Bike: Il Pompino
Distance: Just over an hour
Playlist: Rawk – iPod went Motörhead

There’s something satisfying about hitting a milestone at the last minute, especially when you only realised just before an arbitrary deadline that the milestone was within your grasp.

Yesterday was a birthday blowout evening meal which included beer. And boy could I tell that I had had beer as I mucked out the horses this morning. It felt like it was sweating out of every pore. So I wasn’t looking forward to getting out for the last few miles needed to hit the 1,000 miles. I even looked at the route profile from yesterday to try and work out which way round to do it to ease aching legs. The conclusion was to get the climbing and suffering over in the first three miles and enjoy the gradual descent of the remaining miles.

Wanker socks. Incongruous shoes**

I also set the endomondo app to beat yesterdays target so that if I was slow I’d have something to chase. Bit of a bummer hitting the traffic lights across the M1 then. Up the hill, thighs not feeling quite so bad as yesterday. On every descent I nail it out of the saddle to try and make up speed and time. It worked. By the time I reach the bestest roundabout in the world ever* I was over three minutes ahead, and just one climb to go.

Got the camera out at about where I figured 1,000 miles would be, then hammered home.

Gives me inspiration to try and do better next year. I’m making no resolutions though***.

* It’s a perfect radius and surface for scraping the inside pedal. Half an hour on a sportsbike there could be some knee-down fun.

** But you do get lots more nods from roadies when wearing white shoes.

*** Geek joke. My resolution for next year? 1920 x 1280.

Having realised yesterday that I was close to 1,000 miles for the year I had to get a ride in today. Kirsty went to do the horses and after a lie in I went out on the bike. I wore incongruous shoes – white whippet slippers on an Il Pompino, and I swear that for the first few minutes I was faster. Then the road went up, and the effects of yesterday and 44:16 gear kicked in.

Il Pompino

I was knackered heading West, but once I reached the halfway point the wind was behind me, the iPod had kicked into SOAD and I flew home.

Just a dozen miles tomorrow, rain or shine, to do.

Bike: Il Pompino
Distance: Just shy of two hours
Playlist: Rawk – iPod got a classic 80s metal theme into it’s mind

Just as Monster needs to let off steam I can’t sit at home during the Christmas break lamenting the size of my gut as I feed myself with the contents of the traditional box of Quality Streets*. We had planned a group hack this morning, four horses in Polite jackets riding through the village causing the local youth to stare at their feet and kick the tyres of their hot hatches**. Inclement weather of the wet and windy variety put paid to that. Did I want to risk more punctures and mud to go out? Did I heck.

Cross-processed suicide panda

So pump up the tyres on the Pompino to 110 psi and spend two hours exploring local lanes between all the local villages. Most of which have names ending in, er, End. Including the Witts End of the title. The weather held fair. The riding was uneventful, except for the serious camber on the stretch of road I chose for the obligatory ride photo. Hence the look of fear in my eyes above.

Update: I need to fit in another 29 miles before the end of the year to make a round thousand miles for the year. That’s a pathetic total. Twenty years ago I used to make that distance in five weeks of commuting. I was a stone lighter and eating 5,000 calories a day, mind.

* Other over-large tins of low cocoa content, high fat, chocolate confectionary are available.

** Yes, really. It’s quite funny to see.

I’m the first to admit that correlation doesn’t imply causality, but I rather think that Road Safety Analysis Ltd. missed a point when they published their latest Child Casualty Report linking child poverty with road accidents. Topping the list of worst places for kids is, no surprise to those who ride bikes there, Preston.

A combination of pathological road design* and shit driving is more to blame. I went for my first two road rides at the weekend since the knee op. For the first I headed into South Ribble. 40 minutes local loop. No issues.

For the second ride I rode into Preston. What a difference.

• A lorry pulled up alongside me while I was in the cycle lane. Then flashed a car to reverse off a shop forecourt into the road in front of us. What about me and my right to continue my way safely? You haven’t even seen me have you. Cock.
• The car that the lorry had flashed out paid attention only to the lorry headlights, not the fact that there was still a cyclist oncoming in the cycle lane. Cock.
• Heading downhill on the dual carriageway at 30 keeping up with traffic a fat bitch tried to overtake just before the dual carriageway ended. She got alongside before realising that she wouldn’t be able to finish the move. Once there was room to pass her equally fat passenger felt it appropriate to hurl abuse from the window as they went past. Annoyed at being slower than a bloke on a humble pushbike. Get over it love. I may not be the slimmest bloke on a bike, but you’ll be dead of a heart attack before you reach my age fatty.
• The classic overtake then turn left manoeuvre. Cock.
• A woman in a pointless suburban SUV pulling out of a side road to my left onto the dual carriageway didn’t stop at the white line, until she, not her bumper, was level with it putting three feet of SUV bonnet into my path. All the while looking to her left – where there is precisely zero traffic coming from. Because it’s a dual carriageway. When she did eventually look in my direction she never even acknowledged me, looking straight up the road past me, not even taking me in as she scanned only for things as big as cars.
• A young lad on his mobile phone pulled out of a side road in front of me. Cock!
• A guy overtook against double white lines on a blind brow, so close I could feel his wing mirror. Some satisfaction as the shout of Cock! through his open window made him jump.

Preston drivers are the reason we have gun laws in this country, because if you shot every fucktard on the roads it would soon be a ghost town.

* Lancashire has well respected guidelines for cycling infrastructure design. The problem is that it doesn’t bother following them itself.

Southport Airshow is local to us and always a popular event. This year with the apperance of the Vulcan it was going to be even more popular than ever – typically gates increase by 20% when the cold-war bomber makes an appearance.

Knowing that the traffic would be bad there was no other alternative than the Langster to get there. Even by mid-afternoon when people were already too late to see early acts such as the Red Arrows, the queues were ten miles long*. Fortunately the dual carriageway has a cycle lane (note to the Council – it needs a good sweep), and I could ride past the fraught families. Motorcyclists had no such luck as bored drivers are too stupid/lazy to check their mirrors and leave room for filtering.

Once there I didn’t need to pay for or stress about parking either. Southport has a woeful lack of cycle parking, but I was able to clamber over the sea wall and lock it to the rainings by the flightline.

It was worth it though, as I was able to get right up to the flightline. All afternoon different aircraft would come in and start their display from the left hand of the beach.

Then at 4.20 pm the commentators announced the Vulcan was airborne and just 6 miles away, 2 minutes flying time. All eyes scanned the sky to the left.

The sneaky Vulcan pilot though flew round the back of Southport and came in fast and low over the pier to the right. No photograph can do justice to the sight of this amazing delta flying in that close. It still set off less car alarms than the Typhoon though.

Once the Vulcan had done it’s thing I leisurely packed up my camera, unlocked my bike and rode past the well-established queues along Marine Drive. I must have been back home before some folk even managed to get off the car park.

* Lancashire Constabulary have used, against my wishes, their inability to attend my RTA on 12th July due to the weight of Manchester-Blackpool charity cyclists in a report complaining to the organisers of the traffic problems caused by the do-gooding cyclists.

In the interests of even handedness I can no doubt rest assured that Lancashire Constabulary will be submitting a similar report to the organisers of Southport Airshow in respect to the traffic chaos they cause.

Can’t I?