What a strange year 2020 was! Anyway, that long, awful, depressing run up to the end of the year is over – time for a little optimism and to start making plans for the new year in 2021. Winter bike a bit neglected and in need of some TLC….. Now back into a proper working state, ready for some more winter cycling adventures….
Good morning and happy new year my name’s andy and i am the brit in hungary it’s the 2nd of january 2021 and that awful year 2020 is now behind us thank god so as i always like to say onwards and upwards it can only get better no really
It’s a it’s a weird old thing this youtube thing um you know you make these videos and you make them for yourself and you don’t think for a minute that anyone’s actually going to bother watching them and then when people start to watch them
You think oh my god and you start to get a little bit scared um i’ve made a few videos this last few months and some of them have had like nearly 10 000 views and it’s a bit scary but at the same time you know thanks a lot
Um it’s just it just seems really really weird that people want to watch this rubbish really but um yeah thanks anyway yeah i’ve been i’ve been here for about three years now well over three years now and a lot of people have said like why didn’t you start doing this when you
First arrived well there were lots of lots of good reasons um but it was basically because i didn’t want to upset a few people back in the uk um i didn’t want to sort of be seen to be rubbing the face in it if you know what i mean so um
But that’s all finished now it’s all settled so i can i can just crack on and do what i like and say what i like well within reason naturally yeah had a nice um a nice break really i’ve not really done a lot for a month um i mean sort of training-wise cycling
Uh i went out i took my really nice new bike out uh for a ride a couple of weeks ago and it got absolutely filthy and completely trashed and so i’m not gonna do that again i went out for a ride for two hours it took me six hours to clean it
Um so i’m going to uh get the old faithful mountain bike out and use that for the next few months the only problem is it’s just a little bit neglected at the minute i haven’t really used it a lot um well right for what well for most of this year actually
Since i discovered the joys of fixed gear riding um this is uh when i used to race this was my number one sort of training bike it’s um affectionately known as the itb the indestructible training bike because it’s uh indestructible um yeah um and but just because it’s indestructible it doesn’t mean it
Doesn’t need a bit of tlc from time to time yeah as you’re probably gathered by now i’m a bit of a recycler re-user and i actually found this frame it had been put out um for the rubbish uh i found it about 10 years ago i was
Out walking the dogs and i thought oh that’s nice it’s a really nice diamondback frame it’s really really nice and i uh i got it home and it was all straight and everything and i thought that’ll do um and then i yeah i took all the gear
Off my old frame my old mountain bike frame and put it onto this one and i’ve been riding it ever since and god knows how many thousands of kilometers i’ve done on it yes all i want to do really is just give it a clean and give it a bit of a lube
Um yeah i haven’t really ridden it for a long time but um yeah it seems okay there’s this job i want to do this job i am it only had the fittings on for one bottle cage when i found it and for about the last 10 years i’ve just been
Um using cable ties to fasten the bottle cage on um but i’m actually going to put that on properly today and the other motivator is there’s a video i want to make um about a local sort of attraction perhaps next week it’s going to be really warm on tuesday they say about 15
Celsius so i might get out and have a ride and where i want to go is unbelievably hilly and there’s no way i’d make it on the other bike um so yeah so that’s the sort of the second reason for dragging this one out of retirement
Uh yeah the other bikes are up in the in the new gym at the moment um that’s the new running machine we got uh it’s a bit sad to see but that’s my old race time trial bike is now used as a turbo on the turbo trainer um yeah oh well
One day one day it’ll be out on the road again possibly and this is my bike i’ve been using mainly this year um well parts of it at various times again i’ve told the story on other videos but um the first drama was the wheels yeah i bought i decided i was
Going to bling the whole thing up um so i bought two wheels from china deep section wheels and i thought oh that’ll be lovely uh i waited months and months for them to arrive and when i did they were in pieces in the box yeah so anyway this is the box the
Pieces arrived in you can see it’s completely trashed and this is the front wheel um spokes are okay on this but the the room is completely trashed um so my plan is to try to source another rim from somewhere but there’s no rush really i’m not gonna be out on the road
Until the spring so um that’s the bad news the good news is that i’ve managed to source some replacement spokes the the rear wheel uh the room was fine but there was about four broken spokes um and i managed to source some replacements and they’re almost almost identical you can only
Sort of spot the difference if you’re really really close up um yeah and i’ve just replaced the spokes the broken spokes and it doesn’t actually look too bad i might have actually got a decent back wheel out of it yeah so like i say there’s a few broken
Spokes and i’ve managed to replace them um i’ve never had much luck at all uh straightening wheels true wheels or building wheels um but it seems that carbon rims are a bit more um forgiving than steel ones um and i’ve got it running pretty well i might have to drop
It into the bike shop to get it completely straight but i think i’ve got away with it so i mean you’ve got to be pretty happy with that really for an amateur not quite 100 true But yeah i’ve been very pleased with myself and one of the best parts is that because of insurance and etc i’ve very nearly got all of my money back for the wheels um so the only thing i haven’t got back i haven’t got the import tax which is about 70 us dollars
Um but i’m chasing that at the minute so it’s been a lot of stress and a lot of hassle but basically i’ve almost got a new rear wheel for almost nothing so you know and as for the front one i’ll probably just um i’ll try and order a new rim and get
That belt up here locally um spring sometime so yeah also as well that ends well whatever eventually kind of the drama was with the frame um Yeah this is the this is a newish frame i don’t know that’s about three months old too um i was on a ride and the pedal started to feel really weird and it just got me home before everything completely disintegrated and there were huge cracks on the old
