Hello from Manchester where the sun is shining.....

[fudgepanda]

.....and all the neighbours are sunbathing. There are herds of Wildebeest sweeping majestically across Sainsbury's car park and.....oh hell, I can't keep this up. It's lagging it down ok? I went to look at some bikes today and as I came out of the first shop someone emptied a reservoir onto South Manchester. Maybe someone's trying to tell me something. The last cycle I owned had 5, that's right, it's not a typo, it had 5 gears and dropped bars, and did I look the Dog's or whatever we called it then. I think it was a Sun and I looked pretty good, until I saw my first 10 - speeder. Then I was depressed, but then came a new kind of 'bike but this one had Kawasaki on the side and an engine. A lot of years have passed and so I thought I'd better take advantage of the Cyclescheme thingy before it disappeared in all the latest budget cuts. I'm trying to give up the evil weed especially as I had a Femoral Arterial By-pass in May and see cycling as a step on the road to keeping some modicum of fitness. Stand by for all sorts of banal questions that everybody (except me of course) knows the answer to. Thank you in anticipation for your forebearence.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

FudgePanda: ask away, there's a lot of brainy folks in this forum (not me )

 

[fudgepanda]

FudgePanda: ask away, there's a lot of brainy folks in this forum (not me )

Thank you, feel better already. Mmm, Lycra

 

[middleagecyclist]

Hello from North Manchester.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Mmm, Lycra

The road to perdition is ridden wearing Lycra

 

[fudgepanda]

This is great, I'm building up contacts all over the place in preparation for my Round Britain cycle ride. Mind you, Prestwich is about 8 miles from me so perhaps I could do with a few more intermediate overnight stops on the way. As for Glasgow, well if I set off in the morning I should be at your place by about 2017 Pat.

 

[Hacienda71]

from over the border in Cheshire.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

As for Glasgow, well if I set off in the morning I should be at your place by about 2017 Pat.

You take the high road, I'll take the low road ... we'll meet in the middle in 2017!

 

[fudgepanda]

Nice one Pat. If I'm no there by 2018, hang about for a couple of years will ya? I'll be along sooner or later.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

 

[fudgepanda]

from over the border in Cheshire.

You're not in self imposed exile, you're just in comparative safety and lower insurance premiums, unless of course you live on Colshaw Farm in Wilmslow.....er, you don't live in Colshaw Farm do you?

 

[Hacienda71]

You're not in self imposed exile, you're just in comparative safety and lower insurance premiums, unless of course you live on Colshaw Farm in Wilmslow.....er, you don't live in Colshaw Farm do you?

Not quite Colshaw, no. Although I don't live a mansion either lol.

 

[fudgepanda]

Afternoon SavageHoutkop, nice to see you, sort of, if you know what I mean. Actually, a horrible thought has just occurred to me. Because of all the years I've been driving around South Manchester and other areas of the North West before I entered the pre-cycle-buying-cycle is it possible that some of the people I'm starting to get to converse with here would have wanted to kill or maim me at the next set of lights I stopped at just because I'd inadvertantly committed the odd little faux-pas, such as throwing a cigarette out of the window and hitting them in the face. Or opening my driver's door without checking it's safe and knocking a passing cyclist to the ground. These were the kinds of everyday occurrences that are simply just accidents, and let's face it, if those stupid cyclists had used a more sensible mode of transport such as a car, these unfortunate events would never have happened. So it's their own fault. Serves them right. Idiots.

However, as I'm now about to join the ranks of those sensible folk who are thinking of the environment while maintaining their fitness levels and saving money at the same time as the planet then all I can say is that those psyhopathic, homicidal drivers had better watch out.

Actually, I haven't quite bought one yet so, for the next couple of weeks, or however long it takes me to acquire one, I'll be in limbo in as much as any stupid cyclists get in my way, or scratch my paintwork they'll have Avon radial tyre prints all over them, having said that, any car driver who cuts me up is going to end up being fished out of the Manchester Ship Canal.

Oo-er, I feel all confused. I might need to lie down in a darkened room. Am I a car driver who's about to start cycling, or am I a repressed, closet cyclist who's going to at last, show his true colours.

NURSE! NURSE! Where's my medication?

 

[fudgepanda]

Ah hacienda, it's always nice to have contacts in the area, especially if I decide to ride home from work and can't go more than a coulple of miles without collapsing in an exhausted, sweaty condition. Gotta go now, Mrs. fudgepanda needs picking up from manc and I'd better get a move on or she'll start fighting. It only takes a couple of bottles of Bacardi to get her to that stage.

 

[skudupnorth]

Welcome from me on the borders of pie-eater land