Into the woods.

Seems ages ago, that I wrote the above phrase, it was in response to a post by mnbicyclecommuter. We were talking about how colleagues at work thought we were nuts, cycling to and from work even when the downpours were very heavy and continuous. I thought the phrase was good enough to be emblazoned on a t-shirt, perhaps you, Adrian at KunFooSausage, could incorporate it on the one you’re designing for me?

But getting back to the point, “Rain ain’t pain!” is true, cycle commuting in the rain won’t hurt you, BUT!

These last few days have been really abysmal, the rain has hammered down for hours at a time, the last time I commuted on my bike it didn’t stop pouring down for the whole journey, my wet weather gear was soaked through before I’d gone 2 miles or so. I still enjoyed the ride, but the effort to get everything dry, ready for the trip home, was a full time job, even my waterproof sealskinz socks had to be rung out. Of course it’s August, so even soaked through there isn’t a cold factor, which means being warm enough is the key. I’ve had my share of soakings on a cold day, with the wind blowing through wet clothing, and it’s not nice. All you Alaskan, Minnesotans cyclists etc., are laughing at me now, but it’s a matter of degree, or better still, the degrees centigrade that we’re acclimatised to.

Today I managed to get out for a leisure ride, didn’t do the loop all the way down to Neath and back, just looped around Cwmgwrach and Pontneddfechan a few times, all roads lead to MacDonalds, so I stopped for a coffee, and to try and adjust my rear disc brake. I tinkered with the allen keys, loosening and tightening bolts, all to no avail. Add to my technophobia, mechanophobia, seemingly, they both spell welshcyclist. So I gave up, and went in for the coffee.

While in there I had a bit of a chat with an older chap, yes, even older than me, who is the oddjob man, cleans the windows etc.. He commutes by bike from and back to Resolven, and uses an old style Raleigh type bike, I’ll have to get a real close look at it next time I see him. Tips on maintenance, he was after, I explained my mechanophobia, something none of his generation ever suffered from, because they could FIX things and make do, but I did advise he should google for it on his PC, to which he replied that he’d never even thought of that, the older generation eh? eh?

My ride was quite uneventful, I had the camera ready for any wildlife sightings, well sightings of any kind in truth, but had to make do with a couple of scenic ( in the most general sense ) type shots.

One drip of a mechanophobe next to alot of drips.

Sorry, I know only a mother could call that scenic,  blocking out so much scenery. You can tell by the relaxed demure that I should have been a model, still-life best describes, well definitely on a bike. By the way, this shot is an old one from about February/March of this year, nothing to do with today’s ride, I was walking on that day with  her indoors, perhaps that’s why I look so scared, “SMILE PLEASE”. had just been yelled at me, but no way was I going to “STEP BACK”.

The Neath river above Pontneddfechan

Right one more photo for luck, my reader can’t take too much of a good thing.

There is a cycle track there?

Cheers for now.