Somewhere in Southwark this evening, in Surrey Canal I think, 6th gear got jammed, as did 4th, and I couldn't un-jam it. I limped home in 2nd gear, where I can sustain 11.5 mph at about 180rpm for a minute or so, before coasting. I'll do this till the end of the week, then I'll borrow my mate's bike.

Tags: Sturmey, Moulton, Pashley

On the left is Wells Cathedral taken with my long gone, but not forgotten Nikon CoolPix 775 (2 Megapixel, taken in 2002). On the right, the same picture with my new Fuji F40FD (8.3 Megapixel, taken last Saturday). Both are 100% crops.

Tags: Technology

First part of my TSR mk II. This is a Sturmey Archer X-FDD, hub brake and 3w dynamo. Feels heavy in the hand...

Tags: Pashley, Sturmey, Moulton

So, I needed to buy some new shoes. The last pair I bought in 2004 have basically fallen to bits. Soles worn through, no good in the rain. The same for the trainers (well, my non-Gym trainers), the shoes I cycle in. So I needed to buy replacement trainers good for cycling in (replacing Merrell Chameleons), and new shoes for work.

Although there are 'big shoe' shops (well, at least 1) in London, if I wanted a wide variety, and to try before buying, I had to travel to Street in Somerset (home of the Clarks Village and lots of other shoe shops). I had been there before, in 2002. This time I'd be visting the WalkTall Outlet, and unlike last time where I stayed at the ghastly (my impression at the time) Backpacker Hostel in Glastonbury, I'd be going "up-market" to the 1-Star YHA Hostel in Street itself (last time, when I visted in February 2002, the YHA was closed for winter).

Even better with Viewranger on the Nokia and my bluetooth GPS now working together reliably, I would travel down on Friday night, cycling from Castle Cary Train Station to Street YHA, then on Saturday, get the shoes and cycle up and around Glastonbury to Wells via National Cycle Route 3, and onto Wookey Hole, to see the caves. Then back to Wells to have a second look at the Cathedral and then across the Mendip Hills back to Castle Cary on Saturday evening for the train home. I had the routes all mapped out in Viewranger, ready. Since I still don't have the correct rack bag yet for the TSR, I bought an excellent interim substitute, a 13 litre Ortleib water-proof dry bag. Excellent, because the the closing strap can wrap around the support struts of the rack (stopping it sliding off the back), requiring me to use only 1 bungie (to stop side to side movement).

And so with everything planned and ready to go, my Sturmey Archer 8-speed hub failed. Just on the 2,500 miles mark. Unlike last time though, it only failed in 3,5,7 and 8. Although 4 and 6 sounded a bit rougher, they worked fine. I thought I would check bus schedules in case I had to rely on them, and uh, no way. The bus service from Castle Cary to Street ended just after 6pm, an hour before my train would arrive. So I decided to trust the hub, and from the Monday to the Thursday before my trip, it worked great, giving me confidence. If it managed 50+ miles of London riding, I thought, it should be fine in Somerset. And given that I expected the Mendip hills to be hilly; having 1 and 2, for uphill, and coasting down hill, and gently touring in 6th gear (15 mph) seemed fine. Finally, remembering that I would be self-catering, I bought a Spork.

So, the day arrived and I set off for work, and all was fine until about mile inbetween Peckham and Elephant and Castle. That bit of South London that all the trains pass-by without stopping. What I think happened is, I accidentally selected 3rd gear. There was a clunk-click noise and the cranks locked solid (I couldn't turn the pedals). That's actually what the nature of the earlier failure (locked cranks) was, so I tried to engage 2nd to get out of it. No dice. The changer couldn't go below 3. Eek! And the cranks were locked in all the higher gears as well! Game Over. I walked back to Peckham while trying to figure out what to do. The only option now was the bus, but which bus and from where?

Back in 2002, I remembered that I had travelled to Street via Bath..or Bristol. They had busses, and I remembered that getting to Street was a separate bus via somewhere, so somehow I'd need to extend the train journey to somewhere with a bus service to Street. Coasting down the (drained and paved) Surrey Canal into Peckham, I accidentally pushed the pedals in 7th gear. Clunk, clunk, and suddenly I could select 1,2,4 and 6 again. But 4 and 6 sounded frightening, cluck, cluck cluck. There's no way I was going touring on that!

