Plus one

During the week, I had the good fortune to be led to a Bath establishment that I had not yet been to. The Chandos Deli, in George St. Best sandwiches I've had here (meaning the UK. It can be done), including actual tasty bread and fresh ingredients. And the coffee was decent too.

I'm going to add this place to our work posse's lunchtime coffee haunts list. Trust me, that's almost as hard as getting three Michelin stars.

In rough order of cappuccino and americano quality, the list is currently:

Same Same But Different
Chandos Deli
Tea Centre
Fine Cheese Co
Real Italian Ice Cream joint
Kindling Cafe (both of them)
Epicurean Deli
The Hub
Metropolitan

The top five are the best but for some reason we don't visit them as often as the bottom four.

Fire alarm madness

A sophisticated and expensive fire alarm system was installed in all of the flats recently. Unfortunately it doesn't work. Or rather, it doesn't know how to distinguish between, say, having a shower and a full blown fire. Or cooking (which has been known to produce smoke) and a full blown fire. Or even heating the kitchen and a full blown fire.

It seems to be the alarms in my place that are the worst, although the guy downstairs has had his go off too. Resetting involves dashing down to the ground floor, punching in the right sequence of numbers on the panel, getting annoyed and reassuring the neighbours that you were merely browning the onions.

It is not satisfactory.

The worst was when I came back from a five hour ride last weekend, fairly knackered and hungry. I had a quick shower, opened the bathroom door and the steam set off the alarm. Argh. I wasn't thinking straight and couldn't work out how to reset the thing, so half an hour and a phone call to the installer later, the noise was finally silenced. Neighbours were not amused. Nor was I.

The problem had been that the vents in the extractor fan in my bathroom were closed, so the steam built up. But still I wanted to know if I could turn the detectors off, even temporarily. The installer bloke said he could only switch them to a heat detector and didn't recommend it. I spoke to the landlord, who agreed it was a pain in the arse and we will do something about it.

But I may have a solution. Pete, one of our developers, told me that he just used to put plastic bags attached by rubber bands over the detectors. Of course it doesn't help if you have an actual fire, but after doing extensive user testing of this system, I conclude that it's rubbish and I'd probably burn to death if there was a real fire anyway.

Weather et al

The snow has all gone and the country is back on its three feet. In fact, we've had some rather pleasant weather of late. Today it was blue skies and 11 degrees. Joy!

'Twas a perfect day to clock up 140km, including a lap of the Chippenham hilly course (38.7km, couple of short climbs) and some time with the club chain gang. The Chippenham hilly on March 8 will be my first race and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in again. I was 3'30 quicker over the course than last week for the same heart rate, so that's a good sign. Even better was that I was five minutes quicker over it with a slightly higher average heart rate than I was at this time last year.

It kinda made up for being a bit slower on Tuesday and Thursday during the week. That was a result of doing a bit too much last weekend and not going easy enough on Wednesday. Gently does it on rest days. I think with another couple of weeks of training, I should be in pretty reasonable shape. Can't wait to race in my new Chippenham skinsuit with rainbow cuffs ;-)

150km tomorrow then off to Belgium on Monday to visit Reiny and Gwen, do a few Schelde rides (yep, I'm taking the bike) and catch up with some old friends.

Much more exciting is that at some stage during next week, the family will be increased by plus one and I'll become an uncle. Go Lucy!

Footsteps in the snow

This week it's turned a bit wintry with snow an' that. Typically, the UK ran out of grit/salt on the first day so the entire country shut down. Not me though! I even managed to do a training session in the Quay House basement.

Note: there is nothing new here that isn't on Facebook already. Please move along.

It may look calm from the safety of Cleveland Bridge, but plunging into the icy waters of the Avon means certain DEATH. Fortunately I stopped myself from taking my regular early morning swim just in time.
© Jeff Jones
As the end of the world is obviously nigh, I've taken precautions and booked my spot to beat the rush. Quick!
© Jeff Jones
Pulteney Bridge and the weir. If you look (very) closely on top of Lansdown hill you can see that Bath is an avalanche waiting to happen. If we don't get buried alive by snow, we'll surely drown in the Avon.

