Silly Stuff

There’ve been a couple of posts in the last few days about short, stupid, pointless cycle lanes - Bike Hugger has one, and so does Slate V (seen on the excellent Bicycle Diaries). The trouble is that both of these examples were from the USA, and as we know, everything’s bigger in America. The...
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A couple of years ago, just after I’d bought my sturdy commuting bike, I was riding along Newcastle’s Quayside with my friend The Irishman. We cycled along the empty bus lane, and at the end were going to continue along the pavement, which is wide & generally used as a mixed bicycle / pedestrian...
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Yet another tough session in the pool tonight - one that involved the full range of toys at our disposal. After the warm-up, we did 400m of hand paddles, which I’d never used before (did I mention that I’m quite new to ‘real’ swimming?). Interesting things - you get to really feel it when you...
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The official results for the 2008 race are out. There were 1522 runners to cross the finish line, so probably a few more to cross the start line. That means you could probably take off a little from each of these times to get start line to finish line times My time...
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I went for a ride this morning with Simon, one of the guys from the NE31 Tri  Club. It was a long-ish, slow ride along some pretty grotty roads, which allowed us time to try and figure out what’s the most embarrassing thing to do on a bike . . . Fall off during a...
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Yet another tough session under the NE31 Tri Club’s coach’s sadistic gaze. A 250m warm-up, followed by 800m alternating between level 6 & 7 on each hundred, and then 200 kickboard, 200 pullbuoy, 200 kickboard and another 200 pullbuoy. There’s obviously something badly awry with my kicking though - it was like I was stationary...
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I remember when I was a student at Loughborough (famous for sports and engineering geeks - I was in the latter group, though Steve Backley was in my Hall in the year above me), looking out at the field behind my room, and watching a guy doing sprints. He had a rope round his...
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So after I read Brad’s post where he revealed his true identity, I just had to take the Superhero Personality Test too: I Am Spider-Man Spider-Man 90% Green Lantern 70% The Flash 70% Iron Man 65% Hulk 65% Superman 60% Batman 60% Robin 55% Supergirl 55% Catwoman 45% Wonder Woman 30% You are intelligent, witty,a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility. Girls think you look great in Lycra. Click here to take the “Which Superhero are you?” quiz… Workout: Type: Run Date:...
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No? Are you sure? A taxi picking you up at 03:50 (to quote Robin Williams - the “0″ is there ‘cos Oh my God, it’s early!), two hours hanging around an airport, a flight to Geneva, another hour waiting, and then a 45 minute drive up to Morzine, and skiing by lunch tme? No? Oh, I’ve...
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Oops! And I said that I wouldn’t - not this year anyway. But there you go - that’s another New Year’s Resolution busted. Or is it? This isn’t my usual sort of bike. It’s got 700 x 35 wheels, a rack at the back AND one on the front to take a basket, a Nexus...
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