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.

• 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)

Something like this would be a neat solution for flash video (when you click it you taken to a separate application). Flash adverts/games/apps are welcome to stay unplayable in my view.

Downtown Bridgetown (Parliament is the building in the middle with green shutters)

Anyway, that took a little while, but went smoothly. I decided to see if we could inspect our heritage at the Parliament (one of the oldest - from 1639). We could! In fact, one half of the parliament has been turned into a modern interactive museum of parliamentary history and the other half has a guided tour of the House of Assembly, a lower chamber of elected politicians and then the Senate (appointed), composed of the great and good. The Senate chamber had a massive portrait of the Queen. I thought this was a bit puzzling, since I keep hearing that Barbados wants to be a republic, but apparently the lure of honours keeps the great and good from going for a full break with the UK, which suits me fine.

Photos were not permitted inside, so all I got was this picture of the mailbox (or was it a stamp dispenser, I’m not sure).

We then visited the cathedral, St. Michael’s, for a few minutes rest and to inspect the tomb stones, this one from 1673! And then over to the Synagogue (below right), which now has a state-of-the-art and fascinating museum of Judaism in Barbados.

What’s that you say? Jews in Barbados? Well, no-expects the Spanish Inquisition! They forced the Jews from Spain to Portugal, and then from Portugal to Brazil where they learnt how to grow sugar. The Portuguese inquisition pushed them again, and they migrated, with their knowledge to Cromwellian Barbados, where they taught to English how to grow sugar. Sugar production was labour intensive. We know what happened next.

Sugar was regarded as a spice along with ginger, cinnamon, cloves. As the market for sugar fell, many of the Jews migrated again. Those who didn’t migrate on to the US intermarried with the black population and mostly dwindled away, except for their names and places, Swan Street, Da Costa, Abrahams, Pinto, Barrow.

Synagogue Cemetary

The following day, we flew to St. Lucia. It was a bit crazy, as we took buses to the airport. Both were crammed with school kids and although I had hand luggage only, everyone else took suitcases. Somehow we all fit.
Everything else went smoothly, including the flight. Quite right too, as we were accompanied by the CEO of the airline, Mark Darcy (seen above at the front of the plane). Interestingly, the cockpit door remained open for the flight. Over St. Lucia, I got a picture, under the wing, of the famous Pitons (dual volcanic peaks).

In St. Lucia, we got a taxi to Gros Islet, the tourist area in the north of the island. SLU gained independence in 1979, and it showed, bus stop signs had the TfL roundel, and all the other road signage would look at home in the Highway Code.

The hotel was rather better than I expected and the beach (down the road) was beautiful (iPhone pic).

The wedding was the next day, and the fantastic reception was on a mountain top. The view back over Gros Islet was astounding.

Next day, was a tour of the island, similar but longer to the one I took in 2006 from the Easy Cruise boat. First, we went up to the top of Castries, the capital, for a view down and to see some of the older French architecture:

Past the Chavez funded oil facility, we stopped to have a look at a Banana plantation (from which locals are allowed to pick, so long as they don’t sell any), and that’s me in front of one of the sweeping bays along the coastal route.

Just before Soufrière, the obligatory tourist shot of the Pitons:

and at the bottom of a Swiss-like valley, a volcano gently smouldered.

After visiting the stinky sulphur pits and nearby botanic gardens, and a Creole lunch, we headed back to the Airport, via Magriot Bay, film set of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Back at the airport, it turned out that Air Jamaica’s ‘confirmed’ mark on the ticket meant nothing and we weren’t booked on the LIAT flight back. Everyone stayed calm, and when I failed to get through the Air Jamaica’s office in Barbados (un-suprising on a Sunday afternoon), the LIAT supervisor phoned the LIAT check-in desk at BGI, which is next to the Air Jamaica desk. Thank you, LIAT, for cutting to the chase there, and all was sorted in about 10 mins.

The next day was Concorde and cliffs. Barbados was the only regular (each winter) destination for Concorde other than Paris and New York. In recognition of this BA made a permanent loan of a Concorde to Barbados, and they have built a museum of flight around it. Aside from the museum, which had a replica Concorde departure lounge with menus and faux celebrity announcements, and an impossible to fly Concorde flight simulator, we were taken on-board and given a proper little taste of the flight experience. For once we could actually sit in the plane seats in a plane museum!


That afternoon I visited the cliffs on the rugged east coast. That’s me listening to the iPhone:

and the next day, it was back to Bridgetown to visit a sugar mill.

