xendistar.co.uk

I have written a blog three days running, not bad going by recent standards

While writing last nights brief interlude I noticed that 95% my blogs for the last few weeks (or more) have concentrated either on my bike riding or my dieting (or not as the case may be). Well there is more to my life than just those two thing and I am quite happy to blast those who upset me (see the bus drive incident from a couple of blogs ago) so here my latest blast.

Evans Cycles, a major Internet cycle retailers as well as having high street stores. Well on the 4th June I ordered a pair of knee pads from them online, the order stated they were out of stock at the warehouse but were available in store at one of their shops so they would call the knee pads back from the shop and post them onto me.

OK first question, why not post it direct from the shop to me??

Anyway the stated delivery was 10 to 14 days, I was in no hurry for them so I was happy to go with the flow.

On Friday the 19th having heard anything from Evans and not being in possession of any knee pads I checked my online account with them to see if there was any info on my order. I found no detail of my order (apart from it being placed) but they had already charged my credit card for the purchase.

Second question, why charge my credit card when you are not in any position to send the items to me?

So I send Evans customer service department an e-mail asking why they had already charged me and when could I expect delivery, the auto responder on screen said to expect a reply within 24hrs. OK it was Friday night so I was happy to wait till Monday. So Monday 21st came and went and Tuesday evening arrived so I decided to phone customer services. I was told that a second request had been sent to the store and it should be with me by the end of the week. I was also told it was normal procedure to take the money at time of order regardless of delivery time.

Well the end of the week arrived and there was still not the owner of a pair of knee pads. So I phoned customer services. I was told that the department the customer service rep needed to talk to had gone home for the weekend and that he would chase it up for me on Monday 28th for me and promised to call me back on Monday, sounded OK but I was not going to hold my breath. when I asked why the shop could not send the knee pads to me directly, he then let himself down, apparently it was company policy that they had to come back to the warehouse and the probable reason they had not come back yet was there was no room on the van!! for f*** shake they are a pair of knee pads not a complete bloody bike.

Monday dawned and I was working from home and about to pack up for the day when the mobile rang. I did not recognise the number, it was the customer service guy from Evans with the promised return phone call (I had forgotten all about it to be honest). Apparently the department that handles the call back from stores had sorted out the problem and I could expect them by the end of the week (2nd July).

So I come home this afternoon and what do I find has been delivered, yep my knee pads, no explanation as to why it had taken over three weeks. I don’t even know if this was the knee pads the guy was talking about yesterday although I doubt it based on time scale of telling me and them arriving.

So why did it take so long, I have never had this problem with other items I have ordered online with Evans in the past. Then their is customer service, either they do not know what they were talking about or were just fobbing me off?

Ordering on line is a game of trust, you trust the supplier to supply the items at the correct price, to handle the financial transaction appropriately and to supply said goods in a timely fashion or keep you informed if problems arise. In this case Evans failed on all counts. In future I will think twice before I make another purchase from Evans online or recommend them to somebody else. Once you lose trust it is not easy to get back.

It was weigh in night tonight (you can tell its good news as I am blogging about it) and I went with mild apprehension after the past week, but nothing could have prepared me for what I got when I got on the scales, 6.5lbs loss for an all up weight of 17st 13lb I was gob smacked!!! That’s the lowest I have been for many years, 3.5st lost since I started losing weight.

I think last weeks weight gain was a one off, one of those blips that appear and disappear within a week, add that to the unexpected loss this week means I had a great loss and now I am into a new number (17 stone).

I ended the last blog with comment regarding the weigh night and watch this space, well from the absence of a blog (until now) you can gather it was not good news, I gained again. I am getting sick of the see saw weight. Weeks when I know I have not had my best week I lose, weeks when I think I have done well I put on and I am still cycling three times a week for about 50+ miles, I am becoming very dishearten by it all at the moment.

Yesterday we (the wife and I) were up early for our ride as the daughter was on the rota to be called into work early if it got busy (local carnival) so we did not want to have to rush home to relief her of baby sitting duties. A bonus point was that at least it was cool when we started the ride at 6:45am. We did the route we rode earlier in the year at Horton Tower. Last time we rode parts of the route were a mud fest but after this hot spell most of the mud was baked hard. So hard in fact that one section we could not ride last time as it was full of sunken hoof prints was now like riding over cobbles except rather than having to ride over raised cobbled, you had to ride across sunken hoof prints. I’m pleased with myself that I managed to ride the full length of it (about half a mile up a steady gradient). Not happy with myself as I fluffed another hill which I got completely wrong and I know I should of cleared it without a problem. The wife had a visit from the puncture fairy, quite easy to find, there was a bloody great big thorn stuck in her tyre! As it was only a short ride we were were back home by 10:30am and best of all we missed most of the heat.

