100km Done plus Gore Wear Windstopper C5 Trail Pants

So the Nine Streets turned over the 100km mark since buying it on my way home from work last night.

Very impressed with it so far and loving all the extra quality touches like the decent light set, the mudguards and of course the fabulous paint job.

There’s also something very satisfying about being first away from the lights compared to all the other bikes: something to do with the lack of inertia on the small wheels.

I carry my suit in the Henty Wingman and wear one of my running jackets – currently a Virgin London Marathon training jacket – and on my legs, it’s a pair of “Gore Wear C5 Windstopper 2 in 1 Trail Pants“. These are water resistant as they’re from Gore and very comfortable.

Intriguingly, they say they are:

“A lightweight and windproof 2in1 pant that can be converted between trail-ready baggy shorts or a full length pant when the weather takes a turn for the worse.”

Except I can’t find a way of actually converting them to shorts, other than by – presumably – cutting the bottom bits off or rolling the legs up inside or outside.

I’ve asked on their Facebook page: let’s see if we get a response.

What an Epic Weekend!

Well then.

Saturday morning and after a little lie-in I was up to try to have a quick clean, change of bed linen and then off to GT’s. We then walked into Epsom where I got my hair cut whilst GT was having hers done. A quick snack lunch and then we headed back to London. And the pub near mine on the Thames for a couple of drinks and some snazzy chilli chips as a snack.

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Then it was a quick change before grabbing a cab to take us to Le Pont de la Tour near Tower Bridge for dinner. As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I had decided to raise a glass to my old friend Mark, so I ordered a good bottle of champagne and regaled GT with some of Mark’s tales of derring-do before we toasted his memory.

The food was excellent again, as were the glasses of wine and the port we had with a tasty cheeseboard before heading home to mine.

This morning, we surfaced at a halfway decent time to head over to Frizzante Café at Surrey Docks Farm for a big breakfast as we had a busy day ahead. Yes. We were off to Greenwich’s Bunker 51 to save the world from a zombie apocalypse for my birthday treat. Oh yes! ZOMBIES! And great fun it was! Very hot and sweaty and a bit stinky with the added bonus of blue bogies afterwards :0

On our way to take GT over to Waterloo afterwards, we happened to be in London Bridge and we had both said what a lovely afternoon it had turned into … which gave me the idea to take GT up the Shard (oo-er, Missus!). A great view all around the capital, if expensive.

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Bank Holiday Weekend

Well that was a busy one!

After a somewhat heavy session on Friday night at Abacus with colleagues – damn you Happy Hour! – Saturday found me packing for the weekend and heading over to GT for Saturday, including seeing “The Avengers”/”Avengers Assemble” (which I can recommend as a good, fun film) and a nice meal out afterwards.

Sunday morning and GT was running a half-marathon so I left at a reasonable time and headed off to Manchester with a stay at the comfortable Radisson Edwardian and an evening out at the Comedy Store‘s “King Gong” stand-up show with some very good (and some really awful) stand-up comics.

Monday was a day shopping at various stores in Manchester including a 20+ minute wait at Starbuck’s in the Arndale Centre for a coffee. I was somewhat disturbed though by this that I saw whilst walking through Top Shop:

I'm sorry? "Formal"? Jogger?

Then another night at the Radisson Edwardian that ended with me watching Homeland’s disappointing end (well, for the first series anyway): why do the US networks insist on keeping these series running on and on rather than actually developing a story with a start, a middle and an end? I won’t now bother with the second series.

Tuesday saw me mainly sitting in traffic jams on my way to Birmingham for a meeting and then back down to London. Somehow, despite excellent driving conditions, people had variously managed a series of crashes on the M6 and one on the A406 North Circular that closed it leading to really long tailbacks. How do people manage to crash in such excellent conditions?

Jack’s Birthday Weekend

Well that was a busy weekend!

