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Showing posts from March, 2011

IN PRAISE OF POTHOLES

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The organisers of the 2012 Olympics may not be quite so keen on this pothole on the Box Hill section of the road race route Potholes may be the scourge of the cycling and driving classes but on my regular commuting route to work, I've come to value them as familiar waypoints which mark my progress. To say I know my 20 mile (return) trip like the back of my hand is to do an injustice to the extremely intimate knowledge I have of every bump, contour, raised or sunken drain cover, hairline crack and fissured stretch of Tarmac, between my front door in Kingston and the office gates in Shepherds Bush. Riding along the same streets every working day for the last 12 years or so, I have internalised the precise line I should take round every single bend. I'm not just talking everyday directions of the, 'turn left at the lights and straight on at the roundabout' variety; I mean I have memorised minute chicanes between micro-potholes; I adjust my speed to cope with the oncoming