Bit of an update this entry.

So, I finished the trench and moved a bunch of gravel into the back. I think it’s the fences next, or the pond. This below is the completed trench.

That was before it rained. It’s currently filled with about 10 cm of rainwater, or ground water, as I suspect it has come up and filtered through the clay rather than down (it is crystal clear). Ho hum.

The next weekend I went to the Cycle Show. I saw this Moulton with a child seat on the way back. I like the way the child gets her own pedals, linked to the chain wheel.

I had a look at the hubs on the Shimano stand.

Nothing there for me really, no drum brake option on the Alfine, and the dynamo hubs only work on 26-inch and bigger wheels. I saw the new IF folding bike, remarkably expensive, some wooden rims, the new Moulton 50 and had a terrible ride on a Mezzo on the rather flat commuter test track.

I got there far too late to try the mountain bike track. I mean it was open but the queues were ridiculous. I should have known that from last year.

I visited Southampton the next week for a conference. Nice train ride down via Megatrain, which puts you on the normal train, but on the slow service, but at half the price. Shot from the train window below. It didn’t actually rain.

My hotel was down by the docks and the walk there took me through a huge new shopping development and then the old walls of the town, and Jane Austen’s house (or something near it, according to the plaque).

These walls were actually on the sea. It’s been reclaimed as a road now though. And from my window (facing the docks), this rather impressive sight.

Walking back to the station, I went through the main centre park. The main attraction in there was a crime scene:

I popped into the nice art gallery (some nice impressionism and a Monet in there), and then back on the very slow train back home.

Now, the bike. I got a puncture on the rear wheel, and on inspection it was clearly end of life. The external rubber had worn through, 2 spots of the blue pucture barrier peeked through:

So, when I took my new hub to Bicycle Workshop, I asked them to replace it, but they didn’t have any. I wished they had told me during the 2 weeks they had the wheel (so I could order one), but hey ho. I got the bike back from them on Saturday. I had to leave at 5:30 to get
there for the 7am workshop collection. I got totally lost on the way and it was almost complete chance that I found it. Anyway, fundamentally, they think, because of the width of the hub, I shouldn't be using v-shape rims. They say the Velocity Aeroheat I bought is a deeper V than the Alex DA-16 I was replacing (personally I can't tell the difference). They said the angle of the spoke at the rim is too much, and causes the spoke to bend, and indeed I can see the spoke bending into the eyelet when I look. So, they predict that the spokes will start breaking, especially as the wheel is slightly dished. (OH FFS not again!!!) When this happens, they'll order me a Sun rim — which I really hope offers me a longer term solution.

Well, that fills me with confidence!! On the other hand, they might not break, they've used high quality Sapim spokes, which look thinner than my front spokes and I’ve still got all the spokes. The hub brake is OK and the new gears are working well, smoother than the last one, but as with the last one, the very occasional slip in 4 and 6.

While I was waiting for the bike (I took it in a 7:30 and got it at 17:30), I visited Westfield, the new shopping centre in Shepards Bush/White City. The biggest urban centre in Europe, I gather. It is indeed big, although not big enough to provide rain cover for those coming on public transport or on foot. It rained and everyone got wet (except those coming by car, presumably). Inside it was horribly packed and had all the same shops, it seemed to me, as Oxford and Bond Street, where I had just come from, except without the sales. Only 2 things in there delighted me, 1 - the sight of children playing Nintendo Wii, and 2 - the Alessi store, the one and only reason I may return there.

On my way to Westfield, I saw that Monument is coming along well with its refurb. Its going to look nice I think.

Tags: Garden, Moulton

Ah, Suffolk.

My best friend from school, Ross, has just married a lovely lady called Cath. Something must be wrong with me, since it did not occur to me the whole time I was at their wedding party to actually take a picture of them. Instead above is a picture of the back drop to the event. Not a bad spot I think, and by amazing unusual co-incidence for summer ‘08, fantastic weather that weekend.

Anyway I started off foolish. They were having their party at Moat Farm, and rather than read the invite properly, I let Google suggest to me that it was near Diss. Diss! I checked for train tickets and got them for only £6. Of course, as soon as I’d booked them (non-refundable), I realised the mistake. Diss! I mean, really. It was actually near Sudbury, and despite being a bit closer, that ticket was £28. Hmm. Anyway the morning of departure came, and as per my last blog post, I was going to cycle to the bike shop in Notting Hill to drop off the new hub, and then straight over to Liverpool Street.

But it was the 1st presidential debate the night before, which I’d watched, so I woke up late and started slowly. I started packing and where is my pillow? My Tempur Travel Pillow. My expensive camping luxury that gave me such a good night’s sleep last year. Hmm, hmm? Well, I still haven’t found it, and I wasted several hours on Saturday looking for it. So I had to take my old light and useless Vango pillow.

In fact, by the time I left for Liverpool Street (no time now to deliver the hub!), not only was I too late to get the mid-day train, I was too late to cycle for the 1pm train too. Eek! I rushed over to Catford Bridge to see I’d just missed the Charing Cross train, but luckily a Cannon Street train was on the way. I made it onto the Sudbury train with under 5 minutes to spare. My bike shared the cycle space with a Pedersen, another weird one.

At Sudbury, I had quite the oddest accident. I managed to drop my bike, chain-ring first onto my ankle. It is still healing now, and made the 7 mile ride up to the farm a bit uncomfortable, but not too much though. That ride was mostly uphill, a bit tougher than I expected. I decided to use the iPhone rather than Viewranger for directions, and although I didn’t get lost, I did have a few moments where I wasn’t sure where I was along the route. Turn left after 2 miles it says. How far is that then? Turn right on Church Street (but there’s no street names!), and so on. But I was late, so I hurried on.

