Apparently, Graeme Obree said that bananas and marzipan are good foods for cycling. So I thought why not combine the two? And that's precisely what I did: Banana wrapped in marzipan. Awesome.

(It kind of feels as if this post should have a picture, but it would just be a yellow blob and you can easily imagine that yourself).

(Also, apologies for all the cycling related posts lately. I have some code related ones on the back burner, but they take significantly more time to get to fruition)

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Marigolds work: Carrier Bags don't.

Until I can afford to spend £30 on a pair of socks(!) I thought I'd try a carrier bag on my foot inbetween two layers of socks. This didn't really work, although probably did delay things for a bit. Unfortunately I can no longer use my home made waterproof overshoes with my road bike as they catch on the chain ring and front derailleur.

Using marigolds inbetween two layers of gloves works very well though. Fetching pink colour as well.

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...should not have caused this much trouble:

• Cycling home I hear this load "Ping!" and wondered what on earth had happened, but couldn't feel or see anything wrong.
• Then I looked down and noticed my rear wheel wasn't running true and so knew it was a broken spoke. Gutted, but at least I could get home.
• A few miles later another "Ping!" (this must be the sound of the head of the spokes bouncing off the plastic guard at the back of the cassette - I don't have one on my fixed gear so the sound is much more subtle on that). I've never had one go straight after the other like that.
• The wheel began to rub since it was out of true so I used the quick release on the rear brake to open it up and carried on.
• It was still rubbing and was getting worse. That's when I realised the wheel had gone out of true so much it was rubbing on the frame and not just the brakes.
• So there was nothing left for it, but to get off and carry the bike (since the wheel had jammed that much I couldn't wheel it; I think riding it with two broken spokes caused it to go more out of true). Fortunately it was only four miles. And fortunately road bikes don't weigh much!

And that should have been the end of it of course. Unless you are me, in which case:

• You don't have a cassette tool (since you weren't anticipating any repairs so soon on this bike) so you can't replace the spokes.
• You don't have any money to get a cassette tool, nor anyone to borrow one off. Which means you need to get another bike up and running.
• Fortunately you have your old fixed gear, but owing to severe lack of maintenance the pedals are completely broken (bearings gone completely and pedals will catch and lock up - not really what you want on a fixed gear).
• But that's not a problem, since you can just swop over the pedals from your new road bike and job's done.

And that should have been the end of it. Unless you are me, in which case:

• The pedals will not budge at all. You of course do not have a proper pedal wrench, but even with what you do have and a hammer they are going no where.
• Reading around, applying heat seems to be recommended (since the cranks are aluminium and the pedal axle is steel). So, heat up cranks (coal fires do have their uses), remove pedals and fit new?

And that should have been the end of it. Unless you are me, in which case:

• The fixed gear, having taken quite a bit of abuse, is not the cleanest of things. In using a crank puller to get the cranks off, so I can stick them in the fire, the threads strip on the cranks - and I'm guessing that's because the threads were that dirty that I didn't screw it in enough.
• Fortunately, after a couple of attempts and an bit more stripping I do manage to get it to engage in a couple of threads and pull the crank off.
• So I stick the crank and pedal in the fire. Heat does NOTHING whatsoever.

I now have two broken bikes and no friggin' idea what to do. And I need my bike to get to work. A bit stressed. But owing to a stroke of genius and luck:

• Take cranks off new bike.
• The large chainring pretty much lines up spot on with the rear cog on the fixed gear.
• The 19T cog I got for winter on the fixed gear gives a pretty much perfect ratio (~70 gear inches) with the 50T chainring from the road bike.
• I actually have some spare links to make up the chain to a long enough length.

Phew! All sorted until I can get the road bike running again.

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With all that time spent cycling fixed gear I just assumed I wouldn't have any need for that "pissy" little chainring when it came to riding a road bike. After all, why use that when I was used to standing up to get up hills, standing and leaning to get through headwinds and even, on occassion, snapping chains through sheer "GRRRrrr"-ness when facing the combination of both - or, indeed, getting off and walking.

But it turns out I love that little chain ring. I can sit down and spin up hills I had to walk up and I can battle the headwinds by simply spinning merrily away (getting nowhere fast, but hey, faster than before). Fantastic.

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All this mild winter weather, and the roadies it has brought out of hibernation early, has really got me lusting after a road bike. It's so very, very tempting to go and get an entry level road bike with my cycle to work voucher (I forgot to do the blog post where I mentioned that good news for the year) even though I know full well I couldn't use it all year round:

• It's still cold enough on my hands that I'm wearing big bulky gloves that would make gear changing really fiddly anyway (I want to get some mittens to take full advantage of riding fixed gear).
• I could only afford a bike with Sora (or lower) level components and since I ride most of the time in the drops, I know that impossible to reach thumbshifter would REALLY annoy me.
• Skinny tyres may well be fine at the moment in the well gritted suburbs, but I've already fallen off on the icy roads near home and that's with studded winter tyres on.

