Singled Out

Image credit: APA 

The other day I was cautiously making my way out of the NCP multi-storey car park (with its impressively abundant and popular bicycle parking areas) behind London St Pancras International train station, when I was hailed by a man entering the car park on foot. 

I stopped. 

"You really shouldn't cycle here", he said without preamble. 

"Really? It's not prohibited," I responded. 

"Cyclists go too fast. We've had so many people have the life scared out of them by cyclists coming through here."

"Well, it wasn't me who startled them. There are people who aren't considerate of others, in all situations. I am always careful, so please don't tar me with that brush."

"You shouldn't cycle here, you really shouldn't", he said again, shaking his head in a scolding fashion. And then he turned and walked away. 

That was the end of the conversation, such that it was, so I called "Bye" to his retreating back and pedalled off. 

As I did so, I found myself musing....

Studded Tyre Miles Count Double

Did I mention snow in yesterday's post? Well, somebody must have heard me, because we awoke this morning to this: 

Barely Dawn.

Since I needed to go into Harpenden today and the forecast suggests temperatures are going to drop below freezing the next several nights, meaning potentially icy conditions for the morning commute, it was obviously the right time to put the studded tyres on the Cross Check. 

Somewhat to my amusement (because this is nothing unusual), it transpired that my ready-to-go spare winter wheelset had, erm, been cannabalised in various ways for other projects. There was in fact no "winter wheelset" but there were two studded Marathon tyres available. So Adam paid penance by wrestling the everyday Marathon Plus tyres off, and wrangling the new studded tyres into their place. 

Revisiting The "What To Wear" Winter Challenge

   

London cycling

Two of my very first posts after starting this blog covered my experiences and recommendations for clothing and accessories to keep yourself comfortably dry and warm enough to cycle through the winter. The commuting version is here, and the road cycling version is here. 

Three years on, my commute has changed so that it is, in fact, mostly road cycling -- with a 10-minute ride at the London end that can be done in pretty much any kind of clothing suitable for light exercise (comparable to walking) in whatever the weather conditions are on the day. The road cycling component of my commute (25-30 minutes inbound, 35-40 minutes outbound) however poses challenges in terms of temperature and moisture control. 

Cycle to Work Day, September 2014
(only a 3 mile ride to the train station,
so I tended to just half dress for the office)

I have been doing this new 12-mile roundtrip road commute for 10 months now. This is my first winter and I have wondered how "deep" into the winter I would get before feeling the need to take a few weeks off (perhaps six weeks at most... if I'm lucky) through the very worst of the winter with a view to restarting in the spring (early March... if I'm lucky). 

Re Blog: The Ultimate Indicator of a Bicycle-Friendly City (from Copenhagenize)

© Colville-Andersen. All rights reserved.

How can you tell if your city is cycle friendly? It won't be anything you hear people say, it's what you see them do.

(The answer may surprise you!)

Unravelling -- or, Each Road Has A (Main If Not Only) Function

Two topics I have on my 'wish list' to post about are "Presumed Liabilty" and "Priority (or, who gives way to whom?)", with my takes on what others (far more knowledgeable than me) have written elsewhere. But not today. (Sorry if that's a teaser!)

The item that caught my attention over my morning coffee today, however, was an article titled "Channeling the Flow", by Bez over on the Beyond The Kerb blog.

The issue of course is the seeming inability of UK local authorities and traffic/road planners to understand why the Dutch do what they do. In the Corbridge case covered by Bez, a road treatment that is very common indeed in the Netherlands has been adopted -- because "if it's Dutch, it must be good" (er, not always!) -- but in wildly inappropriate circumstances. Observers (and video evidence) are now confirming there is too much traffic on the road in question for this kind of layout to work and it has in fact rendered the road less attractive (and safe) to cyclists, not more.

Lessons should have been learned from previous 'experiments' of this nature in the UK!

The problem is that design is being driven (if you'll pardon the expression) from the wrong starting point. Whether this kind of road layout can work or not in any given location is not a question of traffic volumes (which can and do fluctuate) or space -- it's about Function. 

As a first-time visiting cyclist* to the Netherlands last year, it's the clear delineation of function that struck me as the key to the "success" of growth into a "cycling nation". Much about Dutch infrastructure surprised me -- and at times even confused me -- but this underlying feature was, to me, glaringly obvious. 

