Idiot 1) I am waiting at a traffic light controlled Tee junction, I am on the side road (the upright part of the tee) waiting to turn right onto the main road, my traffic light changes from red to amber, engage first gear, lift the clutch, start to release the hand brake and from my left comes a little moped, straight through his obviously red light and continues across the junction like it is not there.

Idiot 2) Out shopping this morning, approaching a Tee junction and the car in front indicates that it is going to turn right. Not a problem except that they take up position at the junction in the middle of the lane. There is enough room to the cars right to actually get another car between them and the middle of the road. As a consequence of this I am blocked from pulling up to the junction and turning left.

Idiot 3) Another red light jumper but this time on a pelican crossing. There is a cars in front of me as I approach the crossing, I am slowing down as the light is already on red, the person starts walking across the crossing from the right and the car in front continues across the crossing without stopping. Just as well it was not a mum with some kids that like to run across the crossing.

Idiot 4) The local councils around here enjoy placing those chicane type traffic calming road blocks on side roads. Twice this morning I had somebody drive in to the middle of one of these and then indicate for me to proceed past them. Problem is there only room for one vehicle at a time in these traffic calming road blocks, am I supposed to drive over them??

Idiot 5) Finally, I kept the best till last, earlier this afternoon I was driving up a side road, there is a car a short distance in front of me which indicates to turn left into another side road which is the same direction as I am intending to go. As I turn into the street the car in front has pulled into a parking space on the left hand side of the road. As I get closer to the car it indicates right and pulls out of the parking bay in one move and moves into a parking bay on the right hand-side of the road, I have to brake to avoid running into him. As I pass him he tries to turn left out of the parking bay into the side of me (he actually heading for another parking bay on the left as I watched him in my mirror once I had passed), he then has the cheek to honk his horn at me because I was in the way of him continuing his parking bay slalom down the road!!

Please, if you ever see me driving like any of the above then let me know and I will hand my licence in.

Idiot number 2, a cyclist who rode down a pavement because traffic had stopped moving (not a deal breaker but mentioned to give a broader picture of the idiot), rode in and out of stationary, slow moving traffic and on coming traffic, rode through 2 red lights on pedestrian crossing and a lollipop lady crossing. Is it any wonder cyclist get a bad name?

Idiot number 3, a motorcyclist who over took me and had to duck under the mirror on the van as he was that close to the van as he was riding into on coming traffic on a narrow road and then when he passed me immediately braked, why?? He then proceeded to ride off into oncoming traffic again. It he continues to ride like that there is every chance his genes will be removed from the gene pool.

Idiot number 4, a young school girl, stood on the corner of a road junction, about 5 mtrs from a zebra crossing. She had looked up the road towards me, I had seen her and assumed she was waiting for a friend. That was until she just stepped off the pavement in front of me, she did a very good job of ignoring me as I slammed on the brakes to avoid running her down. Another contender to have there genes removed from the gene pool.

Now for pear-shaped, I am once again the only wage earner as the wife’s temp contract has finished suddenly. Not what we wanted and not something we are in a position to handle at this time. It is looking a bit grim at the moment.

Now a tale of customer service, first good customer service. I arrived back home last night and as I walked into the house I thought it was cold, checked the central heating pipe in the hall and they were stone cold, checked the boiler clock and the lights were indicating the boiler was on. Checking the boiler there was no pilot light, I relit the pilot light but still the boiler failed to function. I had this really bad feeling about the central heating at this stage.

The wife remembered that we should of had the boiler serviced back in December as part of the deal we have with our gas\electric supplier, so she phoned them up. By the time she got through it was 6:30pm, she explained the missed boiler service and the now dead boiler to the guy on the phone who replied “thats ok, you have 24\7 support on your central heating”

This surprised both of us but we sure as hell were not going to complain, we were duly booked in for an emergency call out and told an engineer will be with us in the next 12 hours and yes that did mean even at the early am hours!! Thankfully just before 9pm an engineer turned and had our boiler sorted working in less than 10 minutes, it seems that when somebody relit the pilot light they forgot to turn the dial another quarter of a turn which allows the boiler to fire up. My excuse is that it was only the 2nd time in 9 something years that I have had to light the boiler.