When I got there, there was a Punch and Judy show going on for the kids and wine for the rest of us, delightful! The whole thing was great, and in the hangar next door was:
this. Cripes.

Whoah! Hawker Hurricane restorations! I had no idea such a thing existed. Not preservation, but actual aircraft restorations as effectively new working planes.

Amazing.
That night the pavilion where the party happened was lit up with Christmas lights and candles. It looked enchanting. I took this awful pic with my iPhone.

I didn’t dance: so many excuses, wrong shoes - too grippy, cut up ankle - too painful, but mainly too shy. Silly boy.

Me and Ross

In the morning, I thought I left in such good time to get a midday train. So much time, that I decided to buy some lunch for a few hours later. Hmm, took a little while to find an open shop, and then somewhere to lock up, and then oh no, oh no, a one-way system in town, and such a big one! I managed to race around (as best I could on 2nd gear) and rushed down to the station, following the signs. Rushing down a road I didn’t recognise, rushing and, um, where’s the station? I had to ask a local, it was far back up the road. Annoyingly the last sign for the train was perpendicular to the road on a roundabout. Coming at the sign, I simply didn’t see it and took a wrong turn. I missed the train by 2 minutes. Argh! Next train was a full hour later. Ack!

So I had a look a the station. Turns out it’s a community partnership branch line, kept open with local support, partly demonstrated by the floral efforts on the platform:

Quite effective in terms of butterflies and bees. What you can’t tell from the pics is the cacophony of bird noises around the station, in the bushes behind. It was like a jungle back there. Yup, doesn’t take much to entertain me.

Lovely finish to the weekend though. Best wishes to Ross and Cath on their Irish adventure!

Postscript - hub

I finally managed to get the hub over to Bicycle Workshop today. I cocked-up a delivery there on Monday (closed on Monday), but had an exhilarating fast ride across central London doing so. You ride as fast as you can, with fingers on the brakes, staying ahead of the traffic, but out of the way of it (certainly not on the inside of trucks!). Riding cross Hyde Park and then back through Bayswater. A huge work out for the Moulton suspension and a big smile on my face.

Speaking of which, you can hear about the Moulton (and hear me for 10 secs at the beginning) here at the Bike Show.

Tags: Sturmey

Time flies by, it really does. It was way back in May when my hub gears failed reducing me to only 2 gears. I’ve done around 1,800 miles since then, mostly in 2nd gear (39-inches), and have become even fitter than I was before. I had a pre-surgical assessment recently, for the operation on my other foot, following Number 1. The nurse was quite a bit concerned by my heart rate (40-45 bpm). An ECG later, and apparently I’m very fit (severe Bradycardia). But I’m still obese. The effort in cycling in 2nd gear is quite high, and it left me with a big appetite, and no inclination to go back to the gym or do Pilates. Pilates, in particular was actually having an effect on my belly, at least, it felt so.

I want to lose weight, so I needed to replace the hub. I was tempted by the all-new revised Sturmey 8 Speed, which was due in summer 2008, but summer has come and gone and nothing has happened. In fact it won’t come out till next year now, and apparently the drum brake version will be later still.

Drum brakes. That was going to be the upgrade to make my bike the ultimate low maintenance commuter. Well, disc brakes would give me more options, but the Moulton would require major welding to take them. So, I was going to do the front wheel first with a hub brake dynamo, and then the back wheel with the new 8 speed. Unfortunately, although I thought I had an agreement to make the modifications necessary to take a front drum brake, and had got the front hub and 36 hole rims ready, it seems that negative advice from the factory put off my dealer.

So, must stay positive. What about the rear hub? I decided to look again at the market, and to summarise:

• Rohloff - too expensive, no drum brake option only disc
• Shimano Alfine - don’t like the shifter, no drum, only disc
• Shimano Nexus - hate the shifter
• SRAM iMotion 9 - heavy, expensive, no drum and unavailable
• SRAM S7 - expensive if bought in the UK (£180)

I looked at the S7 closely, it had 7 gears, but over 300% range, like the Sturmey. It had a drum brake and a good reputation, but it was expensive, is not a silent hub, and would require a new chain wheel to maintain sensible ratios. The chain ring issue was a niggling minus, since I’d spent so much (£100) on a durable steel ring and cranks.

Of course, I didn’t have to spend £180. I could buy one off eBay in Germany. I couldn’t find one, but ironically, at the time of writing, a search for “trommelbremse S7” on ebay.de, finds 3 shiny ones, for €129, not bad. But buying a German model off eBay would almost certainly mean no warranty. Although there were several recommendations on the Moulton mailing list attesting to the durability of the hub, I was still worried about the noise it would make and the extra cost of the chain ring. And given my style of riding, I felt I needed, really needed a warranty.

In the meantime, this happened:

If you look at the 8pm position on the hub, you will notice tear in the flange. Oh what? I had the wheel built with Tandem spokes for super toughness because any other spokes would break after a few dozen miles (probably because I’m heavy) - but it seems it was too tough now! Instead of the spoke snapping, it ripped through the flange, remaining fully in-tact!

I got a surprise offer from the factory to see if they could secure me an early model of the new SA8. This was a great offer, given that I was now out of warranty, and I went for it, but as time went on, on 27 spokes, I started to get early warning signs, pedal pedal, ping, quiet. Pedal pedal ping. This thing is slowly coming apart! Thinking again about the factory offer, they would get me a 28 spoke freewheel hub. Did I REALLY want another 28 spoke hub? Really?

No. I really needed 36 spokes and a warranty to guarantee me 2 years of use. And the stars aligned. I started ebaying again, and was surprised to find nearly £150 in my Paypal account, earning them interest. By coincidence, Old Bike Trader was now offering the current drum brake SA8 for £135, fully warranted from Sturmey European HQ in Holland. And of course OBT takes PayPal.

