I have actually lost the plot - frame mounted pump warning.

Sorry Dear Other Mountain Biker, but I've lost the plot completely. Soon I'll have Aldi torches Duck taped to my helmet and will have a dog in a basket attached to my handlebars. I'll smell of wee [well smell more of wee] and will talk about the Post Office a lot more than I do now. If I could I'd grow a ragged ginger beard.

What have I done? Well being tired of a 5kg Camelbak I've started to move things on to my bike. The other week it was a water bottle cage, then a saddle bag. Today, however, I moved right over there into saddo territory.

I fitted one of those attachments to the water bottle cage that allows for the holding of a tyre pump. And then fitted a pump to it.

I'm so very sorry about this, I really am. Infra dig and all that, but please do call the Mountain Bike fashion Police and have me sent down for some considerable time. Next thing you know I'll start to wear D2B outfits and full lycra. I'll recommend Halfords as being good, and will look seriously at Boardman bikes.

My bike looks gash and I hate myself for doing it, but I was bored, spotted this holder lurking in the bottom of my tool box and thought it'd be a good idea.

It's a bad idea, but it took me ages to fix - two screws man - so it's stopping for now. I'll never live it down, and nobody will read my blog anymore.

The other BAD thing I did was to really try to clean my bike. On Sunday we spotted a guy on an oldish Marin; it was immaculate beyond belief. Honestly this thing shone better than any new bike, and I am not exagerating. AD and I talked about it for ages, as you do when confronted by alien artefacts. The guy caught us up, and I asked him. "Oh, it only takes me an hour" came the reply. Yeah right, pull the other one Mr OCD. Today I tried to really clean my bike - two hours of spit and polish using all the wife's best house cleaners and my electric toothbrush. You know what? My bike still looks like the old piece of crap I started with. There is no way this guy just cleaned his bike as it is impossible to achieve the finish he did without wholesale parts replacement and re-painting the bits you already have. No way. My bike has scratches and deep gouges that cannot be polished out, paint flaking off, bits torn ragged by being thrown down the trail [my rear mech looks like I've taken an angle grinder to it], or just sun bleached from me being too tight to ever replace still functional plastic components. My Crudcatcher could be in their product museum. And have you actually tried to clean a mountain bike tyre? Pointless. From now on I'm not going to bother really cleaning it - quick hose down from now on. I cannot compete with our Marin friend, and neither do I want to. He was one of the good guys though, and bloomin' fast so big respect to him.

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