Now bad customer service. I ordered two laptop for work back at the start of January, at no time was I made aware of the fact that the said laptops were out of stock, I was even given a delivery date, when the delivery date came and went with no laptops, I phoned to find out where they were. Apparently they were out of stock, the story has progressed with broken promises, e-mail sent with no replies, phone calls not returned and promised not honoured. This is not a large multi national, this a major local company who could of got all our business, it now looks like that possibility has gone the same way as their delivery dates.

Well that is it till the weekend, bye

In my case “my tomorrow” is a couple of months away, yet the time will no doubt fly by. I have no control over what is going to happen, I only have control over preparing for when it does happen. It is sometime very difficult to remember that and it is not helped by the fact that some of the preparation can be a bit unpalatable but has to be done. It is also not helped by the fact that it is the season of goodwill when everybody is supposed to be happy. Well I am trying to be but it is not easy.

Yes I am being cryptic about what is going on suffice to say I tell you when I have it settled in my mind…….

While I am having a moan, Things I hate about other drivers………………, the driver that slowly overtakes you on a dual carriageway and then cuts back in front of you narrowly missing your front bumper and then brakes, why overtake me if you are going to slow down? I have had this happen to me twice in the last three days.

On my way through Worthing yesterday near the hospital on the A27 (I think), saw a car waiting in a side road on my left to pull out and turn right, then when I am no more than 40yds from the junction he pulls out in front of me and then stops as there is traffic coming the other way, not sure how I missed him I just hit the brakes. The ABS came into operation and I stopped just short of ramming his drivers door. I got nothing from the driver apart from a horrified look as he pulled away and disappeared off down the road.

What can be more simple than mounting a cabinet on a the wall?? I marked the wall where I wanted it. I even marked the cabinet to ensure the correct orientation, so can you spot the deliberate mistake in the picture below?

If you still can't see it, look at the label on left hand side of the cabinet!!

Communication companies, why are they so bad at communicating?? Lodged a complaint for the third time on Sunday still waiting for a reply. The auto reply I got said we will be back to you within 5 days (5 days in these modern times is woeful), well today is the fifth day, anyone want to take bets on me getting a reply??

Going for a ride over the Southdowns tomorrow, hopefully I will take my riding legs with me unlike last night ride…..

Once payment was made I apologised for causing the problem and quickly headed back to my vehicle. As I headed back onto the A34 I phoned my daughter at home and asked her to do a search of my desk encase I had left it on my desk while working from home. She searched over my desk while I was on the phone and then asked the obvious question, where did you use it last, I thought for a few seconds and then realised it was on Saturday at the services on the M27 to get fuel. My daughter said she would phone the motorway services and see if my card had been found at the service station. As I waited for her to call me back my mind was trying to work out how I was going to explain losing my credit card to the director. I was quickly brought back to reality when the phone rang, it was my daughter with good news, the card was at the service station on the M27. All I had to do was pop in and collect on my return journey this afternoon.

I have never felt so relieved, it was so horrible just not knowing where it was and not being able to remember where I last used it. I can’t work out how I managed to leave my card at the petrol station cash desk. I was lucky apparently as they normally only keep cards for four days before destroying the card and informing the credit card company, today was the fourth day.

Several years ago I went to a petrol station and filled the car up with fuel and then realised I did not have my wallet with me. Since then I always check my pocket to make sure my wallet is there as I drive down the road, think I might need to start checking the contents.

Last night was weigh-in night, and it was a good weigh-in for me, 2lb off. Just need to stick to the straight and narrow eating wise and keep that downwards trend.

I was having to work on Saturday which involved a 2.5 hr drive to Northampton, well it should of been 2.5 hours, by the time we got to Northampton it was just short of 4 hours. We spent 1.5 hours sat in the classic car traffic jam on the A43 near Silverstone, apparently they were holding a Classic Car auction. Mind you I should imagine it was one of the most expensive traffic jams I have sat in, we were surround by E-Type Jags (must have seen at least 20), AC Cobra’s, Austin Healey, Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Ferrari (various), Ford GT40 (probably a replica), TVR’s Ginetta, Triumph TR5, TR6, Stag, Morgan, Corvette plus many I did not recognise. At least it helped with the delay having something nice to look at.

