On the train

Reg is having a checkup before the big midnight ride tonight (Bognor here we come) so I was forced to take public transport to work. I so nearly didn't do it but on the last ride someone's faulty bike got him sent home at Gatwick and held everyone else up so I decided to pay the £10 to get his brakes checked and be given the all clear.

I dropped Reg off outside the bike shop and prepared for a 'proper commute'. Buses are, like, well slow and boring; trains are full of coughing people and probably filled to the brim with swine flu; stations are full of bustling, rude people with no regard for anyone else; and it all costs a bloody fortune.

My eyes lingered on the lucky people who sailed past my bus on their bikes and I consoled myself with the the fact that most people had to do it every day and at one point I did too.

I'm always struck with a sense of the surreal when I use the bus and tube to get in. The guy in Ealing Broadway's sandwich shop asked me where I'd been and then, from memory, poured out the medium coffee wth one sugar I drank nearly every work day for four years.

The bagel shop in Hammersmith station was similarly nice and I was greeted with the 'Where have you been?!'

I was lucky this morning as there was very little traffic on the bus route, the train was right there when I arrived at the broadway an I got to see some friendly and familiar faces. Yes, all in all, the commute wasn't as bad as it could've been, it was just not as fun as my bike.