Errol Barrow and Independence Arch

The bus on the way out of Bridgetown went past the new cricket stadium before shooting up Highway 2A towards Speightstown.

So, as we know, the Jews taught the English how to grow sugar. Babados being a flat island was superb for sugar and a boom developed, which quickly bust as the soil went fallow and the market depressed with falling prices. What followed was a steady development of more and more technology-led efficiency. Barbados led the world in cultivation and harvesting techniques. And that was basically what the museum was about, one sugar technology break-through after another all the way from the 16th to 20th century. Barbados was the world centre for sugar, ending with complete mechanisation today.

Unfortunately, it seemed I picked the wrong sugar museum through (this is the right one, next time maybe). This one was the museum of the main actual working sugar factory on the island, but the sugar was still in the field growing. I could see the yellow hats, implying a factory tour, but the mills were idle, waiting for ripening and cutting to begin. Instead I saw a DVD, an old Pathe style production from the 1930s with sound showing the last remnants of the cane cutters singing and loading sugar into the last working Windmill, and then onto a railway to take the sugar to Bridgetown. Wait...a railway? The only railway I heard of was from my passed-on Grandmother. The video was a bit haunting, thinking of the terrible struggles for liberty and food of the cane cutters (not shown in the film). Still, we know there is a fairly happy ending. Not least demonstrated by the number of spanking new Japanese trucks on the highway.

On the way back, I was enchanted by a view out of the bus over St. George parish. It was a view of Barbados I had never seen before, a valley with fields and hedges, just like England. So the next day, my last day, I went back to have a look.

Getting there was easier said than done. I got off the bus far, far too early and had to walk at least a mile till I got to the high ridge over the valley (near to a water pumping station). Behind me was a sugar cane field and it was readily apparent that the island is indeed built on coral rather than volcanic rock, the “bedrock” below the muddy sugar cane field was exposed at road level and the fossils were laid bare.

After all that walking, I was thirsty, and it was close to midday. So I walked what I thought would be a short distance to a shop selling drinks with a bus stop outside. Mistake, it must have been 2 or three miles. There was nothing till Gun Hill (which was an early warning station for slave control), and when I got there the shop was closed. Still there was a nice view of the island up there.

Not to worry through, back out of Gun Hill, there was a fabulously cheap convenience store where I got a huge bottle of lemonade (for the price), and soon enough the bus came to whip me back, in good time for the journey to the Airport and home again.

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.

The big toe was also pressing on to the next toe. I don't if that's why, but if cycling for a long while, say an hour or more, the second toe would start to dislocate. I found the sensation quite frightening, and had to press firmly on my toes to make the pulling sensation stop. Urgh.

But I had no idea that I had a medical condition. I just thought it was a consequence of wide feet. It was only by chance that I mentioned my hurting foot to my medic friend Russ last year, and he took one look and said 'bunion'. I said, 'I don't have bunions!' I thought that a bunion was a type of corn, but a trip to my GP confirmed the diagnosis: Hallux Valgus. Later, the consultant at Lewisham Hospital added that the cause was flat foot (particularly my right-foot) and that I would need to wear insoles to correct my gait.

He explained all the risks of surgery, but also explained that surgery was the only long-term option. Did I want it? Are you kidding?! So I was put on the waiting list and I expected my right-foot to be treated in June. But instead I got a letter in December with a booking in February at a Bupa Hospital (Blackheath). I don't know under what NHS initiative this occurred, but it was going to be the same consultant doing the operation, so I didn't mind. Additionally my work commitments had shifted, so I could take an earlier date.

I arrived through the fog and on my own at 06:45, Feb 20th, and was asked to fill out an admission form, and also a form with my bank details... The bank details was only needed for phone calls though. I was taken to my room. It felt like 3-star hotel, no wards just rooms. They took me to wrong room first (oops), but eventually he found it. It was en-suite with satellite television. I was intrigued to see a menu on the bed.

Was it for me? Apparently so. I decided to be healthy and chose a Foccacia with a chicken filling and fresh fruit with Tea, which would be my lunch after the op. There was another menu, with prices, next to the bed. That menu was snacks and spirits: brandy, whiskey etc.

The nursing shift changed around 8am, and a nurse came to check my pulse (47) and blood pressure (a tad high - anxiety), and the anaesthetist came, so I told him about sickle-cell trait. He didn't seem to be bothered by that. Then the consultant came. He didn't look like the guy I saw at Lewisham (it turns out I saw either a different consultant or his registrar), but he seemed to know what he was going to do as he drew over my foot with his biro like a plastic surgeon - all very re-assuring. The nurse came back and got me to change into a gown and (too small) slippers. And I waited and waited, and waited. I was tired, so I decided to use the bed in the room and had a nap. There was a safe in the room's wardrobe, so that was OK, and I was able to phone and tell my mum the right time to come for me (i.e. don't rush - nothing happening here!).