And here she is, sleeping in her box, an X-RD 8 Speed:

70mm drum brake on the left, 8-speed hub on the right. If it lasts for 2 years, then hopefully SA will have run out any kinks in the new SA-8, and if it doesn’t, then I’ll be pressing for the new one in a warranty claim. But hopefully, since this is a late revision of the hub, it’ll be a good one. Late revision, since I see it has the new shifter I saw at the Bike Show a year ago:

So, remembering my good experience there last year, I’m going to get the conversion done at Bicycle workshop. They claim they are not afraid of hub gears, which is re-assuring. I will deliver them the rim and hub tomorrow for wheel building, and then the bike for the installation in a week or so. Gulp!

Wish me luck!

Tags: Sturmey

Velocity Aeroheat, 36-hole

Tags: Moulton

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

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.

Well, I was going to restart this last weekend, but I didn't get round to it.

First a quick re-cap: the hub gear was fine once I reversed the lock nuts. No idea why. However in doing to the wheel had to move forwards, and being a hub with out a chain tensioner, this gave me a slack chain. I cocked up the chain shortening exercise, but was saved by Halfords selling chain connectors (but only after I'd bought a new chain...). All was fine till after Christmas when I sensed a tugging sensation on the rear wheel. Here's the cause:

Not only broken in 2 (almost), but most of the teeth had ripped off too. Geniunely worn out! Looking at the chainwheel, I could see that that was worn too and you always need to change the chain too, so, I replaced the lot:

Steel is our friend is what Dr. Moulton says, so it seems appropriate to have replaced the softer aluminium chainwheel with a Surly made from stainless steel with matching Stronglight cranks. £100 all-in and either its the 1 extra tooth on the chainring or the 5 less millimetres on the crank length, but it feels great, easier and more powerful.

Such was the feeling that I decided to ride all the way to Slough last Sunday.

Above is the signpost just before Slough on the edge of the Heathrow perimeter of the A4. I was and am amazed to have completed the 30 mile journey in 2.5 hours. Excellent additional news was that Viewranger have updated their GPS software, and for the first time, the N70 managed to maintain contact with the GPS for the whole journey - no lost signal, no lost bluetooth, no reboots needed.

All they need to do now is port it to the iPhone. Best. Phone. Ever! Well, it's not the phone that makes it great, it's still not a fully featured mobile (no MMS, no video recorder), but the iPod, Safari and little apps make up for it in a big way. It is still (I got it the day after it came out), a pleasure to use, and even when I had the GPS'ed N70 on this trip, it was the iPhone with it's 'locate me' feature that I used when I needed a map to confirm how to get to the A4 after Chiswick.

Finally, I'd like to introduce my new DAB radio. With some vouchers from work, I visited John Lewis this January and have acquired the best mobile DAB I've had yet. I didn't find a proper review on YouTube, so I made one myself:


But wait, there's one more thing. I'm back with a bang because I was travelling to Ikea by tram to get a foot rest to help with recovery after my foot operation next week (a story for tomorrow perhaps), and we're somewhere around Black Horse Road, at a traffic light controlled crossing, and I see this Mini Cooper approaching from the right, and I think, that's getting a bit close - shit!! BANG!

The car drove straight into the tram and bounced off. The tram was shook up, but thankfully stayed on the rails. In fact, when we got out and I had a look, I couldn't see any damage to the tram at all. The tram was mostly empty, I suppose I was nearest to the impact, and yet the interior of the tram remained undamaged as well. There was a funny smell though so I stepped back till I could see the car engine was turned off. Remarkable. The driver was calm, and gave the driver of the car a hug (yes everyone survived unscathed). The Mini driver admitted going through a red light. Twit. Oh well, poor car, looks like a writ-off maybe. Anyway the tram driver seemed to go into training mode and everything was calm and by the book and we were directed to the nearest bus stop and told which bus to catch. Very professional, slightly surreal.

Tags: GPS, Moulton, Crash, DAB, Bunion, iPhone

I was riding in Peckham, entering Peckahm Rye from a side street. There were 2 buses and I saw a gap between them. So I went for it. But I was in 7th gear, so I had to change down quick, but not quick enough it seems. Something 'went' and I found I had no gears. But as I slowed down (and let the bus behind over take me) I found I did have a gear it was just a lower one to that on the gear indicator.

I managed to get home with the gear still working (just the wrong gears), and I had a look. The Arm that holds the cable adjuster in place had swung down. I went to remove the wheel and I found the nuts were a bit loose. Hmm. I can't remember if I tightened the nuts or not before BoA. I struggle to imagine I didn't, but I don't know. I know I had some difficulty getting the wheel into a straight line. But I didn't notice anything wrong with the wheel, the only thing was that it was slightly out of adjustment, and when I got home from BoA I re-adjusted it and the changes were perfect.

I rode it again the next day, with the arm moved back into position. When I got to work I noticed that the arm had moved again. So I gingerly rode home again and left it till this Sunday. I cleaned the chain and took off the wheel to see if the arm was broken. It doesn't seem to be broken. When I tried to ride to the Hovis ride in London, the changes were perfect for about 1/2 a mile, then no gears... the arm had moved again - so I had to hobble back home.

Before

After. Sigh.

New site for sharing routes from OS, using OS maps! Cool! Works with my GPS right?

Unfortunately there is currently no way to export the routes to GPS orvice versa.Kind regards,

Tsk!

Tags: Technology, GPS

The rear wheel, which was rebuilt only a few weeks back broke a spoke on me on Wednesday. It's hopeless, but at least Comptons replaced it for free, lovely guys. I'll have to get the wheel rebuilt again. This time with super-strong spokes, as suggested by my dealer, and to my surprise also by the Moultoneers list. DT Swiss seem to be the people to get the spokes from.

