velovoice: Lucy

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Friday, 25 November 2016

#Coffeeneuring Challenge: The 2016 Edition

The 6th Annual Coffeeneuring Challenge: Yay, I finished! Autumn of last year is a complete blank for me so presumably I didn't even attempt this wonderfully traditional challenge, and I know I did not complete in 2014. So I am quite surprised and pleased that I did succeed, on 7 separate occasions, in riding my bicycle at least 2 miles for the pleasure of a hot beverage.

I have finally figured out why this is such a tough thing to do if I'm riding with Adam. It's all down to the "spirit" of the challenge. See, Adam does not drink hot drinks. But the problem is more than that. We are both "tourists" and love nothing more than spending the day together out on our bikes peering at everything. However, Adam is not a coffeeneur at heart. He does not see the point of stopping -- or 'interrupting' -- a perfectly good bike ride for something as trivial as having a drink. Drinking is for hydration and drinking from his bottle on the bike while on the move is perfectly adequate and sound good sense to him. Stopping is inefficient. He does it for me but I have to pointedly and directly request it. Hints go right over his head. Yet, how many times have we ended a ride only for him to say "Oh no! You didn't get to log this as a coffeeneuring ride!" If I didn't know him (and his honest heart) so well, I'd suspect Coffeeneuring Sabotage.

So this year, knowing that one week of the 7-week challenge would see us in the Netherlands where we would be cycling together every day, I devised a strategy: get him cold enough and/or present our plans each day as ambitious enough that some kind of proper sit-down stop would be not only (1) welcome, (2) sensible, (3) enjoyable (even for him), and/or, if push came to shove, in some way (4) absolutely necessary.

Fortunately, the weather during our Amsterdam sojourn was fully co-operative!

But I am jumping ahead to the second part of my 2016 Coffeeneuring Challenge.

Without further ado, here are my 7 rides in chronological order.

RIDE #1

Destination: Chilterns Gateway Centre (National Trust), Whipsnade Road, Dunstable, Bedfordshire, LU6 2GY, UK

Date: Sunday, 9th October 2016

Hot drink of choice: Plain Black Tea with Milk (score: average, say 3/5)
Total mileage: 23.8km
Bicycle: Riley the Enigma

Bike Friendliness:

Quite good. There are bike racks but it is perfectly okay to keep your bike with you and lean it against a table or wall within your line of sight. This is a popular stop for cycling clubs.

Other Observations:

This was a beautiful morning and it was nice to see so many families out early to enjoy the great outdoors. Lots of dog walkers and kite flyers. After enjoying my hot beverage, I freewheeled into Dunstable to visit Adam's daughter and her fiance in their new, first home.

#Errandonnee 2016 Challenge: Rides 1 & 2

Errandonnee #1

Date: Saturday, 5 March 2016

Errand: Go to my Quiet Place to Study for my Exam

Category: Education (I propose changing "Work/Volunteering" category to "Career/Vocations")

Destination: Thompson Close, Harpenden

Distance: 4km

Steed: Lucy the Brompton

What I learned/observations:

Some days, the portability of the Brompton trumps* all other considerations.

Errandonnee #2

Date: Saturday, 5 March 2016

Errand: Collect Fresh Raw Milk from Local Man With Small Herd of Jersey Cows

Category: Non-Store

Destination: Crabtree Lane, Harpenden

Distance: 1km

Steed: Lucy the Brompton

What I learned/observations:

1. Timing errands in between hailstorms can be tricky - but is so worth it.

2. Also, mid-way through the day is not the ideal time to realise you should have worn (or carried) waterproof trousers - see point 1.

*And so we mourn the loss of a perfectly good word, forever spoiled by one of the most horrifying personalities ever to seek public office.

Saturday, 25 October 2014

#Coffeeneuring 2014: Ride 2

Happiness is a rich smooth cappuccino
(with soy milk for my friend Grace)

Destination: Look Mum No Hands!, Old Street, London
Date: Saturday, 18 October 2014

Hot drink of choice: Cappuccino

Total mileage: 56.4km
Bicycle: Lucy the Brompton

This was our friend Andy's 40th Birthday Ride.

Some of you may know Andy: he rode London-Edinburgh-London in 2009 and out of that came an amazing little book called Barring Mechanicals. Andy is a lovely guy: gentle and unassuming and terrifically funny. He's also something of an IT whiz. This past year his job has meant he's basically been living in a hotel in New York, writing and fixing code 22 hours a day. So his wife knew exactly what he'd want when he came home: a pootle on his bike with a bunch of friends, ending with CAKE at London's iconic bicycle cafe/bar/workshop, Look Mum No Hands!

So that's what he got.

Lucy Meets Yossi (A Nisnas Partnership)

You may recall my last update on Lucy the Brompton ending with mention of "one further modification to be made -- a purely cosmetic one!"

Well, now I can reveal what it is:

wooden fenders with steel inlays, beautifully crafted by hand by the

lovely chaps at Nisnas Industries in Israel [click HERE for details!]

Lucy Gets More Gears

I introduced Lucy, my bespoke Brompton, in a previous post, explaining the background to the modifications described here.

All the research on how best to get Lucy some more gears was done last winter and to be honest, I don't remember all the various options that we looked at. In the end, though, we settled on getting a Sturmey-Archer 8-speed conversion kit from Kinetics in Glasgow.