Hampton Court

Followed Fi on her 20 mile training run for the Berlin Marathon in 3 weeks, hence the slower pace. Bing Map
Owner: CaptainBlue
Location:
Activity Type: Cycling
Event Type: Recreation
Distance: 20.02 Mile
Time: 03:08:05
Elevation Gain: 296 Feet

No Barriers

Went for a little exploration out beyond the Thames Barrier and back across the Woolwich Ferry for the first time since 1988. Still just doing physio for the knee. Bing Map
Owner: CaptainBlue
Location:
Activity Type: Cycling
Event Type: Fitness
Distance: 20.12 Mile
Time: 02:09:18
Elevation Gain: 237 Feet

Blush

Another recommendation on PurplePort from Alexa Star:

I have had a couple of shoots with Richard. The guy is a total legend. Very professional, good fun, and a pleasure to work with. I am looking forward to shooting with him again In the future and highly recommend him to any model :-)

Can’t say fairer than that!

Onward and Upward

So I’ve covered the Sprint GT’s first service over on its own blog – I just need to start giving it the berries a bit more (although its trip computer must be over-reading…).

I also received a letter about my stepmother’s estate which was a piece of pleasant news and well timed, given I’m planning to buy a house or maybe even my apartment which may soon be up for sale.

Due to a change of plans, I had Saturday free so I decided to get the pushbike out to go for a little spin: maybe 5 or 6 miles on the advice of my Consultant Knee Surgeon and my physiotherapist at the excellent London Bridge Hospital. 11.4 miles later and I’d had a great time, keeping the cadence up and not putting too much effort through the knee. Same thing next week, I think.

GT popped over in the evening, meeting me for dinner at the O2 where we were then due to see Iron Maiden play. An excellent gig! Then over to Waterloo to say goodnight and back home to the apartment.

Up at a reasonable time on Sunday to head up to Norfolk for lunch with the ‘kids’ which was made more difficult by the completely inept road closure arrangements for the Prudential Ride London: every main road out of London to the East was closed despite the official sites claiming they’d be open earlier.

Monday saw more check-ups and blood tests – all fine – and a nice, long phone call as arranged the week before from Humberside Police to explain, as expected and agreed, that they wouldn’t be pressing charges against the psycho ex for her theft and disposal of some of my stuff (“intention to permanently deprive”), but only because it wouldn’t be in the public interest to waste taxpayers’ money on a prosecution: there was the passage of time caused by them, sadly, which they accepted was the case and they knew she would never admit guilt – she never does – and accept a caution, so the options were a full trial or nothing and the thefts were, as I told them, insignificant (I’ve long since replaced the stolen goods with better quality, newer things … a bit like I did with her, I suppose). They suggested I start a private prosecution, which is always an option, but I can’t be arsed to waste any more time on her.

But the good news is that they’ve now got the proof of what she’s really like: a liar and a thief. So that’s the end of that: maybe she’ll stop stalking me one day too?

So it’s onward and upward!

First Service

After a few changes of plan, I put another few miles on the clock midweek by riding over to GT’s on the GT on one of the hottest days of the year, having received a load of admiring looks and remarks from colleagues at work.

I’d taken the panniers off to be able to filter through rush-hour traffic and so it was.

Friday morning and it was lashing down with rain. Fortunately I’d left some waterproof over-trousers at GT’s for her to use when she was doing her own bike lessons and test, so I wore those, but my perforated leather jacket was – sadly – doing its job perfectly: I was soaked!

So I dropped the Sprint off at Metropolis, pointed out the small issues with the bike – a missing fairing bolt, stupid plasticene indicator screws fixed with superglue, a blown fuse and too much throttle slack – and then picked up the courtesy bike which was a brand new Tiger 800 and headed home to drip dry rather than going into the office as planned.

The Tiger 800 is a bit of a gem, by the way, but I’m not sure it’s worth £8,000 with ABS: only £500 less than the Sprint GT.

Riding home and the Sprint felt much better with the throttle response being soooooo improved. Pity that Metrop told me they need to drill out the indicator/mirror screws … No shit, Sherlock! That’s what i thought they were doing.

Ah well. I just need to check they’re replaced the fuse and signed the service booklet and wash all the filth off the bike after the wet ride.

First Ride

So as I’m having physio for the knee, they’ve advised some low resistance, high cadence cycling, so here’s a little amble to start off. Bing Map
Owner: CaptainBlue
Location:
Activity Type: Cycling
Event Type: Recreation
Distance: 11.40 Mile
Time: 01:18:30
Elevation Gain: 237 Feet

Running-In…

…continues.

My son came down to London to stay the weekend. Unlike his sister, Jack had never been keen as a young child to go on any of my bikes (Amy had regularly scored cool points at primary school by riding in on the back of my bikes and made sure to keep her helmet on her coat-peg). So it was that at 17, he’d never really been anywhere on the back of my bikes.

My trusty Scala Rider headset had packed up recently, so rather than doing a like-for-like replacement I had opted for the Scala Rider Teamset Pro: two headsets that link together by Bluetooth for a little bit more than an individual headset. The plan next year is to take GT on the GT (!) to somewhere in Europe – possibly Austria – on another Eurothrash so being able to talk rather than relying on taps and hand-signals would be a bonus.

So we checked that one of my helmets fitted Jack securely, hooked up the headsets, kitted him with gloves and leathers and headed down to Loomies in Hampshire via Ryka’s in Surrey. His Mum was more than a little concerned when she found out what was going on…

Jack, on the other hand, was a natural and the 160 mile roundtrip was enjoyed by both of us and being able to chat on the road was a new experience for me.

Purge was at Loomies on his equally new Ducati Multistrada and I pointed out a missing bolt from the rear mudguard … as Yox pointed out a missing bolt from my fairing! Oops! Another little thing for Metropolis to sort out at the first service in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, I’d sent off the forms to transfer another plonker plate onto the Sprint: 8000 RM. The new tax disc and authorisation arrived today, so I’ve let the insurance company know, printed off a new insurance certificate and ordered a new numberplate to fit to the bike, hopefully before the weekend…

Humberside Police Complaints Procedure

Or “How To Dramatically Reduce the Number of  Complaints We Have to Deal With”.

Humberside Police – locally referred to as “Blunderside Police” – have a section on their website about how complaints against them are handled.  This includes this part:

Complaints can be made either in person at a police station, generally to an Inspector though in exceptional circumstances they can be recorded by a sergeant, or by way of letter, e-mail, fax, telephone or via an outside agency.

If you wish to make a complaint please complete the complaint form. [Link]

That “Link” hyperlink takes you to this Word document and on page 4 of that document it says:

Where to send this form 

For your complaint to be dealt with more quickly please send this form directly to:

Professional Standards Branch
Humberside Police
Police Headquarters
Priory Road
Hull
HU5 5SF

Or via email to: Professional.Standards@humberside.pnn.police.uk

The only problem with that is that the Professional Standards Branch’s e-mail address doesn’t exist:

Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups:
Professional.Standards@humberside.pnn.police.uk
The email address that you entered couldn’t be found. Check the address and try resending the message. If the problem continues, please contact your helpdesk.

What an excellent way of reducing complaints: bounce them back!