Today’s ride was the normal Sunday morning loop, there is a new section which I have only been riding about 4 weeks and for the first time today I managed to clear a part of it, in the past I have always had to walk two bits of it. But today I knew what I had to do in those two bit and got it right and sailed through. Still got some route planning to do as there is one area you have to walk as it is deep sand, apart from the fact it is not good for the bike, I would rather find alternative route I could ride.

The third (mid week) ride is normally over the local heath, I either do this early morning pre work or early evening after work, slowly expanding this ride in distance as I explore new areas to ride on the heath.

The local bike repair shop sorted out the gears on the bike, it was only a minor adjustment front and rear and all is running well again.

My computer problems continue, I had to reboot my PC (not a normal occurrence as it runs 24\7) and when it rebooted it failed to start properly. Not a 100% sure what caused the problem but by installing some default settings from the boot CD I had the PC backup and running and was left to sort out KVM box which refused to see the mouse, it has a habit of doing this when one of the two PC’s crash.

Hoping to have a weeks holiday in the next 4 weeks, not sure exactly what week yet as I have a project at work that needs to go live before I can have my holiday, just know I am looking forward to a week off.

Can anybody help? I have a pain which I can’t figure out what it is or how to shift it, just wondering if there are any wise sages out there that maybe able suggest what it is (yes I have heard of doctors!! It is in the back of my right heel, it feels like I have hit my heel and bruised it. It feels worse first thing in the morning, it makes wearing shoe (well any closed in heel footwear) when walking or driving uncomfortable although riding a bike does not seem to affect it. I can wear open heeled footwear (Croc’s, Flip flops) without to much of a problem. I have tried taking Ibuprofen but that does not seem to have much of an affect on it. any thoughts anybody?

And finally, plonker of the week goes to a local Wilts and Dorset Bus driver, here is the situation. I am driving along a main single carriage way road which has a row of parked car on my side of the road but the white line down the middle of the road is set well to the (my) right to compensate for the parked cars and thus the lane on that side of the road is a bit narrow for anything other than a car. So I want to turn right on to a shop forecourt, so I stop opposite the shop indicating to turn right, there are three buses coming toward me. I decide not to pull sharply across in front of the bus as I don’t have a lot of room on the forecourt to brake. As I wait a coach pulls up behind my car and being that bit wider than a car he is on the white line ready to go around the line of parked cars. The bus driver coming towards me can clearly see that he can’t get past the coach without mounting the narrow pavement so he pulls up along side me and then waits for the coach behind me to move but where is he going to go, he can’t go forward as I am there, he can’t go back as there is traffic behind him and I can’t move now as there a bus along side me. Fortunately the driver of the following bus (different company) saw what was happening and allowed me to pull forward and onto another shops forecourt which then allowed the coach to move over and allow the bus to pass, but honestly, that Wilts and Dorset bus driver must have been blind not to see what was happening in front of him, had he let me cross onto the forecourt the coach would of been able to move and everybody would of been happy.

That is exactly what I got when we went to go out this afternoon, got in the car, turned the key click click click, all the electrics in the car had reset themselves to zero and were now in French (that’s what you get for having a Peugeot). I phoned the lease company (company car) at 13:45 and they said the AA would be out by 14:30. The AA text me at 13:55 to say they will be with me at 14:05, AA turned up at 14:10.

It seems as though the battery dropped a cell and I needed a new battery, the AA man had a nice little computer jobby to test the battery and tell him I needed a new battery (it also told him the type of battery, the current age of the battery and a lot more as well). This was where the fun started, first he had to get the old one out which was no mean feat, then he has to get authority to fit a new one which he had on the van………….at least he thought he did. He had two batteries in the van, one the correct size but with a lower ampage, one with the correct ampage but to big to fit the in the space for the battery. The AA are supposed to have 24hr call out with UniPart so if they need a part they can get hold of it. Local Unipart depot is 5 minutes drive up the road from me. So he phones Unipart and the call went straight to (mobile) answer the phone, he waited for about 20 minutes and tried several more times but it was always the same, just kept going to answer phone.

In the end he fitted the lower ampage battery and we were on our way by 15:00, not bad, an hour and a quarter from time of reporting the problem till I was on the move.

Unfortunately that put pay to my afternoon plans, I was going to take the wife out to a cycle shop she has not been to before to look at some bikes (dropping a few hints not that she needs reminding…….) but as wifey needed to pick up some bits for Sunday dinner and it was 15:00 it was off to the shopping centre and the bike shop will have to wait for another week.