It started on Friday with Amy coming over to stay. A lovely meal at the Rainbow Chinese Buffet Restaurant on Brunel Road before Lucy delivering my ironing – all 24 workshirts!

Saturday morning saw us heading up to Norfolk, collecting Jack on the way before heading into Norwich where we went to Wagamama before shopping: a pair of black Adidas Samba originals for me, two pairs of shoes, a Hollister shirt and Jack & Jones skinny jeans for Jack and a pair of Converse trainers for Amy.

Saturday night and we went back into Norwich to Nando’s followed by the Odeon to see “Attack the Block“, which we all enjoyed. Amy is now being followed and is following Alex Esmail on Twitter!

Sunday saw a lie-in at the hotel for me before heading over to see Jack on his birthday. His Mum had made a great strawberry gateau which we scoffed and later we had bangers and mash – again Jack’s request – before Amy and I headed back down to Royal Holloway.

I then popped over to see GT and eventually got in after midnight. A looooong weekend!

New Gear

So faced with wearing old and increasingly ill-fitting blue leathers on a red and black bike, I went to Hein Gericke in Hull today and ended up buying more than a grand’s worth of clothing. Fortunately, they had a £40 off offer if you spent over £160 so I used that a few times and spent around £850 on a black two-piece Arlen Ness 8304/8314 suit (I can’t manage a one-piece as getting in and out of them dislocates my shoulder), a Knox gilet back protector (as my Knox stowaway keep slipping up to strangle me by the end of a track session), some Alpinestars GP Pro gloves (very nice) and some Alpinestars SMX-Plus boots (as comfortable as a pair of slippers).

This is the gear:

knox fastback SMX PLUS BLACK_pt GP PRO GLV BLACK Arlen Ness 8304 8314

I’ll be adding these to my Shark helmet, I reckon.

Football Supporters

I wonder if there is any particular reason why the manufacturers of football and rugby replica kits decided not to make them from cotton or a similar absorbent material?

Maybe they just want their customers to stink of BO after a wee while…

Pointy Shoes

Can someone please explain to me the point of pointy shoes (ho ho)?

The other day, I was on my way to a meeting and had some time to kill and as I am now wearing work shoes every day, I thought it might be worth buying myself some new ones.

Now I’m a size 9 generally and that was – as far as I knew – Mr. Average when I was younger, though nowadays it appears that bigger is the norm. Anyway, you don’t really want to look like a cross between between Krusty the Clown and Aladdin, I’d have thought, so why do blokes seem to want to buy ridiculously long shoes with pointy or cut-off pointy ends?

I tried on a Hush Puppies pair that looked like a halfway decent Oxford but hadn’t realised the extent of the shaped toe which made the shoe a good couple of inches longer than my present pair. Why?

Oh! Suit you, Sir!

Really quite chuffed today. I’ve been meaning to buy a new suit for absolutely ages now and the opportunity presented itself today.

I was dragged in to Norwich to help choose between a couple of different pairs of glasses for Mrs. RHM. As we walked past Moss (the shop formerly known as Moss Bros), I noticed they had a sale on, so I popped in to look at what they had.

I had been hoping to pick up a lightweight wool suit from around £250 from M&S so I had a quick poke and was very pleased to find a Cerruti 1881 fine lambswool two piece suit. In 42R, that comes with 36R trousers that I thought might be a problem: my jeans choice is always Levi 501 34L. The assistant, James - who it must be said was a digustingly stylish bloke – said that the trousers were probably akin to a 35″ due to their cut and flat front. Hmm…

So I tried the suit on and it fit really well (I reckon). The best bit was the price: marked down from £299 to £199 to £149!

It’s last season’s style with a three button jacket, but I’m fine with that: part of James’s sales patter was that they’d no doubt be featuring exactly the same suit in this year’s collection at £300 next week, though having looked at the Moss web site, it’s likely they’ll be two button jackets.

I tried it on again when I got home with a decent shirt from Charles Tyrwhitt and my business shoes and I have to say it looks superb.