This and that...

It's around 0300hrs and I'm lying on my back in bed, or rather on the bed. Suddenly, I'm awake and it'll take me awhile to get back to sleep. Outside I can hear the rain, that's probably what woke me up, but now I'm hoping I don't remember whatever it is that I've been fretting about otherwise I'll never get back to sleep, although it's odd how suddenly I awake, unaware that I did fall asleep, and it's something like 0630 and I should be getting up to go to work. A lot depends on what day it is: if it's a Thursday or a Friday then I can afford to lie in, but in all honesty, once I'm awake there's little point remaining in bed. I get up, go downstairs, make breakfast and then sit and watch mainstream television channels, normally GMTV between 0630 and 0700 and then possibly a bit of the hilarious Mike Graham Show on YouTube, although it's highly addictive and that's the last thing I need when work, in some shape or form, beckons.

Pricey cake from GAIL's.

I haven't written for a long time and there's no real excuse or reason why not, I just haven't. I have, by and large, kept the cycling up. Last weekend, for example, I rode to Oxted and back, 20 miles, stopped for a cup of tea at Caffe Nero, finished off Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter and now I'm reading another 'rock' book, this time Welcome to Your Life by Roland Orzabal of Tears for Fears fame. In fact, today, I walked around two miles or so to Filtr, a coffee shop (a bit pricey for what you get) and sat there reading. I even managed to walk back and miss the rain. Yes, despite a major heatwave which started at the end of May and continued up until a day or two ago, the rain looks as if it's coming back as we head towards autumn, although I don't particularly want to talk autumn and then, inevitably, Christmas and how many shopping days there are to go, that's just plain depressing.

So the cycling has continued. The weekend before last I'd started riding non-stop, doing what I think I once called the Slines Oak Slogger, a 15-mile 'slog' up Slines Oak Road and then through Woldingham and down towards Botley Hill before heading along the 269 to Warlingham and home. Not a bad idea doing a non-stop ride as there's no lolling around in coffee shops and, therefore, no expenditure on tea and cakes, although on the latter, I had been doing really well in not having them, I literally stopped for some time until, that is, yesterday when I found myself in GAIL's eating one of their tiny little oval-shaped cakes with pink icing (see photo above). GAIL's is too pricey for what it is, like most places, but I always feel ripped off in GAIL's because it's too expensive for a chain operation masquerading as an independent, pure and simple. In fact, we try not to go to GAIL's and were foolish to enter one in Kew Gardens yesterday when there was so much choice from the independent sector. Still, you live and learn I guess. Actually, a word on Kew Gardens. The last time I was there, I was standing outside of a music shop and next to me was Pete Townshend of the Who. The music shop has gone, much to my dismay.

The much maligned front wheel.

A key thing of late has been walking, lots of it. Take this week, for example, since Monday I have walked roughly 13 miles, last week it was even more, I think it was 18 miles. I have a local route but I also walk back from the station on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Today is Friday and I walked roughly seven miles. All I've got to do now is get the swimming started up again and I'll be quids in, so to speak.

Tomorrow I hope to be up and out of the house on the bike. It's crucial not to sit around in the morning as it gets later and later and I end up doing a non-stop ride rather than a longer Oxted ride with a cup of tea thrown in for good measure. I've got to force myself not to watch YouTube, which, I'll admit, is becoming a problem, it's addictive, and the trouble is I tend to watch a lot of people shouting the odds about the UK and how it's governed, which, while entertaining, can become tiresome in the extreme.

I wouldn't say I'm on top of the world at the moment, I'm not. Up until relatively recently I was getting a good night's sleep, but now not so much. I'm still letting things get to me, which is wrong and it needs to be addressed, but how I just don't know. I need a day or two in the capsule to get my sleep back in order, a dose of Radio 3's Night Tracks wouldn't go amiss, anything to reset the clock or get myself back to a default setting.

Upended bike on parched lawn.

