Phone Phun

Thanks to the wonders of technology i can escape from my desk and write this in a park, on a mobile phone, with very little effort required to bring it to your waiting eyes. In fact, due to my ability to touch-text better than i can type, it feels a whole lot simpler. I promise not to use yoof txt spk, but not to totally avoid accidental predictive text confusions. Afterall what is funnier than rude words when you meant to be polite and vice versa?

I'll admit I've often tried to liven up a dull commute with a bit of the delights that my phone can offer. I've used a programme to track where I am on google maps before (but then realised that only I wanted to track myself and if i was riding i couldn't very well also be in front of a computer watching my progress), as well as riding with an ear piece in pro-style to listen to sat nav directions until the free months of sat nav ran out (and i looked like a pretentious fool).

The many-layered technology my mars bar sized, and not that cutting edge, phone now offers mean i can never be lost, and can update my girlfriend via twitter about where I am and what i can see, with pictures and words, on a mid week mountain bike escape. She can pretend to be interested and I can imagine her jealousy at my wind swept south coast mini epic, while she's probably really just glad to be in the warm, and not have been the first out of bed for once. It's like a desk in your rucksac, and suddenly you're checking your work email on top of a mountain rather than enjoying the world. Maybe i need a phone that does less. Maybe one which can simply ring 999 if i crash, because that's the only reason to have one on a bike.

But then I'd have to be at my desk to write this, not on grass and under a tree. And I'd check where my bottom bracket is on its way from chainreactioncycles.com, look again at parktool.com to check how to fix it when i got it, and waste the rest of lunch on facebook and Bikesnob. Maybe a fancy phone is an excuse to be outside, not a hassle. Kind-of like a bike, really.

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