Aaaandd... first flat tyre

 Got back to the bike after work getting ready to go home and found the front tyre was flat.

   -_-

Rather than pulling the wheel apart straight away, I figured I'd have a go at just pumping some air into it. If it was a small hole with a slow leak, then I might be able to just ride home. Or ride part way, pump some more air in, ride some more, repeat as needed. Fortunately I made it home using this method without needing to pull the wheel apart - which was nice because it was raining, and I don't think the patches will hold if the rubber is wet when applied.

This reinforces my idea that part of the repair kit needs to be a spare tube. Flat tyre? Swap out the tube, pump it up, patch the tube with the hole at home where it's easier and can get a better seal.

I know I've read about loads of riders who totally hate the slime, but I haven't seen too many giving the reasons why. The most common ones I've seen are that it can make a mess if it gets out of the tube (such as when doing larger repairs), it makes a patch not stick when you get a puncture larger than the slime can handle and it gums up the valve so you can't get air in.

The first two are easily solved with the spare tube, the last one may be fixable or may also just be a new tube solution. Either way, at the moment I'll keep using the slime as it seemed to work great on the old bike and see how it goes.

But not planning on going over to tubeless tyres. I prefer a tube that can be easily patched or swapped out.

First ride under 40m!

Wooooh, things went very well back on Wednesday. The ride to work was ok, but the ride home I was in the zone and pushing hard. Made it home in 39m 26sec - and that ain't too bad if I do say so myself!

My average speed over the whole ride was 15.9km/h, my slowest speed was 16.5km/h and my fastest speed was 30.1km/h. And this isn't peak speeds (my slowest would have been zero when I stopped for traffic), this is the average recorded over a kilometer by my tracking app. It doesn't record peak speeds, so there would have to have been either a flat bit of ground or a downhill section where I was pedaling hard across the whole km to record that best speed.

Pretty happy with that time, I thought it would take me longer to decrease my time from my original hour and a quarter times. I was quite happy with my first under an hour time, and then again for my first under 50 minute time. Now I've managed to break the 40 minute barrier, so quite chuffed about that.

Mind you, that was also pushing hard the whole time, my average ride time is still around the 50-55 minute mark, it'll be a while yet until I can consistently get sub-40 minute times.

Next major goal is to ride into the city - which is around the same distance, but this is to help out my better half who has this as her goal. Just takes a bit of time to get used to riding the bike - especially when it's been a few years since the last time riding any decent distance.

Straight edge razor

Nice, finally a non-bicycle post!

So, I've been thinking about getting a straight edge razor for ... at least fifteen if not twenty years. Not because it's "manly" or any of that slop, but it's something I've been thinking about for a long time. I've always been indecisive about it because the list of positives and negatives were about the same length, so it cancelled out.

With the price of my preferred cheap disposables going up, the price balance tipped over to making the straight edge a better option - when I'm not in a rush! Basically, buying double edge razors online in bulk (packs of like 100) and dividing them in half means that each shave would be about 4c or so. As opposed to getting close to a dollar for the decent disposables.

So I bought a cheapy off eBay, which uses the single-use straight edge razors. It's "stainless steel" (we'll see just how stainless $7.99 really is) and I figure it's so much better than a proper one. A good carbon steel shaver is around $300+ but needs stropping, sharpening, constant honing and maintenance and if you nick or roll the edge, it's either a write-off or an expensive repair! Much better to just replace the cutting edge.

Anyway, it arrived this week and today I gave it a go for the first time - very slow and cautious! Only cut myself four times, which I thought was a pretty good effort. Blade is good and sharp, three of the cuts nearly insta-healed, one was a good one that bled plenty and left a mark on my face.

And I can totally sympathise with Chaplin and Hitler going for that style of mo'. Trying to shave that spot under the nose? That's hard!