The bikes have been fine, though. The Kona is used occasionally and the Specialized is still my main go-to bicycle. I did have a puncture problem the other day, one of those occasions when something goes wrong and I end up in the shop asking them to fix it for me. It started when I bought a new tyre, which was okay, but it's always a little bit of a hassle getting it on the wheel. I was doing this in the back garden during the heat, the lawn totally brown. Anyway, somehow I pinched the inner tube the tyre wouldn't inflate because it was punctured. I bought another one.  There were far too many 'leeches' on the original inner tube that's why I bought a new one in the first place, but then, I ruined the new one and had to buy another. There was another problem, however, and that involved the wheel itself. We're talking the front wheel, which is normally the easiest when compared with the rear wheel, which involves the chain. I don't know what happened. I had to make sure that the wheel spun freely, but it didn't and I had to mess around trying to get it right, which I couldn't. God knows what happened, but I ended up having to buy a new thread thingy, a quick release set to give it its technical name and the guy in the shop fixed it for me. Very annoying. I always feel defeated if I have to let somebody else fix it, but it's working well now so all is good; there's a new inner tube, a new tyre and a new quick release set. I have another one should there be a problem with the rear wheel.

As the weather has, to a degree broken, my summer habit of buying two large bottles of Highland Spring sparkling water is slowly stopping. I used to sit out in the garden sipping the chilled drink as I read until darkness fell and then I'd come in and watch TV. Well, now, instead of the usual two bottles I only buy one and I'm guessing it'll only be a matter of time before that little habit disappears altogether. I'll try not to let it die. There's nothing worse than chilled (or ultra cold) water when the heat has gone, but if I can keep it up I will as drinking water is good for you and I'm partial to sparkling mineral water. For some reason I've gone off of drinking Pellegrino.

Dr. Michael Mosley once said that it was good to drink a glass of water with every meal. Well, I have one in the morning and I'm still working on having one in the evening too.

Bicycle dilemmas...

I always thought that bicycles were indestructible. For me, a bike is for life, not just for Christmas, but that said, in my life time, I've owned five bikes, including a Moulton Mini, and I only know the whereabouts of one of them, my Kona Scrap, which, right now, is in the garage, unpadlocked, having been on what might have been its last ride.

Shock! Horror! It's last ride? Well, it's like this...

First, like a lot of people, I tend to expect things to work without question, particularly my bike. I ride it, I finish riding it, I chuck it in the garage and then I repeat the process as and when. Occasionally I get a puncture, I fix it and get back on. Sometimes the bike takes a trip to the repair shop, but then I carry on riding it week in and week out.

Castello Aragonese, Ischia – just part of this wonderful Italian island...

What I fail to understand is this: bikes are like cars; they're like human beings. They must be taken care of or they will buckle under the strain of things and die and that, my friends is what might be happening to the old Kona Scrap.

Cycle Republic...
You might be wondering what I'm talking about, I know that I wonder sometimes; so I'll relate the tale to you. The week before I went on holiday – yes, I've been to Ischia for a relaxing week in the sun – I decided that I'd mosey on into Purley (a 15-minute ride from where I live) and put the old Kona in for a full service at Cycle Republic, which has just opened and now occupies the same large space once occupied by the great Motorcycle City, a place I used to go religiously on a Sunday morning to sit on the cruisers and fantasise about owning a motorcycle. Call it a mid-life crisis. I never did buy a motorbike and that's probably why I'm still alive, writing this blogpost; had I bought one I might be dead or limbless.

How much?
So I take the bike in for a service and tell the guy manning the workshop that I'll be away for a week. I went into work and then around lunchtime I get a call from the shop. "It's going to cost around £200," said Cycle Republic's Brian. "Personally, I'd buy a new bike," he added. A new bike? He started speaking in the same way a mechanic might disparagingly discuss a clapped out old banger of a car and to be quite honest, I couldn't believe it. Surely, I thought, bikes went on forever, they're basically a frame, two wheels, brakes and gears and if you replace bits that are faulty you're merely prolonging the bike's life. They're not write-offs like cars.