Now, the GPS. It's working OK now I have paired up the receiver with the N70. I noticed that Garmin have updated their eTrex line with 'high sensitivity' receivers with 17 hours battery life. So, just like my new Bluetooth GPS then. But what's this shown on the mapping model on their website?

It's Peckham Rye in South London! But to all the world looking like a Welsh Valley. Hmm. Here it is in viewranger.

MUCH more detail. I think I made the right choice.

Tags: Pashley, GPS

I'm doing my last purchases for my trip to Bradford on Avon this year. I am cycling there from Oxford to Wallingford, where I'll be camping there by the river (the campsite will hopefully be dried out by then!). In fact, here's the plan:

• Wednesday night train to Oxford
• Thursday morning, walking tour of Oxford and visit to Ashmolean museum
• Thursday afternoon, ride down to Wallingford (20 miles?) - camp on the river
• Friday, ride 11km down to Goring and joining the Ridgeway to the western end, then take the canal to Bradford-on-Avon
• So, did some purchases early this week (pay day) 3 of them came today:

First is my GPS. This below isnt it, the GPS is on the window sill behind me, this is MGMaps (so named because it contained Mobile Google Maps, until Google told them that they weren't allowed to), so in the picture is the somewhat crappy Yahoo! Maps with a marker in the middle showing my current position (note the missing map tiles on the right - not available according to Yahoo!).

The program is superficially easy to use, but I am yet to figure out how to change the map. It supports several online maps, and I have changed it from map to blurry satellite, but by accident, and I can't change it back, and waiting for Yahoo's map tiles to download is SLOW. Trying it with Viewranger I got mixed results. I think this was due to me not pairing the unit with the phone and giving it free access to the phone.

I used it to log me as I rode over to Greenwich to help a mate move house. After a few hundred meters I got a beep to tell me that the connection was lost. A couple of stops, restarts and reboot later and long waits for it to search for devices, it got working again. Tried it tonight after having paired the devices using the Bluetooth tool on the phone and sha-bing, worked instantly in Viewranger. Back on the ride though, I tested the Trip function on the phone just after Deptford and it didn't seem to give me moving information. Several miles later I realise that the app has frozen ruining the log, a bit. However, looking on what it did record it was very accurate. I've got another longer ride over to Chiwick tommorow. So, I'll see if the reliability improves.

The second thing that came via Royal Mail van delivery (the GPS was a missed delivery from Friday), was the Tempur Travel Pillow.

The packaging was pretty bad, a big cardboard box containing a little pillow. It should have been shipped in its little compression bag which is about 1/5^th the size. But I can't really sleep with a regular camping pillow, so this luxury is an essential. And the last thing to come was delivered by the postman:

Ooh, solar panels! This was intended for charging the Phone and GPS on the road, but the GPS has a long battery life and a non-standard power port (standard meaning Nokia), so this will do only for the phone. No idea how it will work, but I bought it because the panels actually charge a big battery, and you then plug the battery (behind the panels) into the phone. It also has 2 USB port for charging an iPod. The charging works in natural light and specifically not with fluorescent lighting. True too, I put it in sunlight and the LED shows it is charging. I put it under a downlighter and it sort of charges, I put it against my iMac screen and nothing. Anyway, I think the idea is that you charge the battery normally and then use the sun as a top-up. We shall see.

Tags: Moulton, Pashley, BoA, GPS

Worst DD conditions ever I heard. Started raining lightly at 9pm, just after leaving, a nice gentle rain I thought, 'like cycling with air-conditioning' I said, then it got progressively heavier and heavier. Never torrential, but heavy, and it didn't stop till about 4am.

I hooked up with a guy on a touring bike, he had a GPS with no map, while I had ViewRanger on my phone, with an OS map of the route, but no GPS. 3 or 4 times on the route this combo was really helpful, since he could read out the OS coordinates, and I could say - yep, we're on the wrong road!

I was amazed at how easy it was until about 10 miles from the 'half way' point. There's a part of the ride through gentle inclines and declines in total darkness with only headlights of bikes and rear blinkers and you look ahead and see a trail of red lights, and I remember it going on for ages last time I rode the DD, but this time it was over in a few minutes. And I was actually overtaking the odd rider, although groups of riders past me frequently. LOL.

By the time I got to Sudbury though I was exhausted, wet and cold. Worst, my hands were numb and tingling, and my foam handlebar grips had lost adhesion and moved about, letting water get into the shifter and (I reckon) affecting my shifts (all was fine once the rain stopped). My hands shouldn't have been numb, but when I got to the end I realised that when I had adjusted the damping on the front suspension before the ride, I had accidently locked it solid. D'oh!

We got to the stop, seemingly miles after Sudbury and pschologically too far, and we got there in the throng of it this time, lots of food and drink available. The Pasta-veggie mix looked tasty, but remembering the last ride, I had prepared for an empty kitchen and so had packed a sandwich.

I ate tracker bars en-route, I thought I had bought chocolate chip ones, but it turned out to be very tasty peanut. I also had chocolate brunch bars and 4 bananas. Yes, a tasty mixture.

We stayed for well over an hour. We didn't leave till the rain had stopped, and the sun was just starting to turn the sky dark blue rather than blank. I heard that a lot of riders gave up at this point. Again the riding seemed fairly OK but approaching Framlingham the road started rising and falling, and with each rise, although I tried to accelerate down so to reduce the distance up, I lost energy.

But my co-rider, Bill, brought out his emergency chocolate bar, which gave a few joules of energy to keep us going. I only walked a few meters up one hill, before realising I could actually cycle up it slowly in 1st gear, so on all other hills I would cycle as fast as I could in 7th gear, then swapped straight down to 1st for the rest (a benefit of hub gears)!