Just after 12, I was taken down to see the anaesthetist, and the next thing is I'm waking up in my room again, with a plaster cast on my elevated foot and hmm there's some pain, but not much. This was probably because I had been given both a general and local anaesthetic. I had an x-ray taken, and some physio on how to use the crutches, and a little sandal to walk on the foot with. The base of the sandal was curved to force the foot back onto the heel.

The porter who took me around, once he found out I was an NHS patient asked me my opinion. I think he was wanting me to effuse on how much better it was than an NHS hosptial, but I didn't really have any complaints either way, I've not had any bad NHS experiences. On the way back, the lift broke, and there was no alternate lift, so we had to wait for an engineer. Then he took me to the wrong room again. But the food was tasty, the nurse visits frequent and the en-suite bathroom convenient and the room quiet.

My mum and Brother arrived almost to the minute at the 6pm I had suggested, and I was discharged with Diclofenac sodium (Voltarol) and Paracetamol. I almost completed the course of Voltarol, but only lightly touched the Paracetamol. My uncle bought me 4 bags of fruit, which meant I had a mostly fruit based diet for the next two weeks.

Unable to consume it all in smoothies and disgusting milkshakes, I resorted to recipes. The above is a fruit compote, and ambitiously, I made a massive Apple and Pear pie (8 large servings).

I saw the consultant yesterday, who cleared me for work from tomorrow, and today I had the plaster removed (the circular saw tickled me terribly, I couldn't stop laughing):

Not recognising their handiwork, they asked me where I had the cast done? ("Blackheath") Am I a BUPA patient? ("No"). Had I gone there under a patient choice initiative? ("No, I was just sent there"). I mentioned to them about the liquor menu, which made them giggle. And then the stitches came out (not as painful as I thought). Between the big and second toe, you can see the shiny end of the metal rod holding the re-cast bone in place. Apparently the rod goes through the bone! I was tempted to wiggle the toe, but I was told not to. It seemed resistant to movement anyway.

They applied a new cast, this time not made from old-fashioned plaster of Paris, but high-tech Scotchcast. I had four choices: blue, pink, white or black. I chose black. My x-ray from the private hospital was missing, so I had a new x-ray done as well, which looked OK. I've been told to go back on to crutches.

So I have another appointment on April 3 to remove the cast and pull out the rod (urk!), and that should be that, more or less. Hopefully I can start cycling again soon after.

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

Reading reviews of sleeping bags mostly from Americans, I was struck how all the features they were marvelling at on expensive bags (double-sided zips, convertable to a duvet, zip secured with velcro) is all old hat with Vango bags. The new Voyager shaves off 550g in weight, down to 1KG and (I thought) a full 10 cm in pack size, down to 21cm long.

However, the length was the same at 210cm, so I thought I'd look for a bit more. I had a look on Outdoors Magic for other British brands making sleeping bags. I thought of Craghoppers, and somehow came across this. Hmm, never heard of this lot...Snugpak? I looked at the reviews on Outdoors magic and saw this question being asked about looking after a new sleeping bag. Apparently you shouldn't fold up a sleeping bag, since you can crease and damage the synthetic lining, instead you should just stuff it in. I also saw the same advice given on Youtube for packing a tent, you might crease the outer shell. So, I thought I would test this out, but first I picked the bag I will eventually buy.

The 'micro' pack size is remarkable (if not achieved by any of the reviewers), and it has a number of features that sounds good to me: a chisel foot for my big feet, a "Chrysalis Baffle System"...a what, what the what? CBS=Stretchy sides to permit turning in your sleep (ah!); and most importantly 220cm in length. But yes the reviews, they said that all they tried, they couldn't squeeze the pack down to 16cm long. They called on the manufacturers to tell them the secret, well, I'll just email them if I cant figure it out, but they made me think. I always had trouble fitting the Vango into it's little bag and squeezing the compressions straps over it. But the reviews talked about a compressed size and an uncompressed size. Uncompressed, the Softie was 30cm long! Compressed, they got it down below 20cm, but not to 16.

