February 5th – Recovery continues. I’m still not right yet – I still have a slight but productive cough, glands have been randomly swelling and returning to normal in my neck, and I have a lot of cold sores. But as my chest improves, so does my speed. My homecoming over just over 9 miles against a mild headwind was 39 minutes. That’s a real improvement.
Of course, I arrived home sweaty and breathless, but at least it was achievable.Things are getting better.
January 30th – It’s on the way back up. As my lungs clear, my on-bike performance is improving; my average speed over the same commute journey has gained 1.7mph in a week.
It’s still not up to it’s usual 13-14mph, but I’m getting there.
I’m also really liking the Velo utility for the Garmin Edge 1030 on IQ – it gives some great speed tools in one nicely laid out large data field.
February 14th – A day spent sleeping, relaxing, and catching up. I had business in Stonnall in the evening, so nipped down there. Progress was slow. I was still tired.
On the Chester Road just past the houses – at the spot once colloquially referred to as ‘death mile’ or ‘mad mile’ after so many accidents – new speed restriction signs have appeared. ‘Please drive carefully’. I’ve never understood this rubbish, personally.
(Death Mile became much, much safer after the road was modified in the 1990s.)
For starters, much of the traffic passing will be too fast to read anything other than the restriction; and secondly, who the hell decides to drive with wicked abandon only to later correct their behaviour because some quango or councillor decided to ask them to drive nicely in 180-point Helvetica Black?
There is something interesting here, though. That sign didn’t originally say Shire Oak; that legend has been added on a foil applied over other text, which could possibly say ‘Brownhills’, but I can’t decide.
Are the folk on the Hill too posh and are now pushing for independence? In these straitened days, does anyone really care that much? And before the whinging starts, Shire Oak is indeed in the parish of Brownhills.
BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 