Approaching the coast, yet more hills, argh. I was going mad by this point with the hills, but I remembered I had 1 last banana. Bananas are amazing, I got a very fast boost that kept me going till the end, where we had a fried breakfast. And at Dunwich the weather was perfect sunshine, so a great end.

Although we got in a 9am, I think the journey time was a couple of hours shorter than last time. 120-something miles. Woo!

The Rear wheel on the TSR packed up. Grr. Got it re-built and a new Shimano Un-54 Bottom Bracket fitted. Worked a treat, but I had two weeks of bus travel to suffer for it.

Tags: Moulton

I woke up early. I had to re-adjust my Sturmey hub which was slightly out of alignment from Friday. On Friday I suddenly lost gears 3-7, just next to Waterloo station. So I waited a full hour till 7pm and took the train home.

So, Saturday, I thought I did it right, re-adjusted the hub, it's not a simple thing, I have to unscrew cables and other things un-fitting for a £1000 bike , went out and tested it. Fine.

Now all I need is to get the map for my destination. I'm helping a work mate trace his cycle route into work. I need to leave soon, and the TFL route is 8 pages of PDF. Hmm, I don't want to print that but OK, I've got two PDA's here, a Palm TX and a Nokia N70. Well the Palm has a nice big screen, and I've already got Adobe Reader, so I'll just bluetooth the file over.

Um, nope. Didn't work, after a few attempts. OK, I'll send it over using Missing Sync....um, nope. OK, I'll put the damn file direct on the SD card. No no no, can't write to it. Pile of pants. OK, I'm already late now...

Plan B, smart phone, yep so I'll just google for Adobe Reader for S60 and wtf? 6680???*

So, how about printing it then, urgh, too fine to read on the road. Cancel the print job. Ack! Aha, GoogleMaps then. Ah, but that's roads, big roads only. Well, no choice. What to use, again Palm TX is obvious, but that needs Wifi, and I can't be arsed to fiddle with Bluetooth now, so it's got the be the phone on it's own.

Google Maps, well, fiddling bloody stupid T9 input, damn I need and friggin iPhone! Anyway, it's a completely different route to the one TFL gave. But, no choice, off I go.

I get 10 meters down the road and I lose all gears again. Aaaaaaargh! I stop and look. When I left the gears were perfectly adjusted, now they are about 2 cm out. 2CM!!!!??? I really don't want to ride the APB today, something is wrong with the front brake and it's squeaking. I've ridden it so much (the TSR has been so unreliable) that it needs another service! But I've no choice, so off I go.

I get lost twice and end up heading toward Forest Hill rather than Crystal Palace (destination Thornton Heath). But I see a cycle route (LCN 26) to Crystal Palace. Nothing to lose now, so off I go. Biggest bloody hill I have ever ridden up. I mean, it went on and on, and the up and up some more and more. And then I was in Crystal Palace. Back to the Phone what now? Down and down and down, biggest down hill ever. And then I'm in Thornton Heath. A half-hour late, but at least the ABP made it, although it's making ever louder knocking noises when I brake.

It takes nearly 2 hours to ride into central London, but the route is fairly reasonably straightforward, and not too taxing. All my mate needs is a bike that is the right size for him, his bike is shockingly small (knees nearly touching hands), and the gear range, fairly slow.

Then over to Russ for lunch and mail re-direction. All good. Then back over to Hyde Park to watch the Prologue to the Tour de France. At which point I regret not having my portable DAB radio, but the batteries are (still) charging in the back room. So I had no idea of who was winning or anything. I was at the far corner of the road near Exhibition Road, but it was hot (sunshine), so I moved near to the time check display, and then moved again into shade at the end. Um, bikes, racing. Whoo! Well, lots of people wooing and clapping. Most for the British riders. It was fairly entertaining at least, and fantastic weather the whole day.

But just before I got to Russ for lunch, I noticed what the knocking noise was with the front brakes. My front rim had split. Expensive icing on the cake.

*Turned out that I should have googled for Adobe Reader N70 instead. And it works well, if slowly. Too late now though!

Tags: Sturmey, Nokia

On Fridays during the summer, I ususally ride back along the river (Route 4 from South Bank to Greenwich and Route 21 - Waterlink Way to Catford). This Friday, when riding to Greenwich I saw a huge warship. It was the Ark Royal aircraft carrier, the little curved harrier ramp is on the other side. I hope the sailors had fun on-shore.

Tags: Greenwich

Replacement rear wheel is due at the dealer mid-week. I'll probably pick it up on Saturday.

Tags: Pashley

I think I need to take the bike back to the shop...yet again. I'm starting to sympathise with this lot.

Chug (audio recorded on my mobile of the Sturmey 8 hub on my bike)

Tags: Pashley

This arrived through my letter box today. Yes, my letterbox!

What will these look like on my new bike?

Here's a bike with trekking bars

And here's a video of a bike with one

Tags: Pashley

Lots of pics of the weekend on Flickr, including my tent (in the middle)!
And me, striking a rather 18th century pose!

Tags: BoA

Came back from BoA 2006 last night. Knackered after the journey and the bike ride from Fulham home, but I didn't go to bed till 2 since I was putting up a gallery of pictures. Anyway I had a great time. Lots of us camped on the lawn.
You can't actually see my tent in the photo above, but it's to the left of the red tent, which is a Vango TBS Spirit 200+, mine being the Lite version of the same tent. The tent was great, although I only just fit inside. The flysheet is attached to the outershell so it all goes up as one and the tent poles are colour coded. It was really easy both to get up and to get down. The only down side was that the little porch had no floor so my shoes were left on the grass, and of course it's billed as a two man tent. Two lovers maybe. It's also only just long enough for me, my feet reached the end of the flysheet area while my head was at the other end.

