Tag Archives: Wet Shoes

I’m hardcore baby!


Yup, I felt compelled to take a photo of my leg after I’d peeled off my overshoes and socks when I finally made it home this morning.

I’m so hardcore. 😉

It stopped drizzling about 15 minutes into my ride and I felt pretty good. Got all the way to Black Rock with it only drizzling briefly once or twice. It was when I’d turned around and started to head for home that the heavens opened. Today’s lesson was that rain coming in sideways on your face when you’re ticking along at about 30ks actually hurts. However, I pedaled past plenty of whimpy men who’d stopped to take shelter.

My thinking was that I was already saturated and I had no idea how long the rain was going to last so I might as well continue. It really took it out of me though. At one point I was thinking about finding the nearest train station but I figured actually finding one, waiting for the train, getting on it, heading into the city and changing trains to one that would take me home would’ve taken longer than simply riding home. I still would’ve been saturated but not moving so there would’ve been no body heat being generated which would’ve left me feeling utterly miserable. Plus I probably would’ve stunk the train out and been very unpopular.

And to show just how hardcore I really am, a photo of the back of my jersey before it went in the washing machine.

I am wondering if it will be white ever again.

But to turn to other things…

Viewed a few places yesterday. At one of them, the current tenant had a very sexy black Bianchi. (Geez, I really can’t get away from the bike stuff can I?). The first place I looked at was totally disgusting. And grossly over-priced. The last one was actually kinda depressing. It looked like it was currently home to a divorced dad with two kids that he got on the weekends. It was crammed full of stuff and there was hardly any room to move.

This probably isn’t the best decision but I’ve decided to be choosy about where I end up. I really don’t want to be somewhere crappy. I’m okay with spending more to have something nice. Worse case scenario plans are falling into place so I feel a little more relaxed about it then I did.

Oh, and I’m so totally digging the ads for the upcoming Tour de France on SBS’s FIFA World Cup coverage at the moment. After the Giro d’Aussie, sorry d’Italia, I think I might be having a few late nights in July.

Things to do on a wet Sunday morning

Go for a 60km ride. Yup, because that makes so much sense.

It’s official, I’m addicted to bike riding. It’s the only reason I can come up with for going out today when I knew it was going to rain. I swear to god every time I sat back down on my seat, my knicks made a squelching sound. Most of the time I don’t mind riding in the rain but it simply wouldn’t stop raining while we were on Beach Road and about 3/4 of the way home I was seriously asking myself what I was doing. For the first time ever, it stopped being quite so much fun and started to be hard work.

The most unpleasant thing about riding in the rain is the wet feet. Lyra has the advantage of drying relatively quickly once it stops raining but the shoes and socks stay wet. It’s decidedly unpleasant and I’m sure if I’d taken my socks off, I could’ve wrung quite a lot of water out of them. I think one of my cycling-related purchases will be some waterproof overshoes.

Go team me for doing 60kms though.

I’m still deciding what I think of the new tyres. They do really well in the wet, they’re very grippy but they feel sluggish on a dry road. The ride also feels harsher then the old ones but I’m not experienced enough to really know for sure. Still, it hasn’t been the best conditions for testing them out and I’m not going to dismiss them out of hand after so short a distance. Plus, I can’t really afford another set of tyres for a little while. Need a new laptop battery first.