So, I rode home, clucking, and got the train (very very late) into work. A fair amount of time was spent figuring out my new route. Of course it was possible to get to Street by bus from Bristol, but before 9pm when the hostel reception closes? No.

If you have a long memory, you may remember that one of the policies of the 1997 Labour government was to create an Integrated Transport policy [insert laughter here]. The only tangible thing that seems to have come out of the policy (which is still sorely needed) is Transport Direct. You know, Transport Direct, the national journey planner! You've not heard of it? It's a door-to-door journey planner, covering all modes including all bus services in the UK. I'd love to say that you've not heard of it because it doesn't work, but today I can announce (because there ain't no Ministers talking about it) that it actually works! When it is working that is, because I had a number of connection and database errors trying to use it on Friday, but in the end the data came out.

The answer it gave produced some head scratching, but I (with Google) couldn't better it. With a ticket extension to Taunton, and 3 buses (!), I would get to the Hostel at 21:15. The Hostel reception opened at 17:00, so I had to wait till I was at Paddington Station to check. Good old YHA, they said it was fine, but I should phone them again if I was going to be closer to 10 o'clock.

I bought an extension ticket at Paddington (Castle Cary to Taunton) and after negotiating the ticket barrier, hmm, it is not helpful that your seat reservation looks more-or-less identical to your actual ticket, I got onto the train, and nice it was too.

All the old HST seats have been replaced with slim-line versions (with headrest wings). They were a bit hard (my bottom got a bit numb), but there was a power socket in between the seats in the foot well (iPhone says thank you) and much more leg room (knees very grateful).

Somehow, we got stuck behind a stopping train, outside of Swindon, and then had to stop completely (to call the BTP), after children were seen throwing ballast at the train, so we ended up 14 minutes late. What about my connections? Well, I would miss my first bus from Taunton Train Station to the Bus Station, but there was a few minutes gap till the next journey. Looking at it on the map, it looked like a walkable distance to the bus station. So, I decided to skip the first bus, and hot foot it to the bus station.

And I made it, with about 2-3 minutes to spare. I was not much assisted by the iPhone in this mini hike. Locate Me told me that I was bang in Central London. Not good. But of course, being in town, there were signs, so with the help of a few locals I got there OK, even with a few seconds to take a picture of some sort of Castle.

The bus I got was a big mini-bus, and was full of locals (who else?), with west country accents. I was able to use the iPhone to drag the Map to follow the route through the villages (yeah, it worked fine with only a GPRS signal), and so we eventually got to Somerton, where my final connection would be made. And more or less on-time, it arrived and I was the only one on the bus (I think this service, at this time was subsidised by the Council). This bus was nice and modern, with a roof and lighting that seemed rather Star Trek Next Generation:

Again, following on the iPhone (where I had put a marker for the Hostel location), I knew when to look out for the road the Hostel was on, but it came a junction earlier than my marker and damn it if the bus stop wasn't right on top of a hill, so I couldn't see it or the YHA sign until passing them. Luckily the bus driver stopped anyway. The time? 21:10. The time I arrived at the Hostel? 21:15!

There was no pavement on the way to Hostel, instead it was a little path in a lightly wooded area next to the road.

It looks fairly benign in dry daytime, with the odd swinging rope here and there, and lovely views over a field of sheep, but in the near darkness, I just had to put faith in the iPhone map and my compass. And I got there.

I got asked when in Edinburgh last week what the difference is between a 1 and 5-Star hostel given that its still a dormitory. Hmm, I'm not sure, apart from the obvious one that the 5-star hostel had a shower and toilet in the dorm room.

While in Street there was just a sink, and dormant fireplace behind this bed. But other than that there weren't many differences. I suppose other things missing in 1-star Street: Wifi or Internet access; lockers; air conditioning/fans; breakfast/restaurant (instead there was a big kitchen) and town centre location (about a mile south). Does it matter? When I turned out the light (just me in the dorm that night), it was pitch black and silent. Even with the window open. In the morning I was woken by Swallows chirping. What's more important?

