The Roquefort Files

Well, not really. I did have cause to put on my sunglasses for the first time this year as I cycled to work the other day, although that was more to avoid having my eyes put out by debris flung along by the raging wind. I hauled the bike onto my shoulder to come up [...]

I was moaning to Davis/d(e) at Wednesday’s Coba Fynn rehearsal session about how life had been fairly mundane of late, and hence the frequency of updates here was suffering. Happily, yesterday I was knocked off my bike by a car. I was cycling back from lunch through Pilrig Park, barrelling along the narrow path beside [...]

Ash and I took advantage of the balmy weather on Saturday, promenading serenely through Inverleith Park and over to the Botanics, petting friendly dogs along the way. I remember walking through the “desert” glasshouse in the botanics a few years ago, standing on a yellow(ish) brick road with the Sahara behind me and Death Valley [...]

further to the preparations for next month’s globetrotting, fund-eating trips I’ve been pratting around with posting to my Flickr account via email, and so I now present to you the first fruit of this astonishingly nerdy pursuit: the finished form of my over-described bike. The last big piece to fall into place were the forks [...]

but one made for an entirely irritating reason. I was over on Leith Walk on Friday lunchtime, and as I unlocked my bike I happened to glance across the road. A guy, maybe thirty or so, was pushing two bikes along the pavement on the other side of the road. One of them was instantly [...]

having driven around 50% of the company into the ground over a six month period, the management thought it’d be a splendid idea to cart their hollow-eyed remnants, plus those of the lucky escapees, to a nearby beach and provide them with a barbeque by way of compensation. Compare and contrast: six months of working [...]

After a bit of pratting around last week with the Dicta sprocket and my Diamondback’s 3/32″ chain, it looked distinctly like the sprocket was determined to accept only a 1/8″ BMX chain. The replacement sprocket, a 3/32″-friendly ACS Claw (“Da craw! Da craw!”) turned up from UK Bike Store almost as soon as I’d even [...]

This bike building malarkey isn’t half drawn out, I can tell you. It’s finally all bolted together, but while I’d like to excitedly jump up and down and write gushing prose about its many and varied unique features, it’s not really finished. I eventually got all of the minor niggles ironed out (the correct crown [...]

So, most of the parts have arrived and I’ve started to build the bike. I started with the front end of the bike – forks, headset, stem, bars and brakes. The first thing to do was to fit the forks and stem, and I hit the first hurdle straight away. Fitting the bearing cups in [...]

continuing in the biking vein, I went mountain biking on Saturday. I loaded up the bike and headed down to Glentress, just outside of Peebles, to meet up with a load of workmates. Bikes were hired, boasts were made (incredibly, Shaun could in fact ride a bike backwards), helmets were grudgingly donned and we headed [...]