Stuff Blogs

I seem to have a fated hour ride right now. There's a loop where I live that I've tried to record on a few occasions and something has prevented me from doing it. Either I've had the phone on the wrong settings, or my new GoPro has overheated or something or other. I did get a clip from the ride when my crutch flew its holder on the back of the bike, which you can see here if you're interested.

This past weekend saw my camera stop recording shortly after the start. I'm not too sure what happened, but it was disconnected from its power supply when I returned so it was either that or it was moaning about the power supply which it seems to do all the time. Side note, the recommendation to stop the overheating is to not charge it which won't work as the batter doesn't last long enough. If you have to charge it, remove the battery and power from an external power source. When you connect to an external power source it tells you it's not delivering enough power even though it is ..... annoying.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the main story and my crutch went for a fling in exactly the same place - essentially it's when I hit the cobbles at speed that bike is very unforgiving and it rattles everything loose even though I'd fastened the crutches in with velcro straps on top of the holders they are in. The crutch didn't fully fly off this time, so I just pulled over and re-seated it in its holders and went on my merry way. When I got home, I noticed that there was only one crutch on the bike. It appears that both of them had come loose on the cobbles and the other one (not the one I reseated) had subsequently fallen off. This isn't a major problem as it's only an old pair and I have several old pairs lying around. They're only on the bike in case of an emergency if I need to get off and walk somewhere.

This was around lunchtime and the downtown area had been quite busy. I did decide to mount a search and rescue in the afternoon. More because I was concerned about littering than anything else. I hate seeing litter and I don't want to be contributing to it if I can help it, so I took the truck along the parts of the path you can drive on. I was looking in the gutter along the way and the crutch was nowhere to be seen. I figured I'd give it a second pass and just as I was about to start, the thought of an old lady jumped into my head. The old lady that finds a glove on the floor and puts it on top of a wall or a railing spike so the owner can find it (assuming they're looking up instead of down). Well, what do you know? I don't know if it was an old lady or not, but someone had obviously found my crutch and decided to leave it where they thought someone would see it if they were looking for it. Having driven by it once, there's no way I would have seen it unless I'd have taken the second pass and started looking where someone would have put it.

I guess the main thing is that I've now vindicated someone taking this action. I'm sure they've passed by, seen its gone and patted themselves on the back for the good deed they've done. I am thankful as it did allow me to retrieve it and dispose of it properlly.

I needed to get a new elbow brace and when I searched on Amazon, I came across this one:



Clearly I had to buy it with a name like that. I do believe I'd make a great spokesman for them as shown below"

Just went to pay my tax bill and was greeted by this message on my personal details screen. Clearly not using the money for education, especially grammar.



Way to go Contra Costa!

Unfortunately this is right on the frame of the camera and you can't fully see what happens because I'm in the way, but Zaphod jumps off the bonnet of my truck onto the ledge underneath the window on the garage door. Only there isn't a ledge under the window on my garage door like there is on the windows in the house. You do get to hear the splat and the crash as he hits it then falls on the floor.

So, Zaphod has turned into an escape artist and now darts past me into the garage when I go in there. I'll figure out a two door system like I've done with the front door and the cage around that, but it doesn't really hurt for them to go in there as there's nothing much for them to get into trouble with. Right, so I got my new bike and went out on it and realized it needed some adjustments, so I came back and decided to work on it in the garage. I figured I'd let the cats come in and look round while I was in there. Zaphod lept in, whereas Trillion was a little more cautious, but she did come in eventually. It was actually quite cute. If I called Zaphod, he'd come running over and start rubbing round my legs. Kind of an I'm here, don't worry type thing.

And then I fell over. Hearing the noise, Zaphod came trotting over and decided to rub round my head. Very cute to start with, but he pushed right against my head and, as he came past, he wiped his arse across my face. It's quite disconcerting to have a cat reverse up and push its bumhole against your nose.

I don't have a video of that, but I did pop a camera in the garage the following day in case something similar happens. What you see here is my obedience training proving that it works really well and then me trying to rationalize with a cat (or two cats in the end). Sorry about the fact that you see my arse. Maybe if you push your face to the screen at the right time you'll get a similar effect as to what I got.



Just FYI - that's not the new bike, that's the old bike. The new one is hidden behind it.

My gardener had told me I'd got racoons digging up my lawn to eat the grub worms, so I setup an outdoor camera to see if I could capture them and sure enough, it wasn't long before they came along. They look so cute, but I think they can be pretty nasty. Not sure what they'll do to my cats when I let them out or, worse, if they'll chase them back into the house through the cat flap. Time will tell on that one. In the meantime, here's a montage of the little lawn diggers.

After saying I wasn't going to create more blogs about bike rides, here we are again. But the thing is, there's a clip that I thought warranted its own blog and I've not duplicated it in the video section, so I think this is valid. Anyway, so I was on my bike ride and a squirrel decide to run in front of me. I was pretty worried when it did that it was going to throw me off my bike or make me crash, particularly as I was at the fastest part of my journey. I was surprised that it literally had no effect whatsoever. Then again, being hit by a fat bastard on a handcycle at 30mph is probably going to instakill. I didn't go back to look at the carnage as that would have meant going back up the hill. The video plays at full speed and then back in slow motion. In slow motion you can see it come back to the left and go under the front wheel accompanied by a thud.



If you really want to see it, here's the full length video of the bike ride.

Pretty much the same loop as last time, but I decided to take a path behind the shops on the way back that I'd seen on the map. The path isn't very wide even though it's marked as a cycle path. There was one bit where the path drops into a gulley and I didn't realize how steep it was to get back out again. I've posted the clip of this bit below so you don't have to watch the full length video. I've watched the clip several times while editing and each time I watch it, I'm not sure if I'm going to make it or not. I think I do. If not, I'm not sure who's writing this blog. I really like the kind woman who offered to give me a push, but I'd pretty much made it up the hill by the time she came.

One thing that does occur to me after watching it back, there was a point where I was just going to back down the hill, turn around and go back, but looking at it, I'd have had the same problem going back as it looks like the hill is as steep on both sides of the stream. It took me a while to figure out that I was just going to have to crank a quarter turn at a time to make it up. I just couldn't get the crank over the top with enough force to make progress doing full rotations. Good job I have good brakes too in order to stop me sliding all the way back down the hill. I was also worried about the wheel spin I was getting too as it seemed that at some point I just wouldn't be able to make any progress. Still, where there's a will, there's his dad.



If you really want to see it, here's the full length video of the Clayton loop.

Decided to go out on a ride to celebrate William's birthday. Went for a relatively quick loop round downtown. The position of the camera isn't great and it's more like a shot of the back of my head. I wouldn't bother watching the video, but if you do, here are some useful timestamps:

• 3:44 Adjust leg and manage to throw foot into front wheel
• 5:39 Crutch flies out of it's holder and lands on road (sadly you don't see it happen)
• 13:44 First Big Skeleton (on left)
• 18:38 Two big skeletons (on the right)
• 18:52 - 19:30 Top Speed Run

If you really want to see it, here's the video of the Clayton loop.

My mouse mat:



I'm going to be honest, this means more if you've played Apex Legends.