Why use one bench when you can use two?

At the Tatsfield Churchyard – making maximum use of the facilities.

We hadn't had a disagreement, but there were two benches – three if you include our usual bench, which was covered in bird poo – so we made the very best use of the facilities.

In case you hadn't guessed, we were in the Tatsfield Churchyard – see previous post for this destination's rating.

Cycling Destinations rated

We were sitting in the Tatsfield Churchyard yesterday (Sunday 31 July) discussing our cycling venues and decided we should rate them. So, here goes...

Sitting outside the Botley Hill Farmhouse pub.

Botley Hill - a generic term for the area surrounding the Botley Hill Farmhouse pub, but normally it means the roundabout a little further along the road.

Convenience: 10/10 – our shortest route can easily be rounded off in just over an hour.
Cover: 5/10 – little cover, but there is a shady car park with strong tree cover during the summer.
Distance: Roughly a 14-mile round trip.
Verdict: A good default cycle route but if it's raining there's nowhere to hide.

Andy and yours truly in Chevening Churchyard

Chevening Church - adjacent to Chevening House in Kent and one of our longer rides.

Convenience: 6/10 - one of our longer rides and on a par in distance terms with Longford Lake and Hunger's End (easily a 32-mile round trip.
Cover: 6/10 - standing room only by the covered gateway to the churchyard.
Distance: A 32-mile round trip.
Verdict: A pleasant place, but a long ride.

Godstone Green at the beginning of the summer.

Godstone Green – an occasional destination and we like it, but the problem is a huge hill on the return journey.

Convenience: 8/10 – if it wasn't for that hill, we'd probably go there more frequently as the route is scenic.
Cover: 8/10 – there is cover, but it's across the green and you have to stand up as there's no bench.
Distance: Not properly recorded
Verdict: A great place with a pleasant lake and a café if we need it.

Longford Lakes - definitely the most picturesque of our destinations, but a long ride.

Longford Lake.

Convenience:  6/10 - mainly because of the distance. Like Chevening Church and Hunger's End, its a long one.
Cover: 0/10 - very exposed and nowhere to hide from the weather, unless the pub is open.
Distance: a good 32-mile round trip.
Verdict: nice on a pleasant day as there's an excellent Harveys of Lewes pub.

Jon and Andy outside Hunger's End, Merstham.

Merstham – A Surrey village just outside of the M25 near Redhill. Fairly pleasant place and there's a railway station if we feel lazy.

Convenience: 7/10 – it's a long ride, which means returning home around 11am and this can cause friction and the return trip is hilly and can be tiresome.
Cover: 10/10 – plenty of cover if you're really stuck and there's always Hunger's End, the caff.
Distance: 32 to 34 miles in total.
Verdict: A caff, a railway station, a music shop and an eccentric man who shaves in public – in short a great place to be.

Andy at the Tatsfield Bus Stop.

The Tatsfield Bus Stop – On the outskirts of Tatsfield on the junction with Clarks Lane and Approach Road.

Convenience: 9/10 – just a little further than Botley Hill, but well worth it because of the bus stop.
Cover: 9/10 – a great bus stop. Unlike the Tatsfield Village bus stop, the side panels are solid wood, hence it scores one extra point.
Distance: 16-miles round trip.
Verdict: Arguably the best covered bus stop in the area. We've sheltered here from the snow and rain in the past.

Andy at the Tatsfield Churchyard.

Tatsfield Churchyard – a peaceful churchyard on the outskirts of Tatsfield village.

Convenience: 9/10 – a little further than Botley Hill, but a downhill cycle from Botley down Clarks Lane.
Cover: 5/10 – in the summer, the trees might help and there is a wooden and covered gateway, but generally, you're exposed.
Distance: 16.5-mile round trip.
Verdict: If it's not raining, a great place to be: it's peaceful and scenic and puts things in perspective.

The pond at Tatsfield Village.

Tatsfield Village – A pleasant village with green, pond and pub.

Convenience: 9/10 – not as far as Tatsfield Churchyard, but there's not much in it.
Cover: 8/10 – a wooden bus stop would provide excellent shelter from the rain AND there's a shop where we once bought teabags, having run out, so it's a great place in a crisis – in our world, no teabags is a crisis. The side panels of the bus stop, however, have been knocked out to provide 'windows'.
Distance: 16.5-mile round trip.
Verdict: A good destination, but there's always that danger of having to converse with chirpy locals passing the bus stop en route to the newsagents.