Went out for my normal Sunday ride this morning at 7:30 and it was cold, the sun that was out and shinning when I got up at 6:30 but was now hiding behind a blanket of grey cloud. It took a good 40 minutes before I could feel any heat in my arms. I did my normal loop along the river from Northbourne to the weir at Throop, then across the fields towards Hurn Court School, then I dive off into the woods (not sure of the name) and cycle across the woods until I get to the Avon Causeway Road and cross that on to Sopley Common. I exit Sopley common near the rear entrance to Hurn Airport Industrial area and cycle along the road to Hurn Forest. I zig-zag my way across the forest for 6 miles and exit at Oakdene caravan park. Here I take a narrow footpath which I have now renamed Stinging nettle alley, on my left I have a 6ft high wire mesh fence that has been pushed into the footpath in places. The path is about a handle bars width and on my right are trees and bushes along with stinging nettles, brambles and common weeds all over the place. This leads down to a bridge over the Moor River (read stream). From here I take the short path to East Parley Common. I head across the common until I meet the Hurn road and then take the road back toward Hurn airport main entrance before turning off for Merritown and heading across the fields toward the weir at Throop. Then I just follow the path back along the river and home, nice little 27 mile round trip. The return along the river is normally quite busy with dog walkers, seemed extra busy along there today with fishermen, think it might be the start of the fishing season.

The new rear wheel and tyre behaved itself but I will need to pop the bike into the repair shop to get the gears re-indexed as they are not quite right, it seem to be on a gear higher on the cassette than it is registering on the indicator, the front needs adjusting as it is rubbing on the pickup arm when on the large chain ring and on the granny ring anything lower than 4 and it jumps. Now I know it is not to difficult to do but with all the gear problems I have had I want it sorted and running correctly before I brave it and have ago myself. Its not bad they have lasted since I had the major repair in mid March.

Tomorrow is weigh in might, watch this space…………….

Went out for a little bimble (eek, starting to talk like Clive!!) this morning with the wife. We had intended a nice early start (as daughter was working this afternoon) but I woke up at 5:15am, then went back to sleep and slept through the alarm and eventually getting up at 7:45.

We went out to Moor Valley and had a little play on some of the single tracks they have out there. Had an enjoyable morning until I hit a large tree root (at least I think it was a tree root, it was buried in long grass) after running wide on a corner. I was only 50mtr from the car so I carried on back to the car. Inspecting the rear wheel back at the car I noticed that the sidewall covering of the rear tyre was peeling off. I don’t know if this was a consequence of the tree root or not but it meant I needed a new tyre. I had already decided to fit the new rear wheel this weekend as the play in the freehub on the existing wheel was relating to 3/16″ off side to side movement at the top of the wheel. Now I just needed to buy a new tyre, not the best way to end an enjoyable 13 mile ride (maybe 13 miles is unlucky??)

We shot off home, dropped all the bike gear off, had a wash and brush up, grabbed a bite to eat and then off to collect our son from the daughter who had gone for a hair cut and to do some shopping (as teenage girls do) so she could go to work. Well since we had left Moor Valley there had been text message bouncing back between the wife and daughter about when and where we were going to meet to collect the son. We eventually meet her outside work (Sainsbury Local) at 1:00pm and her comment was “now your early I will have to start work early!!” she only been going on about how we must be back early so she can go to work……………………once the boy was in the car I just drove off otherwise there would of been an unpleasant exchange of words.

We visited the LBS and bought a Maxi Larsen TT tyre, as this is only the second tyre I have bought (the first being a set of mud tyres) I am not to sure how these will perform so we will have to see. After a bit more shopping it was home to fit the new wheel. An hour later the bike is sporting a new rear wheel, tyre, cassette and chain, a quick spin up and down the road confirmed that the gears are working OK. Will have to wait until tomorrow to see how it all performs.

On the home front the light at the end of the tunnel is still on and the door is still open but there is still a little way to go before life can return to normal but at least all the signs are looking positive. Work is going to be a little hectic over the next couple of weeks with new data links going live and PC and laptops to prepare before a certain date, I have to fit a weeks holiday in before the school holidays at the end of July. I took the car to the tyre centre yesterday as it had a slow leak in the rear near side tyre and came out with two new tyres on the rear. The car still has to go to the paint shop to repair the bump it had a couple of weeks ago (if the insurance company ever come back to me) and I need to get the brakes sorted and an MOT organised for the car before the end of July.

I will leave you with this little film clip Click here if it does not play , right click on the link and select save as and once downloaded play it from your PC. Hope you enjoy it.