Anyway, I wanted to stay there because it was styled like a Swiss Chalet:

What a lovely building, built in the early 1930s and the first Youth Hostel in the South West. The facilities were good, I slept well and had a nice hot shower in the morning, and the reception was friendly, as were the others staying there.

Because I wasn't cycling, I wouldn't be getting a close up of the Glastonbury Tor, but walking down to Street I got a clear long-distance view. Now, on this day I had a chance to employ and test out 2 features of the camera which I learnt had a big effect on quality, Auto-focus mode and Matrix mode. In my simple terms, you can make the camera's computers work on the middle of what you are pointing at, or work on the whole image. So, this is the difference between a light object in a dark room being light or dark (light metering), and a distant object behind a close object being in or out of focus (auto-focus). So, here is Glastonbury Tor, captured at maximum zoom.

I was a hazy day, and I had no tripod, so I think that's not bad. Street itself was very pretty indeed:

Anyway the shoes. These shoes ruled.

The one on the left is a Columbia Howell. The ones I got are tan coloured, and the soft leather has my feet very pleased. The one on the right is the Chameleon ISO. Essentially the same as my last shoe, but in a slightly less but not un-satisfactory 'bungie' colour - the only colour they had. The Chameleon fit my new right foot, but hurt my un-reconstructed left. Well, I had already decided that it only had to fit the right foot pending the op. on the left later this year, so I was happy (and only £20 over budget).

There was half-an-hour to wait for the bus to Wells (for Wookey), so I had a look at the TIC, where I got a 10% voucher for the caves, and grumbled at the buy one pair, get another free offers from the Clarks shoe outlet store in the rather nice Clarks Village. On arriving at Wells I got a bit of a shock. The next bus to Wookey was in 15 minutes (good), but the next bus to Wookey Hole was over an hour away. Not good. But the bus journey to Wookey Hole was only 7 minutes. Hmm.

The iPhone map doesn't have a scale, but it looked walkable, and since I was wearing new walking shoes (the old Chameleons went into the shop's bin), I thought, why not? 25 mins (1.5 miles) later I was there. Mostly uphill, but nice views of the Mendips.

There's a fine line in UK visitor attractions between cool for kids and tacky. Wookey Hole Caves skirts close in places but manages to avoid tackiness while seemingly delighting children.
Yes it's Kong, just in front of a dinosaur park, and here's me in front of the landscaped cave mouth, having slept well:

So, the caves, a whopping £15 entry price. But quite interesting. Apparently a woman used to live there with a dog long ago, hence the witch legend, see her in profile on the right:

The cliff above the cave was used by hyenas and humans as a trap. Animals were chased over the edge to their death, and a fresh meal. Later the river was tapped to power a Paper Mill, and there is still (very expensive) cotton paper made there. The (limestone) caves were/are formed by an underground river. And they were/are being uncovered by a combination of diving and caving since the 19th century.


And here's a close up of Kong, yeah it's 'life sized':

The Paper in the mill is made from cotton pulp, rather than wood. In this picture cotton is being sieved ready for pressing and drying as a (£3) sheet.

After the mill, there was an authentic penny (20p) arcade, and a little circus. I expected the circus to be naff, but it wasn't. All the performers seemed to be under-18 and some of the stunts they did were rather good, human pyramid, hanging upside down from ropes, great juggling and jumping tricks.

I finished with about 40 minutes to wait for the bus, so it was an easy choice to walk down to Wells. I managed to get just within the walls of the Cathedral for a quick pic before hot footing back to the station:

As I arrived at the station, the bus from Wookey Hole arrived, and turned into the 161 to Frome, the bus I needed to take me to Shepton Mallet, where I would get a final coach to Castle Cary. In Shepton, I got off in the middle of town, and got a sandwich for the train journey from the Co-op before looking for my coach stop. Walking there I saw this which looked interesting:

Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, apparently. But I didn't have time to have a look and also find the bus stop, so I just went to the stop and waited...and waited. This was the only journey on the trip that was late, about 6 minutes so, but it got me to Castle Cary (with it's colonies of Swallows, Crows and Cows) 30 mins before the train arrived.

