Hardship on the Hard Stuff

Recent times have seen my training rides begin at different locations. Now operating from a surprisingly homely garage spitting distance from the jugular of New Plymouth’s walkway/bikeway system it is hard to say that things have turned for the worst.

The summer months bring to the fore one of my banes. The increased plant growth and general flowering etc bring with it an equal response from the insect kingdom. Most of which evolution has ruled intelligence to be somewhat of a low priority. So when confronted with an oncoming object with their ultra-violet or otherwise complicated/incompetent vision system they fail to comprehend the significance of the impending situation.

It must happen once every couple of minutes that I am happily (it does happen occasionally) riding in my box with drum and bass lulling the hours by, and out of nowhere - insect to the face. Often though it is insect to helmet. Then I am left wondering if it will unleash the affliction of a sting to my brain.

This does not come unjustified seeing as in the not so distant past I have taken a bee sting to the forehead. After which I had to perform a bee, helmet and glove removal procedure with vigour all while riding at over 30km/h.

Despite all fears I have been spending much time pounding, and being pounded by, the tarmac around the Taranaki region. This in part has been to do with my various mountain steeds temporarily out of play (punctures do get old). Also seeing as I have a dauntingly large ride of exactly 99% road riding freighting soon ahead it seems wise.

And with large quantities of k’s on any bike some problems arise. Although road bikes vastly out last mountain bikes in both k’s and hours things still go wrong. A particularly delightful quirk of my shifters is to once every year or so break the gear cable inside the shifter. Being branded wire cable it splinters out to about 40 times its original size upon being cut. So it is stuck inside the shifter housing and it is easier to feed a cat a worming tablet on Thursdays.

So far I have found it easier to ride with two gears than extract the remains of the cable. Admittedly I have been avoiding steep prolonged climbs as my low ratios are not in reach, but on the whole it is not as bad as I thought it might have been. The long time idea of adding a fixy road bike to my collection is gaining merit.