New Carpet.

Still winter and still not a lot happening on the trip front. But the 'Old Pottery' part of Potters-End is getting new carpet because there's been a few to many parties had on the old stuff and also the odd bicycle repair gone wrong. I mean there's really no excuse for me to get bike grease on the carpet because I've got a perfectly good workshop for cycle maintenance. But at times it's too far away and I get lazy, and then hey presto, greasy marks on the carpet.

It's hard to get excited by new carpet in the Pottery because it's not really a bloke kind of an area. You could be in the Pottery tinkering on something happily in a world of your own and then all of a sudden there's a member of the opposite sex there asking you whether you want to go for a walk along the beach or something painful like that.

But what I can get excited about is new carpet in the workshop. Imagine that! When I choose to work on the Vespa's , kombi or cycles I've got my own carpet to get marks on. When I'm down on my knees concentrating  on the intricacies of a campag freewheel or caressing the 'Made in Italy ' badge on my Vespa I now don't get dust on my Knees. Of course the carpet for the workshop came from the Pottery. But it still looks pretty good.

The Workshop that's to Good to Work in.

The other thing that is so good about making the workshop more comfy is the simple fact that the chances of being disturbed by fair maidens is at best nil.

Tis a bit nippy in the winter though so I will have to head back to the house once the temperature falls below 10 degree C. O' and to get dinner.

The other project in the workshop today on my new carpet was to totally change Adi's tyres. When Adi gets punctures she immediately tells me that its not good enough and it's time for new tyres and tubes. My normal response to this is to tell her to toughen up , and that new tyres don't grow on trees you know! Well after an ultimatum about a month ago I bought Adi a pair of ultra puncture resistant tyres and put them on. Her old tyres I stockpiled for my bike (plenty of life left in them). However the problem today was early into a joint cafe ride she got a puncture in her puncture resistant tyres and for the life of me these tyres were so stiff I could hardly get them off the rim. These tyres are so tough its like trying to put motorcycle tyres on the rim. After breaking one tyre lever and bending my steel one I succeeded in fixing the beast.

Tyres Guaranteed to Bring You to Tears.

 Many are my short comings but I do have a modicum of empathy so decided to commit yet another set of tyres to the pile of bits that Adi has cast aside for me to wear out on my bike.

So now the Mercian is sporting the tyres from hell and Adi has a set of tyres that I had squirrelled away for a special occasion. As can be seen from the photo above, they do have a nice reflective strip on them and they do look pretty swish on my M.U.M (Mercian Urban Machine). I just hope I don't get a puncture when I'm in a hurry. I've taken the precaution to x/change my Campag plastic tyre levers for a pair of Brooks steel ones. I'm thinking that these tyres are so solid that I could almost ride them with no air in them at all!