From Horse Manure to Urban Cycling Style -- A Day of Two Halves

For last Sunday afternoon, we had tickets to the SPIN x LCF Xmas Fayre in Shoreditch. Meanwhile, though, Adam has two upcoming rides that he really needed to reccie.

So we left home about 10.30 in the morning and made our way to Luton Airport Parkway rail station to pick up the start of Adam's 15th December ride. This runs down the Upper Lea Valley part of NCN6, from Luton to Harpenden, entirely off-road. The plan is to stop for coffee, or even lunch if people desire, at the Amber Inn, situated next to one of the exit points of the cycle route. Then the group will ride back to Luton.

That finished off one ride reccie. Now we had to get to St Albans to pick up the route planned for next Saturday, which is being organised by our Sustrans colleague Siobhan as a bit of a team-building event for Sustrans Rangers in the St Albans area. (They've all gone a bit quiet and inactive, so Siobhan's trying to mobilise and motivate them again!)

To get to St Albans, we continued down the NCN6 cycle route. This is where we suddenly began encountering horses! Horse after horse after horse... and the particularly fragrant "debris" they leave behind. Alongside the golf course, the path had several stretches where the surface was soft and slippery, but not with mud! As it happened, I was on the Pacer, which doesn't have mudguards - but fortunately emerged remarkably unscathed.

The shared use path ends at Leasey Bridge. We turned right onto a country lane and up a long slog of a hill, emerging onto a minor road. We rode that for a short distance before turning off back into country lanes. Eventually we came to the Harpenden Road (A1081). The NCN6 route is then on a shared use track alongside the road. I was shocked at its condition: narrow, rough, broken-up tarmack buried in leaves, twigs and debris. I cannot imagine anyone using this for touring in this part of the country - and surely that's what the National Cycle Networks is all about?!  I felt that, to observers passing by in cars, people on bikes are made to look like second class citizens: that is where you belong and that is all you deserve. Disgraceful. And very sad.

We skirted St Albans as far as St Albans Abbey train station, which will be the starting point for Siobhan's ride next Saturday. From there, it is a short hop, skip and a jump (on quiet residential streets) to the Alban Way. This is a section of disused railway line, part of NCN61 and perfect for leisure cycling. It's a corridor of trees and greenery running through St Albans and on to Hatfield. We encountered quite a few walkers, some with children and some with dogs, but no more horses!

After a few miles, we left the Alban Way and cycled to a pub called The Plough in a village called Tyttenhangar Green. Oddly enough, this is a place I knew in one of my previous lives:  the local group of the 2CV owners club to which I belong used to meet there once a month for evening socials! That was nearly 15 years ago. The pub has been remodelled since then -- I didn't have any real sense of recognition or familiarity, except for the car parking area at the front, where we used to reverse in, all next to each other, producing quite a display of colourful, quirky cars.

From The Plough it was a quick trip on tarmack back to St Albans to catch the train to London to the SPIN x LCF Xmas event in Shoreditch.

This is the first joint show from SPIN and the London Coffee Festival, each of which have had successful fayre-style events of their own.

We arrived at 89-and-a-half (!) Worship Street at 2.30pm. Entrance was through an archway.

Inside the archway was a makeshift but effective "bike park". 

Once through the archway, we found several vendors serving hot food, such as hog roast, plus one of Bean About Town's mobile coffee shops... in a Citroen H-van!

Inside the main hall, our senses were immediately overcome with blessed heat... and the smell of fresh coffee.

 all bloggers?

The Coffee Bike developed and used by Project Rwanda (website unavailable) was on display.

This modified cargo bike has been reinforced to take loads of up to 200 lbs, allowing farmers in the hills of Rwanda get 3-4 times as much coffee to market as they can otherwise. Their businesses are thus more efficient, more productive -- and the coffee is fresher and of a more consistent quality due to shorter transport times and ability to transport much greater quantities as quickly as possible to the processing stations. (You can read a great feature article about the project and the impact these bikes are having here.)

Check out that low gear -

And all the re-enforcement struts -

We then came to what was obviously the coffee end of the hall! Most stalls were selling own-brand coffee beans, usually single source and/or organically produced. Several stalls specialised in coffee accessories, such as insulated travel mugs. Unfortunately, none appeared to be of the right size/shape to fit in a bottle cage! (I am currently hunting for a nice hot-drink container that will, so this criteria was in my mind.)

