Cycling with Graeme

Doing anything with Graeme tends to generate an inordinate number of peculiar situations and mirth.
We met at 05:30 as normal and it is now quite dark when I leave home at 05:15 so we are going to have to change the time that we ride soon. Really quite enjoying riding with Tim and Graeme at the moment because I can can easily pull away from them which means that riding with them is a doddle. I should enjoy it while I can because fundamentally, they are both about the same strength as I am, they just haven't been riding and I have.
Anyway there we were going west along witkoppen road and since there are building works at this point, a brick has strayed onto the road. As I passed the brick I wondered if I should point it out to graeme but he was quite far back (15-25m) so not much point and I faced the front again. I had no sooner done so that graeme somehow managed to miss the metre of tar on either side of the brick and collide with it. All I hear was a clatter as graeme skidded to a halt injuring his knee, top of the hip and elbow. A little blood but not really enough to get any sympathy from anyone.
The brick had punctured his tube so we spent a while putting his spare tube in which was much better than jason who didn't have a spare tube. After the puncture was fixed we didn't go more than about 2km before he became the victim of yet another puncture and this time, I got to lend him my spare. I feel like I've become a spare tube charity.

All of this made us very late so by the time we got to the stretch between Peter Place and Republic road the traffic was so bad that it was impossible to ride on the left since there was absolutely no space so we had to weave in between the traffic. Had one horrible moment, just as we were about to squeeze between them both drivers veered to the right and left respectively creating a taxi sandwich with us as the ham. A bit of shouting and hard breaking and the danger was averted, the taxi drivers apologetic as we manoevred past them.


I managed something this week which I haven't for quite a while, maybe forever. I managed to get out of bed every morning and either a cycle or a run before work. It doesn't get easier as people would have one believe but it really is great getting out in the early morning when it is fresh.