Author: Buck

I’ve got my super new Boardman bike. I’ve swapped the tri bars over from my old bike, which has now been reassigned to the role of work commuter. That’s 55 miles a week on a heavy bike further weighed down by panniers, waterproofs, pump, lights et al. Got to be good for easy muscle building/ gradual stamina building.

But that’s old kit. Not exciting at all. New kit, my lovely Boardman bike!  Finally!

The picture doesn’t begin to do it justice. Even if it weren’t all blurry. I spent ages viewing different websites and comparing the specifications and relative merits of different bikes before going for this one. I went for it because it was the best for the price Halfords did, and the cycle2work scheme was run by work exclusively through Halfords. But when that was in doubt I asked the seasoned push bikers and triathletes on Twitter for suggestions, and this still came out top spec for the money. So I got it. The one thing I wasn’t expecting was for it to be so damn pretty! The pictures, even the good quality zoomed in one on Halfords site (which I can’t seem to steal for here) don’t do it justice. The tyres are tiny, the wheels have that tapered ‘filled-in’ jobby going on to aid the aerodynamics, the gear changes are by twitching levers on the brake levers and the handlebars are sublime. Old racing handlebars were just a U on it’s side. You angled them down a bit so you had a slightly lower/ further forward racing position. This inevitably meant you slid into the bottom of the U and were very uncomfortable. Boardman have given you three brilliant riding positions, on top of the bars, resting on the rubberized tops of the brake levers, right down on horizontal bottom bars or crouched with your hands resting comfortably on a flat diagonal section, Obvious, once you’ve ridden it. One of those ideas that are so simple and perfect you can’t believe they ever did it any other way.

Off and on, since I wrote that entry saying about the whole other mindset of army/ civvy life, I have been wondering if I over-egged it. Whether, in fact there is that much of a difference.

The other day, for no apparent reason I remembered an incident from the last T.A. outing.

I received my first copy of Triathlete’s World magazine a week or so ago. The only reason I subscribed was because the website of the same name had some interesting test reviews of the kit you need. They publish the introduction to the articles to get you interested, then tell you you have to be a subscriber to read the reviews and conclusions.

I thought that was fair enough, it has all the information I need and will help me integrate into my new community. After a wait of over a month the first issue arrived, I grabbed it and flicked through.

Massive disappointment.

After all the grand plans of yesterday, of a measured incremental easing into the job of driver, I walked in this morning and got told I was going out for an assessment. That’s that.

I know that in yesterdays entry I was saying their word is not to be trusted, that they’ve said all the right things before and not delivered, that I’d believe it when I saw it, but I couldn’t help getting my hopes up.

I was gutted.

Things MIGHT be happening at work! I stress ‘might’, I’ve heard a lot of promises before, to no effect.

I have been battling for over fifteen months to get work to honour their ‘warehouse to wheels’ incentive. I paid for my own licenses, just needed them to send me out with a driver for a week (or put me shunting, or anything to get me from ‘just passed’ to ‘competent/ confident’) but all I got was promises and lies. I kept saying, ‘it’s there on the board; warehouse to wheels’, their solution was to take the board down.

Anyway, I had given up on them. Then, last Friday, I was in the transport office when one of the drivers asked if I was driving yet. I told him I wasn’t, that DHL were a bunch of bastards who would never let me drive for them. He shouted the transport manager, saying ‘this is that lad from the warehouse with his class one’.