Made Me Laugh

"Why spend a king's ransom on the latest titanium confection when any weight advantage will be rendered irrelevant by a cheese-and-pickle sandwich and a thermos of soup?"

:-) From the Tweed Cycling Club

Incidentally, I saw the following *very* non-titanium bike outside an Old Street (natch) pub last night. I don't think I've ever seen such Heath Robinson looking brakes before

AA for Bikes?

I've often wondered if such a thing exists and then this morning I found business card for Bike-Ade outside my office. He only covers Central London, but it sounds a good idea nonetheless.

I hope I can fix most minor problems myself, and if anything more serious happens I'd probably just walk to a station, but I'll keep the card anyway, just in case.

First Big Ride on the New Bike

I've finally taken advantage of the good weather to take the new bike out for a (long) spin. I found the Ten Thames Bridges 100k route on Bikely and augmented it with an extra 50k between Herne Hill and the start of the route in Windsor.

The section from home to Windsor took in lots of West London, including much of Heathrow Airport. Whilst low on rutal charm, I have to admit to finding the environs of Heathrow oddly fascinating; all the low rise, anonymous business parks interspersed with 1930s suburban houses long since seperated from their demolished neighbours. Not to mention the constant stream of jets overhead - I soon passed the time playing guess the destination based on my (hazy) knowledge of airline tail logos.

The Ten Thames Bridges route itself was pretty lovely; lots of Home Counties greenery and obviously a number of bridges varying from the fairly imposing Marlow Suspension Bridge to a thin, no-cycling walkway across Mill End Weir. The latter was actually a highlight, despite having to get off and push, as you felt a lot closer to the water, with the Thames rushing, crystal-clear below. Having said that I'm not sure I'd get out the picnic chairs halfway across as one elderley couple had done.

Using just a printed out Bikely map for the route wasn't great (translation: massive navigation fail!). In future I think I'll create some kind of prompt sheet, complete with distances between turnings. There's nothing better at bringing down your average speed than having to ride up a hill that you're not 100% sure is on the route. At one point in the afternoon my nav was so off I had to turn on the GPS funcitonality of my Nokia N95 to work out which way I'd veered off the route proper.

The bike seemed perfectly up to the distance and in particular the Brooks saddle was a revelation. No sore undercarriage the next day. The Carradice saddle bag was also up to the task, storing plenty. However it's definitely from a "gentler" age of cycling - no ability to quickly remove and attach it when parked up outside a newsagents in the dodgy part of town.

Having convinced myself 150k is do-able, I think the next step is to maybe do an audax of a similar length. I've been eyeing up these two - Ruislip 205k and Luton and Herts 150k. Has anyone ridden either of them before?

I was pretty exhausted by the end, but sitting at Datchett station aftewards having a lucozade and salt-and-vinegar Discos, I was pretty pleased with a good day's riding.



(aerial pic of Marlow Suspension bridge courtesy of/stolen from http://www.marlowtown.co.uk/)

10% off Rapha

Promotional code I picked up at the Smithfields Nocturne:
SMTH2009
gets you 10% off on their site.

Although that still leaves them a little dearer than Halfords.

Valid at http://www.rapha.cc/ until the 20th

Penny Farthings and Bike Week

Last Sunday I caught the tail end of the Veteran Cycle Club's annual event at the Herne Hill Velodrome. It has to be said, there's something pretty awesome about seeing a Penny Farthing "racing" around the a bike track against other cycles from antiquity (I'd tell you what they were, but I haven't a clue - a velocipede? Solid tyred bike? No idea!). Unfortunately we only got there for the very end, so I think we'll have to return next year, but it does look they put on other events

Loads of bike events coming up this week (being Bike Week and all), but a few which have caught my eye are:

• Bike and Kite Festival - Blackheath, tomorrow and Sunday
• Southwark Cyclists Film Festival - Shortwave Cinema, Bermondsey, Monday evening - showing shorts plus Breaking Away. Email barrymasonuk@googlemail.com for details
• Greenfest - Furnival Gardens, Hammersmith, Sunday - not just bikes but general hippy-dippery
• Free breakfasts for cyclists - (Camden, Tower Hamlets, Hackney. Plus many others)

Bike Tubes

One good thing that might come out of this - the LCC organised some "Bike Tubes" today, where they led a number of groups of cyclists into central-London from pre-arranged locations (Ravenscourt Park, Finsbury Park...).

I couldn't see from the site whether they are repeating this tomorrow, but they do say they'll be running more Bike Tubes in future, even if there's no disruption. Sounds like a good introduction to commuting into London to me.

Mayhem On The Roads Today

As you may know, there's a tube-strike today. Rather than use it as an opportunity to "work from home", Londoners seems to have decided to battle in anyway possible, with the streets already rammed at 7:15. Here's your I-Spy cut-out-and-keep guide to the strike

• Red-faced tube workers manning picket line outside a station (10 pts)
• Commuter shouting at red-faced tube workers (20 pts)
• Twelve people trying to hail the same taxi at once (20 pts)
• Pedestrian walking out in front of you because their head is buried in their A-Z as they attempt to work out how to get to their office (50 pts)
• Cyclist, riding a bike that hasn't been used since the late 80s and certainly not in rush-hour London, wobbling across three lanes of traffic in an alarming fashion (100 pts)
• Company director, in flash car, equally un-used to rush-hour traffic, cutting up the novice cyclists in order to try and grab the last parking spot (100 pts)

It'll be an interesting couple of days.

