So, unless it escaped your notice, the Tour De France recently started the 2014 tour with three stages in the UK to mark the Grand Depart of the 101st race. The first two stages were held in Yorkshire (Leeds to Harrogate and then York to Sheffield). The third, Cambridge to London, was a bit closer to home and I thought this was finally my chance to view the famous race in person.

It’s been almost a year since I switched from using Moneywiz! to YNAB. YNAB (or You Need A Budget), is a money tracking software suite that works on Windows, Mac and has Android and iOS apps. Moneywiz was a decent piece of software. During uni, I was using GNUCash to keep track of my spending and it performed reasonably well. However, it was dog slow when I moved to the Mac and it was ugly as sin.

This weekend I had initially planned to go on a ride with the London Brompton Club to Hove (starting at Richmond). However, a text from my parents meant that I ended up changing my plans, and headed out instead to Dorset for the weekend. Complete change of plans and I something I hadn’t planned for at all (I got the text at 15:00 on Friday afternoon, so I bought my train tickets online and headed to Waterloo at 17:00 when I finished!

Wednesday evenings are usually spent at home, not doing much at all. Though I am trying to learn German, it’s not going well and so any excuse to get out the house and away from any such talk of football due to the world cup is good (or learning how to complain that my food tastes salty auf Deutsch…) is a good reason to get out and about. Following on from a previous ride by Brompton themselves, David from the LBC kindly organised a brief jaunt for Wednesday night.

I’ve been using a Mac now for a fair few years. Probably approaching five years if I sit and think about. It all started when I bought my Mac Mini during my PhD. Well, that was a great purchase and since then I’ve moved on from the Mac Mini to a 27" iMac and a MacBook Air. Anyhow, since I started with the Mac, there were a few things that I’ve not used on them - one of which was iPhoto.

So a while ago, Loki got a new saddle. However, the other item I’d been toying with getting for the Brompton since getting it, was a set of grips. Of course, these would have to be Ergon grips, as since trying them on my other bike, I’ve been sorely impressed with them (well, no soreness at all, as that’s part of the reason for buying them!) For longer journeys, they all for different riding positions (with the bar ends) and are more comfortable than the standard Brompton grips for day to day to use.

So this evening we there was a ride organised by Brompton Junction. I only saw the email yesterday but thought I’d register, after all, I wasn’t doing anything else this evening. I got there slightly early so I could have a cup of tea and a slice of the treacle tart. I must admit the tart and tea there are some of the best I’ve had in London so it’s always worth a trip, solely for the food and drink!

I reaslised that although I’ve been in London now for about two years (I was offered my job on 12th June 2012 and then started on the 9th July…), I perhaps hadn’t done as much exploring as I could have done. This was backed up by the Brompton Urban Challenge where I got to ride some more roads that I might not have travelled. Likewise, just going on London Brompton club rides has shown me a lot more of London.

When I bought the Brompton, there was the option of upgrading the saddle to a Brooks saddle. I decided against on the basis that I would see how the standard Brompton saddle faired as the one on the test model I’d ridden didn’t seem to bad. I’m also not a fan of the Brooks saddle - I didn’t like the look. So I stuck with the Brompton saddle for a few hundred miles and it didn’t seem to bad at all.

This past Sunday saw me take part in the Brompton Urban Challenge. This can be best described as a Brompton treasure hunt around London, riding around, following the clues give at each checkpoint to get to the next checkpoint whilst carrying out challenges along the way. I’d done a similar type of ride during my time at Loughborough University where I’d taken part in a mountain biking treasure hunt and managed to come third (much to the disgust of the organiser, my housemate, due to the fact I cycled a hybrid and mainly cycled between the parts on the road!