Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.

Bogged down

A recent article on the BBC website discussed an edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The binding is an exquisite work of art by Francis Sangorski, Persian patterns symbolising life and death using gold tooling and jewels on goatskin. To have that talent to create. I would like to one day have a classic-looking hand-built bike with ornate lugs - it would have to be made by someone else, not me. But what a skill to acquire one day – to make one’s own bike frames. 

Omar Khayyam was something of a polymath: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, and poet. It stuck out to read that his poetry, written in quatrains, was nihilist in tone, concerned with the brevity and randomness of existence. Themes I can identify with but I’m coming from a secular point of view, and as a Muslim (I assume Omar Khayyam was) it was surprising to read that he saw life as meaningless. But as explained in the article, “these quatrains reflect the sceptic side of Iranian identity, which unbeknownst to many has been as active and profound as the spiritual one”. My stance isn’t nihilist, it being pointless to try and construct meaning in its absence. More existentialist, in that I try to construct meaning. In fact, absurdist, in recognising it’s ridiculous to do so.

 

Where is that meaning to be found? The present moment? That’s all there ever is. It’s how I experienced the past when it happened, it’s what I’m experiencing now, and how I will experience the future when it comes. Riding a bike is when I more often than not get lost in the moment: the cadence of my pedalling, the rhythm of my breathing, the cycle of thought as I sit atop two triangles of chromoly (I only ride steel, nowadays). It often comes crashing home I’m running out of time to do more of this – Omar Khayyam’s brevity of existence. Got to get on with it. Or is that to miss the point of living in the moment? To not get hung up on how much you achieve. I need to read a bit more Alan Watts.

 

Riding the bridleways within the vicinity of home is one of the ways I try to heighten the moment. If to live is to be alive, then these times, these moments riding the local byways, are when I feel most alive (and dead, we’ve all had those days on a bike). They may lack the grandeur of say, the Pyrenees, but they are a constant presence, common to my experience of the moment.

I head out towards Wilmcote to find the latest set. Familiar roads to start, then new, as I pick up a bridleway near Walcote. A second ride out with a new chainset and front derailleur (both planned) and bottom bracket (unplanned). A need for lower gearing saw a swap from a 105 50-34 chainset to a GRX one with 48-31, both 11 speed. The GRX groupset's compatibility with 105 meant I could keep the existing shifters. I could have stuck with the 105 front derailleur (although not recommended, it works with a GRX chainset) but I was having issues with the rear mudguard (a 45 mm one, for 700cc wheels, on a Surly Midnight Special). The 105 derailleur has quite a long arm, and shifting to the large ring pushed the mudguard to the left and rubbed against the 35 mm tyre. Not an issue I have with a Campagnolo Record Triple front derailleur on a Brother Cycles’ Kepler, with the same width of mudguard and tyre.

No front derailleur-mudguard issue (just!) 

The GRX front derailleur lacks the long arm, in fact there’s no arm, more of a rocker (is that what it is called? Well, it’s what I’m calling it). I presume with the use of wider tyres on gravel bikes, a solution was required to avoid long arms, and in turn helped out us mudguard users. But I’ve seen that the new Dura Ace front derailleur also has the same design. Tyres are getting wider on road bikes too, and the short chain-stays of these bikes will only exacerbate the issue.

Daylight between the front derailleur and mudguard

Thanks to Free To Cycle on YouTube for teaching me how to set up the derailleur. One new feature to me is the tightening of the cable with a screw at the top of the derailleur. I didn’t need to pull the cable particularly tight by hand, nor use the barrel adjustor.

Oh, the bottom bracket. I’d noticed a bit of a wobble of late when riding the Surly. Was it planing? It’s a burly Surly, not a lithe Rene Herse. Was the rear wheel out of true or its tyre not seated properly? Both checked, no. Swapping the chainset, culprit found. The right cup of the bottom bracket had some play in it. It’s sealed, not designed to be repaired (welcome to modern life). A new one bought – more waste.

Approaching Withycombe Wood

The first length of bridleway was very well behaved – hard-packed gravel. A short burst on an old Roman road, that is, a car-packed A road. Then single track through Withycombe Wood. Rooty but ridable at times, muddy and unridable at others. Leaving the cover of the trees widened the way ahead but firm tractor tracks made for a jarring ride.

Into the woods

The bluebells are out

The wood grows - new saplings

The village store in Wilmcote provided an iced-coffee pick-me-up for the ride home. Familiar country lanes and bridleways viewed through a prism of caffeine-distortion.