The HST back had to terminate at Reading due to a shortage of train crew (huh?), so we all had to pack into a 5 car Adelente to get to Paddington, but overall it was a great day out, very relaxing.

Congratulations to my mate Nick and his new bride Cynthia. I took the opportunity of them getting married in Edinburgh to try out Heathrow Terminal 5, for real. I managed to pack a change of clothes into a camera and tripod bag (no, not ready to trust BAA with my hold luggage, thanks), with my camera (I was official photographer - fingers crossed for the F40fd), and despite the tripod potentially being a club to terrorise the plane with, I got through security without a murmur.

The top left view is of Terminal 5 B, where, it seems, all the Long haul flights go from, while the domestics, including mine, went from the main building. The vibe in the terminal was certainly world-class, very relaxing and soothing with lots of natural light, and no blaring announcements.

I had to take advantage of the superb shopping facilities to buy some headphones for my iPhone, and a tie and cufflinks to match my pink Van Heusen shirt. Despite being tax free, the Sony Style store was a bit more expensive than Amazon, but the Tie Rack offerings were quite affordable for the quality.

The flight (BA, Airbus A321) left 15 minutes late, but the pilot said we'd make up the time. When the meal came, to my surprise, it was a full English breakfast:

and very tasty it was too. If I'd known, I wouldn't have had a little breakfast baguette from Pret a Manger (probably the cheapest eatery in T5) about half-an-hour before. Despite an effort with my paper towel, I got a spot of watery fat on my tie. Drat.

The rest of the flight was moderately uninteresting, a fair bit of turbulence on descent over a big wind farm, and a powerful, hard on the brakes landing. A quick phone call to the groom to check where I was going, and I took the express bus into town. I got off at the wrong stop though, I was sure I saw a sign saying Waverley, but it turned out it was Haymarket, so I had a good Google maps assisted walk into the centre. I was several hours early (just in case), so I went on a little tour of the Museum of Scotland, which was just down the road from the wedding chambers. I got a bit lost on leaving the Museum, but got to the Wedding in good time to set up. Before leaving I took a photo of the Castle from the Museum roof.

We got up there in-time from the 1 o'clock gun...which I didn't hear. Oh well!

The next day, after breakfast with the wedding party, I came to the main 'other' attraction of the visit.

The Scottish Parliament. The last time I was in Edinburgh, the building was under construction. I phoned up and booked a tour for 11:40, and in the meantime visited the Royal Palace across the road (Holyrood), where there was a renaissance painting exhibition.

The Parliament was designed by a Catalonian and was intentionally and obviously modernist: wood, glass, slate, concrete etc. I found the architecture to be a bit incoherent (for my tastes) at ground level, but the overall design, from the air, looks great. It is meant to be stalks and leaves and boats. Inside, there are St. Andrews cross motifs everywhere including in the concrete roof, and all the doors:

and lots of tasteful angles everywhere. My favourite architectural motif was the MSP offices, which have little contemplation booths on the outside:

In a parallel from my tour of the Australian Parliament, the tour guide explained how Scottish the materials in the building were. There wasn't enough sustainable Oak in Scotland for the flooring so they had to import some from England France. Sadly, we couldn't take a picture in the debating chamber, nor in the committee room we saw, nor in the lobby (why??), so that was it.

I got back to the station in good time for a great train ride down the dramatic East Coast Mainline. Near the top, we were actually by the coast:

Back in London, I decided to take a peek at St. Pancras International (last time I was there in November it was still unfinished). Wow, what a difference and what a vibe! It felt lively and so very big; walking all the way to the back past shop after shop took a while, until I found the reserved platforms just before the final 'circle' of shops:

SE Trains, for 'Javelin' High-Speed Kent services

I think St. Pancras International is certainly equal to T5 in ambience, and of course, trumps it completely in terms of accessibility and connectivity. I walked all the way back to take a close look at the Eurostars, and well, it's certainly summer, they were plastered in blood and carcasses.

I remember the first time I saw the roof, I didn't like the colour at all. Funny how the addition of a clock accessory can change how things look:

It was also nice I think, to see how the western side of the terminus is now a big window over the British Library. Nice and airy, a great building.

Tags: Trains, Technology, Planes, Buses