Posts Tagged ‘ Ashington ’

There are usually just two different kinds of century ride - Metric (100km ~62 miles) and Imperial (100 miles). I do a lot of baking at home (kneading bread dough is good for my anger issues), so I go through semi-industrial quantities of flour. I’ve also become known amongst Wife’s friends as the man to...
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The winner of last week’s Caption Contest was unfortunately anonymous, with their brilliant caption of “Mikael Colville Andersen tries to sneak on to Amsterdamize, in disguise…”. But without contact details, I’m unfortunately going to have to keep the lovely shiny new bike that we had donated as a prize. Shame really, but there you go...
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I’ve been riding the Brompton around work quite a lot - it’s just perfect for zipping between appointments in an area that’s just four miles by six. It seems to have a strange result on younger chaps though. A young chap alone - nothing. Silence. But in groups, one of them will burst out in “oh-look-at-me-laughing-at-that” laughter. I...
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With the weather this week I’ve been a bit of a wuss. I admit it - I really don’t enjoy riding in torrential rain and a 30+ mph headwind. Maybe it’s a getting older kind of thing. Or maybe I’m just going soft. The trouble is that if I don’t ride I get irritable....
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Yesterday I was riding Siegfried, my Pashley. It’s not a fast bike, but it’s elegant (positively suave, in fact!), and ideal for taking luggage - I’d run out of clean shirts at work, and needed to re-supply without turning up looking like I’d already slept in them. Anyway, I had a meeting to go to...
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I’m on Sustrans’ Active In Ashington project’s list of people who can be persuaded to volunteer for stuff. So today there was some sort of eco festival thing in North Seaton, and Sustrans were running a bring-your-bike-to-be-fixed clinic. I got volunteered. Actually, it was a lovely day, and quite good fun, though I’m always shocked at...
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. . . make them continuous and more or less direct. Unlike the section of National Cycle Route 1, just north of Blyth, where you go from a beautiful segregated cycle path that runs parallel to the A189 Spine Road, onto a crazy zig-zag to get you past East Sleekburn and Bedlington Station: I...
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If you cycle anywhere regularly, the chances are that you do most of the journey on autopilot. Your bike seems to know where every bump and slip hazard is on the road. After a while it becomes second nature to avoid these, so you can carry on without having to interrupt your train of...
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Last training swim before the race, and auspiciously (if you believe in that sort of thing), it was on the solstice . The pool was crowded again with a bunch of people doing a zig-zagging breast stroke, plus Gary from Tri Northumberland making like a marlin through them all. At one point we nearly collided...
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That’s what young ladies say to each other in Ashington say when I ride past on the Pashley. It’s what was said this morning anyway. The male youths tend to be less appreciative. They’re probably jealous of the fact that I ride a babe magnet to work. Or something like that. And a message for the...
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