But oh how wrong I was! Apparently. For the rest of the day I worried and fretted and thought things through. A new bike? The thought has rarely crossed my mind to be honest. My bike is my bike, it's 10 years old, I can't just sling it on the scrap heap and buy a new one! Or can I? No! If it's £200 then so be it, I'll get it fixed. So I called back and told him to go ahead and then I went on holiday for a week, fretting a little bit and losing sleep here and there because I'd have to explain away the £200 bill, possibly more, that I'd be getting when I returned sun-tanned and relaxed from Ischia. It was a great holiday, thanks, I just wished I'd booked a fortnight and not just seven days, but you can't have everything.

Should it stay or should it go?

Getting back to the bike, for me, the 'big day' was Saturday, the one just gone, as I'd have to go and fetch my bike and hand over the money. I levelled the situation at home and headed off to pick up my 'new' Kona, but when I reached the shop, the bike hadn't been fixed at all. "I'm still trying to get the parts," said Brian. This, of course, was great news. He said he wouldn't push ahead until he'd told me the price, but that he'd need a few more days.

I ought to explain exactly what needed to be done on the old Scrap. It needs a new chain and block, the gears need servicing, it could do with a new bottom bracket, the brakes need a service, the crank needs replacing, the pedals are edging towards the day when they'll have to be replaced and the bearings in the front wheel are completely blown.

Is bicycle servicing a bit of a scam?
Up until this point I was quite happy with Cycle Republic. I was not committed to pay the aforementioned £200, they'd let me know the final cost once they'd sourced all the parts and then I could either go ahead with it or take back my bike unserviced. I left it with them, but then I remembered Cycle King, another bike shop about a mile or two down the road in South Croydon. They were an honest bunch of guys and would give me a quote while I waited, so I shot back into Cycle Republic and asked for my bike. I must point out that I was a little annoyed with Cycle Republic mainly because Brian said that for the money it would cost to repair my bike he could sell me a Carrera. Hmmm... is this whole bicycle servicing thing a bit of a scam, I thought? Fine if you bike doesn't really need a servicing, they can replace a few cables and charge you £40 or £50 and laugh all the way to the bank. But if your bike really does need to be serviced, then hey, why not try to sell the customer a new bike. "Not worth fixing, mate," they might say. Not worth fixing? A write-off? Surely not. But it's true – or so they say.

A courtesy bike?
So I took back the bike and asked them to let me know the cost of the servicing as and when they'd sourced all the parts. Something else that riled me was the whole notion of a 'courtesy bike'. Things really are beginning to sound pretty car-like. Soon we'll have to get our bikes insured and have number plates fitted. A courtesy bike? It's not a bad idea and the wheel of the Carrera Brian tried to sell me had a circular piece of card stuck to the front wheel saying something like, "why be without a bike while yours is being serviced? Take this courtesy bike." It was a blatant message. Basically you could have the Carrera as a courtesy bike while yours was being serviced. So I asked Brian if I could have it. "No," he said, not really explaining why, but he did say I could have a rather crappy old bike they kept round the back. This pissed me off. Why advertise the Carrera so blatantly as a courtesy bike when it actually wasn't? Unless, of course, he simply didn't like the cut of my jib.

The bigger deal for me, however, was the scam behind bike 'servicing' and the fact that people with bikes that really needed a service, like mine, were basically told that it's not worth it, but how about a new Carrera? When Brian presented the Carrera to me as a possible new bike, I was appalled. "But isn't the Carrera Halfords' own-brand bicycle and aren't they, well, a bit crap?"

The horror! The horror!
In many ways, it was the sort of statement that could 'rumble' the true identity of Cycle Republic. Fine, it comes across as a radical-sounding, left-leaning, Guardian-reading sort of establishment full of potential Jeremy Corbyns going everywhere by bike. That word 'Republic' brings a touch of Che Guevara to the proceedings, perhaps. But, hold on, it's owned by Halfords and possibly it's a kind of undercover Halfords ('nobody needs to know our true identity'). Perhaps mentioning the word 'Halfords' in a Cycle Republic store is a bit like bringing up Voldemort's name. Imagine horrified customers stopping dead in their tracks. "Halfords? We're really in Halfords?" they might exclaim in horror prior to running into the streets screaming. But when I mentioned the word there was nobody around so Cycle Republic lived to trade another day.