Due to the delays getting to Northampton and then the job taking longer than intended, I did not get back in time for a ride. I wanted to do a couple of jobs on the bike pre-ride and it was early evening before I had finished. Last time I rode Saturday night and then again Sunday morning my legs were like lead so I gave it a miss.

Sunday dawned to the sound of my alarm clock, I quickly turned it off turned over and went back to sleep for an hour, eventually got up at 7am. This morning ride was the Throop Loop and a visit to Avon Heath Country park (I have been calling it Ashley Heath for some reason). The past couple of weeks I have been riding around what is called South Park which is the section of the country park which is on the south side of Boundary lane. Well according to the nice Dorset Countryside Ranger they don’t encourage cyclist in the South Park but they are happy for them to ride in the North Park which sits between Boundary Lane and the A31. I thanked him and headed for North Park. All in all not a bad ride, another 30 odd miles.

During the ride my Bottom Bracket was letting me know it was not happy, I narrowed the problem down to the left hand-side (as you sit on the bike). On closer inspection back home the bearing did not look to good so I gave it a good clean and re-greased it (did both sides) and will see what it says on the next ride.

Yesterday I had a drive to Northampton and had the joy of idiot drivers on the way up to our branch up there which delayed me by 30 minutes. Anybody that does a lot of driving will know the sort of thing I mean, slow drivers in both lanes of the dual carriageway, accidents tail backs, idiots who believe they are the only car on the road so they own the road and can do what they like (yes he was a young Audi driver), catching a pair of juggernauts overtaking each other. OK I know it is not the lorry drivers fault they are governed to 56mph but when it takes nearly 2 miles for one to pass the other you can’t help getting a little frustrated especially when I got stuck behind 4 separate overtaking incidences like this.

I enjoy driving but the past two days make me wonder why I continue to drive 32000 miles a year, maybe I am getting old (that was not an invitation to pass comment!) but some how I don’t think I would enjoy a job where I am tied to a desk 9 to 5, 5 days a week, I like my freedom……..

OK here something different, do you like decent music mixes? check out the appozone. He is a music lover that love remixing tunes. If you look around his web site you may well find some downloads (note they are not small downloads some are 100mb’s is size). As well as music, he loved kite flying which is where I met him, a genuine 100% guys

Appo (on the left) enjoying his two passions, music and a kite festival

The above picture was taken in 2007 at a kite festival in Essex, unfortunately there was no wind but the music was good!

As for Mondays night weigh-in, I am trying to forget it………………..

I went out for a ride this morning, went out and tried the new cycle trail at Moors Valley Country Park (you won’t find it listed on their web site yet or publicity sheets yet). According to the blurb on one of the boards displaying the forest maps it is a Blue level route of 4.5 miles, so it is not a taxing ride. I went round with my 10 year old son, so my first loop round was a slow one. In all it took us about an hours (I think the board said between an 1hr 15min to 1hr 30min) which allowed for several stops for drinks. There are no real hills as such just a couple of slopes that youngster may struggle with. The trail is made up by 95% narrow hard core compacted path, there are a couple of wide wooded board areas (north shore type) over boggy areas and a couple of section of riding along fire roads to join paths together, longest was about 60mtrs. Having returned him to mum in one piece, I left him quite happily telling mum she would like it and I set off to do the loop again but this time a little bit faster.

Now this is not quite as simple as it sound, because while the route is relatively flat they have built in some awkward little 90 degree corners (there no big berm areas like the bigger trail centres), riding between two trees just over handle bar width apart. Riding slowly behind my 10 year old son these are not a problem, but try them at speed it is another ball game. Then there are the small boulders that mark the path edge, while only small they are big enough to bash your pedal into them or clip your front wheel on one and throw you off the path in both cases (fortunately I avoided both) so it not as easy as it seems.