A few stands were set up to brew, percolate, or otherwise prepare coffee for drinking. I spotted the Make Decent Coffee stand firstly because I liked the name -- it's a concept and a mantra and, apparently, can work as a brand! (I'd never have advised a client to go for it -- too generic in a legal sense -- but hey, extensive and/or intensive use of even common phrases can confer, in time, a secondary meaning. But I digress...)  Secondly, I saw a sign with the word "Chemex" on it. This was a word that I kept seeing in Coffeeneuring reports a few weeks ago, but I had absolutely no idea what it is -- a machine? a filter? a type of coffee bean? Well, the lovely people at Make Decent Coffee gave us a full demonstration of brewing their Limited Edition Single Origin coffee beans in a Chemex -- yes, it's a coffee maker. Essentially, it uses the filter method, but in a much simpler, organic even, device.

Empty Chemex with fresh filter inserted in top half. 

A little tamping of the ground coffee beans

A small amount of hot water is poured in and the beans poked a bit more
- all to "prime the pump" for even brewing. 

The rest of the water is added slowly to filter through into the pot below.

The result? I am no coffee aficionado so I don't have the vocabulary but will say, it was smooth as well as strong, such that I could enjoy several sips without adding anything such as milk or sweetener. I tried a sample brew of the same beans prepared using an Aeropress -- that tasted quite different, also very nice, but I think I preferred the Chemex result.

Of course with all these great coffees around, there must be... cake! And pork pies!

The cycling aspects of the show ranged from bicycles themselves through a wide range of clothing and accessories. The focus is on local independent companies, the majority of which are fairly recent start-ups. 

One of which was Otto London. They are a new venture, founded by a couple from South America who in their search for suitable cycling outerwear in London were inspired by the ponchos they knew from home, resulting in a functional outer garment called the Urban Poncho. It is available in two sizes and eight colours. I quite liked the look of it in red.  (There's a nice interview with founder Otto Lauterbach on the Cyclelove blog here.)

Look Mum No Hands, one of the first and certainly the best known cycling cafes in London had a stand with both a barista on duty and a display of some of their accessories.

I liked the Park-At-Your-Own-Risk parody sign for cyclists:

I was delighted to see Michaux there, in a large corner space where the full range could be displayed to advantage. Fortunately, it was not quite so busy as shown here when we first arrived, so we were able to have a nice chat with Rachel Bonney, founder and designer.

Moving on to bicycles... and oh my goodness were there some beauties on show.

First up was a lovely selection of bikes from Kennedy City Bicycles of East London.

The card reads "I am not a fixie".

A little further along the hall, I had a lovely chat with James about his brand new venture called 8 Ball Bikes. He has only been "open for business" a few weeks, after spending some time building up bikes as a hobby. His frames come from China and he builds them up entirely with quality name-brand components, producing bicycles with a beautiful "old school" aesthetic but completely modern moving parts. The result is something that may not be hand-made but, with prices ranging from £495 to £599, irresistible to anyone considering taking up cycling on the back of all the beautiful hand-made bikes they see on London's streets and in the media. These look a worthy contender for a first time buyer's short list. James also sells various bicycle accessories such as custom decals and the stunning wooden fenders ('mudguards') shown here.

Back to clothing, I had an opportunity to chat with Sian of Road Rags. I have the Amber, one of their urban jerseys, which I believe is the only item in their range not made of merino! This was my first chance to look at their merino clothing in the flesh - it's very light and soft. I am especially taken with their unique leggings + skirt creation, the Holborn - this fits right in with my own mini-skirt-over-tights style. I'll definitely be looking at their range more closely when I next need to feed my merino addiction!

Also at the Road Rags stand was a stunning Claud Butler bicycle on display. This bike has been dipped -- twice! -- in chrome. Gorgeous!

Speaking of unique bicycles, how about a wooden one?  Or two, even -- from Flat Frame Systems.

A wide variety of cycling-themed posters and graphics were available --

An overview of the event from one end of the hall --

A few impressions:

Brooks England obviously make the saddles of choice, at least for display bicycles!

But then, this is London, whose hipsters do favour a certain retro/steampunk aesthetic. The UkKcycling scene may not be as self-consciously "artesanal" as that in North America, but the underlying values are similar, stressing products that are handbuilt of natural materials by businesses that focus on high quality/small quantities, always with an eye to stylish design and marketed in ways that give potential customers opportunities to meet the designer/maker.

That's all good in my book.

EDITED TO ADD:
How could I possibly forget to mention the highlight of my afternoon, namely the chance encounter as we were leaving the hall, with none other than the effervescent 5MileCyclist??!  Our chat ended up being much longer than any of us intended but was as ever much too short. We ladies have got custom bikes to compare so here's hoping we get the chance for a proper catch up on the next VeloVixen Ride.