25H2/26Q1 Cycling

It's been a period of indifferent weather, often windy, that didn't really lend itself to rides for pleasure rather than business - even if the business was a meal or meeting up with friends for coffee or something stronger.

July was a patchy month, windy when it was warm, so that ended with the summer bike at 594.2 up from 399.4, plus 5.9 miles off meter (odo troubles continued), a total of only 200.7 miles for the month.

Near the Hadstock end of Little Cow Lane

After a dry start to the year, August opened cool, wet and windy; but I did get in one long ride up Little Cow Lane to Linton first thing in the morning on the Bank Holiday Monday, getting back home in time for the village coffee morning. I must do more rides like that this summer, weather permitting.

End of month the winter bike was up to 42.3 from 0, the folding bike 500.1 from 490.8 + 9.3 off meter, the summer bike up to 861.7, from 328.4 for the month

Apart from one spin along the Ickneild Way (which also ended up as a Sunday brunch caf&eactue; stop), September was back to just A-to-B rides, the winter bike up to 53.1, summer up to 1082.6, so for the month 231.7, for the quarter 760.8, for 2413 YTD.

This quarter was just plain A-to-B rides, and not too many of those, in not so good weather - where October '24 had T-short and shorts weather to mid-month, 2025 was having none of that.

October took the summer bike up to 1278.9, a total of 196.3 miles

November took it to 1479.2, a total of 200.3 miles.

Boxing Day ride of the Chisholm trail

December, including a ride to Christmas lunch and back, took the winter bike up to 249.5, a total of miles, a total of 196.4 miles, 593 for the quarter, or 3006 for the year, and more than 1000 miles less than 2024.

2026 didn't start very well, January opening icy, with some snow, but getting quite windy and at times wet later, so mostly A-to-B rides, and not so many even of those.

Whittlesford snowdrops

January, the winter bike up to 331.5, a total of only 82 miles.

February, up to 429.5, a total of 98 miles (180 YTD).

March did have some warm weather, and after the clock change, was suitable for some long early-morning rides, ending at 711.4 on the winter bike, a total of 281.9 miles, 461.9 YTD.

Let's see if Q2 is better than last year, as Q1 wasn't.

Anime 2025

Not a lot of it this past year, and it's reached the point that there are pretty much no titles fron the seasonal lists that I really wanted to have seen, but didn't - such a change from even a few years ago.

While Sonyroll put Frieren on free, it was merely OK for the one episode I got to before the site went into one of its usual long-running "shan't" attacks, and looking at the manga didn't encourage returning, with incipient academy and tournament arcs.

The big gem was Milky Subway, inconsquential humour though it might be, with the one episode of Dungeons & Television coming close behind.

Also watched during the Christmas Amazon Prime burst -

Magilumiere Magical Girls - mediocre but harmless, for the bits that I skimmed throug. The rookie magical girl MC is so clearly meant to be a Nanoha look-alike, but she is no White Devil.

Gundam GQUC0085X - Machu was a much more together character than Suletta, so it started off on a positive note, and was generally a fun ride. The UC references, including to the trippy bit near the end of Unicorn, helped a great deal, even if some of the cameos (and I'm looking at you here, Bask Om) were entirely gratuitous and fed nothing into the story.

The Char was quite predictably obvious this time.

Look Back - a little mood piece from the mangaka for Chainsaw Man; entirely harmless.

Pon no Michi - which I picked up on the strength of the /a/non who kept posting about it as being the worst anime ever. It wasn't that bad, just solidly mediocre, and where it failed, it was for not really knowing what it was doing. It's not a mah-jongg anime even in the way that Saki is - games happen, characters may get FKMT-face, but we never get play by play; nor, despite the bits where they get out of their clubhouse and walk around the town of Onomichi, is it even as much of a tourist publicity series as Yama no Susume; and the girls can be a little bit abrasive, verging on bullying, at times, so it's not even a full on cute girl series.

And I'm still stalled on my attempt to watch Legends of the Galactic Heroes.