Ertblog

Back to snowy Hodgemoor Wood

I've got the mountain biking bug again. So while sensible people were indoors next to the fire, I set off this afternoon on my ancient mountain bike for my new haunt, Hodgemoor Wood near Chalfont St Giles. I wanted to explore the woods while the snow still lay very crisp and not so even. Last weekend's snow was lingering, with a fresh coating on Thursday night.

Botterills Lane was easy going (a contrast to last Sunday's treacherous ice) but the wood was again a fun challenge. I missed my way at first but my sense of direction helped me gain the bridleway (The Mount) that runs westwards. 

I had stuffed my Canon SLR in my Camelbak Mule so I could take some proper photos. I was lucky: the sun bathed parts of the wood even after 4pm on this bitterly cold February afternoon. In the deep of the wood, I propped the bike against the route sign and started capturing the scene. As last weekend, I barely saw a soul - although a friendly dog took a mild interest as I took a few photos. 

This was almost certainly my last outing on the Diamondback Ascent bike I bought at Roylan Cycles in Cheltenham in April 1994. The gearshift has failed and I could only use the bottom 4 (out of 21) gears. It made me even slower than normal! I can't wait to get its replacement later this month. 

PS: last night was bitterly, bitterly cold. The photo below shows the temperature reading on my Mini as I drove Owen to his football class at 8.45 this morning. (I thought last Saturday's minus 6.5C was cold enough!)

 

I love my Garmin Edge 800

I had a wonderful Christmas surprise: a Garmin Edge 800 GPS device for my bike. Karen has always been very generous! It's been a revelation. 

Years ago, I couldn't see the point of satnav for cyclists. But I realised I was wrong late last year. The Garmin is so much more than a navigation device. It captures an enormous amount of information about your ride, from the usual bike info (speed, average speed, time spent), to heart rate info (heart rate, average heart rate, time in various heart zones) and plots all this and more online so you can share your ride - and download details of other people's routes. Even more fun, you can race against your earlier rides - and your target performance. 

This screenshot shows details of my ride today, uploaded to Garmin Connect. You'll gather that I set no speed records, although I knocked a modest four minutes of the time I took to ride the route on 28 December - my first Garmin ride. (Not as impressive as the four hours I cut from my Bucks century time in summer 2005!) I wish I'd had this remarkable gadget on my Land's End to John O'Groats ride in 2002...

The Garmin has given a real spur to my new year resolution to get back to cycling. And to lose a few pounds!

In praise of Cumbria

Like everyone in Britain, I was appalled by the news of yesterday's gun massacre in Cumbria. Such a tragedy would have been hard to take anywhere. But Cumbria? This peaceful, largely rural county is the last place on earth you'd imagine as the scene of a massacre. But life isn't as logical as that. Britain's most notorious massacres - Hungerford, Dunblane and now West Cumbria - have all taken place in largely tranquil spots.

My old university friend, Dr Nigel Calvert of NHS Cumbria, was widely quoted in the media. As Nigel said, Cumbria has had a traumatic seven months. Yesterday's massacre came after last week's awful school coach crash and November's devastating floods. 

I got to know Cumbria in 2002 when I cycled through the county on my Land's End to John O'Groats bike ride. I fell in love with this beautiful part of the country. It's a tough place to cycle - all those hills! - but the people and the scenery provide an ample reward for all that effort. I entered the county after a breathtaking (in every sense) ride from Dent in Yorkshire to Kirkby Stephen via Garsdale Head and Aisgill. We camped just outside Kirkby Stephen and enjoyed a very special dinner at the pub in Nateby, walking back in the gently fading light of a June evening. The next day, the landlord of a pub just outside Carlisle made a very generous donation to the charity I was cycling in aid of - even though it was based in Wales. I left Cumbria with a very warm feeling towards this wonderful county - a feeling that grew when I returned the following year for a cycling weekend in Alstonn. (Cycling up Hartside was a tough challenge, but worth it for the glorious swoop back down to Alston!) 

I'll be thinking of Cumbria in the coming days. 