Vintage car on the green at Westerham.

Westerham – a Northern Kent village famed for being the home of Sir Winston Churchill. Hotels and coffee shops abound.

Convenience: 9/10 – for a long while in the early days it was our default ride. A good 22-miler there and back and pleasant in decent weather.
Cover: 6/10 – none really. Plenty of benches but they're all exposed and while there are shops and a hotel, the bikes would need to be left outside, unattended and unpadlocked.
Distance: 22-mile round trip.
Verdict: A great place that we need to visit more often.

Jon in the snow at Woodmansterne Green

Woodmansterne Green – a nice place once you get there, but a boring, suburban ride so not a regular haunt of ours.

Convenience: 9/10 – roughly 12 miles all told and it takes around 30 minutes to reach it through suburban streets.
Cover: 7/10 – no cover on the green but there is a church across the road and we've often sought refuge under the gateway in torrential rain.
Distance: 12-mile round trip.
Verdict: If it wasn't for the boring ride, it would be a great place to visit, but we like scenic, rural routes the best.

St Leonard's Church, Chelsham

St Leonard's Church, Chelsham, Surrey. We stopped here for tea. Pic by Andy.

Saturday 30 July: Going 'the fast way' to anywhere is not the best of policies, so Andy and I hung a left into Ledgers Road and followed my route from last week, except that we stopped at St Leonard's Church – or Chelsham Church, depending on which sign you believe. It was odd for us to stop 30 minutes into a ride, but the church had appealed to me last week – I didn't stop because the main gate was padlocked and I hadn't seen the unlocked side gate – and I thought it would be worth investigating.

We did what we always do: sat in the churchyard sipping tea and munching cereal bars. Andy took this excellent shot of the church and then we headed off towards Hesiers Hill and the long climb up Beddlestead Lane. Many a Lycra monkey passed us but we didn't really care. At the top of Beddlestead we turned right, headed for Botley and then for home – 'the fast way' – down the Limpsfield Road (I won't say B269 as it sounds a bit nerdy).

Andy's clean bike

Somewhere in a back garden in Caterham – a clean bike! It's Andy's Blast!

Andy prides himself in having a dirty bike, covered in mud, it's just Andy – and mine isn't exactly spotless, it has to be said; but I received the above photograph recently of Andy's Blast after a good scrub. Thought I might as well share it with the group. Bookmark this post as seeing Andy's bike this clean is rare – very rare.

Paranoia, steep hills and a fun dog show

          Call me paranoid, but I swore the sheep on the right was conversing with the
          one on the left – and they were talking about yours truly. Others turned up and
          they all stared me out. I felt like an intruder and moved on.

Andy didn't go today so I was on my own, but there was no temptation to just lie in bed. I was up very early, something like 0540, and I had planned to leave early too, but one way or another, I left at 0700hrs.

The long climb up Beddlestead Lane.

The plan was go straight to the Tatsfield Bus Stop and not hang around, but instead I turned into Ledgers Road, rode the length of it and then turned right towards Hesiers Hill. At the bottom of the hill, I stopped for a while and checked out the sheep. They're curious animals, aren't they? As I parked the bike against a metal gate, I noticed how the sheep were all looking in my direction. After a while, others trotted over from the farther reaches of the field and I swear they were talking about me. Feeling a little uncomfortable and generally not wanted, I moved on.

My bike at the bottom of Hesiers Hill.

Beddlestead Lane is one long hill – full of Lycra monkeys – but I stopped a few times en route to take snaps of the surrounding cornfields. I thought the road would never end, and at one stage I started to worry about emerging on to the B269 at Beech House Lane. I vowed to myself that if I did, I'd turn right and ride straight home, but I didn't: I was on the Beddlestead Lane sure enough and when I reached the end, I turned left on to Clarks Lane for the short down hill roll towards the bus stop. I parked up, got out the tea and sat there contemplating life and stuff before heading back the fast way – up to Botley Hill and then down the B269 (past Beech House Lane) and back home.

A fun dog show at Knight's Garden Centre – better than one

that isn't fun.

On the way back I spied a sign: Fun Dog Show, August 13th. Does that mean that, generally speaking, dog shows aren't fun, I wondered? I've never been a fan of Crufts – especially after those revelations about the Kennel Club and dog breeding, so perhaps dog shows aren't any fun – unless the fun is derived from seeing who can breed the most outrageous-looking dog.

