The ‘Sitges’ section of the bike lane is long and straight, you can see a long way ahead and plan accordingly.  When I am making my way back home from Port Ginester (in the wrong part of the lane because of the bumpy concrete apology of a surface) I can see any cyclists making towards me, I can check the proximity of gutter-lakes and plan my speed to avoid splashing my way through.  Normally, this works out fairly well a gentle increase or decrease in speed means that the passing is without incident.  Not everyone has my consideration and I have experienced those who think that the onus in on me to get out of the way in my lane to give more space to the cyclists who think that they have a god given right to pull out, when what they should actually do is stop.

As motorists, you will also have experienced this: motorists pulling out behind stopped buses and gong into the other lane in spite of the fact that they can see you approaching in the other direction.  They should just bloody well wait!  What are they doing that is so important that it requires them to risk injury to gain a few seconds that they will lose at the next set of traffic lights?  But then logic has never been the driving feature of, well, driving!

Part of my problem, of course, is that the sedate speed that I adopt allows me time to observe my surroundings and my fellow road users and, let’s face it, observation is often condemnation.  At least for me it is!

 

I finished off the Suzanne Collins prequel to The Hunger Games and I think that it will make an excellent film - surely it was written with that in mind?  The ending was clever and allowed the reader of The Hunger Games to tick a few more boxes of the pre-knowledge details that makes any prequel engaging.  I would recommend The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.  I think that the actual ending of the novel might divide opinion, but I thought it was an interesting and appropriate culmination of what is a very long novel.  And don’t we always, sometimes secretly, like the baddies in literature rather than the heroes and heroines?  And Snow has legs, and Collins make the most of them!

 

Nitty-gritty nasty!

 

 

 

DIY in my world has always been self-defence, not self-expression.  Those who can gaze upon an Allen key and dream of technical, self-made, interior design upgrades to their living environment exist in another ‘verse to the one that I inhabit.  Yes, when continuation of the status quo is put in jeopardy I can rise to the occasion and heft an implement of household artisanship not directly related to the kitchen with – maybe, not the best – but certainly with the more satisfyingly mediocre.

So, it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I recently assayed the construction of a domestic tower of shelves and drawers which was supposed to replace the “cake-stand-type” fixture that you more regularly see in bathrooms which lurks by the side of my armchair in the living room.

These suspended containers were themselves a reaction to the arrangements that had to be put in place when I returned from my shock stay in hospital after the unexpected diagnosis of my thrombosis and embolisms.  I was told, strictly, and eye-to-eye by a determined doctor that I was to have a month of almost total rest and that I was furthermore to be ministered unto by Toni!

As it is quite impossible to live any sort of modern life (even in a state of “almost total rest”) without the accoutrements of electronic gadgetry about one, there had to be surfaces to hand on which computers, phones, iPads, mobile phones and cups of decaffeinated tea could be placed.

The immediate solution was to purchase a TV table, the ‘home’ form of the hospital table, and that was sufficient for the immediate problems of enforced immobility – but as soon as I could move around a little the implicit invalid associations of the teak-effect plastic began to pall and disconcertingly define as well, so it had to go.

The “cake-stand” alternative always looked as though it would be more at home in the bathroom and so it went too.

There are few things more depressing that the arrival of a heavy flatpack of potential furniture.  The acrimony started before the thing had even been unpacked and its consequent construction was completed in sullen silence and solitary strenuousness.  But it was eventually completed, it stood firm and the drawers fitted: and that, surely is the acme of technical achievement.

Though, put next to that piece of pre-cut, pre-drilled and pre-packaged purgatory, I can now place a finished piece of technical mechanical installation on the handlebars of my electric bike.

My bike is basically a good buy: sourced from one of those pre-production sites asking for seed money for a good idea, I was duly seduced and parted with a quite surprising amount of money to get a stylist, collapsible electric bike.  The one I have at present in the second iteration of the basic design with fatter wheels and a funkier colour.  But it didn’t have a throttle.

One of the disadvantages of the bike is that it is heavy.  On day last week I allowed the battery to run down and was confident that I could use the bike as an ‘ordinary’ cycle with no electric boost at all.  Wrong!  Very, very wrong!  My stylist nippy bike was transformed into one of those instruments of torture that you can find in the more severe sorts of gymnasia where a bloody huge effort is rewarded with bloody little.  I even toyed with the idea of walking the bike back home rather than peddling frantically in first and creeping along the road in a humiliating display of mismatch of effort and achievement that I had not repeated since a churningly inefficient dogpaddle from my distant youth!

So, actually getting the thing moving is sometimes a difficulty.  On my first bike the throttle attachment took care of stopping and starting on inclines, as my frantic attempts to get to first gear when I really needed to usually resulted in a clunking of cog wheels and a crazily haphazard approach to direction.  My ‘superior’ second bike did not come with a throttle as standard, but I rectified that omission by carefully selecting a throttle as an ‘extra’ when I ordered the bike.

I have had the bike for some time, but the throttle has remained stubbornly unavailable.  I have used, my not unimpressive writing skills, to little effect.  The Customer Service of MATE Bikes is notoriously and internationally awful.  The delivery of the part is over TWO YEARS LATE.  And I didn’t add an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence because a single exclamation mark would be pitifully inadequate to express my contempt for the service that I have had, and my self-respect does not allow me to use two or more in my written work.

After the Long Wait for a simple part to get to me, a sudden email informed me that it was on its way.  And they got the address wrong.  Again. 

Now I have to admit that the original mistake was mine.  When I ordered the first bike, I typed the post code number incorrectly and MATE have, in spite of my repeated explanations, failed to rectify the number.  So, my long-awaited part when to another part of Catalonia.

And do not think for a moment that it was easy to get the delivery company to cope with the mistake.  Contacting the company by email, phone and on the web all failed.  I went to the local depot of the company which is a few towns away and was told that my package was in a different ‘region’ of the company and they had no contact with that particular region and, even if they did, the only people who could change the delivery address were the people who sent the package, i.e. MATE Bikes.

The eventual solution was to accept that the package was in a different region.  Ask for it to be sent to a local shop that was used as a sort of pick-up centre and go there.

At least we sent through part of the National Park of Montserrat to get to the small town (that neither of us had heard of before) and had some spectacular views of the otherworldly rock formations to convince us that we had not wasted the best part of a morning going and coming back.

Then I had to fix the throttle to the bike.

In theory it is simple.  MATE even have a series of how-to videos, one of which is ‘Changing the throttle’ – a video that I have watched a number of times.

There were two problems.  The first was that the horn and rear light indicator (I told you it was a more sophisticated version of the original bike) was perched on the handlebar where the throttle should have fitted.  And the second problem was that the truly astonishing writhing mass of leads and wires that are part of the bike are hidden from view in a zipped sleeve which, once unzipped is entirely disinclined to zip up again.

I do not intend to explain how the problems were (and were not) dealt with.  Suffice to say, the throttle is fitted and, the more extraordinary part, it works.  For the moment – and I am OK with short term gains - it is done!

And the technical elements of my engineering were accomplished with four different types of Allen key.  And what an appropriate verb to use!