Back On The Road

Finally, my Evans voucher arrived and I popped over to the store to pick up the new steel stead. With hindsight, I should have perhaps got the voucher for a bigger amount, as it's not often you get the opportunity to buy what you want in a bike shop, effectively at half-price with six months to pay it off. In the end I contented myself with a new lock and some SPD pedals.

I've also added a Brook's B-17 saddle, as per Purple Traveller's advice. Bit early to tell yet, although I'm sure we'll be very happy together. If nothing else, I think it makes the bike look a lot nicer (you may remember I wasn't sold it's appearance) and it complements the ace, Carradice Barley saddlebag I've bought.

After 4 months or so, off the road, I have to admit I'd forgotten the sheer joy of cycling, even if it was on a clogged up, drizzly Euston Road. I'll take it out for a proper spin over the next few weeks and let you know how it is.

Still Waiting For Evans Ride2Work Voucher

Apparently they've received the payment from my company, but not the form. Obviously, it's too much to expect Evans to email/phone my company and ask where the form is. Oh well, duplicate form on it's way now. It's like living through an enforced No Bike Week

On a more positive note, yesterday proffered an unexpectedly, nerve-wracking end to the Giro, with race leader Dennis Menchov falling off his bike in the final kilometre of the Time Trial around Rome. Some pretty sharpish bike changing by his team car, and the decent buffer he'd built up saved the Giro from a pretty unfortunate end in it's centenary year.

Pith Helmet

A bit pricey at £95, but this Danish helmet is one of the most dapper I've seen. Available from Bobbin Cycles

New Bike Show Episodes

Doh, I've somehow managed to miss a whole 8 new episodes of The Bike Show from Resonance FM, but not to worry as they're all available online at The Bike Show. There's no finer way to start a Friday than tweaking some Perl scripts while listening to Jack's adventures on a bike around Flanders.

Watching The Giro

If like me, you want to watch this year's Giro, but you don't get the Eurosport channel, you can watch it online using their online Eurosport Player for £3.99 a month (so I'll be cancelling come the beginning of June :-))

Not much to watch today though, the riders have decided it's too dangerous and are just poottling round at a slow speed (until the very end)

Getting A New Bike

Inspired by having the Ride2Work scheme at my present job, I've decided to invest in a new bike. Having ridden both my hybrid and flashy-road bike over the last few years, it's focussed my mind on what exactly I want a bike to do, namely:

• be usable for the daily commute
• be able to do light touring (maybe a week in Scotland, rather than a month round Africa)
• *maybe* be comfortable/practical doing something like a 100-200k

To me, these requirements make perfect sense, but it does seem as if they fall between a number of stools. Road bikes are built for speed and generally spurn the need for mudguard-clearance or anywhere to attach panniers. Tourers do well on those points, but are generally built for serious touring, with an associated weight and lack of whizzing-in-and-out-of-the-traffic-ability. Hybrids too, are slower, and generally don't have drop-handlebars, leaving your wrists craving new riding positions once you do much more than 50k.

The remaining options (at least in Evans - who we can only use for Ride2Work) are:

1. cyclocross bikes
2. audax bikes.
   

Cyclocross bikes look like mummy racer had a one-night stand with daddy mountain bike, with a road frame but knobbly tyres (which I'd swap for road tyres) and enough room to stick guards and panniers. Of these I ordered the Specialized Tri-cross, Genesis Croix De Fer and Kona Jake to try. The Specialized looked great and had carbon forks, but just felt sluggish to me. No doubt some of it was due to it's chunky tyres and it's more relaxed geometry, but it just didn't seem right.

The Genesis felt much better, with disc breaks and a steel frame, but Evans have run out of them now, which conveniently solves that dilemma. I'm still waiting of the Jake as Evans only seem to have one in my size, which is trapped in some limbo between London and their Gatwick warehouse never to materialise into a test-rideable form.

An Audax bike, is a bike designed for riding Audax events :-) These are essentially long-distance, non-races of any where between 100 and 600k, the more hardcore of which feature people cycling for days on end with a few hours kip grabbed here and there. The best bikes for this kind of lunacy are fast touring bikes i.e. perfect for what I want. Unfortunately, the one such bike Evans stock has a slight Granny vibe about it, but otherwise had the best feel of all the bikes I've tested so far and again was steel so should be comfortable on those longer rides.

So which will I go for? Evans have just phoned to say that the Kona *should* be in London tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to final make my choice (if only so I don't have to put up with anymore of their indifferent customer-service)
[TO BE CONTINUED]

Cyclists To Be Allowed To Turn Left On Red

The Guardian is reporting that Boris Johnston has asked the Department of Transport to allow cyclists to turn left at red traffic-lights, on the grounds that this will allow cyclists to get ahead of vehicle (i.e. lorries) at the junction. Not sure how practical it is, or how much safer it will make the roads, but will be interesting to see what happens. From the quotes in the article it seems CTC have already taken against it.