Tatsfield bus stop...with fruit cake and cereal bars

Simon Cotter was right: there's nothing better than riding a recently repaired bicycle. Well, perhaps there are a few things that are better, but I know what he means. This morning, I was round at mum's again, but around 0630 I drove back to my place, made the tea and then headed out with a couple of slices of fruit cake, made and supplied by mum.

Lee Mack: Not Going Out.

They say that Mr Kipling makes exceedingly good cakes, but they're no way near as good as my mum's cakes. I've often thought that if ever I run a café, I'll develop a brand around my mum's cakes and sell them exclusively in my caff. Until that day, I'll just enjoy eating them myself. Andy likes them too.

The bike was running smoothly and when we reached the bus stop we chatted about current comedians indulging the revival of the sitcom: Lee Mack with Not Going Out; Jack Dee with Lead Balloon; Miranda Hart with Miranda; Hugh Dennis with the painfully middle class Outnumbered (Lead Balloon is painfully middle class too) and that rather sad effort from Simon Amstell, the great and best ever host of Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

Miranda Hart: Miranda.

Current comics are also embracing the chat show too: Chatty Man, Alan Carr; Rob Brydon's got his own show (piss poor this week, I thought, with Matt Lucas, who's funny in character but not so much in real life) and then there's Paul O'Grady and probably loads more that simply escape my mind.

Conversely, of course, you've chat show hosts who think they're comedians. The jury's out on whether Jonathan Ross is funny – he can be, but then, can't we all?

Discovered last night that the private investigator (Glenn Mulcaire) jailed over the current phone hacking scandal, lives in my home town – Sutton! Fame at last for the old place! Although it was also home to Harry Secombe.

The weather was fine today, although there was a little bit of rain first thing. Andy and I left it fifteen minutes and then it was blue skies and sunshine, so all was well on that front too.

Not much else to report today, except that no pictures were taken, but then again, how many times can you take a photograph of a wooden bus stop?

The bike is back!

I had another long walk to the bike shop this afternoon, but the bike is back and it's fixed. It's great to be able  to stop! There was a lot wrong with the bike, most of which I suspected: there were broken spokes – causing the wheel to seem buckled and the root cause of that major puncture recently. The gear changing mechanism adjacent to the bottom bracket needed replacing – Andy will recall how it recently jammed my rear wheel, which could have caused a nasty accident had it jammed going down Westerham Hill. As for that small crank, it was badly dented – God knows how that happened – but has been knocked back into shape. All in all, a good job, even if I was a little pissed off with both Evan's and Halford's for not having the Dot 4 hydraulic fluid – see previous post.

Hat's off to Carl, the bike mechanic at the Purley Way branch of Halford's. A true gent. And he kept me informed of progress from start to finish.

Those damaged spokes might have been caused by the Citadel lock that I clamp around the rear wheel – although Andy thinks not. When I locked up the bike tonight (having cycled home from Halford's and narrowly missed a soaking) I noticed how the circular part of the lock rested heavily on the spokes. Now I place the lock at the very bottom of the wheel so there's no pressure on the spokes. I'm probably wrong, but to hell with it.

Total cost of repairs: £71. Not bad. I thought for a moment that I'd been ripped off, but I hadn't. Everything Carl found wrong with the bike was something I had an inkling about already.

I was going to write something else, but I can't remember what.

Where the hell can I get Dot 4 hydraulic fluid for a bike? A bike shop, perhaps?

Now I know how JR Hartley must have felt, trampsing around the country, peering into secondhand bookshops and asking for that elusive copy of Fly Fishing. I'm amazed that he didn't become a gun-toting maniac. But at least old JRH had the satisfaction of finding a copy of his long-lost book – thanks to Yellow Pages.

What really annoys me about everything at the moment is this: life is so unnecessarily irritating. You call somebody and you get a recorded message; you need to talk to somebody urgently and they're on holiday for two weeks and while these, of course, are all minor irritations in the scheme of things, they add up. Minor irritations accumulate and soon you start to realise that the country is suffering a major epidemic of general incompetence.

My Kona – causing headaches for bike repair shops.

How would you feel, for example, if you went to the dentist to have a tooth filled and was told that the dentist in question didn't have any amalgam and, furthermore, didn't know where to source it from either? You'd think: hold on, I go to have a tooth filled at a dentist and I expect them to have the right materials to finish the job; AND I'd expect them to know where to procure the materials should they run short. Filling teeth is 'what they do' for heaven's sake, innit.

