Tag: 365daysofbiking

April 27th – I was working throughout the day, and only got out late evening.  It was threatening rain, and dusk was bearing down. I then realised I’d forgotten the camera, so had to use my phone. It didn’t really like the light, I think.

Nice to see that in the last week my favourite tree – the lone horse chestnut near Home Farm, Sandhills, has burst into leaf; I read the seasons by that tree, and now I know safe passage to summer is guaranteed. The canal all the way round to Newtown (and probably well beyond) is lush, and green, and beautiful. How I love this season.

Cruising up Short Street, I spotted the sky, and shot home before I got soaked. Interesting to note, though, that the street lights here have been changed for new LED ones; they’re very good, and are creeping onto many streets in Brownhills. Wonder what the rollout plan is?

So much nicer than the old orange ones.

April 26th – I nipped down to Stonnall late afternoon on an errand. It was a hazy day, but pretty clear, and as I crossed the Shire Oak junction, I noticed that a patch of sunlight was moving over Lichfield. Pulling in to the quarry gateway, I thought I’d try the new camera on the view. Not too shabby, really; it was very misty, but the Old Lady of the Vale looked splendid, as did the Coors (formerly Bass) brewery tower in Burton. In the upper shot, the disused cooling towers of Willington, near Derby, are clearly visible. 

I never tire of this view, and I love the way it’s greening up as the leaves come on.

April 26th – I spotted her on the opposite bank of the canal from Clayhanger Common. Sat on the canalside verge at the bottom of Silver Street, Brownhills, a proud mallard mum with a brood of very young ducklings, mostly well tucked in underneath and shielded by her wings. 

I’ve never seen a mallard do this before. The motherly pride in her offspring is quite clear – I found it delightful.

April 25th – This one’s for Trevor in Oz. You may miss life here when it’s sunny… but not on a went Friday afternoon.

A horrid ride. They guy soaking me in the last 10 seconds just clinched it.

The audio is the remarkable ‘Rain Dances’ by 1970s prog-jazzers Camel. Recording used at normal speed.

April 25th – Riding in the rain when the weather is warm isn’t that bad – once you’re wet, you’re wet and with waterproofs, that takes a good while. But after a week at work, when you’re tired, the light is poor and the traffic relentless, you just want to get home, have a shower, put something fresh on and have a decent cup of tea. 

These bike cam stills give a flavour of the journey. Like riding at night, it’s mentally very demanding, as there’s more stuff that you have to mentally process, and the traffic tends to be mad.

I was glad, If I’m honest, to get home.

April 25th – A dreadful commuting day, really, and not a great one at work, if I’m honest. I returned home late afternoon in a rainstorm. The rain was warm, though, and what wind there was seemed to be behind me. Coming from central Walsall after picking up some shopping, I crossed the Arboretum Junction, and whilst waiting at the lights, noticed the surface water problem here was getting worse. In heavy rain, the asphalt here doesn’t seem to shed water, and a 3-4mm  covering develops over the entire junction. I’ve never seen any road do this before, and must be a peculiarity of the surfacing.

It’s bad enough of a bicycle. Feel sure someone is going to aquaplane across here one day…

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.