Author: Buck

Oh dear, oh dear. You know I  went for that run and pulled my right calf/ tendon? I stretched it off today and went for a marathon run. After 6 miles my left calf/ tendon suddenly started hurting. I carried on the next 8 miles back to the house (I was doing a 14 mile loop followed by a 12 mile one) and just around the corner from our house my right went! Badly. I shuffled the final few hundred yards and quit. It’s a well known fact that cycling shortens your tendons. A fact that I’ve never believed because it has never affected me. Now I’m a believer. 4 weeks until the race and I’m only good for 6 miles before things start breaking. Oh dear. Drastic action is required. I can’t stop cycling, but I’m going to run for an hour every day to try to get my legs in running condition. I don’t understand it. You know how they say to bend over and touch your toes as a stretching exercise? I bend over and put my palms flat on the floor. How long have your tendons got to be? I only want to run with the buggers, not bungee jump the Grand Canyon with them.   On the bike front, things are improving. I’m used to cycling to work (10.75 miles) in 10th gear and the other night (against a slight but constant crosswind) managed to knock 2½ minutes off my PB. And then, out of the blue whilst riding to work, two of the spokes in my front wheel failed and wrapped around the spindle. I managed to wrench them free and get in on time, but then I was worried the front wheel was going to collapse. Having my feet clipped into the pedals that could have been very painful. This meant that first thing on Friday I had to take my bike in for a complete overhaul. I talked to the guy when I got my long valve inner tubes after the last debacle. He said for a new chain, gears, popping the bearings out, greasing and replacing I was looking at £80. Now I need at least 2 new spokes and all the others checking and adjusting. And new brake blocks, while I’m there. There goes at least a ton. I have to have it done though. If my chain snapped or a wheel collapsed on the Outlaw I would cry like a girl. Especially if it was near the end of the ride. Anyway, the money I’m saving on diesel will pay for it. Still. Grrrr. So my plan is; Mondays do the full 2.4 mile swim for the next 3 weeks, all the other days do an hour run and ride to and from work. Weekends I’ll do a big run and ride. This is going to be a grit-fest. I’m so not ready.   At work they’ve rented a ‘new’ (2010) truck for me and this other lad to […]

It’s been a strange and stressful week. I worked the bank holiday Monday but then my run wasn’t on for 10 days. Seems the factory still celebrate Whitsun. I don’t even know what that is. I took advantage and told the agency I was having Tuesday and Wednesday off to train. Ha! Tuesday I was struck down with a cracking headache. Which reminds me, in the previous few weeks, when I was cutting out the chocolate and riding my bike to work every day, I didn’t get a headache. That is pretty amazing for me. I’m not sure if it was the lack of chocolate/ butter or the exercise keeping my sinuses flowing (tmi, I know!) but it was welcome. So Tuesday I basically moped and necked painkillers. The agency sent me a text saying ‘call me’. I did. “Can you work tonight?” No, you cheeky bastards. Anyway, that left me with Wednesday to do some serious training. I got my bike all set up, got a load of energy gels, some energy powder mixed into two one litre water bottles, and set off to Rhyl. Gmaps pedometer said it was a 110 mile round trip. I was up for it. I got over the swing bridge and turned on to the start of Walton drag (14 minutes, 45 seconds riding) when my back tyre popped going over a pothole. I pulled over and set to replacing it. It’s not an easy matter any more. You have to take the wheel out, take on side of the tyre off then the other side and remove the tyre completely to be able to take out the long stem of the inner tube valve. I did it. Then reversed the procedure, even harder as you have to get the last bit of tyre on using just your hands as the tyre lever could pinch and pop the new tube. I put it back in the frame, went to pump it up, then realised I’d put the old tube back in. *sobs* Start again. I got the new tube in, put it back in the frame, went to pump it up, and it was the wrong valve. I had a pack of two spare inner tubes with me, both of them short valves. By short I mean ‘normal’ sized valves. Modern wheels have deep set rims, so you need extra long valves. I couldn’t even get the pump on these ones. So I had to walk back 4 or 5 miles to the local specialist bike shop, in cleated cycling shoes. These have the cleat thing (the locking mechanism to attach your shoes to the pedals) under the balls of your feet. This means you are walking on your heels with your toes pointing up. Exactly the position those ‘natural running’ trainers made you assume. The same trainers that laid me up for six months. I could feel my legs pulling as I was walking but, other than going barefoot, I couldn’t see […]

It was my birthday! Huzzah! I was working, and I don’t drink or do other drugs, but I celebrated by not dying. Again. Quite the party animal, me. However, it got me to thinking; all I do is work, sleep whenever I can, and train whenever I can force myself to do so. Life is passing me by. No more. I have a plan! Yes, all who know me or have read this blog before will know I make plans, get all excited, then quietly give up shortly thereafter. Not this time. I’m saving up each week and for my 50th I’m getting a Harley. I think I have finally reached the age where I could just enjoy puttering along at the speed limit. I’ve given up on boy-racer-ing in the car. I don’t take the piss even on the motorways. If I can ride a bike like that I can stay in a job, with a bike and out of hospital. I’m saying my 50th, arbitrarily, as it will give me time to save and also time to tick all of my other mid-life-crisis, (pushbike subsection) boxes before I get it. Which is to say; the Fred Whitton (a 112 mile ride around the most hideous hills in the Lake District: ) Now *that*, my friend, is a ride! Also there’s the Lands End to John O’Groats thing and a brand name Ironman. I’m not going to go through life saying “I did an Iron distance tri” For brevity if nothing else, I need to do the brand name event. “Yeah, did the Ironman.” See, so much neater. No-one respects a man who says “I did a generic Iron distance triathlon” I digress. Harley! I’m thinking a second hand 1200cc Sportster. The good thing about it is; 99% of Harley riders only bring them out of the shed on the one glorious day we have each year. So even one that’s a few years old may never have seen rain (or rust) and will have covered a pitiful distance. Some of them are a few years old and don’t have 5,000 miles on the clock! This for example: 2004, one owner from new, 3,981 miles! That’s going for £4,850 right now. If anyone wants to buy it me I’ll reluctantly accept. There is a possible non sequitur there. I have to do all my box ticking (cycle section) before I get a Harley as I’m never getting back on a pushbike once I have one. Phase II of my midlife crisis involves me getting back on a Harley and getting fat. (Fatter!) I have the incentive this time of knowing that my livelihood (as well as life) depend on my riding like a sane commuter. I reckon I can now.   That’s for the future, though I started the saving this week. If I get a well paid job I would prefer a ‘big’ Harley. At nearly 13k I would have to be on a massively well paid job […]

