The Angry Engineer: Greetings..

Hello friends...

Welcome to my first blog. I've decided to call it what I did due to a recent occurrance .

A bit of history. The phrase was originally coined by Sir Walter Scott, ‘Lock Stock and Barrel’, generally taken to mean ‘the whole thing’, or ‘everything and all’. I’ve decided to give myself the liberty of ‘borrowing’ the phrase and modifying it.

After all, it is only apt since I completed a 54 mile charity bike ride recently (June 15) with a couple of burnt out brake pads on an otherwise intact bicycle.

So about the bike ride. It was the London to Brighton Annual Bike Ride for the British Heart Foundation (http://www.bhf.org.uk/) whose principal aims are to raise awareness against heart disease, to pioneer research and to raise the standard of health of those suffering from heart disease. Rob Witt ,my boss, was the one who came up with the idea of doing the ride initially, and got half the office to sign up as an office activity thingy. Obviously, I was one of them. Haha.

We kicked off at Clapham Common at 8.00am, which was actually 30 mins behind schedule due to the sheer amount of people at the starting line. Traffic was bad all across London. We had to stop at almost every traffic light and junction. It was still pretty safe though, as the police have cordoned off sections of the road for us.

The first set of hills came at right after we passed Carshalton. They looked well steep and I’d say at least 30% of the riders became walkers at that stage, but not me!

Disaster struck when I was descending down the second slope after Carshalton Beeches, when I had to brake violently to avoid slamming into the rear end of a few hundred stationary cyclists. Halfway into the braking process, my rear brakes failed to respond and I had to hit the front ones. Thank God that did the trick.

Rear Shimano disc brakes after being cooked

Then I smelt it. Just like the smell of plastic burning. Everyone was looking in my direction too! I went “Oh Shit, this can’t be good.”Looked back and there it was. Black smoke billowing from my rear brakes. I think I cooked them pretty well. Got off quickly to check. Was seriously considering pouring water over them but decided against it for fear that the sudden introduction of water might kill my brake pads right off. A minute later, smoke was gone. Prayed a bit and then tested the brakes and phewww… they were working again. Soon I was off again, on the road, but my mind was preoccupied with the bbq’ed brakes incident. Then I sort of decided that I have to plan my descents more carefully and use the brakes less often. My big fat body should be able to act as a giant airbrake too, if required.

Giant airbrake in action (yes that would be me)

Our team did three stops in all, at Nutfield Marsh, up on Turner’s Hill and Ditchling Village. I tell you, when you get off that saddle, you wish you won’t have to get back onto it. It wasn’t the legs that were aching, it was the arse! Your gluteus muscles sure take a pounding when negotiating the uphill bits of the ride.

The terrain profile of the entire journey

Fortunately for me, my adrenalin shots of Red Bull did its magic for me and I belted my way up all the hills on my bike, except for the Ditchling Beacon which is the last and hardest hill before arriving into Brighton. Man, what a hill it was. Even walking up was a struggle. Want to know how bad it was? Just imagine cycling up one of those steep car park ramps for a mile and a bit.

Anyways, the sea has never looked so beautiful and I caught sight of Brighton, our destination. I crossed the finishing line at approximately 2.30pm, after 6 and half hours on the road. These times obviously take into account all the traffic problems getting out of London and entering Brighton, and also the three’ pit stops’ that I had. All in all, I was satisfied with my performance, being my first time on a bike after 10 years. I managed to raise over £160 for the BHF, thanks to all at Scott-White and Hookins.

The prize really made it all worthwhile! (<--- sarcasm)

I will be looking to do this ride again next year and hopefully be able to finish in under 5 hours. I have learnt my mistakes from this experience and will definitely train harder and get proper tires for next year!