Sensible but sneaky: Buckinghamshire's new speed limits

Driving Owen to nursery yesterday, I noticed a tiny '40' speed limit sign on Longbottom Lane between Seer Green and Beaconsfield. Strange, I thought, I wasn't aware a 40mph limit had been applied to this rural road. But the return journey confirmed that Bucks County Council had done just that. And I noticed that the same 40 signs between Seer Green and Chalfont St Giles. 

I agree with the lower speed limits. These roads are narrow and twisting, making 60 too fast for the conditions. It will make life easier and safer for cyclists and horseriders. But I wasn't impressed by the fact the council hadn't put up the usual large signs telling drivers that the speed limit had changed. Even worse, they've removed the 30 limit sign as you enter Seer Green from Chalfont St Giles, which means that many drivers will enter the village at 40, not 30mph. 

No wonder drivers think they're being victimised - this kind of sneaky action creates the suspicion that Bucks County Council is trying to trap drivers into speeding fines. I doubt they're that clever. This and my previous posts this week about the Narcot Lane cycle route and Amersham's closed zebra crossing suggest they're just incompetent.

PS: my wife Karen tells me that the new speed limits have been widely covered in our local paper. I don't think that lets the council off the hook. Most people don't read the Bucks Advertiser - including me. They certainly don't read the council's website on the off-chance that it might be about to change the speed limits of their local roads. Bucks County Council put up large signs when they changed the speed limit from 40 to 30 on Stanley Hill and London Road West in Amersham a few years ago. It should have done the same now. 

Chalfont cycle route: Narcot Lane scheme gets 6 out of 10

I've long been a fan of well planned and built cycle routes. So I was pleased to see that Buckinghamshire County Council was building a cycle route from our village of Chalfont St Giles to the leisure centre and community college in the next village of Chalfont St Peter. 

I cycled the route yesterday with our 22 month old toddler Owen in his seat on the back of my Raleigh Randonneur touring bike. It was an enjoyable ride on the smooth new path - a contrast with the horribly potholed road alongside. It makes a change for a cycle path to be quicker than the main road in shadows!

But sadly the project has some flaws. Oddly, it starts some distance along Narcot Lane, which means that anyone starting at the St Giles end has to use the road, or break the law by cycling on the pavement - despite the ample width available. The route was officially opened 10 days ago, according to the Bucks Free Press, but the two road crossings are unmarked and incomplete. Just as seriously, there are no signs to explain that this is a shared footpath and cycle route. My parents-in-law, who live on the route, report that one of their neighbours was roundly abused by a cyclist for daring to set foot on the path with her dog, impeding his progress. A simple sign would have put this foul mouthed fool in his place. Finally, as the photo above shows, part of the old pavement was too narrow to convert into a cycle route. It would have been sensible for the council to narrow the road at this point to calm traffic as it enters Chalfont St Giles, which would have given room for the cycle route. Instead, cyclists are currently forced to negotiate a strip of concrete barely a foot in width, as a utility company has dug up the pavement. 

But these are niggles. The government should invest heavily in such facilities, despite the coming cuts. Encouraging cycling will pay ample dividends in future years in a healthier nation and less crowded roads. 

Wheels of joy: my favourite bikes

I wrote a post last week about adding a child seat to my Raleigh Randonneur touring bike. It prompted me to reflect on other bikes I have owned over the years. What follows isn't strictly a list of favourites: all the bikes I've owned have given pleasure, even the exercise bike that was banished from the kitchen when Owen arrived! But these are the most significant. I've written about them in the date I got the bikes.

I cycled from Land's End to John O'Groats on this bike. Now it's got a child seat!

 

Once upon a time, I cycled the length of Britain - from Land's End to John O'Groats (above) - on my wonderful Raleigh Randonneur touring bike. (I wrote about that experience on Ertblog two years ago in this post). I never imagined as I cycled those long miles that one day I would attach an enormous child seat to the bike!

But that day has arrived. Karen and I cycled from Chalfont St Giles to Chalfont St Peter today with Owen strapped into our new Co-Pilot Limo seat. I was impressed how little impact the seat and a 20lb child had on steering and cycling, though our route was almost entirely flat. We'll see how we get on climbing Silver Hill out of St Giles!