We cycled many miles on roads with exactly this treatment -- but it worked. 

on the Molendijk, outskirts of Rotterdam

2015 Review

I'm trying something different this year: here is a slideshow of photos I have selected as highlights from last year. Most are cycling related -- including cycling in France, Belgium and the Netherlands -- but a few vintage cars and vintage aircraft get a look in too.

A few of these photos appeared on previous blog posts in 2015 and no doubt a few more will feature in future posts.

You can also click through to the Flickr album for details of what, where, who and when. As for how and why, ask by posting a comment!

Enjoy!

Created with flickr slideshow.

A New Leaf

Greetings and Happy New Year!

I don't do "New Year's Resolutions" as such but there's no denying that the slower pace and longer nights do seem to create the right atmosphere for reflections and ruminations. 

The blog has been one of the areas I've been contemplating.  Somehow over the past year or so, I began to see this is a growing collection of articles. While I wish I had the brainpower and turn of phrase to produce beautifully constructed essays with illuminating insights into life, the human condition and the future of civilisation -- even if only insofar as cycling infrastructure is concerned -- then, failing that, I seem to have set myself a mission to write 'definitive' product reviews and drool-worthy ride reports. 

I am not succeeding in this mission. And it strikes me that I have taken my eyes off the ball. All I ever really wanted was to express myself, to share my experiences and occasional Eureka moments in my own individual way. That's what the "voice" in Velovoice was supposed to be all about. 

What's In A Name? -- or, the Anthropomorphisation Diversion

Twins separated at birth: Susan and Sharon,
played by Hayley Mills in Disney's The Parent Trap

Take two (originally) identical bicycles, strip them of all their components, then build them up again with the components from each bike going onto the other bike...

Yes, Operation Body Swap is under way.  Here's the post about the London Town Bike version, using the frame from my first Puch Princess then built up with most of the components from another Puch Princess (same year and model, frame IDs only a few numbers apart) bought from a woman about 15 miles up the road.

When the Road Bike of the two twins is finished, she will look like this. Except with a nicer frame.

London Town Bike #4 -- or, Finally Just Right?

The saga of finding a suitable bike for use on the central London part of my daily commute continues... 

Back in August 2014, I had identified five options: 

1. Find an old frame and build it up with parts already to hand; 

2. Use an existing 'old' bike (of which I had one but wasn't quite prepared to 'sentence' to year-round all-weather theft-risk use); 

3. Buy another (complete) 'old' bike that I didn't have qualms about; 

4. Wait and buy a new bike via Cyclescheme; or

5. Buy a really cheap, new bike "for now". 

At that point, I had tried nos. 1 and 3. After setting out my options as above, I went with no. 5: the Viking Bromley. 

That experiment taught me a lesson: cheap bikes just don't work as well. (Well, d'oh!)

My latest venture is in fact a combination of option nos. 1, 2 and 3: 

This is Phase I of the Puch Princess Body Swap. 

Custom versus Bespoke

Do you have a bespoke suit?  A custom car? 

Was it made to order? Or tailored to fit you and your style after it was made? 

The words "custom" and "bespoke" are regularly applied to bicycles and often in ways that make the two words seem interchangeable. But are they? 

From the dictionary definitions, it seems many do view the two words as "synonyms", that is, two words that mean the same. 

In the bicycle industry, this certainly seems to be true: both words are regularly used more or less interchangeably. The British have perhaps (until recently) favoured the use of "bespoke" while Americans have leant towards use of "custom", but that seems to be changing rapidly, with "custom" becoming the dominant word on this side of the Atlantic as well. 

I wish to make a case for differentiating the meaning of the two words
for the sake of precision and clarity! 

The problem in my view is that both words are often used to describe two situations that are entirely different: 

• A bicycle frame made from scratch to the precise requirements and demands of an individual.

like a "bespoke suit" =

you are measured up before scissors go near the fabric

• The building up of a frame (any frame, whether stock or made to order as above) to meet the demands or satisfy the requests of an individual. The individual has had no input into the design and manufacturer of the frame itself, though usually they are given a choice of size, from a range of sizes on offer. 

like a "custom car" = 

you buy another person's basic design or vision,
with the option to personalise the hell out of it!