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

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

I rode to Wallingford on Thursday afternoon, passing the Thames outside Oxford

and Abingdon.

The N70/GPS/Viewranger combo was problematic. It kept losing the signal from the GPS, and both the phone and the GPS had to be re-booted. Not good. I made it to Didcot (Power Station) along National Cycle Route 5 before needing to take a detour to join Route 40 to Wallingford, where Waitrose and my dinner awaited. All laid out in Viewranger. Of course it decided to stop working just at the critical detour moment - so I used used (Viewranger) map and compass from that point.

To my dismay, the track on the OS map leading me under the railway line to route 40 was a dead end of bushes. I had to improvise a route, and happily found that I was not the only cyclist taking the detour. The other cyclist was much faster than me though and I lost him around a corner. I suddenly found I was going back toward the power station. I had to be on the wrong road. Sweating profusely, I tried the GPS again in vain and a slight panic (it was 5pm already and starting to get dusky). While waiting for everything to reboot, again, I noticed out of the corner of my eye something flashing. It looked like lots of cars passing behind a bush. Looking closer I could see a railway crossing sign...aha!!! Back to the map on the phone and yes, there was a railway next to the road I needed (B1046). I rode up and there it was, Route 40. It took me a long way, but fast up a few hills and down again all the way to Wallingford,

where I camped. Sadly, the site was about 50 meters from the riverside:

But it had a fantastic, new and high-tech shower block; instructions for the no-touch controls below.

Next morning I rode down to Goring and Streatley.

I got there around 10:30, up and down several fast hills, but this was a bit late in hindsight, given that I had planned to stay the previous night in Streatley (but there was no room at the YHA) and leave there at 8am. I should have asked to camp in their grounds I guess.

Anyway, from Streatley, there was a ride along Rectory Lane and then the biggest ascent imaginable and on the worst quality road imaginable! Big rocks, split open with sharp edges. My poor tyres, they were catapulting these things left and right. I could barely keep upright. In the end I had to push the bike up, it was so rough. Note, I wasn't pushing because I was tired, so that's something. At the top I was greeted by the splendour of the Ridgeway! Er, misty and cloudy.

I passed a dog walker. She said it gets better (referring to road quality). She was right and wrong. You'd get 100m of impassable stones, then 100m of packed earth, then grass tracks, then rocks again. Argh! I had to get off!

But I had forgotten to buy the 1:250000 GB roadmap (in case of detours), so I had no map for a change of route. The map I had bought was for the Ridgeway and that was it (or so I thought). Looking on Tuesday though, I noticed that my map went nearly as far south and east as Hungerford - what a twit I was not to notice this since that would have made a big difference. I decided to ride as far as the A34, then detour somehow down to Newbury. Before I got there a concrete road appeared! North to continue the Ridgeway or South to Compton. My heart said North, but my brain over-ruled. A huge down hill race to Compton where Google Maps took over emergency map duties, and worked well, getting me to Newbury down Long Lane by 12:30.

Where the sun came out, and I made the fatal mistake of taking Cycle Route 4 along the Kennet and Avon Canal. It was not a very fast route (which I needed), and chucked me off onto hilly roads to get to Hungerford. Some lovely views on the way through.

Several times I could hear the roar of the Great Western Railway, and in to Bedwyn I rode along the canal again, but Route 4, took me away again. If I had consulted the map, I would have had realised that I was right next to the A4, take the main road, fool!

Instead, out of Bedwyn I saw Route 4 tell me to turn right, but there was no right turn. Odd. 200m later, there is a turning into the Savernake forest, but no Route 4 sign confirming this. The forest looked scary, so I carried on, and presently saw another route 4 sign. It turns out that Route 4 forked at that point and I should have gone through the forest. Later on I saw this confusing sign:

I came from Hungerford, so do I turn right or go straight on? It actually points in all directions! WTF? 5 miles later (after Burbage) I notice I am heading South East back to Bedwyn rather than west. So I turn back and take the right at the sign, but this new route is full of (albeit lovely) hills, and is taking me north rather than West. North to Marlborough.


Halfway to Marlborough, I cross the canal again. Aha! I think, I'll just ride the canal in a straight-line to Bradford-on-Avon, and sod the cycle route. Except the towpath is appalling quality with tree roots and more stones. Basically my speed is little above 10mph for another hour and it is now 17:00 and I only am vaguely aware that I should be in Wiltshire. I pass a cyclist and ask how far it is to Devizies. 1 hour he says (I am shocked). No, make that 2 hours, good luck! I am distraught. Devizies is 20 miles from Bradford! Argh! I've got get off this stupid tow path.

So I get off at the next bridge to find it's nothing but a farmer's field. Unknown to me, I am now firmly back on the Viewranger map, but I have to ask at a pub the way to Devizies. The tourist gets out his road map and suggests I go down the road to Pewsey. Never heard of it, but off I go, and not 2 minutes later I find a train station. Should I? Should I give up? I then get a text message from a friend I'm meeting for drink that evening - he's nearly there, and I'm due there in about an hour.

It turns out this in an inter-city station, and there is a train coming, so I made it in time and at least I rode from Bradford-on-Avon train station.

Pics from the weekend here, and here's a video I made:

Tags: Moulton, GPS, Mountain Biking

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

So, after 4 lost auctions I finally got one, a Nokia N70 and a new one too.  I have wanted a GPS for a few years now. I was going to get an Etrex Venture cx, but the map on it only has major roads, river and lakes.  I wanted the GPS for my first cycle tour in September and that is almost completely off road.  I looked into Garmin's more detailed Topo map and that apparently is very expensive rubbish. I came to realise that the proprietary US/French created maps on Magellan and Garmin devices probably wouldn't do for me.* The usual solution is to buy software on your computer, make your map on that and then export the route to the GPS. The best software for this is on the PC, Memory Map with full OS Mapping, and on the Mac there is Route Buddy which has the (not so good for cycling) Tele Atlas Maps. But I don't want to leave my map behind on the computer and I don't really want to pay for 2 electronic maps one at home, one on the GPS.

Infact, I would rather take advantage of online maps when I'm at home, like Google Maps or Street Maps, or Multi Map, to create routes while I'm at home and focus on having the proper map on the GPS. This is possible of course, but most the options require a PDA, in most cases running Pocket PC. I do not, under any circumstance, want to run Pocket PC voluntarily, so I thought I was sunk. Then I found View Ranger. Viewranger runs on Series 60, has OS Maps, and can connect to a GPS via Bluetooth.

You can record your tracks, but you can also upload way points and routes to the phone. I tried out their custom map tool and I'll be able to buy OS maps of central Wales, London, bits of the west country and the south downs for about £35. I should be able to get a better bluetooth receiver than in the etrex for about the same again (£35-45). So hopefully I'll get what I actually wanted for rather less money.

*My intial decision was to get an old GPS, a Sportrack Pro and wait till an iPhone based solution to get digital OS maps in my hand appeared. It turned out that the Sportrack and N70 are of the same Vintage, 2005 models and around the same price. I suspect my wait for the iPhone will be rather more pleasurable with the N70 that it would have been with the Sportrack and my Motorola SLVR.

Tags: Nokia, GPS