Flysheets are great things, you're inside, away from the bugs, but you're outside in the fresh air. The side of the outer didn't actually touch the ground to there was excellent airflow, it was a warm weekend with cold nights, but the tent stayed comfortable the whole time. Once thing I'll need next time I go camping is a better pillow. I have a Vango pillow but it's far too thin for me. I had to use an inflatable neck pillow as a support - not very comfortable. I'll have to save up for a Tempur Travel Pillow. The inflatable ground mat through, very cheap from Decathlon, was very comfy, but then so was the spongy lawn underneath it.

The first evening we went down the the Swan pub in town, these are the first pics in the photo gallery. I met some riders who I discovered later were in tents next to mine. Lots of good Moultoneering talk - it's good to talk to others who 'get it'. I forget all names but one guy had come down from Scotland with his RAC Moulton - that bike had been built as a marketing wheeze, and we heard tales of heroic rides up mountains on two-speeders and the subsequent burning out of the coaster brakes on the way down again. That rider was Josh who rides one of these for his work as a gardener.

Anyway onto the bikes, and so many of them, we counted around 50 F-frames and around 70 X-frames on the Saturday. I saw my first TSR at the sale in the village hall, I don't think there were any TSR campers. They are very nice machines, confirmed when I got to ride a few in the Afternoon.

The Sturmey-Archer model (see above example), I rode a few times. Smoother than I expected, completely silent when riding and very quiet when coasting, I also rode a Rohloff equipped TSR, lighter than I expected and it gave more range, but it also gave less information at the changer, and on the TSR it requires a chain tensioner, ruining the clean look. The best feeling though was changing gear, and the gear just changing, no fussy cog-changing - this was particularly apparent when going up the hill, where I had to gingerly change down on the deraillieur equipped bikes before ascending.

So, I'm sold on the Sturmey gear, but I can't just buy a TSR, I'd need to get a V-braked version to be able to fit my Marathon Plus tyres, and looking at the official mudguards, it's going to be very tight to get it all to fit. The mudguards are designed to cover a 1.5 tyre completely, they look like they are the same 1.75 size as the Marathon Plus. Anyway that's for next year. I also had the pleasure of riding a New Series again, this year the gears were perfect, but I was shocked at how much give there was in the suspension. I had to lock out the front suspension when going up the hill - well, I think you're meant to do that anyway. The bike though was so pretty and so light, only about 7.5 kilos.

Talking about kilos, a funny thing happened in the talk. They did a weigh off between an old Moulton racer and a traditional track racer, the Moulton had beaten the racer in a time trial but the racer was 5lbs lighter. What was odd was they weighed the bikes and gave the weight in pounds. I've no idea really what a pound is, I only know kilos, so I can say the track racer weighed 8.15 kilos and the Moulton, 10.4kg. I wonder if all the Moulton bikes are created in imperial measurements then?

We were told about the time trial which the Moulton had won but also about the weight testing. The original F-frame Moulton was rated to carry 32kg of luggage. We were told how a barrel of cider was carried around on the prototype and how it was also ridden around the rough tracks of Iceland - not something I can imagine someone trying with a New Series.

In the evening we had a barbecue, I cooked some sausages and I was given half a tasty sweet potato. I heard whilst eating that 85% of Moultons are bought by the Japanese - that's quite remarkable, but I suppose as well as the Britishness cult, they also more likely have the saving to pay for one.

And that was it really, there was a ride on Sunday, during which I dried out the flysheet and I packed up, hoping to see the same faces next year.

Tags: BoA

What a ride home tonight! Dreadful dreadful rain, soaked through, but my bike's performance! I just can't believe it. Riding up Peckham Rye in the heavy rain I actually overtook a fit young guy on his Ridgeback. I mean, I was tailgateing him up the hill and I thought, hmm, how much can I push this, so I upped my pedaling and tried to overtake, and just about made it. I thought, I'd best keep pedaling and I did...ALL THE WAY UP THE HILL!

Clearly my new handle bar stem has made quite a difference to my riding. And it feels better for my back too. Anyway I got home and saw a little package waiting for me. New for 2006 - Cateye Strada. It's like a iPod Nano-esque cycle computer. A fair few more functions than my Sigma 500 (which was broken) and no buttons (just like a Mighty Mouse!), you just rock it to change mode (just like a Mighty Mouse!). Perfect cycle computer for a Mac user, clearly.

Oh and did I say how thin it is? It's THIN!

Thin is so...2006. Really.

Tags: Cateye, Thin

Rode past Velorution on the way to the gym today (finally found it after hunting and hunting for it on Sunday).

What a sexy bike shop! Pashley TSRs, Dahons, Bromptons, Birdys, and lots of funky european bikes like Helkama. Apparently they do servicing, so maybe I've found my new bike shop.

Tags: Pashley

Read and learn the history of

The Moulton

I called the Bike shop last week. Somehow they don't have the parts for my service (i.e. they didn't order them). This is worrying now because my brakes are almost completely worn, near misses each day now... The service will be a major one, aside from brakes etc:

New 7-speed Megarange cassette
1-inch extension to the handlebar
Specialized BG2 Grips
Crane Creek (rather expensive) bar ends

...and I'll have the front forks re-sprayed from factory black to blue.

Postscript, regardez:

One is a Moulton and one a Raleigh Shopper type device. Note the difference, in size at least.

Tags: Moulton

First ride since it was ruled legal in the high court. Six Moultons counted.

Waterloo Bridge

Grosvenor Square (by the US Embassy)

The Mall.

I swear I have not idea how this silly camera phone decides what size of picture to take!