I have two sleeping bags. The first once I felt was too small, and I changed it for the Vango. I but I remembered that the old one was always easy to pack, so I got it out and unfolded it and stuffed it back in the bag. Easy! Next, I decided to see how far I could compress it. Rather than pulling on the compression straps, I put it tail up, and pressed it down with my knee and used the straps to hold the bag in compression. Wow! Instantly 20cm. Some more kneeing and it was 16cm!!

The diameter was also much smaller than the Vango, so overall it was much less than half the size - TINY. I've promised this bag for my sister, Caroline, so it turns out she's getting a super small Micro Thermalite bag. Not bad! The weight of it was exactly 1kg. Next up, and just dried from the washing machine was the Vango. Again, stuffing rather than folding the bag actually worked. There was a little sweating involved, but it all fit in, giving a +30cm long package. Down with the knee again, and:

21cm. There you have it, not pretty, but that's how to pack a sleeping bag.

Blooming heck. We got stuck. An MPV was parked in front, and this clown wouldn't reverse back to let the bus through. The drivers behind him reversed back. The bus, couldn't move, because there was a jam behind. 5-6 minutes later and there's 6 buses waiting for this guy to move, passengers (and residents) are out remonstrating with him, and the female driver from the bus behind is screaming the air blue!

Seriously dude, just give way...its a BUS! 6 BUSES! Eventually he moved forward about 1 metre, and we were able to move. 1 metre - so what was all that palaver for! Some people, eh?

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.

• 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:

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.

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!

• Solar Charger
• Viewranger
• Zip Off Trousers (you know, it's really hard to google-find certain things when you don't know the proper name for them)
• Gossamer Gear Polycryo Ground Sheet

I finished up there early and went walking around the Arndale Centre, and lo! I found the Apple Store. Rather more fabulous than I had imagined, all along the inside are illuminated walls with images of young people living the iLife. So, a very much brighter store than usual.

Nice. Sort of opposite the store was a very nice Waterstones where I bought Josie Dew's new book: Long Cloud Ride, about her jaunt around New Zealand, and then went into HMV to get Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. A film I've wanted to see for a while, and I watched it on the train back. Fantastic.

Over £1000 of TSR, but with custom components and a custom fit. I'm super-excited, as they say. I have three words to say about the people I'm buying it off (Villiers-Velo): SERVICE SERVICE SERVICE - it is excellent!

Speaking of Moultons, you can barely see it, but I went on a Critical Mass last Friday and saw a Mark 1 Moulton with a beatbox on the back rack - very trendy.

And today, I was on strike for the first time ever. As I said to my boss, it's not about the money, I don't think the efficiency drive in the service at the moment should lead to compulsory redundancies. Simple as that. Hopefully that'll be the last time we're called out.

Looks familiar? It was Rover's replacement for this:

But BMW had a different idea, which we all know about:

The difference between them is simple. Rover wanted an economic city car, and BMW wanted a sports car. Rover wanted something radical and BMW wanted something pastiche. The last point is what makes me sad, the question was, should the mini look like an updated MINI, or should it be a re-interpretation the ideas and ideals of the Mini? Well pastiche sells, clearly.

But that Mini prototype was really radical. It had hydragas suspension, a sub-floor rear mounted 3 cylinder k-series engine, rear-wheel drive and 4 seats in the same space as the old Mini (the new MINI is not really a mini car). The MINI on the other hand is conventional and has a brazillian engine. Does the MINI progress car travel in the way the Mini did back in the late 50's? Does it address the issues of today: emmisions, fuel prices, space constraints?

Ah, the witterings of a lefty greeny. But I think it's a real shame, although at least it's certainly keeping those Cowley workers in jobs. Ironically, it is other German cars that do seem to address the modern agenda, but the Smart is too small and the A-Class too big. Oh well.

In other news, check out this '86 version of the Police's 'dont stand so close to me'. I really like it:

I just finished watching the excellent Equator on BBC 2. It's presented by Simon Reeve, who is great on screen, one of those people who has a permanent smile, even when grimacing. I just found his web site and he's more than just a pretty face, he was the first to write a book about Al Quaeda and he wrote One day in September, which was made into a film - a prequel of sorts to the stunning Munich. Check him out (and his Rapid Weaver designed site - sad that I can tell, I know).

It's a Relay, a magazine and tabac shop, dropped in, as if straight from Paris. Anyway, took the train up to Nottingham for a meeting and on arrival at St. Pancras, I saw that Midland Mainline have been moved to their new platforms, ready for Eurostar in 2007.