It’s been tweaking of the norm at work. I was getting in for 1500hrs, sitting around for 30- 90 minutes for that jobsworth I’ve been sharing a unit (truck) with to get back then trotting off up to the Scottish border, doing a trailer swap and then back to Crewe. This takes until about 2330hrs. Then on Tuesday the guy at Crewe went on one. “You’re supposed to be here by 8 o’clock! Now we’ve missed the connection for the next driver” etc, etc. I let him rant a bit then told him that was a good run. I couldn’t get there much faster. If he wanted an earlier delivery I’d have to start earlier. “It’s not rocket science.” That went down well. I put my ‘phone on silent when I go to bed otherwise I get random tweets and emails waking me up. On Wednesday I got up at 1210, had a quick shower, turned the volume back on on my ‘phone and saw I had two missed calls and a text. From the agency. Start at 1300hrs from today. Aaaarggghhhh! Flap on. I got in for 1315. (In the car.) The change of times means I can get back to Crewe for 2115. Not what they want but near enough to stop them whining. The great things about the change are; not having to sit around waiting for Bill to get back, not having to talk to the brain-donor security guard at Aspatria and a more reasonable finish time. I can get to bed by 0100. The downside is as it’s a straight run with no waiting around now I’m only averaging about 9 hours 15 minutes (paid) a day. This is piss-poor in the lorry driving world.   Then they were desperate for drivers at Iceland this weekend. So after a full week at Ceva I went in today (Saturday). It’s not so much the money (which, let’s face it, never goes amiss) but the fact that I want to keep my foot in the door there. They sent me out with a 9 metre trailer. Titchy. To Ashton. I noticed it was marked as a “RED ROUTE”. This did not inspire joy. They have some awkward bastard stores as it is, which aren’t marked as red route. Hence this had to be bad. It was. I had to drive an (admittedly relatively small) artic through a pedestrianized zone in a town centre, then reverse in a tiny street on to the bay. I managed it after a couple of attempts. It was that tight that I took up all the road and I still wasn’t straight. ie, my unit wasn’t in line with my trailer. I asked the guy who worked there and he said that wouldn’t do, I had to back it in and leave my unit at a right angle to my my trailer. I was less than chuffed. In the end I had to get it like this: It was totally weird. You […]

You know that little incident I had last week with my TomTom (supposedly) Trucknav? The one that nearly had me ringing the police and blubbing like a girl? I got on to TomTom. There was no way to contact them on the ‘phone so I ended up in a protracted email exchange. I said that I’d looked it up and there were two versions of the model I have, one for cars and one for trucks. They said they only sold the lorry one, so I couldn’t have the car one. They told me to check my settings. I did. Then tried the test route again. (Irlam  to Lymm. The quickest route takes you down a B road and over a 3 ton bridge.) The satnav told me to take the bridge. In a 40 ton, 53’ artic. I told them. They said I had to turn my notifications on. I found the buggers hidden in a sub section of the menu. They were on and had never warned me about a height/ weight/ width restriction or dead end. I told them. And so it went. I was looking up different devices in the lag between emails. I came across one called a Snooper. It actually does all the things the TomTom had claimed to. Guide you on suitable roads, avoid restrictions, warn of speed cameras, etc. They had links to several articles where they’d won the best trucknav category from Truckers World (or whatever) for the last three years running. There were three different publications and they’d all said the Snooper was hands down the best kit. After I’d sent my last email and heard nothing for several hours I thought they’d given up on me. Their whole attitude was that I was doing it wrong and their kit was bob on. I thought “Screw it!” I went and bought a Snooper. £400! I need it if I’m doing store deliveries all over the place. My job depends on it. later that evening TomTom emailed me saying they were going to put an upgrade on my account. I plugged in and it automatically downloaded and upgraded me to all of Europe maps, car or Truck mode. No such option prior. I clicked truck mode, suddenly it was saying “confirm settings; 40 ton, 53’3” long, 13 ton axle weight, starsign Gemini, favourite colour blue, etc”  I tried the test route; perfect. Obviously. Bollocks. Now I have two perfectly splendid satnavs. One for a snip at £355 the other a bargain at £399. Still, I need one for the job. Then they said I’d got my old run back at Ceva. Trunking from Irlam to Aspatria to Crewe and back to Irlam. Which I can do blindfolded. Ho ho ho ho. *beats self senseless with irony stick*   So that was hilarious. I immediately decided I wanted another job. I can’t be arsed with being Ceva’s agency bitch. Iceland take on from the agency and it’s good money I happen to […]