It's lashing down with rain on the stormiest day of the year, and I have no intention of pedalling anything that isn't ark-shaped. The stat generally quoted is that you only get rained on every one out of a hundred trips. Well, all of today's trips will be that one in a hundred.
So sod that. Today is an inside day. A day for iPlayer, listening to Hull City lose again, working on that guitar transcription of the James Bond theme, and a bottom-tray freezer audit to see if I recognise anything.
This is the nearest I'll get to a bicycle today (right). It's a German-made toy I got in a early-Christmas-party cracker a week ago. You pull the toothed plastic ripcord to make the rear flywheel fizz, and place the bike on the floor. It goes like the clappers. Hours of fun. Thinking of buying one of those seventy-quid chainstore bikes? This is cheaper, better engineered, and longer-lasting.
Very nice indeed, but there is also an alternative if you want to be able to get to places.
ReplyDeleteI've been commuting quite happily despite rain, fog, wind etc.
Then you obviously haven't had our weather system yet! The Mangoes look great, but they'd need a little tweak for the storm we have at the moment, such as a periscope.
ReplyDeleteI'm not talking a nice light shower you know. I'm talking Biblical plagues of piss, the full fury of the rain gods. Chaac and Tlaloc gone ballistic after an argument with an Aztec taxi driver. Thor with toothache. Tefnut in a strop after an incident with a camel. Taki-hu-hiko, Imdugud and Tishtrya having a car-park barney over a spilt pint. Baiyubibi and Waruna having a domestic. Hiro stuck on Easter Island with a hangover and run out of fags.
It is, in short, shitty weather. (Or, as we call it in Yorkshire, 'weather'.) Far too horrible to cycle anywhere, wheeled tropical fruit of the genus Mangifera or not.
Oh. It's clearing up a bit now.
In fact, it's quite nice.
ReplyDeleteI might nip out after all, actually.
ReplyDeleteWhere did that one-in-a-hundred statistic come from (also the one about London commuters only getting rained on 11 times a year)? Apart from 'they just made it up', of course. They wouldn't do that, would they?
ReplyDeleteDunno. Sir Roy Meadow, maybe? I do know that it's pissing down again.
ReplyDeleteRob: with the cover on only your face gets wet. However, of course we're always open to ideas for improvements, so I'll note a periscope as a potential future optional extra...
ReplyDeletetownmouse: I don't believe one in a hundred either. One of the Dutch bloggers kept track of how often it rained on his commute and found he was rained on 11% of the time over a whole year. He rides a 40 minute each way journey 3 or 4 times a week.
Glad to hear I'd be dry. And with today's 100mph winds behind me, I'd be there in no time!
ReplyDeletei'd love to try cycling in the rain!!!! sounds blissful and cool - just cycled 8kms home in 35 degree celsius (90ish farenheit) and wondering why i had the hotcakes for brekkie!
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