Tags: Critical Mass

It's been a while.

I went on a bike ride earlier this month. Around the Green Chain. Here's the route.

Green Chain

From Catford, Russ led us down to Grove Park, where I found the first Green Chain sign. The route is mostly signed, but because there are at least two routes, we got lost at Mottingham. Still, there were some great views. Here on King John walk, you could view all of London from Canary Wharf to the City to St. Pauls. Of course the rubbish camera on the Moto barely captured it.

And from Elmstead Woods (a proper ancient wood) a nice view down a hill.

We ended up at the Thames Barrier, see me, fatty and Russ:

From there, we rode back to Catford, along the river, back to Greenwich then down Route 21. About 30 miles in total.

Tags: Green Chain

Perhaps blast is the wrong word. I went on a lovely bike ride today around the country lanes of Kent, from Wye to Chilern and really pretty village:

I was cycling with my mate Gethin who lives a few streets away from me. His bike is the one in front. A couple came up to me as we were enjoying a cream tea in a teashop in Chilern, to ask me about the bike. The man said he was interested in the spindly design and the woman said she was interested in the short wheel base.

Look, it's a space frame, not spindles, and if you look carefully at the picture above you can see that the 'wheelbase' (the distance between the centre of the wheel), is almost identical between the bikes. So there.

Anyway I got 32 miles before getting a puncture. WHAT?

Still, couldn't have happened in nicer place, eh? I wasn't expecting a puncture, on my puncture proof tyres, so I didn't have a kit. We were only a few miles from Geth's car (at the end of the ride) so he just rode to the end, drove back and rescued me. Cheers Geth!

I got home and checked the tube. Phew, not a puncture after all! The road was bumpy in that section and it must have damaged the repair patch from the last puncture on the tube from the knobbly tyres. So the Marathon Pluses are not at fault. Mental calmness restored.

I now need to talk to my bike dealer about my next service. It's going to involve this and this, something like this and probably this.

Tags: Schwalbe

...but a great day for cycling (southwards). I was really racing this evening on the Marathon Pluses, keeping up with the big wheelers on Waterloo bridge and storming up Peckham Rye Hill. I think I feel strong enough on these tyres to go back to the gym now.

Tags: Schwalbe

First ride in on the Marathons today. Quite heavy tyres, slower acceleration, unless one applies more power. If you do apply more power, it can go quite acceptably. Riding round route 25 from Clapham to Dulwich Village, they seemed very good. Riding up various hills, they seemed slow and heavy. Riding down Forest Hill, they seemed rather stable. Riding along double yellows, they had a tendency to tramline. Riding across the gravel and rock truck stop in Catford, the ride was very smooth indeed.

The main news though is...no puncture!

I was at a meeting in Berkeley Square today. On the way out, the plasma TVs in reception were showing BBC and Sky News. Here's what I saw. Auntie Beeb had a look inside too!

And in other news, mudguards and replacement block sunglasses have arrived (not a moment too soon, the tree pollen today was terrible). I'm ready for summer now!

Tags: Schwalbe, Planes

Made another trip over to Notting Hill this evening to get the Marathon Plus tyres I had ordered at the weekend. The tube to Notting Hill was quick and the walk (TFL journey planner assisted again) was something of a revelation. Such opulent housing and so many foo foo shops. I had to take some pics:

It was a bit hard to fit these tyres to the wheel, plastic levers would not have cut it this time. Hopefully they won't have to come off anytime soon....

After I had a slice of pizza from a very foo foo pizza shop (Fiat 500 in the front Window?, with foccacia stuck out of its windows? Foo foo, I think so); I thought, hang on, maybe my small wheeled bike shop is a foo foo shop too. The other one I use is in Battersea, and Bike Fix was in a terribly trendy pedestrianised street in WC2, and there's another one Velorution, that is more or less in Soho. Hmm.

Tags: Schwalbe, Foo Foo Shops

Well, sod Bikefix then. They had some and sold them.

My new hope (because if I do mail order they won't come any quicker) is Bicycle Workshop, who say they'll order some pluses for me - which is what Bike fix should have said 2 weeks ago.

I see a high proprtion of civil servants on this petition. I wonder if that suggests that proportionally, more us us are cyclists?

I've read some reviews of the SLVR saying that the sound from the speaker when playing music, is tinny. It certainly is if you hold it in the air, but if you put it on a table or cup it in your hand, you get a much fuller sound.

Tags: Schwalbe, SLVR

I left this morning at about 09:20 and rode to Lewisham. I got on the DLR destined for Stratford (change at Canary Wharf) and then to change to the Central Line for Theydon Bois. I got off again after being told, "you can't take non-folding bikes on this train" (because of some electrical something). I was sure I could take a bike on the DLR, but I must have mis-read the map, confusing DLR for the East London Line.

I had to get to Theydon Bois for 11:00 for the ride, so I was a bit panicked. How to get across the river and to Straford in time? I really didn't want to ride all that way on these knobbly tyres - and I had little idea of the route, other than going via the Greenwich foot tunnel. I had ridden the tyres to Bromley on Saturday, and although they gave a nice smooth ride, they are dead slow. I had no choice though. So up and up to Greenwich. On the north side of the Thames, a sign-posted cycle route to Mile End presented itself.

I got to Mile End in about 30 minutes, it was 10:30 now, and I had hoped to get on a train at Mile End, but I realised that wasn't going to happen, as Mile End is a deep station. So I rode on to Stratford, past Bow, where my cousin lives (at least I now know how to cycle there now).

At Stratford, they let me in, and I got on the platform, just as the Epping train was leaving. And that was that. The next train was 11 minutes later and I got to Theydon at about 11:15. But the ride was actually starting a fair way up the road, up a hill, so I actually got there about 11:25, by which time they all had gone.

