Angels and Demons

Today is a cycling day.  Let me start with last night, though.  After I got home from swimming, the first order of the evening was to do a bit of work on my bike (actually, that's a complete lie - the first order of the evening was to Pronto Pizza...).  Some time ago, I had bought some toe clips for my pedals, but I hadn't quite got around to (or got up the nerve to) put them on.  With only a month to go from tomorrow until the triathlon, I decided it was now or never and put them on.  First, I had to find my multi-tool with the right allen key on it to do up the bolts.  I had left it on the table by the turbo trainer in order to be able to retrieve my saddle and seat post and put them back on my bike, but it had somehow disappeared.  During the period that it must have disappeared in, James was the only one to use the turbo trainer.  That is all I have to say on the matter.

My beautiful new cycling shoes!

It was no problem, though - I just nicked James's multi-tool from his saddle pack, got my saddle back on my bike and then set about putting the toe clips on.  An easy enough job, just two bolts per clip through the holes that are already in the front of the pedal.  Yesterday, following a whole day of James waxing lyrical about his new cycling shoes, I succumbed and went to Cycle Surgery (again) to have a look at some for myself.  I bought the cheapest pair in the shop, which the sales guy and I agreed were the right ones for what I wanted them for.  I was a little bit hesitant about trying out both new toe clips and new shoes on the same trip, but then figured that as far as I am concerned they are effectively one piece of equipment and it would be better to do it all in one go than to have to get used to the toe clips and then use them with different shoes, or vice versa.

I decided that trying out this new arrangement for the first time on a busy road would be a very stupid thing to do, so planned to walk my bike to Finsbury Park, spend the time I needed getting used to the new stuff and then, assuming I was coping alright, cycle to work (I didn't really have a plan B, but I'm guessing I would have gone home and changed and got the train).  When I got to the end of my road, I was exceedingly glad that I had decided to walk to the park as there was nose to tail traffic on Wightman Road from beyond my road right up to the junction with Endymion Road (probably about a 1km queue, all told), presumably because of the tube strike - on foot, I probably beat some of the cars.  Once in the park, I hopped on and gave it a shot.  I had completely mixed feelings about the results - on the one hand, I couldn't get my left foot into the clip at all (I always start with my right foot on the pedal), but on the other hand, it was a revelation how little effort was required to go quite fast.

The good thing about toe clips is that if you can't get your foot in, it doesn't really matter, so long as the clip doesn't touch the floor when your foot is on the other side of the pedal.  For this reason, I decided I would carry on to the office on the bike.  I set off down Green Lanes and made it up both hills with relative ease, even though I still hadn't sorted my left foot out.  Then, just as I was coming up to Newington Green (and when I had already moved into the right hand turn lane) two things happened.  The first was that I managed to get my left foot in the clip, just as I was coming up to a red light, of course.  The second was that something hit me in the right shin and I realised that it must have been one of the bolts from the right toe clip, which was hanging off the front of the pedal at a jaunty angle and, when the lights changed and I pushed off, began fouling the tarmac with every revolution - all this on an enormous, busy roundabout that I was turning right on.  I had to stop immediately, and I managed to get safely onto a pedestrian refuge (with much cursing, apologising and signalling).  I have no idea whether the problem was that I hadn't done it up tight enough (likely), that the front of the pedal being ever so slightly bent was causing it to undo (also likely) or that the bolt was faulty (less likely, but still possible), or maybe a combination of some or all of these things.

And then I saw it, like a gold aura-ed mirage on the other side of the road - PUSH Cycles.  I figured I had two choices here - I could either take off the offending toe clip and sort it out later, or I could pop into PUSH and see if they would sell me a bolt to replace the lost one.  I decided that if I didn't get it sorted straight away, I might write off the whole toe clip project and never get it sorted, so I went into PUSH (well, not actually inside, I just sort of hovered in the doorway) and asked the chap if he had a bolt that would fix my problem.  He took a look at it, went off and found a bolt, discovered it was too short, went off and found a longer one, fitted it, tightened the other bolt on that clip and then checked and tightened the ones on the left side as well - I asked him how much I owed him and he shrugged his shoulders.  I suggested that I would mention him in my blog as compensation for his time and the bolt and that went down well, so I went on my merry way.  It seems that at the moment I'm spending quite  a lot of time both in bike shops and telling the world how wonderful bike shops are, but this was special - such a nice man and such great service and kindness in helping me out.  I will definitely be revisiting PUSH.*

Once I'd walked round the remaining bit of Newington Green, I was back on my bike and had a fairly innocuous remainder of the journey (other than a 271 bus deciding to pull out in front of me from a side road - the 271 doesn't even usually go that way) until I got into the City and discovered that Moorgate was closed; the Crossrail project often causes road closures and you can never be sure whether a given road will be open at a particular time - it reminds me in some ways of the staircases moving about at Hogwarts.  However, this led to me finding a better route to the office by going straight across a junction I normally turn left at and then taking a left further on - much less busy and no buses.  I'm still a bit hit and miss on getting my left foot into the clip, but I was improving pretty consistently from Newington Green to the office, so I'm confident I'll get there.

I had started my watch when I got onto Green Lanes at the Manor House junction.  When I got to work, it said I had been going for 41 minutes - this included the time spent at the bike shop, walking around the remaining bit of Newington Green and getting stuck in traffic in the City, and I was amazed at how quick I'd been.  My average speed was only 6.4 mph (but I was stationary for probably about 5 or 7 minutes and walking for another 2 or 3), but my top speed was 19.4 mph.

The measured part of this morning's cycle was 7.08km, taking my cycling total to 130.04km.  Hopefully I'll have a less eventful journey on the way home!

*I should say here that PUSH Cycles is, of course, a business and is not in the habit of just giving away free stuff, so please don't try it on - it's a really nice shop run by nice guys, though, so do go and see them.  I should also say that I'm not in the habit of offering mentions on my blog in return for free stuff, so please don't try it on with me, either!!