A Pain in the Bum

Well, I haven’t posted for two weeks and believe me I would give anything to be able to say it was because I have been lazy. The truth is much worse, I was rushed into hospital with an infected abscess, right on my bottom. It wasn’t good, the infection had got into my blood and lowered my immune system, I also had a virus. Three separate full-anesthetic operations were needed to drain and pack the abscess cavity, it was extremely painful and the sheer amount of opiate based pain killers I was on left me hallucinating and sick. Now I am back home with a wound that must be kept open for over a month to allow it to heal from the inside out. You know that old cliche you see in films where the patient on awakening after surgery asks the doctor “Doc will I ever be able to play piano again?” ? Well that was me except I was asking if I would be able to cycle again. The answer is thankfully yes, but not for several months. The good news is that two weeks of illness have brought me down to my target weight though not in a way I would condone or advise. I will spend my recovery time rebuilding some muscle where I want it to go (upper body to help with the climbing) and perhaps take up running in a couple of months. The LeMond needs a new bottom bracket, but now I guess I have until the Spring to get that sorted. When I am a bit more mobile I will clean and relube the bikes so they can go into storage for the Winter.

Now for the big question, did cycling cause the abscess. Well cycling can cause botty abscesses, paticularly in sweaty hairy-arsed gents, usually as a result of an ingrowing hair or bacteria getting into an open pore. Those abscesses are easy to treat and in many ways if I was going to have to have an abscess then that would be the one I would accept. Unfortunately I got the ‘just unlucky’ rarer type which starts as a ‘track’ in the bot-pipe itself. This means that part of the treatment is a big piece of rubber string holding the track open so it doesn’t heal closed and fill up again. On the bright side, there is a hole there now so when the rubber string comes out I could replace it with a gold ring and have an unusual piercing… maybe not.

Anyway it is not my intention to put this blog to sleep for the duration of my recovery, there is always plenty of cycling going on that can be reported or commented on. I also have a few cycle related projects in my panniers that can now have some attention given to them. Hopefully I will start getting some mobility back next week then I can make a start. Here’s what’s coming up:

• A revised, complete history of the Highway Cycling Group including never published before photos
• Cycle artwork
• More cycling from Japan
• Free downloads to help your cycling
• Crazy cycle quest on the trail of Coleridge
• The bicycles of my chums

Plus more, much more! Don’t go away!

and

When you’re out cycling, pedal a few cranks for me please.

ting!

Failed milk run turns into hour long country ride and semi-delirious yearning for tea and scones

Reading Rodinsky’s Room and drinking a cup of tea today, I suddenly had the urge to make some scones. This was perhaps because I had been baking bread (in a breadmaker so I hadn’t actually been baking bread, I’d been measuring ingredients into a container then pressing some buttons) but I really fancied mixing and baking some scones to go with my cuppa. Unfortunately the kids had slupped up all the milk. So I gave a cheery wave and saddled up the Brompton to head to the garage. I was slapdash with the gearing but not really caring as I wove out of the village and crossed the A36 to take the old Beckington Road up to the garage. However there was no milk to be had at my local dealer in petroleum spirit. Feeling a bit flabbergasted I remounted the Brompton and turned towards the local farm shop, visions of scones fading rapidly. Pulling into the carpark I thought “Excellent, not too many people here”, however this turned out to be because the place was closed, and only six minutes ago! Seven Damns and a great big side order of BLAST! I headed into Beckington, hoping against all reason that there was a secret village shop that I knew nothing about and not only is it well-stocked and welcoming, but also open at 14:15 on the Sabbath. Pootling through the village quickly disabused me of my fanciful notions and soon I was heading out of Beckington on a road I had not travelled down before. It took me under the A36 and along some very pleasant lanes past old farms and cottages. Now I really was off the beaten track, but there had to be a way back to my village along here somewhere. I phoned in to say everywhere was out of milk and I was out of luck so I was heading back to the house. However I missed my turning somewhere and went through to Rudge. I didn’t much fancy going back up the hill I had just come down so I continued along the road towards Brokerswood. It was very breezy but actually quite sunny. Dust blew across the road in billowing clouds from the dry ground at the field edges. With my upright position on the Brompton I could see over the hedges to the round bales gracing the stubbled fields. Swallows swooped close to the ground, hungrily feasting on tiny insects and preparing for their migration, it seems to me that the end of summer is a pleasingly melancholic time. I am by nature an autumnal person, though I shall miss the light Summer evenings and the opportunities for riding they afford.

I really wasn’t handling the gearing well at all, the bike drifted side to side on the road, moving under me as I made no effort to pedal smoothly, hills were laboured or taken in too low a gear, so much energy wasted. Into Southwick, only to discover that Southwick News closed at the ridiculous hour of one pm! I pictured the news-vendor at home with tea and scones, milk probably lifted from his own store at the end of its sell-by date. I wondered what jam he was dolloping onto the fresh sconnage, what brand of tea was infusing in his teapot. I imagined some Tescos value strawberry jam, all pips and oversugared gloop. PG tips in a cracked mug, stewing nastily, scum on the surface. Has this philistine no sense of service to the community? Can he not see that I’m hurting for tea and scones? I had the feeling that I was tipping over into a type of afternoon tea deprived insanity so I ceased hammering on the glass door and groggily rode the Brompton into a brutal headwind all the way back to the village.

I was saved later by a BBQ provided by my father-in-law and, now sit sated on sausages, steak and blackberry crumble.

I could still do with a scone though.

Carrying lots of Tools with a Brompton

Some swine had kicked in the door of my father-in-law’s outbuilding last night so I was on hand this afternoon to help put on a new massive bolt and padlock, which should hopefully hold it until he can get the door fixed. The weird thing was nothing was taken, not even the incredibly expensive sets of golf clubs. My in-laws live down the hill from us and two roads down, a slightly convoluted route by road despite the short distance as the crow flies. Not easy to have to haul a pile of tools there and back by hand. I hate the idea of using the car to move stuff around in the village so I thought I would bring the necessary tools down using the Brompton. It’s amazing how much stuff you can fit in the Touring Pannier.

In all I carried:

• 1200rpm Electric drill
• Large case containing 50 piece drill bit set
• Large fixings box containing bolts nuts and washers
• Sharktooth twincut saw
• 1m steel rule
• Piece of plywood
• Sanding block
• Sand paper
• Additional hole boring drillbits
• Bradle
• Drill chuck
• Box of two different sizes of screws and wall-plugs
• Copy of Rodinsky’s Room by Rachel Lichtenstein and Iain Sinclair which I am reading at the moment

There was still plenty of room in the bag. Handling was barely affected and weirdly it seemed to run smoother, even though I was wearing enormous trousers and therefore cycling with my feet half off the pedals to avoid them catching on the casters. I recall this being the case when I transported five copies of Nick Mason’s gigantic biography of Pink Floyd in the same bag along the Town Path in Salisbury. As long as the bike is kept upright it’s ok. I think that with an empty bag and the weight off the front the handling is skittish as I put the power into the cranks, the bike tends to want to pull off the ground with the effort. The weight of the bag seems to ensure the wheel stays glued to the road and the transfer of power goes unhindered to the chainwheel. Sure the acceleration is a little slower but it definitely rides along much more smoothly.

Rodinsky’s Room is excellent by the way, I can’t recommend it enough.