Likewise bike shops. Avid readers will know that, for some time now, my bike has been minus a rear braking system. The pads have worn out. Naturally, I decided – eventually – to take the bike to the shop and get it fixed. First stop, Evans Cycles (where I bought the bike), but they're too busy. Fair enough, I'll go elsewhere.

To make matters worse, I had a puncture (see previous post on this). Earlier, I had inserted an old inner tube and that sufficed to get me into Croydon, after a bit of pumping, but by the time I'd reached Evans (in West Croydon) the tyre was flat and I didn't have a pump – or rather I did, but it was at home.

As I left Evans, I called Halfords and they said I should bring the bike over and they'd fix it: great! But with a flat tyre I had a fairly long walk ahead of me; not a problem, I needed the exercise.

So, off I went, bike trailing along making that unmistakable squidgy, rubbery sound, reminding me for the entire journey that I had a puncture.

At Halfords I was met by a really good bloke and what's more he was going to charge a lot less than Evan's had quoted me – so I left the bike with him. He'd agreed to hammer out the front inner cog, check the front brakes and so on. Job done, as they say.

But then, a day or two later, I received a call. My brakes – which are hydraulic – needed Dot 4 fluid, Halfords didn't have any and, what's more, they didn't know where to source it from. Pardon? A while back, Halfords used to stock Kona mountain bikes, including the Scrap, but they didn't possess the hydraulic fluid required to fix the brakes? No, that's right, they didn't. But they suggested that I go to Evans Cycles and buy some and then bring it to Halford's and they'd fix it. Why they couldn't do it, I don't know – surely that was their job!

Foolishly, of course, I said okay. I said i'd try. Surely they should have suggested that they would do this, but they didn't. Anyway, I reach Evans, another Kona stockist, and no, they don't have any either. I wondered how they would manage to fix my bike if they too didn't have the right product.

"Oh, we've got a lot of it upstairs, but in industrial-sized packs, not for sale," said the sales guy. "Have you tried Halford's?"

Halfway back to the car, I thought about turning round and asking the guy at Evan's whether I could have a small quantity of the fluid, but thought better of it: he'd probably charge me an extortionate price or, more likely, tell me no, I couldn't have it for some spurious reason, like the workshop was closed or something.

When I reached Halford's, I thought I'd check downstairs where all the car parts and accessories are sold, to see if the place stocked it all along and the guy upstairs in the bike repair shop simply didn't have a clue. They had Dot 4 hydraulic brake fluid for cars, but I was directed upstairs – to where my bike was awaiting fixing – and I knew that the guy would say he didn't have any bike fluid. I was right, but he suggested using the Dot 4 car fluid.

I guessed it would be okay, but the guy said he'd try a cycle shop in nearby Wallington and pay for it out of petty cash. In the end, that was how I left it, but as I left the shop I wondered why the hell I'd bothered going to Evans to source the fluid myself. Nothing had been achieved, but I walked away knowing that my bike would be fixed and that I could pick it up the following day.

Then, the following day, another phone call: some of the spokes on the rear wheel were broken – they were causing the wheel to appear buckled (I knew this) – and the gear changing mechanism adjacent to the bottom bracket simply wasn't working. I've told Carl, the bike mechanic, to go ahead and fix it and I should be picking it up today.

I must say, however, that Carl has been pretty good. He's kept me informed about progress, pointed out stuff that was wrong and he's been honest, which is all good, but I'm a bit flabbergasted about their lack of Dot 4 bike hydraulic brake fluid. Surely I'm not the only one with a bike that requires it?

No cycling this week

They've been promising rain, but it looks as if it's been and gone, which is a bit disappointing as my bike's in the shop being repaired. I think I'm going to start learning more about fixing it myself. For some reason, I've forgotten how. When I was 13, my pal Alan and I used to take bikes apart, right down to a bare frame. We used to strip back the frames and re-spray them, the lot, but now, I steer clear of anything bar fixing a puncture, when, looking at it, it's not that difficult.

I've got a Haynes manual called The Bike Book, but that makes it all look much more straightforward than it is, but either way, I'm getting fed up with parting with cash, not that I'm always down there getting it repaired. It hasn't been in for a while, but the gears have gone and the brakes too, so it needs sorting out.

Anyway, that's all folks. See you next week.

Postscript: Andy did go cycling. He completed a 13-miler and it rained. Good work, fella!

Spooky!

I don't know what it is, but there's something spooky about this image, taken on my iphone at the Tatsfield Village churchyard last week.