I don't want to be a roadie anyway. I just want to be able to overtake them again. I'm sure I'll feel fine when spring comes around I can get off the winter tyres and lower gear ratio and move back up above snail's pace again.

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There's currently no sign of snow. But a month or so ago, when it could have been just around the corner for all I knew, my winter cycling checklist looked something like this (and so I was a bit worried):

• ☐ - Reliable functioning lights
• ☐ - Lower gear ratio to help with the studded tyres and mushed up snow
• ☐ - Heated gloves
• ☑ - None of the above (even though you've had 9 months to prepare and last year's experience to go on where you were so cold one night you felt like crying and got just a little bit scared about how you were going to make the remaining 6 miles cycle home. And so cold when you did get home that you couldn't use your hands to undress yourself and had to rock gently in front of the fire whilst your fingers thawed trying not to cry too much so as not to scare the kids)

Fortunately it has improved somewhat and now looks like this:

• ☑ - Reliable functioning lights
• ☑ - Lower gear ratio to help with the studded tyres and mushed up snow
• ☐ - Heated gloves

Smart Lunar 35 Lux Lights

My B&M Ixon IQ bit the dust. I cycled a month with it in a very dodgy state: road vibrations caused it to continually switch from high to low power, until it finally decided to add "OFF" into it's newfound automatic mode selection routine. I tried fixing it quite a few times, but it wasn't to be:

• I'd fixed up the cracked lens cover with car headlamp lens repair tape.
• It had a big screw through the back to hold it shut after I broke the plastic catch from opening it all the time to charge the batteries (and dropping it of course).
• I'd broken a couple of battery contacts: after dropping the light on it's end, the batteries squashing the spring contacts flat and then me trying to bend them out again, snap!
• So at first I though the mode switching was due to the broken battery contacts that I'd tried to replace with picture hooks. However, then I twigged the switch (or something) was broken
• To get to the innards you are meant to remove the hinge pin, but it's easier just cut out the battery carrier instead. Then you can start disassembling it from behind. Also the rubber switch cover can be pried out with a knife, etc.
• Turns out the switch was broken but attempting to mend/bypass it didn't work, so I can only assume that the switch wasn't the only broken bit.
• All fair enough really. It had been completely abused: dropped plenty of times and then smashed into the floor a couple of times when the mount became dodgy.

Anyway, I was all for just getting another one and treating it better (charge through built-in charger to avoid fatiguing the plastic catch and use the camlock to remove, not the clip, to avoid the clip becoming loose over time and the light one day vibrating itself out of the clip and onto the floor) since it is a very good light, but I needed something quickly (so not from Europe) and so ended up getting two Smart Lunar's for less than price of one Ixon IQ. And on that note, two are comparable to the Ixon IQ. One wouldn't do it though; it can't just be the 5 Lux difference, it must be to do with the Ixon's much better reflector design. Also, they get the same battery life I got with the Ixon IQ (5hrs), but from 2AA batteries each (again, probably explains why one is seemingly much more than just 5 Lux less than the Ixon IQ).

60 Gear Inches for Winter

I'm so very glad I dropped my gear ratio down this year for winter and (primarily) my winter tyres (since I guess those were the issue here). Thinking back I really have no idea how I managed on the same 42/16 (~70 gear inch) ratio last winter. I guess I didn't. And that's why I had epic journeys into work and a lot of walking.

I couldn't decide whether to go for a 18 or 19 tooth rear sprocket, as I was worried that 60 gear inches might result in too much spinning, but then a clearance offer on a 19 tooth made the decision for me. And I'm so glad I when for that option. There's not nearly as much spin as I thought there would be and I was surprised that there is still one hill I can't get all the way up without walking, and also that it isn't too low a ratio to stand up in when hill climbing. I guess in really, really bad winds and snow that perhaps going as low as 2:1 would be better, but fixed gear is all about compromise (or the state of being "always in the wrong gear").

But wow, it has already made the headwinds and winter tyre combination much more bearable and I'm also hopeful that when the snow eventually comes, I'll be able to get through the churned up stuff a bit better than I did last year.

(Note: I used the rotafix method to stick this cog on the freewheel side of my hub. I sincerely doubt the 16 tooth is ever coming off, although would love to drop that to 17 for summer).

Heated Gloves

I may not have heated gloves, but I do have more pairs of gloves than last year (layers!) and I do have some emergency hand warmer things I can stick in if it gets really bad; perhaps next year for heated gloves.

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