He'll Never Get A Bike Helmet Of That Hair

http://www.bbc.co.uk.tscc.org.uk/pressoffice/stories/2009/1_april/30/topgear.shtml

PS - apologies for the lack of updates of late, I've been in Hawaii. And New York. Talking of which, it's interesting to see what the bike couriers look like here (supposedly the home of fixed-gear-courier culture). A few of them are the gnarly, trendy looking types as seen in London, but most of them look like they're on crack. Seriously.

Long Distance Cycle Talk

Long-distance cycle tourer (tourist ?) Peter Gostelow is giving a talk on his epic journey home from Japan to England this Saturday at the Globetrotters Club

His blog's worth checking out too - there's plenty of stuff on there to get you wanting to pack it all in and cycle off to Japan. Unfortunately I'll miss his talk as I'll be cycling to the slightly nearer...Cambridge.

Poetic Justice

A fantastic post on the Cycle Chat forum today. Read it if you fancy a laugh.

Congratulations to Mark Cavendish

Starting the year as he means to go on, with a win in the Tour Of California. I'm also pleased to see some particularly catchy categories in there - "California Travel & Tourism Commission King of the Mountain (KOM) Jersey". Give me "The Yellow Jersey" any day :-)

London (well, Staines) to Oxford

My mate Barry and I cycled the Thames Valley route from Staines to Oxford this weekend (with an overnight in Pangbourne). As you might expect, the weather added some interesting aspect to the ride, but it was still do-able (with some pushing, some slow cycling and some giving up the official route and just taking the road). It's a mixed route taking in Thames-side cycling, some lovely rural bits on Berkshire and a bit of the usual "creative accounting" off-road routes that Sustrans specialise in (through housing estates, car-parks, etc)

4 Bad Things About This Weekend.

1. Mysterious Exploding Inner Tubes. Before we'd even left London, Barry had destroyed two inner tubes (waking up his neighbours in the process). Had they got caught on the rim ? Was there something sharp inside the tyre? Was the gauge on his track pump a couple of bar low? We suspect the latter, but can't say for sure. Oh well, it only seemed to set us back an hour-and-a-half.





2. Snow and Ice. A lot of the route was surprisingly clear or gritted, but anything that took us through Windsor Great Park, round the back of Didcot Parkway or down pathways into Oxford was a treacherous landscape of thawed and refrozen snow. Good job I put my new slick tyres on last week!!

At best this took our average speed down to 3 or 4 mph while we struggled to keep upright and at certain points we just had to get off and push.

3. Trying To Get Our Bikes On A Train From Reading to Pangbourne With 50 Million Reading Town FC Fans. Barry got on, I could not. At least it meant I got to bomb along the A34 on the bike trying to catch-up the train.

4. No Local Beer in Pangbourne. Half the fun of a bike ride away from home is being able to drink Ye Olde Goat's Nadger's Ale from the local brewery. Only London Pride and Courage in the otherwise good George Hotel, although I did end up remembering how much I like London Pride.



4 Good Things About This Weekend

1. Cycling Through The Snow Covered Landscape of Berkshire. Most of Sunday morning involved cycling down nicely cleared country-lanes, surrounded by pristine snow-covered fields and woods. In particular,
at one point we came out of a wood onto a hillside that seemed to look down onto much of Oxfordshire, with Didcot Parkway being the only thing to break up the white blanket covering the landscape. London seemed very far away and it felt far more like the Peaks or Lakes than the South-East.

2. Slicks Coping On Ice and Snow. No punctures either

3. Wildlife Following Us. As well as rabbits running across the frosty fields to our side, a bird of prey (possibly a Buzzard) followed us on-and-off for a couple of miles around Wallingford. Obviously we must have been looking weak and vulnerable at this point (at least until our pub-lunch)

4. Getting 15 "Mornings". When overtaken by the local cycle club out for their Sunday morning run.

Overall it was a good ride, with the Sunday morning the undoubted highlight. Inevitably for a Sustrans route going through urban areas, some of it tended towards alleys and pathways that can reduce your average speed somewhat and aren't necessarily that picturesque. If I was doing it again, I'd probably try and swap some of these out, for more rural lanes.

If you go expecting something like the C2C or the Devon-Coast-to-Coast, you'll probably be disappointed by the extent to which our crowded corner of the island is now dominated by man's footprint, but for an easily-organised weekend out of London, it was a lot of fun.

Interesting Interview With MD of Brompton Cycles

Yesterday, while recovering from the cold I caught while cycling in the snow to Oxford at the weekend, I heard the following interview with Brompton Cycle's Will Butler-Adams. It's pretty fascinating, I didn't realise they were still actually built in London (Brentford, a mile from where I went to school)

BBC iPlayer (only valid for a week)

It starts about 1:35 in, so you'll need to fast-forward to that, to avoid the 80s jazz.