Unfortunately the path is already being used by dog walkers (plenty of evidence along the trail), walkers and runners so riding at speed had to be tempered with care. But all in all an enjoyable ride. I thought about doing a bit more riding but (with the doctors words from Tuesday still ringing in my ears) I decided to head for homes although I still intend to ride again tomorrow morning.

This afternoon I remembered why I hate going into town on a Saturday afternoon, the town centre is full of idiots, young one, old one and dumb arse one that just stop right in front of you. Thankfully I only had to go to one shop and then I could get the hell out of there. On the drive home we nearly had a run in with a BRAS (Boy Racer Arrogant Sod) driving an Audi (Audi is the new BMW don’t you know). BRAS and Audi driver seem to think that giving way on a roundabout to traffic approaching from their right is below them so just pull out in front of you expecting you to brake and avoid them, one day I won’t.

Well I am off to make some more home made soup, at least it is diet friendly……………

I have done the drive down that way several times to one of the companies site just outside Plymouth and it takes me about two and half hours, so leaving at 9am I had expected to arrive about 11-ish, it soon became apparent that the caravanner’s of the UK were going to put an end to that idea. With rain falling from the start and progressively getting worse as we headed west, our lovely winding “A” road do not lend themselves to overtaking caravans, so we joined the que behind each caravan till the opportunity to pass presented itself. I had hoped thing would improve from Honiton where we picked up the A30 dual carriageway, but the rain got heavier and the traffic got slower.

By now I was fighting a battle in the car to keep the windscreen clear from fogging up, the only way was to run with the air conditioning on but I was getting to cold, so we opted for switching it on and off to keep the screen clear and the occupants just of frozen. Around 2hrs 40 minutes later we pull into one of Trago Mills large car parks and is by now absolutely *issing down.

The first purchase in the store was an umbrella, not having one with us and knowing the kids will want to go around the leisure park it was a wise investment. We spent a couple of hours (and a few pounds) browsing the aisles. I am pretty sure it has shrunk in size since our last trip (they had a major fire there about 12 months ago and there is a lot of building working taking place at the rear of the store) as we soon found ourself out in the rain again and looking at the food outlets. After feeding time and kids being kids it was of to the leisure park. The rain did not seem to detract them from them wanting to wander around the park. To be perfectly honest many of the rides were closed due to the weather, the daughter wanted to go on the mega slide (a 15ft vertical drop down) but this was closed as it was under repair so the kids opted for the smaller slide (both indoors). Finally we opted for a ride on the train around the park, at least the carriage has a roof even if it did leak.

If we thought is was *issing down when we arrived it was definitely lashing it down now, the sky had that dark foreboding storm colour to it. Once again the battle of the steamy windows started not helped by the fact that we were all wet but this time I decided on raising the temperature in the car so now we would be slowly cooked on the way home. Once the heat was in the car I turned the temperature down and manage to keep the screen clear. The drive home was easier than the drive down despite a diversion due to a road closure (accident). The rain rather than relenting got worse as we got closer to home, standing water was now a major issue.

Not far from home the daughter got a phone call asking her why she was not at work, turns out the manager had asked her if she wanted overtime for Thursday night and forgot to ask her about Wednesday night but put her down for both nights, so now we had to race home, change out of our now drying cloths, drop the daughter of at work and then go shopping.

I eventually got to sit down at about 8:30 last night, I slept well last night!!

Not sure what we are doing today, I want to get my bike finished and lubed up from the weekend and maybe a test ride to see if I am up for the ride tomorrow. My back is feeling a lot better but there is still a twinge every now and again to remind me.

Fortunately the Red Arrow were given the all clear to fly earlier in the week and the weather dawned nice and sunny in Bournemouth. So we loaded my bike and kit on the car and head for Corfe Castle. As we drove to Corfe Castle the dark clouds came in and it start to drizzle that horrible fine rain. The wife and son were catching a train from the excellent Swanage Railway to Swanage. I would start my ride from Corfe Castle and then pick them up in Swanage later. By the time we got to Corfe Castle the rain had stopped although it was still cloudy.