Cycle King
The old Scrap creaked its way along the A23 for a couple of miles and eventually reached Cycle King where I was met by the store manager, an amiable gentlemen who knows a thing or two about bikes. I've always trusted Cycle King because they're a no-nonsense outfit that always calls a spade a spade. He looked at the bike and very quickly told me it was going to cost me an arm and leg, more than £200, nearer to £250 – "you'd be better off buying a new bike," he said, pointing me in the direction of some Ammaco hybrids, the CR750, and the CR450 (the latter being the same as the former, but with block brakes).

Cycle King in South Croydon, a trustworthy place...

I wasn't convinced, but I was getting there. That whole argument about the old Scrap being totally inappropriate for what we do, the fact that a more conventional bike would do the trick, the reality that servicing the Scrap would cost roughly the same as buying a new bike. It all started to add up. Or was the argument really that servicing my bike would cost roughly the same as buying a crappy bike, like the Carrera? Yes, that is the answer and when I really think hard about it, I wonder whether the reason Cycle Republic didn't touch my bike while I was away on holiday was because they wanted to wait until my return to see if they could sell me a new bike? Put it this way, I took the bike away but asked them to call me Monday – when they said they would have a price for me – and it's now four days later and I've heard nothing. Why? Because they're not interested in servicing my bike when they could sell me a new one instead.

The best comparison, however, would probably be something like this: you own a classic Aston Martin DB7, it needs around £5,000 worth of work doing to it and somebody at the garage says, "Not worth it, mate. You could buy a brand new Kia Piccanto instead."

Today we rode to the Tatsfield Churchyard, me on my beleaguered Scrap, which creaked its way up Church Way and along the Limpsfield Road. I hadn't seen Phil since the wedding and he said he'd enjoyed his honeymoon in Sardinia. We met Andy at the Green and rode off. Later, at the churchyard, we discussed the whole bicycle dilemma, running through everything that needed fixing: bottom bracket, gears, crank, wheel bearings...and we ended up deciding that a new bike was the best way to go.

The old Kona Scrap in happier times...

I'm going to be very sad to see the back of the Scrap, even if it is an inappropriate ride for me. I've had it for 10 years, but now, perhaps, it's time to get a more sensible bike, a hybrid, something with more gears, something lighter, with thinner tyres. But what? A Specialized Sirrus or one of the Ammaco bikes, the CR750 or CR450? It's what you might call a 'bicycle dilemma'.

Or is it? I've made the decision NOT to buy a bike from either Cycle King or Cycle Republic purely because they suggested I should buy a new bike – in other words, buy a new bike from them rather than service my Kona. How very dare they! There must be some kind of sales policy linked to bike servicing. "If the bill is more than X, try to sell the customer a new bike." And besides, Carrera and Ammaco are not exactly a match for a Kona, they're cheap bikes with cheap parts and they're not really designed to last. Furthermore, you really do get what you pay for in this world. I realised I'd be better off with a proper brand, a leading player in the field, be it another Kona, a Marin, Trek, Specialized or Giant.

The Specialized Crosstrail Sport Disc...

As luck would have it I found myself in a bike shop in Forest Row, near East Grinstead, and there it was: the Specialized Crosstrail Sport Disc. 27 gears! Lock-out forks for on- and off-road, available in matt black, just like my old Marin. The shop was offering 25% off the RRP so it was only to be £412.50. Not bad. In the end, however, thanks to Evans Cycles' Price Match policy I was able to buy the bike for the discounted price from an Evans store in Gatwick. I pick it up on Saturday and we're keeping the old Scrap in the garage until we can fix it. All's well that ends well, thanks to Evans Cycles where, incidentally, I bought the Kona Scrap 10 years ago.