© Jeff Jones
It's that cold you can almost skate on the Avon. Or likely just drown.
© Jeff Jones
This once used to be a beautiful park with no riff-raff. Now look at it. Ruined by the snow.
© Jeff Jones
My only escape route from the cold involves plunging into yonder Roman baths. But I doubt I will survive the drop.
© Jeff Jones
It's getting worse. I'm not going to make it now.
© Jeff Jones
Where's me shovel?
© Jeff Jones
The park up the road. You have to tiptoe in order to avoid an avalanche
© Jeff Jones
Downtown Bath. Quiet innit.
© Jeff Jones
Let me in, I want a swim!
© Jeff Jones
Lack of wide angle lens and a suitable place to stand led to this photo

© Jeff Jones
I just threw this in for effect

© Jeff Jones
Tree: "Where is everyone? If I fall, there will be no-one to hear me"
© Jeff Jones

Arbeit macht frei

Starting on a cheery note...

I watched a two hour doco on the story of Anne Frank t'other night. It was interesting, with interviews with many of the surviving protagonists, and predictably harrowing.

After Anne's family was arrested while hiding in Amsterdam in 1944, they were sent to various concentration camps. Poor old Anne and her sister Margot died of typhus, their mother starved to death, most of their friends died, but their father Otto managed to survive and eventually published Anne's famous diary.

The Nazis really had it in for the Jews, and just about everyone else. Glad they lost.

On the subject of harrowing experiences, I also went to Milton Keynes (via Birmingham of all places) during the week. It was for a worthy cause - a bike show - but all the same. We stayed in a weird place called Whittlebury Hall, about 15 minutes outside the city. It was modern trying to be historical and I found it rather unsettling.

Shopping at Morrisons on Saturday afternoons is not quite as harrowing, but it's up there. At least you can buy chocolate, beer and other essential comestibles.

Weather-wise, it's turning chilly again with Actual Snow(tm) predicted for the next couple of days. If it's any good I'll take pics. I doubt I'll be riding in it, although fresh snow is usually not too slippery. It's when it turns to ice that it gets tricky.

I managed a measly 1420km for January, a couple of hundred down on what I'd planned 'cos of ice/illness. Still, I'm faster than I was last January and that's what counts. I'm typically averaging 30-32km/h on my long rides: those sorts of speeds took me until July to get to last year. To do that when it's 2 degrees and there's an icy 30km/h nor'easter blowing is even better.

A handy discovery I've made and sort of known all along: Snickers bars rule for long rides. They're not pure carbohydrate, I know, but I find them much easier to stomach than muesli bars or other more designer things like Clif bars. Gels work but they cost too much. Snickers are nice 'n cheap. Today I did 4.5 hours on one Snickers and one Uncle Toby's chocolate oat bake. I should have just had two Snickers. As soon as I took a bite, the bitter wind didn't seem so bad so I was able to stupidly continue riding into it somewhere near Warminster.

Thinking back to Belgium, a lot of guys used to race on one Snickers and a couple of gels. Nothing for the first hour, Snickers for the second hour, gels for the final. That meant if you didn't make it into a decent group you wouldn't waste your gels :-)

The Chippenham club do last weekend was excellent. The club had nearly 440 members at the end of last year, making it the biggest real club in the UK (we reckon). 100-odd people turned up to the dinner, including the colourful cycling personalities David Duffield and Keith Butler. I don't quite know how it happened but we were all fairly merry before we'd even sat down to dinner. There were approx. 800 trophies to hand out and our table (Ben, Simon, Mark Hanby, Richard Farrow, Gary Walker, Chris Tweedie were all on it) ended up with a goodly proportion of them. I think we were all sat together near the front to save time.

I took home the club TT championship (might count that as win no. 16 in 2008), a couple of plates for breaking the 25 and 50 mile records, first in the West DC 25 mile teams championship and second in the evening 10 series. Ben won the road race championship, the evening 10 series, the club 25 and 50 mile championships and probably a bit more; Andy won the club best all rounder trophy, Richard and Simon won the lottery two-up. Etcetera, and so on.

Notable others: Chris Tweedie took home the gunner trophy because he was "gunna do this" but didn't. Ian Jacques took the half-wheel trophy for his performance on the club chain gang rides. And Gordon Scott won the dragon's tongue award for best story.

More pics here: picasaweb.google.co.uk/chippenhamwheelers/DinnerDance2009

Right, back to work.