So, I thought I'd best see what I could do. I cycled on from the car park down a track. I saw some other bikers and they weren't on the track, they were in the woodland. I thought I should look for a map and found one, next to a "No Mountain Biking" sign. It seemed I was heading north, while, if I went south I could go down the park to rejoin the tube for home at Loughton. Across the road was another map.

I was at a place called The Ditches (according to the photo above, but I thought I was on Jack's Hill). Anyway the map seemed to point either to another main track, or to a little track straight into the forest. I was passed by more bikers, who took the little track. I followed, and well, I was able to follow for about 1 minute before they disappeared into the distance. I tried to follow their tracks, but those evaporated soon too. I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, I was going lower and lower and came upon a little dip. It looked a bit boggy, but there were tyre tracks so on I went, in 1st gear, braking, braking and whoops!

I fell. I managed to get a foot down, but it went into the mud above my ankle. This unbalanced me and I fell over, still on the bike. The smell was mud, decomposing plants and manure. Great. I got up and tried to get out. I was lost, and I didn't even know where I wanted to go! I had a compass, so I tried to head south-east, not easy when all the tracks are twisty. I heard voices and saw tents. I was passing a campsite in a field, a nice place to camp with a view of a hill, but not really helpful in finding the way out and that path was a dead end (indicated by tree trunk across the track).

Back I went and this time up a step escarpment and I couldn't pedal anymore! So I walked up and eventually found another cycle track and that took me to a main track, which was paved with lots of little rocks. Down down down and all of a sudden, in a little road and people's front gardens and a main road. It was now about 12:20pm. I gave Russ a call to ask if he could use Streetmap to help find the way, but the signal was too bad, so I just cycled on and lo! I was back in Theydon Bois.

I got the tube back to Stratford and cycled as far as a about 1-km south of Mile End before noticing my rear tyre going down. Yes another puncture. That makes, what, three for the week? Now what? Well I had to walk with the bike all the way back to Stratford to get a train to Liverpool Street (I was able to listen to music on the SLVR though to pass the time), and then walk through the city to London Bridge (getting slightly lost on the way) for a train to Hither Green. I got back home at 16:00. 4 hours to get home. Shoes, socks and the rest all in the washing machine.

Urgh, what a day.

Tags: Mountain Biking

...and you better believe it. Those knobbly tyres (four pounds and 5 english pence each from our French friends) are destined for the mud of BNP'ed Epping Forest on Sunday. Weather forecast says rain, which is a shame, but I'm still going. If you think I'm mad to take a small wheeled bike on such an adventure, you're wrong! The APB is derived from the Moulton ATB (all-terrain bike), proclaimed at the time as the world's first dual suspension mountain bike. So it's back to roots, and the APB isn't the only one.

Tags: Mountain Biking

Had a trip into town today to get Velovision magazine. It has a review of the Shimano Nexus hub that I was considering getting for my bike upgrade, I think I may go for a (silent) Sturmey instead.

Anyway, the shop I got the mag from was in Notting Hill and on the bus there I again thought what a shame it was that unlike France with the little maps on their buses that correspond to bus stop names, you can't tell in London where you are from the bus stops. Well I was wrong! Looking at my print out from TfL of the end map (door to door), instead of bus stop names it showed two-letter symbols. The one I had to get off at was called PP, and the one before it PQ. Well, these are the little red round badges at the top of every single bus stop in central London! So, I just read the badges, and was able to tell when to ring the bell and get off. No stress, well done TfL!

Now, I didn't know, but the bus let me off somewhere I'd not been before.

Portobello Market, which I think must have had a fair proportion of tourists. There was more too it than I was interested in seeing, I saw fruit and veg, French and English bakeries and an Aussie style smoothie/milkshake vendor. I didn't buy anything. I just walked though, following the road by road walking directions from TfL. It took me past 2 reggae shops (surrounded by David Cameron type houses), and then, presently, the bike shop.

I was surprised to find hanging in the window, two of my favourite bikes, a Like-a-bike and a Bridgestone Moulton! Well, that was enough excitement for one day. I took the bus back and it went past the fantastic Vauxhall bus station. I love the way it towers over everything else.

Tags: Buses, Foo Foo Shops

I had a puncture today. This being on a brand new tyre (Schwalbe City Jet). This being just after fixing my last puncture on the same new tyre. This being the straw the broke this camel's back.

Something has to change, my puncture rate has been so high since riding a Moulton that I must have been doing something wrong. So I've ordered some Big Apple tyres. Perhaps I should have considered Marathon Plus tyres, but I'm not sure about their rolling resistance, so those will be the last resort. Th big Apples are 50mm wide, so wide, I'm not sure mudguards will fit, I'll have to see.

Tags: Schwalbe

Ack, spoke too soon.

My rear wheel is bust, the tyre (Schwalbe City Jet) has a bulge and is rubbing against the brakes. So, I'll have to see if I can get a new one today.

Tags: Schwalbe

Hey

Something's wrong with my CD-ROM drive so I've not been able to rip this yet, but I've been listening to Creole music all day. Like this, which is just great, I love it. I played this stuff at my mum's wedding too, I don't think anyone objected, it's just so smooth and relaxing. Cool.

Hopefully all my message this time will get saved, half of the last blog got lost...

Anyway, here's a pic of my fixed bike. It cost £275 to get repaired and the service was slow, still I'm back on the road at least.

I read on Thinksecret that the new MacBook will have 1280x720 resolution, this would mean it is wider but shorter than the iBook. I hope not, I went to a Sony store yesterday and their 13.3 inch laptops look pretty good at 1280x800, hopefully Steve agrees.

Tags: Pashley, Music, MacBook