August is a dull month, but it's nearly over now anyway. So, what we have left unwritten-about:

• As of mid-July on the strength of a couple of bike commutes, I decided my shoulder was OK for cycling, and so did the FNRttC Brighton run and then the Dun Run on adjacent days. Shoulder did indeed hold up, wrist (sometimes still a bit funny at certain angles after March's stack on it) more or less held up but my kneecaps were screaming by the end of the second ride. As was my arse. I think my saddle is the right shape and everything (it's the area under the sitbones protesting, not the soft bits), it's just (a) not as padded as the other, (b) attached to an Alu frame, so generally not as smooth a ride as my commuter bike

• After the second of these, I was inspecting the dent-might-be-a-crease in the top tube of said bike, and noticed it was an actual crack. "Bother", says I, and starts browsing for a new frame. After finding and ordering a bargain Giant alu/carbon composite frame (may be a bit more vertically pliant than current steed) at JE James, picking at the paint around the crack with my fingernail reveals that the metal is sound and only the paint has cracked. Doh. So, I have a slighty foxed but probably sound spare frame

• Or at least, I would have if it were actually spare, but as the Royal Mail have so far failed abysmally and utterly to send me the new one yet (their second attempt, after having returned it to the sender once already, was supposed to arrive on Friday).

• In the meantime, I rode the old one again on another FNRttC and a short loop around Surrey this morning, and it doesn't seem to have fallen apart yet.

• Skating - done a little of that too, though all at a fairly relaxed pace so far. Was marshalling the Sunday Stroll to Hampstead yesterday and had absolutely no enthusiasm for trying at all hard. On the other hand that might just be not having eaten beforehand. This morning I'd had a good half litre of energy juice (hangover cure) before leaving home and whether for that or whatever reason, was attacking hills with a bit more vim and vigour.

• Officially discharged from the fracture clinic in late July (actually, the Wednesday morning after the Dunwich weekend) with advice to - actually I can't remember any advice to speak of. Having forgotten to return the form they sent two weeks later to register for physio, I am approaching the rehabilitation of my shoulder in my own idiosyncratic way, basically by (a) using it for all the things I'd usually do with it unless they hurt badly, (b) press-ups. Of which I can do a shamefully poor number currently - this was quite likely the case even before dislocating the clavicle - but that number is getting better each day.

From http://www.anothercyclingforum.com/index.php?action=profile;u=2985;sa=showPosts :

I went to Hillingdon Cycle Circuit today [Sunday], to watch (and marshal for) the London Inline Marathon.  It rained.  It started dropping a few drops when I was about five minutes from home, in Clerkenwell, then it started raining seriously at Marble Arch, then it continued to rain seriously more or less all the way there after that.

After the races I got a lift to a friend's house near Twickenham for food and beer (but I repeat myself), then rode back.  Approx 15 miles each way.

I made three useful discoveries about my supposedly wet-weather-capable bike: one, that the braking in the wet is hugely and horrifically pants; two, that a slightly underinflated gatorskin on wet ground has a way of skating over the surface which is most reminiscent of a politician being interviewed on the Today programme; three, that on a damp and humid day my SPD shoes will retain enough water that if I get my feet soaked at 9am the skin will have turned wrinkly by 2pm. 

Still, the racing was good. And the ride back was fun

From http://www.anothercyclingforum.com/index.php?topic=51025.msg724875#msg724875 :

I was idly speculating on buying a cheap steel bike to fixedise, because turning stupid high gears is probably good skate cross-training for the thighs.  Of course, there is no such thing as a cheap steel bike on e-bay any more, because everyone else within two miles of here (I live in Hoxton) is also doing exactly that.  Looking for bargains in newsagents windows is probably the way forward, but in the meantime I thought I'd try gumtree

Every ad tells a story.  As a cyclist with even a vague grasp on what the different bits are called, you sometimes forget that this is not common knowledge: witness the "very solid" bike with six gears one side, 3 on the other (whu?  won't it overbalance?) - if I'd paid £230 for what looks uncommonly like a knobbly-tyred BSO with bouncy forks, I'd probably have lost enthusiasm for cycling too - or the steed with speed change(gear) in the pipe underneath (in fairness, I think this is a language issue and I'm sure his English is better than my Italian).  This one really caught my eye, though: great to know that it has "good thread on tyres", but looking at the shape of the forks  I wonder if it managed despite that[1] to make friends with a solid object some time in its life.  It's either that or it's an antique from the "hetchins curly" period of frame design ...


[1] yeah yeah, I khow that tread on a road-going bicycle tyre is essentially worthless anyway.  /me hugs his pro2 races

I read and write to more forums than I probably have time for, plus usenet plus facebook. Apart from anything else, this often means I forget where I've written something when I later want to refer back to it. So, henceforth if I think it is going to be interesting I can easily blog it as well, by highlighting the relevant bit and clicking on the "Blog this" menu toolbar item in Firefox. It generates a blog entry spookily similar to the two which precede this.

OK, so at the moment that's not entirely true, just because the toolbar button in question is still labelled 'test'. Aside from that, though. It sounds dead simple to implement, and it's only quoting/escaping rules that make it otherwise:

//  ==UserScript==
// @name          Blog to Coruskate
// @namespace     http://www.coruskate.net/
// @description   Create new coruskate blog entry with selected text
// @include       *
// ==/UserScript==
 
unsafeWindow.blog=function () {
    var text=window.getSelection();
    var url=window.location.href;
    if(text) text=text.getRangeAt(0).cloneContents();
    else text='';
    var serializer = new XMLSerializer();
    text = serializer.serializeToString(text);
    var body="From "+url+" :\n"+
    "<blockquote>\n" +
    text +
    "</blockquote>\n";
    ;; cnames have been changed to protect the innocent
    var win=window.open("http://go-away-googlebot.coruskate.net/or/this/bit/newentry?BODY="+
			encodeURIComponent(body));
};