Mileage to date and a bit of a disaster

Last week was a much shorter one than usual owing to my staying in a hotel all week.  However, I managed to clock up a few miles as mentioned earlier.  This week I'm back on the cycle commute but on my hybrid and not the Dahon.

On Monday morning, I set off as usual but felt my rear brakes rubbing slightly as though the wheel was out of true.  I couldn't figure out why until, about a mile and a half from home at the bottom of a hill, I braked and heard a "ping" from my back wheel.  Stopping to investigate the matter revealed this:

Broken spoke(n) - not one, but two!

Well I had a little bit of time in hand and didn't think it was wise to proceed all the way to work on a damaged back wheel.  I turned around, limped home and grabbed my hybrid out of the garage.  It's going to be at least the weekend before I can get it to the bike shop, although it's due a service and so needed to go in anyway. 

Therefore, the mileage tally on my Dahon stands as follows:

Week 15 - 34.5 miles
Week 16 - 3 miles

Total to date - 998 miles!!!

So tantalisingly close to the 1,000 mile mark but that's not going to happen for a week or so.  Shame.


However, having the "luxury" of 21 gears at my disposal has allowed me a little leeway to experiment.  I have a long-held plan to build a single-speed, fixed gear road bike.  I love the simplicity of a fixie and one or two sites I've seen recently have featured riders doing really long tours/randonee on such machines.  Rugged, simple and capable. 

So last night I tried to find one gear ratio that worked pretty well for all situations.  Such a gear needs to :

• Be comfortable for pressing along at reasonable speed on the flat
• Be low enough (but still have something to "push" against) when climbing hills
• Enable me to spin down hills without running my legs round at a crazy cadence

And I found one.  It works out to about 65 gear inches but bearing in mind I was fully laden with a heavy rucksack, a slightly higher gear should also do the trick nicely.  I have a Shimano crank-set to fit to the fixie project and so by using its 39T chainring and fitting a 16T rear sprocket (commonly available)  I'll hit my perfect ratio pretty much dead on.  Happy times. 

I have an old but barely used early 80's Raleigh donor bike in the garage just waiting for a new wheelset and fixed gearing.  Maybe a summer project if I can free up a bit of spare cash!

It's been a while!

Well it’s been an eventful cycling week!  In a break from the norm, I spent last week away on a training course which entailed me spending the whole week in a hotel at Manchester airport.  Having had a look for cycle routes in the area, I found a link to what looked like a really pleasant eight mile loop around the airport.  And so, hoping for a nice way to unwind at the end of each day’s training, I packed my Dahon into the car along with my luggage.

The Dahon, tucked in the corner of my hotel room

I’ve had some fine experiences on national cycle network routes and so it was with some excitement that I ventured out on Monday evening.  The first part of the route followed a dual-use footpath alongside a fairly busy road.  That notwithstanding it was lovely to be out on my bike just for the hell of it.  A couple of miles into the ride came a real treat though in the form of the tunnels that take to road and footpaths under both of the airport’s runways.  I’ve cycled in some odd places before but I think this has to take the biscuit.  There are two large car tunnels a couple of hundred metres long (one in each direction) and to the outside of each a smaller tunnel solely for the use of bikes, pedestrians and (judging by the odd pile of poo) horses as well.  All of the pedestrian/cycle tunnels are surfaced with the smoothest and most cycle friendly tarmac in the world.  If only all cycle paths were so pleasantly covered.

The tunnels under the runway (pedestrian tunnels on the far left and right)

Inside the tunnel

Just after the tunnels, the route turned left, away from the main road and onto some lovely tracks and trails alongside the airport runway itself.  The route turns away from the road but unfortunately on Monday I did not.  It took until the hard-won top of the next hill for me to realise my route finding error and turn back.  At least I got to cycle down the hill again.

After riding alongside the runway for a while (and pausing to watch a few jets take off and land – the big kid in me, I’m afraid) the route joined some lovely leafy lanes for a couple of miles.  This route certainly had variety of terrain in spades!

Much more like it :-)

At the end of the lanes, the next section started to get a little more built up.  However, it was still well signposted and alongside the busier roads consisted of traffic free, dual-use footpaths.   Finally the route turned off the road again and through an urban park (complete with feral kids and bull-terriers galore) before rejoining the original road, about half a mile from my hotel. 