Frame on the bottom bracket and the bottom bracket was about to drop out and it was scrap basically um so i found this one this nice new frame exactly the same geometry um and it’s really really comfortable it’s really nice it’s really stiff and it looks rather nice too oh yeah
I nearly forgot the best part um i thought plain black was really really boring uh and everybody knows that if you’ve got white stickers on your wheels you go much much faster it’s it’s true it’s official um and i’m a bit of a well i’m very sort of anti-bling anti-fashion type person um
And components have got names or really posh italian names like shuroco vento chamel and all that sort of stuff so my little brother’s idea was to have something really italian and pretentious but something really really vulgar and score edgier he’s actually italian for fart
So i thought i’d try and fit in with the italian mystical wind theme um yeah and i think it’s quite funny but then again i’ve got the brain of a 12 year old um so yeah that’s my sort of anti-bling statement i just hope i don’t meet anyone who speaks italian
Anyway back to the job in hand i’ve been wanting to do this for so long yes goodbye yeah so like i said there’s no um there’s no holes so i’m not going to mess around i’m just going to drill drill holes and put a couple of pop rivets in um
I know it’s not ideal but it’s the best i can do really i haven’t got any way of um tig welding any new fittings on so that’ll do that’ll do um yeah and i’ve put some nice new bucket cages look matching pairs so yeah go the whole hog what the hell
The older the old boats the bolts proving to be a little bit stubborn a bit of assistance i i used to know someone um and she used to call this stuff ub40 um and ever since i’ve always called it ub-14 and sometimes i say it by accident in front of people and i
Think they think i’m stupid uh and this by the way i don’t know if you can still buy them this was a specialized avatar saddle oh my god i don’t know if they still make him now but yeah um most comfortable saddle i’ve ever had
Ever and it still is to this day after god knows how many years 10 or 12 years so yeah if you can find one specialized avatar lovely cool blimey that’s polished up it’s gonna look lovely woohoo awesome looks pretty damn good well that was easy really oh well i’d
Love for today because i’m running out of daylight and i’m freezing my memory glands off um so i think i’ll carry on with that tomorrow so see you later good morning it’s the next day um it’s a lovely crispy january morning it’s lovely i’ve had um had an hour or
So on the older the old beast and she’s come up lovely look look how shiny she is it’s fantastic um yeah i’ve um i’ve boiled the chain i put some grease on the bearings uh just giving it a bit of a general battle really yeah it’s ready to go very pleasing
Very pleasing yeah the only the only slight problem now is the the gears aren’t indexing very well so i just need to give them a bit of a bit of a tweak you’re one of the well the other things that people always ask me is like why did you stop racing
Um two reasons mainly uh the first reason was um i was too old uh and i was aware that i was getting slow and slower every year uh i didn’t want to be one of those 70 year old blokes who turns up every week and
You know just for the sake of it um and it was taking me longer and longer to recover you know from from training rides and and stuff and i stopped i’d achieved everything i wanted to do really um so i just i packed it in and the second reason
Uh was well the thing that we don’t talk about um well isn’t talked about enough anyways doping um you know just at a time when professional cycling was getting its act together in an um amateur cycle it just sort of went down the toilet and there was so little testing um
Virtually well like you got to the stage where i thought everybody was doing it with complete impunity really and it started off uh subtle you know people were sort of being subtle about it and and then it got um ridiculous and then it ended up being downright hilarious you know i mean
There was there was like guys um and they were turning up you know they’ve got full-time jobs and they were turning up at the weekends and doing sort of olympic level rides you know world championship rides um and they honestly didn’t think that anybody noticed um and it was just hilarious really um
And i was a postman for four or five years and um there a lot of people they’d get uh little jiffy bags from turkey and china and everybody knew what was in them and um and yeah sometimes i deliver them to to people who i knew from the from the world of cycling
And i knew what was in them and i knew exactly what they were up to and the final straw for me was at a there was a club presentation evening and a guy who i knew full well was a doper and he stood there collected his trophies and everyone
Shook his hand you know and told him what a hero he was and i thought i’m just sick of this i don’t want anything to do with this anymore really um so yeah so that was another sort of thing that expedited my retirement um so yeah anyway yeah i was a postman i
Delivered your stuff and i know who you are so bear that in mind everybody you know you’re not quite as anonymous as you think you are there we go all done look at that oh i can’t wait to ride it now fantastic well that’s it
Both bikes raring to go um all i need now is some slightly warmer weather and a bit of enthusiasm um i think i say this every year but i’d like to do some slightly longer rides this year and we did a great trip uh in the summer
I didn’t sort of you know capture it on on youtube unfortunately we did a round balaton ride we rode around lake balaton about 200 kilometers we did it in four days i’d really really like to do that again and this time take the camera and do it
Properly that was really really good fun um yeah some long distance rides um i’d like to do a bit more of the running i started sort of dabbling with running last year and i saw it was hard at first i’ve always said like running is like riding a bike with square wheels but
You know eventually i was sort of starting to yeah quite enjoy it um it was starting to feel a bit more natural so i’d like to do a bit more of that um and yeah and i think every year for the last 10 years i’ve always said that
I want to improve my swimming because um i can do the breaststroke and i can do the do the doggie paddle thing but i’m going to be able to do the front crawl um so yeah so you know i’d like to be able to learn to swim a
Bit better um yeah but apart from that just everything get back to normal please i know it’s not gonna happen immediately but hopefully by the spring you know with vaccine and stuff um but there’s i don’t know there’s so much optimism i don’t know about in the uk but here there’s so much
Optimism sort of in the air that everything’s gonna be so much better this year and i really really really hope that’s the case um but yeah we’ll uh we’ll see what happens so yeah so here’s to a a considerably better 2021 i’m andy and i am the brit in hungary