Turning around I saw that the renovation of the original train shed roof of the station was complete. To explain, the Eurostar trains are so long, that they had to build a roof extension, so the curved roof (with light blue girders - hope that's not the final colour) is the original and the flat slatted roof is the new bit. You can get a better idea with this model and a shot through the new roof, to see the original one:

Here's my pic from the train window:

Ah, rolling fields; and here is downtown Nottingham:

Nottingham is actually very modern and re-developed, lots of outdoor bars, mutiplex cinemas, but still lots of independent shops, and a tram, which I rode on:

And zut! Up to Manchester a few days later. Ah... the English countryside:

Its not easy you know to take these pics when traveling over 100 mph and often at tilt! If you've not been to Manchester for a few years, when you visit you might be in for a shock. The centre is totally rebuilt and the shopping district looks like this:

On the way back I noticed the train had a promo vinyl on it. The film was fantastic (saw it last Thursday). Is it a bird, is it a plane, no, it's a 125 mph, tilting train! .

I finish this round-up with the widest behind I have ever seen (proportionately). I am sure she makes some man, somewhere, very happy.

I also dropped into the LCR exhibition on the channel tunnel rail link. This is located in a building called the Gymnasium, next to the entrance to St. Pancras. Quite a nice free exhibition with lots of scale models including one of Stratford circa 2012, and a coffee shop.

I decided to ride from work to Paddington and normally this would take about 25-30 minutes. Certainly when I used to commute this way it would take about 30 minutes. Imagine my surprise though...I was in conversation and didn't notice the time. It was only 30 minutes before my train was going to leave! So I rushed to get the bike and set off at top flight, watching the clock. I got to Paddington 20 minutes later. Not bad at all eh?!

Empire Museum

Anyway, Bristol was looking marvelous in the summer sunshine and on the way back I popped into the British Empire Museum to ask a question. Last time I had visited I was disappointed not to find an Empire Map, did they have one? Yes, but in the book section (where I hadn't looked). I got an Empire map tea towel as well. Smashing.

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!

This Music stand had Klezmer!

The Insect Circus Museum - the detailing was exqusitie (for adults) and the exhibits a marvel (for kids)

The Young Mayor's stage - all very hip, street music 'no violence please' - not my thing

It was the most popular stage

Fantastic - 'Spanish Bullfighters' They could hardly contain their glee at their antics. Great fun!

Brilliant soul music in the Pride tent.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

And here it is charging on my Apple Keyboard. It's a Motorola SLVR L7. It has all the features that were state of the art two years ago (MP3 player, Bluetooth, Quad-Band, high-res colour display, VGA camera). So, in this mega-pixel, 3G, WiFi, hi-fi world, it's not exactly cutting edge, and its got the old Motorola interface (although when I tried it in the shop it seemed OK, and friends with Motos thought it was OK too). It has one feature though that got me:

It's just so THIN. I know, the RAZR was thin, but I hate flips and this is even thinner. It's less than half as thick as my old phone (Nokia 6600). My Housemate thinks I should have got a Nokia, and I would have, if they made a small thin phone that's free on Orange upgrade. Maybe next time.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that it also comes with headphones and a 64MB card for music. Reading on web forums, a fair few people got this phone thinking it was the iTunes phone. It is the iTunes phone, of course, but only on Cingular in the US.

It doesn't matter anyway, because I found iTunemywalkman, which I'll be testing out tonight. The key feature of this program is re-encoding, although I think my phone does some form of AAC.

Just turned on comments, if that works, and hope you like the new theme.

...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.

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.

That evening instead of going home, I went to Leicester to see old Uni friends, James and Wayne. Nick travelled up from London. A bit of a cock-up on my journey across the Pennines.

It wasn't exactly clear at Manchester's departure boards, since they don't show trains, they show destinations, so I took the first train to my destination. This turned out to be a slow, cramped Northern Trains train. I should have asked really, before I got on the train "Shouldn't this be a Trans-Pennine Express?", but it didn't occur to me that the two trains could leave within minutes of each other. Anyway I got to Sheffield about 15 minutes after my connection had left, so I took the next train (Virgin), which only went to Derby, and the train from Derby (MML) was cancelled. I was an hour late in the end.

Anyway had a great time, some curry, some drinking, some clubs and a nice walk around the old town. I finally visited the city museum on New Walk, which I had walked past countless times on my way into town, when I was studying in Leicester.



I was expecting, yes, the dinosaurs, but not much else. Instead, it's rather good with exhibitions on the Egyptians, and endangered species and other stuff, some of it tied in with recent BBC documentary series. Good stuff for kids, although I didn't stay too long as I had to go into town to meet up with the others.

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.

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.