Unicycle art - part 1

# miles this month - 174
# miles so far this week - 25
# miles last week - 86
£ in kitty for Darmstadt - 72.50

Here's a little piccy I took on the way in to work yesterday morning;



And at around the same place this morning was the nearest I've come so far to a high speed accident. A dark blue Golf that had just overtaken me suddenly dived to the left intending to go down a side road. Because people were crossing he slammed his brakes on. So, there I am, zipping along close to full speed, and suddenly there's a stationary Golf passenger door about 3 foot in front of me. Eeeek! Lean to the right, bank it over as far as possible, and I just (and I mean only just!) clear the corner of his back bumper. If I'd been on a bike, I would never have been able to stop in time, and there's no way a bike could have turned as sharp as that. However, until this morning, I'd never expected a unicycle to have got out of a situation like that either!

Oh, and in other news, I had a nice little 26 mile trip out to Basildon at the weekend. Taking the 'Hill' route (Orsett Hill, Horndon on the Hill, Langdon Hill, South Hill Garage etc) might not have been the wisest route. But I'm sure it was good for me in the end.

Mid september update

# miles this month - 111
# miles so far this week - 48
# miles last week - 53
£ in kitty for Darmstadt - 57.50

Ok, so nearly 2 weeks in to September, and so far I've only done 111 miles. It feels like more, but the figures speak for them selves. It's been a busy week so far though as I went from Holborn to Woodford last night, and back in again this morning. 48 miles by weds evening, considering I only started this week on Mon evening isn't bad going I suppose.

So... Woodford eh? Well, yes, took the long route there last night, which was about 13 miles. Only 1 dismount on route, which was at the North Circular roundabout, so I'm pretty pleased with that. I'm quite happy with 1hr20 too. Then found a shorter route in this morning, thanks to TomTmo, so 11 miles in 1hr10 with 1 dismount again is good enough for me.

Darmstadt fund is coming on pretty good too, although I might have some higher targets soon... will keep you posted!

# miles this month - 23
# miles so far this week - 13
# miles last week - 67
£ in kitty for Darmstadt - 35.00

Woo HOo! The Darmstadt fund is growing. I guess the £11 cab fair I saved to the bus station this morning helped a lot :-) Still got a long way to ride until I reach the £180 target though!

Anyway, following on from last weeks post about the paparazzi getting me, I had one of those rides home this evening where I was being snapped by more people than usual. It's normally a dead give away when you hear a car come up behind you, but it won't overtake, even though there's enough room, and then when it does finally go past, there is a passenger pointing their mobile phone at me. Well, there were about half a dozen of these bad driver types this evening, and one guy with a decent camera taking photos of people reading the new free London newspaper that had an oppopportunist shot or two.

But the interesting one tonight was the police car on Clerkenwell Road. It was one of those events where they went past me, got stopped at the lights, I caught up, they came up behind me, I over took a bus, they held back, I pulled in, they went past, I looked, passenger was holding a digital camera, type of affairs. Fairly typical, except that it's never happened with a fully kitted out cop car before. Then, they got stopped at the lights just before Old Street tube station. As I went past, the passenger took a couple more shots, so, I did the only thing I could think of at the time... I grinned and waved! All ok so far. Except that I was now approaching a red light, and it's one of those where there's no convenient lamp post to hold on to, so I never normally stop. The side streets that cross the main road hardly have much traffic, so there's never a need to stop. This time, however, I've got 2 coppers with a camera, and my photo, sitting right behind me. Do I risk an obvious illegal maneuver or do I risk trying to idle, with an audience, where I know I'll fail and make an arse of myself?

Yup, you guessed it... I went for it. And due to the timing of the next lights, my sprinting abilities, the density of traffic, the the combination of directions we each could have taken... I didn't see the coppers again. But it makes me wonder... am I now a marked man?

August Update

# miles this month - 8
# miles so far this week - 49
£ in kitty for Darmstadt - 21.50

I've just added up all the miles I clocked up in August... 299!

I'm a bit gutted I failed to hit 300, but I guess that can wait until September :-)

Also, I took some helmet-mounted-cam footage on the way home last night, and on the way in this morning.

Plus, I was stalked by the Paparazzi this morning! Well, there was a bloke with an SLR camera waiting for as I got to the Eastway and he took a couple of shots as I rode past. I really couldn't see anything else that he might have been taking photos of, and it's the same time I've been riding past there for the last few weeks. So maybe my infamy is growing :-)