Here's Owen in his new seat.

Finally, a word about the Randonneur. I've neglected it in the last few years, taking my Cannondale Road Warrior fast hybrid on our bike holidays. But riding it this week was a revelation, reminding me how brilliantly it coped with Land's End to John O'Groats. It took me the length of Britain without so much as a puncture. It's a real shame that Raleigh abandoned the touring bike market not long after I bought the bike in 1997.

Cycling into summer

A weekend graced by glorious weather draws to a close. The longer, warmer evenings have prompted me to get back on the bike, and I feel so much better for exchanging winter lethargy for summer exercise. 

In tonight's evening heat, I felt good spinning the pedals up the long drag out of Chalfont St Giles. My cycle this evening was a short one, but I love the ride back into the village along the Misbourne valley via Bowstridge Lane. The new-born lambs are in full and delightful voice.

It's good to read inspirational tales of rather longer cycling adventures. The Guardian's Two Wheels cycling last week was entitled Adventures of the Night Riders and featured a CTC ride through the night from London to the coast. This is dangerous territory for me. I've always loved the idea of cycling through the summer night, although I admit I've never yet turned the idea into practice. Another marathon night ride is the Exmouth Exodus from Bristol to the Devon coast, run by Dave Atkinson who was the tour leader on our cycle tour of Umbria four years ago. Back in June 1995 I enjoyed my first true cycling holiday from Wiltshire to the coast at Beer in east Devon - and back.

The idea of cycling those wonderful lanes at night is intoxicating, though the thought of having to make my way back to Buckinghamshire afterwards is just as daunting! Maybe one day...

CTC's Kevin Mayne explains why he defended David Cameron's cycling

Kevin Mayne, the director of Britain's national cycling organisation CTC, has explained on CTC's website why he defended Conservative leader David Cameron's apparent law-breaking when cycling in London. (A week ago, the Daily Mirror published pictures of Cameron cycling the wrong way down a one way street.) As Mayne says:

"I checked out the Mirror’s coverage in some detail and I was furious. After 3 days of trailing Cameron they ended up with just four photos that they said was either illegal or dangerous riding, plus some footage on line. I am not condoning illegal or dangerous cycling but this was plain daft.

"I know most of that route, I use it regularly. In most of the photos he was doing exactly what we all do – he crossed a toucan on red because there were no cars coming, he moved to the front of the queue at traffic lights and the so called roundabout he went round the wrong way is a bollard in the Mall.

"Going up a one way street the wrong way was the one really illegal act, but we have shown the Department for Transport on many occasions that much of Europe allows cyclists to go against the flow in designated one way streets."

Mayne's comments have caused quite a stir, with commentators contrasting his views with those of safety campaigners, who condemned Cameron.

I can understand why Mayne took his stance. Cameron has become one of Britain's most high profile cyclists. There's little doubt that the country's transport system would be in rather better shape if politicians actually had to cycle or use trains and tubes rather than chauffeur driven cars. But I think Cameron and Mayne have both blundered. We cyclists win few friends by ignoring the rules - and we should be trying to win friends and influence people. Kevin's argument that the Tory leader was simply doing what we all do was not convincing.

There's also a lingering doubt whether Cameron is a genuine cyclist rather than a politician creating some useful photo-opportunities. (We all remember the story of his driver following by car with his brief case.) How odd that a savvy and image conscious politician has scored two PR own goals with his cycling.

Sustrans needs your help

The sustainable transport charity Sustrans celebrated its 30th birthday last year. It has been a great success, creating Britain's National Cycle Network and recently winning £50 million lottery funding for its Connect2 initiative.

Sustrans started life as the Bristol cycle campaign group Cyclebag. Its first success was creating the Bristol to Bath cycle route, which is now used by 6,500 riders every day. This route is under threat as the West of England partnership wants to use it as a rapid bus route. Sustrans supports better public transport but believes this proposal would destroy the green and tranquil nature of the cycle route. Its slogan is "right idea, wrong route". I agree - I wouldn't want a bus tearing past me at 40mph on a cycle route!

You can help Sustrans campaign against this threat by signing its online petition. See Sustrans' news release for more information.