Tag: 365daysofbiking

365daysofbiking Ladies, please:

October 8th – This is a post that will hopefully confine us to a mild winter.

After suffering a spill in November last year on ice while riding summer tyres, I’m taking no chances this year and have the ice studs on now as we’ve already had a couple of heavy frosts, and I’m, getting too old for the falling off lark.

My rubber of choice for the cold months is Schwalbe Active Winter 30mm which has a good tread and several hundred tungsten carbide studs that bite into black ice and keep me upright.

They are a little noisy, and although not slow, not the nippiest tyres in the world.

Now I’ve fitted them, expect it to be warm throughout the winter…

365daysofbiking I am traffic:

October 8th – A snatched photo on the way home in the dark. This is a normal commute at the normal kind of time and I’ll have to get used to this now. Rushall Square is always kind of beautiful at night. Even when traffic free, it appears busy with traffic signals, street and shop light mingling.

These commutes are the hardest of all, the first in unusual darkness. But their urban beauty is hard to ignore.

Ah well, down the hatch…

365daysofbiking Ladies, please:

October 7th – I was also hacked off I was without a functioning camera when I witnessed this – something I’ve never seen before. Female deer, arguing.

At Chasewater, my light scared a group of red deer off the dam path down on to the dam itself. They were all females of varying ages, and there was some jockeying for position as they hurried away. 

In these three photos you can see the two deer of the left square off, one refuse to defer to the other, then they both buck and kick each other.

It was over in an instant, but the sound of their feet clattering against each other is something I’ll not forget.

Neither is the spectacle of two female red deer, bickering.

365daysofbiking Noble jacket:

October 7th – I set out on a pleasant but cold afternoon full of optimism. I was off to Cannock Chase to find deer, fungi some fine downhills and some autumn colour. 

Fate had other ideas.

The first problem was I’d left home with a flat battery in my camera, so all these are phone photos, and without exception, I think they’d have been better pictures if taken with my camera. But I would tend to think that, I suppose.

Two mechanical failures and I was sunk. A makeshift repair on a shredded tyre wasn’t dependable, so a quick visit to Castle Ring was to be my lot. 

I found good toadstools on the sandy embankment by the canal between Wharf Lane and Newtown bridges, which was nice, and the golden hour at Castle Ring was beautiful. Sad to note though now the once stunning view is again obscured by the tall trees down the hill – you can barely see the power station at Rugeley at all now.

A great sunset as I passed back through Chasewater just rubbed salt in my flat battery wound.

Some days are just not well starred. This was one of them, sadly.

365daysofbiking Ever falls the twilight:

October 6th – I returned to Brownhills in the overcast weather hinterland between night and what passed for day. It was damned grey and inside, I felt that way too. The onset of winter has me by the neck this year and I’m alternately OK with it and then quite down. I somehow feel I let summer slip away – I didn’t, I rode lots and saw lots and it just ended early, but I feel bereft.

From the Silver Street pedestrian bridge, I surveyed one of my classic winter views: Autumn is settling well here now, and the new houses with the nice line along the canal made an interesting match to the colour of the trees before them. There is life here now, lights in the new dwellings, and no longer does it feel desolate to stand here and be confronted with the place I love. 

This town is changing, like the season; slowly, imperceptibly if you’re not attuned to it, and I think for the better. Finally, the ghosts of the civic failure here are being exorcised, and there is evidence of a little hope, a little life, a little warmth.

Unlike the season, Brownhills is opening up. Perhaps this grey twilight is better than I thought.

365daysofbiking Decent, enough:

October 6th – From the wailing and gnashing of the NIMBYs of Aldridge, anyone would think that the block of apartments planned for the long derelict land right at the bottom of High Street on the Elms Island would be some monstrous, hideous carbuncle that didn’t fit with it’s surroundings at all.

Studying it closely while in the village of 26,000 on Saturday afternoon, I actually decided I quite liked it. I’m not fond of the flat roof, which is a cop out in design terms, but the rest of it is an interesting blend of textures and colours, and is actually quite bland, really. It’s not too big, it certainly doesn’t block light to the hHigh Street as some alleged and it seems a good match for the rather stark pub nearby.

I’m sure the elderly folk it’s built for will enjoy living close to the amenities of the ‘village’ centre, too, and it will help keep the local retailers busy.

It seems a decent thing to me.

365daysofbiking Noble jacket:

October 5th – Darlaston is probably at it’s very best in autumn. An indisputably industrial, highly urbanised Black Country town with a huge amount of greenery, it wears the multi-coloured noble jacket of autumn beautifully.

In Victoria Park, looking towards the Mystic Bridge, autumn is just starting to paint the trees in shades of yellow, gold and orange.

The sadness of the summer’s loss is now passing, and I’m quite enjoying the change in the scenery.

365daysofbiking Buttered up:

October 5th – I said a good few weeks ago now that butter and eggs, or toadflax is one of the harbingers of summer’s end: When it comes into flower, you know the season is at an end.

Still going strong in early October, it’s one of the few things still in flower, resolutely brightening the canal towpaths, edgelands and hedgerows.

A beautiful, but sad flower.

#365daysofbiking Skywiring:

October 4th – On my way home I had business in Shenstone, and as I returned through the tiny hamlet of Lynn, darkness was falling with the most stunning, dramatic sky.

I loved the way id highlighted the overhead electricity lines, which are something I consider beautiful and mysterious. These complex arrangements of poles, cable, metal structures and ceramic insulators are ignored by most, but are essential to our daily lives.

Few study them, and even fewer understand their layout, function and protective equipment. But that’s the whole point: The mystery in the complexity.

Meanwhile, while I was admiring the wiring, I was being watched, and never noticed.

#365daysofbiking Stars on earth:

October 4th – Returning early this year, on a patch of edgeland on the industrial estate in Darlaston near where I work, one of the most remarkable fungi I’ve ever seen: an earthstar.

Just a couple at the moment, but one is deformed: but these bizarre organisms, when in their prime are stunning. A buff-coloured puffball emerges as it’s casing unfurls in almost petal-like sections around it, forming a star.

They look like they’re made of modelling clay or ceramic. They are absolutely astounding to see.

I adore fungi. It’s so unlike anything else.