From my starting point up a small side road the riding is uphill from the first turn of the pedal and apart from one almost level section it is up hill for the next 2 miles. This is where the Purbecks scored it first goal, I was determine to clean Brenscombe hill and I tried and pushed myself but it ended in failure. In hind sight I think it was the lack of any warm up riding that was the main problem, starting the ride straight off up hill is not a good idea.

Unfortunately having pushed myself hard early on made the next few hills hard work, I cleared them but they were harder than they should of been. As with all things that go up, they have to come down again and I was soon taking the bone shaking ride down the other side of Brenscombe hill. At the bottom is the slow slog up the road toward the turning off for the path up Ballard Down. Now in my mind I had though that had I cleaned Brenscombe hill I should at least make it half up the track to the Obelisk on Ballard Down. Unfortunately less than 100mtrs does not get anywhere near half way. In fact I was gasping and stopping for a rest just pushing my bike to the Obelisk, Purbeck scores its second point.

Having rested for a few minutes at the Obelisk I set of on the next little stretch of hill up to the top of Ballard Down, thankfully I cleared this bit which seemed to restore some faith in my riding. Much of the ride from here to Studland is down hill and I made the most of it, at least to Old Harry Rocks anyway. The section from here to Studland was very busy with people coming up to Ballard Down to watch the Red Arrows. Ballard Down looks out across Swanage Bay and the town its self, I had considered stopping and watching the display but as I had an hour to wait for the display to start I decided to crack on with the ride. Last year we watched the Red Arrows from the other side of the Bay on Durlston Head which is a similarly sized hill and had an amazing view of the display from up high.

Soon I was riding across Godlingston Heath, there is one hill here I did not expect to get up, it is not a large hill but it is covered in loose gravel, sand and rocks and I had expected to be completely shot after the previous hills, well at least I was not too disappointed when I had to push the bike up the hill. From here I was heading for Franks Tank (which has now been renamed Thomas the Tank). There is a nice little section of mixed single track that runs along side the golf course which eventually drops you out onto Newton Heath. From here it is Forestry paths and a small section of road back into Corfe Castle. From the main road in Corfe Castle is a steep little hill back to the car and to my surprise I cleared it.

So that’s it, I am claiming the single point for clearing the second section of hill on Ballard Down, making it half way up Brenscombe Hill and the final little hill back to the car, all three were little morale victories and as it is my blog I am awarding myself a point!!

Well that is almost it, there one little matter I want to mention, it concerns a certain Land Rover Freelander driver, I will set the scene. I am riding toward the B3351 from the Banks Arm pub (no I did not pop in for a pint), the road is a narrow affair and at the point where this story happens bears to the right. Walking toward me on my side of the road is a pedestrian, so I move out towards the middle of the road to avoid running into him, that is until a Land Rover Freelander come whizzing round the corner, he gives no concern to me cycling around the pedestrian and force me to take evasive action nearly running the pedestrian over. As you can guess the driver never stopped and there was no indication that he had seen anything, he just carried on his way, the guy must have been blind………………….

My next run in with nature was nearly head on with a horse and rider, I was concentrating on getting through some sand before turning off down a track through some bushes and the horse and rider came bounding out of said track. Fortunately I stopped but the horse came to an abrupt halt nearly throwing his rider, he was not expecting to see a cyclist, could job I did not have to apply the brakes hard as the screech from my brakes would of really scared the s**t out of the horse. Pleasantry exchanged I carried on heading for home. When I got in I checked the time and it was 10:02am, I started to put my bike helmet, gloves and Camelbak on at 7:00am, so by the time I got out of the house it would of been a couple of minutes past 7, so I make that 3 hours for a 27 mile ride, certainly my fastest time I have ridden the Throop Loop in.

Now its is time for a whinge (two in fact), there is a new phenomenon creeping into British driving, it is the act of approaching a road junction, be it a normal tee junction, roundabout, traffic light and then stopping anything up-to 2 meters from the junction white line, why? I was told by my driving instructor to make sure I judge the junction right and park with your front wheel just touching the white line. Some these people that park back from the while line are leaving enough space for a Smart car to pull in front of them, I can see absolutely no benefit for doing this what so ever, I just cannot understand it.

