Month: April 2014

balltobuild:

09.03.2014. “ Erewash Valley Trail ” The return

For the most part of the return we are on bridleways and the disused Nottingham canal. Parts of the old canal have been filled in completely, Although some sections still hold water, and indeed fish. As you near the outskirts of Nottingham we are unfortunately pushed onto the roads and shared use footpaths. And then into another nature reserve just before the Trent Way path, Which then takes us back to Trent Lock ! our start point. A very enjoyable days cycling with perfect weather. 32 mls on the trail, added to the 16 mls on the Trent Way in the morning, 48 mls ! our longest trip to date.

balltobuild:

Sunday 30th March 2014 “ Disused and abandoned ”

Just a few more pictures from our cycling trip Ironbridge to Bridgenorth, from the disused power station, to the abandoned farmhouse & the tree that is slowly but surely reclaiming this brick building. This trail is littered with history. In fact the area gets it’s name from the world first cast iron bridge that spans the river severn, but guess what, ( I didn’t get a picture )

balltobuild:

Sunday 6th April 2014

” Kenilworth to Warwick ” ( entirely off road )

Regular followers of this blog may remember a post a few weeks back when we used the sustrans route from Kenilworth to Warwick, I wasn’t a big fan of the route, and was quite critical about it. We were then messaged by a fellow tumblr user, informing us of a regular route he uses along bridleways from Kenilworth castle to Hatton locks on the grand union canal, which we could then use as a link to Warwick.

With nothing better to do with our Sunday ! we decided to check it out. We picked up the bridleway at the rear of the castle, the first section was extremely muddy ! in fact impassable in places ( even on foot ) perseverance paid off, as it wasn’t long before we hit decent paths meandering through the Warwickshire countryside. Lots of reap seed fields that were just starting to flower, the last pic with the very angry sky, was approaching Hatton park estate, we were greeted by a sign requesting that the local dog walkers use their poo bags.

balltobuild:

Thursday 10th April 2014

” Deja ” not so Vu, two

It never ceases to amaze me how ! when your cycling along at about 10mph, how much there is to see. All these cheeky chappies were all very happy to pose for photographs.

Although some of them were clearly very busy ! Like the ducks shepherding there ducklings, The one protecting the nest was very vocal ! trying to warn off other waterfowl, notably a couple of swans, who incidentally were just finishing off a rather nasty fight. The Heron was doing it’s very best to stay perfectly still, his only giveaway was the occasional blink.

April 24th – It’s not often I cover matters of religious division here on 365daysofbiking, but there’s a time and place for everything. I’ve mentioned before that I prefer a gearhub to derailleur gears; low maintenance, reliable, bombproof. Gearhubs, hub gears or IGHs are a divisive thing – I use an Alfine by Shimano; it offers 11 gears at a 404% range, and works like a charm. The disadvantage is it concentrates a lot of weight at the rear of the bike, and life can get really challenging if they fail.

People get very energised about hub gears, and about the oil one should lubricate them with. Allow me to explain…

Last week I had trouble with my gears not engaging correctly. Often with Alfine units – which run in an oil bath – the slipping indicates that the oil in the hub needs a change, and this one hadn’t been done for about 3,000 miles. As it happened, I was wrong; the adjuster mechanism had slipped slightly when I’d last fitted the wheel and resetting it’s position solved the problem, but not before I’d drained the oil and changed it a couple of times for thin stuff.

The standard oil Shimano recommend is thick. The procedure is to remove a small plug on the hub, screw in a length of pipe which attaches to a syringe, and ‘suck out’ the old oil. I generally leave it overnight to drain. I then clean the syringe with alcohol, suck up 25ml of clean oil, and squirt that into the hub. Because this one hadn’t been done for ages, I used a thin oil, and then reinserted the plug, a rode the bike for a while. I then drained the thin oil the same way. I repeated the process until the oil coming backout was reasonably clean.

Rather than use Shimano oil, which is expensive and goes thick in winter, I decided to use oil by another hub-gear manufacturer; Rohlhoff. Rohlhoff hubs contain more plastic parts than Shimano, so their oil should be OK. It’s thinner, but seems like good stuff.

The Rohlhoff oil also comes with a ‘cleaning oil’, so tonight’s job was to drain the hub once more, and pump in 25ml of cleaning oil. I will ride the bike tomorrow, and then drain it again, before finally pumping in the new oil.

Sounds like a parlarver, but it’s easy, really. I love the hub gears, and sometimes, you have to demonstrate you care.

Say it with oil. 

I bet this has made the purists tut their disapproval…

April 24th – Commuting in spring is a joy. Sod the traffic, taking 10 minutes extra and hopping on the canal, or taking a backway rather than the main road provides all manner of rewards. From the beautiful deep pink blossom in Shelfield, to my first set of mallard ducklings at Bentley Bridge, to the guerrilla seeded cowslips on the bank of Clayhanger Bridge the ride is full of contrasts: colour, life and sound.

Gorgeous.

April 23rd – First time my deer magnet has been switched on for weeks. Just over Jockey Meadows, 200 metres or so from the site of the flytipping in the last post, two red deer hinds. One older than the other, both wathced me nervously from right at the bottom of the field, near the brook. These are very long-range photos, so apologies for the poor quality. 

Both ladies were in the moult, so looked a bit threadbare, but otherwise appeared healthy enough. I think they’re part of a larger herd that loafs in the scrub there.

Nice to see them, and a sign as to why we need to look after our vital green spaces like Jockey Meadows and work against the kind of environmental damage caused by the flytipping shown in the previous post.

April 23rd – Spinning home from work, I noticed fresh flytipping in the gateway again at the Shelfield end of Jockey Meadows on Green Lane. A mixture of what looks like building and domestic refuse, it seems to be the usual ‘pull up and shove it off the back of a wagon’ job; unless the culprits have left anything incriminating, or were witnessed, it’s sadly very unlikely they’ll be caught.

People make excuses for this behaviour, saying stuff like ‘If the refuse tips were free for commercial vehicles it wouldn’t happen’ – it would. If you’re prepared to flytip, you aren’t going to go halfway across the borough to an approved tip. The morons who do this do so because it’s easy, relatively risk free, and because, without a doubt, they’re filthy scum with no pride in their environment or concern for others.

It makes me sad and angry.