What happened this week?
I did some bicycling â 112 miles over the course of the week, ooh. As I must have explained before, finite battery life and sometimes forgetting to use the app mean the real figure is higher, but sometimes accidentally leaving the app running means the real figure is also a bit lower.
In a tale as old as time, I set off to photograph some buses diverted along an unusually narrow and scenic road, only to find that the diversion had finished thanks to some especially efficient workers. Never mind â it was an intrinsically pleasant bicycle ride there and back.
On the way, half of the bicycleâs kickstand fell off, leaving a dangerous obstacle on the road somewhere. I had only fitted the spindly accessory weeks ago, but Iâm not surprised it didnât last long. There is no suggestion that my own screwdriving skills are inadequate.
On Sunday, I saw some professional bicyclists racing in the the British National Road Race Championships. Spectators stood in their front gardens and on grassy knolls to spectate, and it was nice to get some insincere cheers as I cycled along the route to a vantage point. My silly-looking silhouette was captured on a blurry bit of the live coverage of the menâs race. Iâm leery of the sport of cycling â itâs at odds with âutility cyclingâ, which is probably part of why car manufacturers sponsor it1 â but it passed the time.
Now, many of the local Strava segment leaderboards are polluted with the athletesâ upsettingly quick times, but I donât care.