On Tuesday night, I managed this final section without a hitch.  Monday night was a different story.  I missed the turning into the park and ended up following the main road into really rough looking estate!  I had the route on my phone but needed to take care finding somewhere safe enough to stop and get my iPhone out.  I know I’d have been fine with a paper map but my ongoing disgruntlement with satellite navigation continues.  The root of the problem (other than the fact that I got lost in the first place) was that the little arrow on the Cycle Network app seems not to point in the direction you are facing all of the time.  This resulted in me stopping, checking and retracing my tracks more times than I care to remember.  All this at the same time as trying very hard not to look like someone worth stabbing for their phone/wallet!  I did eventually find my way back on track though after adding a couple of miles or so to the total distance ridden.

A fellow course delegate knew the area and told me the next morning that the estate I got lost in is where the sitcom “Shameless” is filmed.  I certainly looked like it too!

Requiring  something a little more restful on Wednesday I chose to follow the first part of the loop as far as the runway tunnels before turning right off the main road, away from the airport (and “Shamelessland”) into a network of lanes and villages.  I had much more luck with the sat nav this time especially as it was on terrain that I’m more used to riding.  I even managed to find a really rather good pub for a mid-ride pint and bag of pork scratchings.  There’s nothing quite like it in a sunny, summery evening!  In the end I covered about 16.5 miles and arrived back at the hotel feeling grand.

Lovely!

All in all, a nice week’s cycling really and it served to show yet another benefit of folding bikes.  Whenever I’m away with work from now on, I’ll be packing the Dahon along with the rest of my stuff.  Adventure beckons!

A quick update

I've been working away this week and studying for a qualification (hence minimal time to update the blog). However, I did bring my bike and have adventures a-plenty to type up once I have the time...

However, I've also been reading rather a fine book too. It is called "One Man and His Bike" by Mike Carter in which Mr Carter tells the story of having cycling around the entire coast of Britain. As the blurb says, he got bored of the regular cycle-commute and just kept going. Inspiring indeed and definitely worth a read.

The scores so far

Well last week was a big week.  For the second time since I've been using my bike to commute to work I did over 100 miles during the week.  Amazingly, the first time I got into three figures was only my second week of cycle commuting - no wonder my legs ached!  Last week was a harder week though.  Back in week two, I managed to leave all of my heavy kit in the office for the whole duration and cycle two and fro with a basically empty rucksack.  Last week, at least half the time, I had a full load and by Friday really felt it.  Not in aching, dead legs or anything like that, more just in being generally run down and looking forward to a lie in and a good feed on Saturday.

I have also somehow managed to miss a week the other week so there are another 82 miles to add into the total on top of last week's figures:

Total week 12 - 82 miles
Total week 14 - 102 miles

Total mileage so far - 960.5 miles

Should hopefully top the 1,000 mile mark this week! 

A brief update

I'm away on a course with work at the moment. Stuck on my own in a hotel for the week with no car. So to make sure I have something to do, I've brought my Dahon and looked up all of the national cycle routes in the area. There's much fun to be had and more to follow...



Here's the Dahon, curled up like a loyal hound, in the corner of my hotel room



An impromptu adventure

Since borrowing the Sustrans National Cycle Route book from the library the other week, I've been itching to explore some of the routes around where I live.  One of the routes I've been thinking about riding goes from the town before my usual railway station on the way home, along a canal towpath for a few miles before picking up the route of a disused railway line.  Eventually it ends up back on my usual commuting route for the last few miles home.

Well this afternoon I'd had enough of work and desperately needed to blow out a few cobwebs.  So getting off the train a station early, I checked my route on the Sustrans App and started my iPhone cycle computer to check the overall distance ridden.

The first part of the route passed through quiet roads on a couple of housing estates. Out in the lanes near home, I've noticed very clear National Cycle Route signs - proper metal road signs - so I wondered how they would manage this in a more built up area. I needn't have worried though - using large stickers on lamp posts and similar, the route was clearly pointed out negating the need for hasty iPhone map reading!