My second whinge is about road junctions again, but this time involves car indicator and the position of your car at the junction. If you come up to a Tee junction and you indicate right, is it to much to expect that you move to the right hand side of road and and then when clear to do so actually turn right, of course it is not possible to do that, that is why when you indicate to turn right, you position yourself in the middle of your side of the junction thus blocking access to those that want to turn left or go straight on (in the case of a cross road) and then when you move off you turn left!! Have I missed something, has a new Highway code come out that say I will do what I want to do at road junction and sod everybody else?? The driving awareness of some driver is absolutely abysmal.

I eventually arrived at our Hampshire branch 2.5 hours after leaving home, not bad for a 60 minute drive…………

Turns out the tape drive is knackered, got the tape out but when you try to get it to record data, it tells the software it is working ok while putting on a Christmas light display on the front of the tape drive for anybody that is watching and when you check the tape there is nothing on it. So I spent the afternoon ordering a new tape drive. It is not the first time it has failed, it is just not reliable, funny thing was it was in my report I was writing earlier to be replaced in the future.

Tuesday I spent an hour writing some basic instructions for a non computer person on how to use a laptop (the one going to Devon, it got there). So why did I spend 30 minutes this evening on the phone talking him through how to use a laptop!! might have been better if I had taught him how to read.

Having dropped the wife off at work I had to double back on myself and drop the bike at the LBS. Then I had to turn round and double back on myself again to make my way to the companies (I work for) local branch, spent a couple of hours there before doubling back on myself again to go home as I was spending the rest of the day working from home.

While I was at the LBS I never got to speak to the manager at the shop but there were a lot of Canondale boxes in the shop that looked as though they had been recently delivered, hopefully one of those was my new frame. With the new frame and the new forks I am having fitted at the same time and hopefully the gears sorted out, it will be like getting a new bike, can’t wait to try it at the weekend.

Tomorrow, I am (supposed to be) up early to go to head office, 05:15am is a struggle for me at the best of times, I think tomorrow will be no exceptions. To some extent I am glad that I don’t cycle to work as I would seriously struggle like Clive at “The Massive MTBer” does. I remember when I was younger and car free, I hated riding to work, I would have to ride to work on those cold wet mornings with the wind in my face and then ride home again with the wind in my face. The reason I don’t ride to work now is head office is 140 miles away. I don’t go there everyday but I do travel to many of our other sites and they are equally as far to travel and on a bike I think it would about a week (by the time I have plotted an off road route so I avoid those main roads), mind you would be an epic ride…………..

It maybe a New year, but it is the same old road works and traffic delays, yes the A338 dual carriageway road works (road works is a very loose term) are back. The county council so kindly stopped them for the Xmas period and then they were unable to restart them due to the cold weather. But at 6:00am this morning they were back 2 miles of carriageway closed off so they can……………………..cut some tree and bushes down. This 2 miles of single carriageway left nearly 5 miles of tail backs in the morning rush hour, I should imagine it was similar tonight’s rush hour. I just can’t believe there is not an easier way for the worked to be carried out. It would not be so bad but the tailbacks from the road works block one of the alternative routes for me to take to work so from the three possible routes I have an option of 1

It is D day tomorrow for my bike, its back to the local bike shop to have a frame swap, can somebody tell me why I feel a little apprehensive??

I must admit I was not a happy bunny when I got to work this morning, traffic was horrendous this morning on the M3, it was more like a car park at 6:30am. Then a bit further on in my drive, I came across 2 lorries, 1 mobile crane and 3 sets of road works on a 25 mile section of single carriage way road with very few overtaking points, it just does not make for an enjoyable drive. The best bit is I get to drive the same route again tomorrow, oh the joy!

It was weigh in night on Monday and I was not impressed, there was me thinking I had had a good week and looking at a nice weight loss only to find I had gained half a pound, I was not a happy bunny, despondent more like!! The only thing we can think off was it was due to all the cycling I had done the previous week (muscle gain, as muscle is heavier than fat).

I’m off to bed, contemplating hibernation as an alternative to work and diet at the moment!