Today was my 2nd (!) full day of commuting by bike from home to Central. Friday was easier because it’s dress-down day at work, but my work shoes are now at work and will remain there for the foreseeable future. More on logistics in a bit.

This morning was interesting, in that I finally remembered to pump up the tyres on my bike. The tyres currently on there have a max pressure of 55 psi, which seems quite low, but I was surprised to find how far below that I was. Add that to the fact that I hit a run of green lights that ran from Crow Road all the way until the penultimate traffic lights onto Argyll Street just round the corner from the station, and I managed to knock a good 5 minutes off my time from Friday, which was nice. Cycling home tonight was, if anything, a bit quicker. I think there’s something about riding in traffic that helps me put a bit more effort in (although not having to worry about being sweaty at the end helps too).

The riding is good fun, and good for me. And I’m coping with having to sort out lights, helmet and lock. Probably the most frustrating thing is actually the logistics of clothing, and arriving at work in semi-tidy clothing. Both on Friday and today I carried a full set of clothing and changed in the toilets at Central Station (20p). This has 2 main disadvantages - firstly that, given that I’ve barely got off the bike and the toilets are quite stuffy, I’m still quite sweaty, and efforts to clean myself up are on partially successful. The second is that it means that my sweaty t-shirt and joggies go straight into my bag for the rest of the day. The alternative would be to change at work, but that means arriving at work in t-shirt and joggies, and then wasting 5 minutes getting changed, which I don’t really have. It’s tricky.

The other possibility would be to get an alternative train that doesn’t arrive quite so late, and give myself time to get in to work and get changed and ready for the day. I haven’t worked this out fully yet, but I reckon I’ll be looking even more seriously on the first properly wet day. Biggest problem is that, rather than following in the x.50 time (7.50am, 8.50am etc), the earlier train is at 6.36, which is a bit early. The alternative would be to go to Greenock West, which has more trains, but would require an additional 3 miles cycling at the other end.

All-in-all, I think it’s a success. Hopefully I’ll manage to lose a bit of weight, and get a bit fitter to boot.

mrBen

Last night I decided to do a bit of a test run of cycling into Glasgow Central, part of the grand scheme to get fit/get thin/save cash. Here are some observations:

• Firstly - big thanks to Scott who loaned me his bike. I moan about it a bit below, but ultimately I’m immensely grateful for the opportunity to test out whether I can cope with this without having to splash out money I don’t have
• Glasgow is a lot less hilly than Devon! But…..
• I am a lot less fit than I used to be, probably even less fit than when I was at Uni, despite playing football on a weekly basis
• I can average around 10 mph on the flat according to my speedo. However, the same speedo reckons it’s just over 4 miles to central, whereas the GMap Pedometer suggests differently Will need to drive the same route to get a definitive answer
• While cycling in the rain wasn’t as bad as I remember, it underlined how massively unprepared I am for cycle-commuting
• While I only saw 1 “RLJ” (red light jumper) on my travels, I saw an enormous number of people cycling without lights. I cannot believe how many stupid people there are out there….
• I’m going to need to do some work on Scotts bike, namely:
  • Fix the gears - the rear mech is badly aligned, meaning that it never hits the smallest cog, and hitting the biggest is a little risky…..
  • Add some mudguards - cycling in the wet without them is just asking for trouble
  • Ideally I need to replace the tyres with something a) less knobbly, and b) capable of higher pressure. Schwalbe Marathon Plus seem to be the tyre-de-jour
• In the long term, if I manage this, I need to get a lighter bike. I don’t plan on offroading, so a chunky frame with suspension forks is wasted weight
• I’m still short of some gear that I’m realising I’ll need:
  • Spare inner tubes and stuff like that, probably in a nice saddlebag
  • A mini pump - I bought a nice track pump which is great for the shed, but probably too big for my rucksack….
  • Cycling shorts - need something to stop my “luggage” from rearranging in transit

So - there we go. I feel like I’m on my way, metaphorically at least, but I still need to properly decide the logistics of (mainly) how to arrive at work presentable. Working around trains times is the main problem here - leaving 15 minutes earlier won’t get me to work any earlier, it just means I’ll have 15 minutes extra at Central. I’m also contemplating revising the plan to initially only cycle to Partick, which is (a lot) shorter, but saves as much money. (The difference in price of my ticket doesn’t change if I go from Central).

I will, however, be attempting to cycle a bit more for things that are close by, rather than taking the car.

mrBen

I’ve decided to set up a new (Web 2.0 BETA) website. It’ll be called CompareTheConfusedElephantMoneyMarket.com and will be a useful site to help you choose between the many options you have for insurance price comparison websites.

I’m kidding, of course, but I know I’m not the only one who’s fed up of the enormous amount of advertising coming from websites that claim to be “unique”.

(Note - this is the beginning of an upcoming rant about the advertising industry)

mrBen