After a mile or so, the route picked up the tow-path of a canal.  Talk about a change of scenery!  The path was really well made and fine for bikes.  Even given the heavy rain we've had recently there were very few puddles so it was top-gear flat out for the most part.  I really enjoyed the varied bankside scenery along this part of the route.  From open fields to allotments, a boat repair yard and more built-up areas.  I rode the few miles of towpath with a big grin, greeting all and sundry with a smile and even giving the odd shout or whistle under bridges like a ten year-old.  Brilliant!

I've had worse commutes to be honest...

...and busier ones too!

Eventually the signs led from the towpath to what the map shows as a disused railway line.  I was expecting wide, well surfaced loveliness but in truth it was narrow and pretty rough in parts.  As a walking path it would be great (there are signs for walkers too) and a lot of fun could be had there on a mountain bike.  As it was I had to tiptoe through the roughest bits and take care not to lose the bike on the slippier parts.

There were no mountains to climb but a few "streams" to ford
(OK puddles) and this bugger was deep!

This bit was narrower than it looks - really overgrown
and slippery, but mercifully short.

Eventually the path widened into this :-)

However, glad as I was when eventually the path joined the tarmaced lanes again, I enjoyed the whole ride rather a lot.  As cobweb blowing activities go, it was a good one!  Bizarrely though, I found that my bike felt a bit weird once back on the road.  Stopping to check things over revealed that my seat-post had slipped down into the frame an inch or two (making me glad for the umpteenth time that I have a marker pen line showing where it needs to be set.)  A quick readjust and tighten of the quick release sorted it and I was on my way.

At this point, my wife sent a text saying she had to pick up our eldest from school.  So rather than cycle home I decided to make a detour to go and meet them.  It shortened my ride by a mile or two but I was pretty tired and didn't mind too much.  I ended up having done 10.7 miles which would probably have been 13 or so if I'd gone all the way home.  No big deal really.

So, all in all a lovely ride back.  Probably a bit much to do regularly as the rougher, muddier bits slowed me down quite a bit, but as a change from the norm, just what the doctor ordered. :-)

The scores so far (and other rambling)

We're having a bit of a wet spell round here at the moment and it really doesn't feel much like Summer.  Last Thursday, I took a look at the weather in the morning and judged the liklihood of rain to be minimal and so didn't bother looking around for my waterproof.  Wrong.  I got rained on most of the way there and all of the way back.  I've observed as much before but once you're out in it, rain isn't as bad as it looks to be from inside a house or car.  I think we've grown used to the fact that rain is something to avoid as we cower hastily from house or office to car. 
 In my martial arts days I read a book called the "Hagakure" which was penned centuries ago by some samurai or other.  It's intended as a bit of manual for samurai living and is full of nice little snippets of wisdom.  Some are not immediately useful, for instance the one about taking boys to the execution grounds to practice beheading condemned criminals, but others still stand true.  Once that I always remember on a wet day goes something like:

"When it's raining, you can either walk cowering from it or walk tall.  You'll get wet just the same and this thinking applies to all things." 

I paraphrase but it's true enough and that sense of relaxed acceptance of things you can't change does make for a less stressful life.  When I can remember to, that is!

In other news, I notice via Facebook and Twitter that the IG Markets London Nocturne race was won by a guy in a Dahon.  There's a link and photos here:

http://raleighuk.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/raleigh-gac-rider-wins-folding-bike-race-on-a-limed-edition-carbon-dahon/

And blimey - what a Dahon!  Just have a look at the photos.  I like that a lot and have almost started wanting one more than a Vector X27!  I noticed via a tweet from NYCE wheels in the US that theVector X27 is now available after quite a long wait.  Hopefully they'll be releasing it in the UK intime for my next cycle0scheme purchase.  I'm sure a bike like that would shave ages off my commuting time because obviously it's all down to the bike and not the guy riding it...

So the scores so far for my Dahon Vitesses D3HG and I are:

Week 12 – 18 miles

Total to date – 776.5 miles

A really short cycling week (bank holidays etc.) but rendered even shorter by the fact that I used the family car on Friday.  The weather was truly awful (howling gales) and my wife didn't need it.  She offered and, after a short internal battle, I sucumbed.  The thing is, I think that going most places by bike has affected my spacial awareness.  The phot below shows why I should not have driven on Friday and why I must take greater care parking next to small brick walls in future.

Ouch!!! :-(