Glad when November is out!!!!!

Yep, I will be glad when this (add swear words) month is out as its been nothing but horrible to me. What with a bad knee to start and then rain...more rain...a bit of wind...rain and wind...wind and rain and for good measure, wind and rain. Sigh. Oh, and its now dark until 7.59am and dark again at 3.30pm!!! Grrrr.

Anyway, trying not to rant too much but it was quite nice on Saturday morning so off for a ride I went along a route I had used a couple of times before...la la la la la la la ...... no problems until.....hissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss (that's with a "H" just in case you thought otherwise).... I get a visit from that little bugger the puc***ure fairy! Sigh. I will pull her wings off and make her eat them if she visits me again!!!! I get home, go to fix it but I don't have any spare innertubes or patches!!!!

http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=27269


One trip to Halfords and a quick grovel to her in doors, off I went later in the afternoon for another ride. Well I had this silly idea to do 80 miles plus this weekend (including Monday).

This ride was fine apart from the fact that it was bleeping cold out there and I managed to get lost...just as it started to drizzle. Sigh. On a positive note, the traffic was very light and I climbed a major long slope back into Stafford from Bradley without even reasiling that what I was doing. Please about that as its always been a bit of a pain that hill.

http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=27099

Sunday sunday here again.... and the weather forecast said heavy rain around lunch time with some light rain before hand....so up and out at 7.45am just as it got light. That should give me a couple of hours without any rain...so I thought.

Now the current wife has a saying that you should never believe the weather forecast... I, of course, disagree and say that weather forecasters all have good degrees and have some of the best computers in the world....of course their forecasts are accurate and can be trusted. No put a coat on if they say sunny for me!!!!

Of course, I get a mile from town and it starts to rain.... only lightly. Nevermind eh, I will "man up" and head on further....half a mile later I am wet to the skin as the heaven opened and down came more cats and dogs than the local dogs home sees in a hundred years!!!!

Indeed, it got so wet that I had to pull over and stand in a bus shelter for 15 mins whilst the worse of it blew over. I finally got home half an hour later cold, wet and miserable.

Nevermind eh, it was going to rain all day so at least I tried to go for a ride...... oh, actually, apart from that bit of rain, we had a clear dry day! So why didn't I go out for a ride later....I had to paint the fence. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr................... sigh.

www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=27271

So, its Monday and my boss is off, that must mean a ride today??!!! Well actually yes as I have to go to the Halifax to close by second bank account. Its an account which I haven't used for years and to be honest, as "they" are going to start charging £1 a day if you go overdrawn, I thought it would be best to get rid of it. Seems I wasnt the only one to think so as there were two other people in the queue wanting to do so! Oh, talking about queues in banks (banks used to be really good back in the 80's... I used to go into one in the City of London to see this vision of loveliness...) why have a bank with three windows and then staff two of them with trainees??? Seem to me better to put one trainee on; especially when they were busy.

One half an hour wait in the bank later, I had cooled right down so decided not to bother going much further; especially as it was really cold out there and the sun was really low in the sky making visability really difficult.

www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=27268

So, not really a good weekend cycling wise. The total for the four rides are as follows:

Total 36.52 Months total 125.93 (terrible!!!)

Height climbed 1159 Months total 3899 (really terrible!!!!!)

The longest ride was 21.45 miles long with a climb of 691 feet. My average speed was 12mph.