Tag: change

July 8th – An enervating, hectic day from which I returned late. Tired, aching and verging on a sugar crash, I relented and stopped for a rest and a few sweets at the small meadow above the new pond at Clayhanger. I’d caught it in a lovely golden hour, and I reflected on how this spot had changed. When I was a kid, this hollow leading to a sunken pond with tree-lined banks was a spoil heap standing a good ten feet above my head. Between then and now, the colliery spoil was removed, the area landscaped and allowed to mature.

Not all change is for the worst.

November 18th – Not all change is for the worse. Here at James Bridge, on the Walsall-Darlaston border, the road between the two crosses a river: the Tame, in it’s nascent stages. At Besot, a mile or so away, it’s in confluence with the Ford Brook, and becomes the major watercourse of Sandwell and North Birmingham.

This river used – even here – especially here – to be nothing but a foul conduit for industrial effluent; but the industry that discharged into it has either gone, or been forced to clean up it’s act, and the river now runs relatively clear.

Today, mallards drifted in the strong flow, basking in the hazy but warm morning sun. This was unthinkable even a decade ago.

I never thought I’d see this waterway clean.

September 19th – After a languid Indian summer, the sudden dull, overcast weather was a shock, but other stuff was bothering me. The air quality seems lousy at the moment, and it was irritating my sinuses making me unusually reliant on decongestant. Visibility wasn’t great either, but the air wasn’t really damp. This is an odd season, to be sure.

The autumn is in full swing, and the colours turning from dusty, tired greens to oranges and golds. Around Clayhanger Common and the new pond, the beautiful, deciduous copses and thickets are a wonder to behold, yet I think few every really study them or note the diversity of species they contain.

If only for a bit more sun to make these colours sing!

May 23rd – I noticed something today I’d not spotted before. Cycling back up the Chester Road from Mill Green, as the land rises and undulates (from about 130m AOD to about 175m AOD) the plant life on the grass verges and in the hedgerows changes. At the low end, there’s birds foot trefoil, ragwort, ox-eye daises and clover in abundance in lush green grass. Higher up, these plants peter out to campion, dandelions and spiky grasses. Wonder if it’s changing soil or height?

The trefoil – called egg and bacon by us as kids – is lovely this year, and always looks nice after rain.

May 21st – There’s a crucial bit of biking equipment I couldn’t live without – clipless pedals. Pedalling long distances on flat pedals is horrid, and your feet can slip in traffic. The old fashioned alternative was toe clips and straps, which were OK, but nasty if you had to get free quickly. In the 1980s, as a solution, Shimano developed the SPD clipless system.

I have sevral pairs of SPD compatible shoes, which have screw mountings on the sole under the ball of the foot. There is a metal plate embedded above which floats for adjustment. On to the plate is screwed a ‘cleat’ – a metal key block that engages smoothly with a spring-latched mechanism in the pedal. This provides a positive, hassle-free engagement which is predictable, adjustable and secure, yet twists free instantly when required. They ensure your feet are always in the best, comfiest position, and the pedals are double-sided, so you never have to think about clipping in. You just do it without looking.

Clipless allow you to ‘pull up’ with one foot while pushing down with the other, and even pedal one-legged while scooting through traffic. This small, drop-forged block of steel – about half the size and thickness of a small box of matches – transmits all your pedalling force in an absolutely tiny contact area, yet fits flush in your shoes in such a way that you can walk all day in a pair of SPD shoes and never feel the cleat.

The intense concentration of force in one small component and two 5mm screws is so great that it wears quite quickly. Tonight, my cleats had developed such a sloppy fit, I couldn’t put up with them anymore. After 5,000 miles, it was time for a change.

It’s easy to do; cleats come with pedals, or can be brought separately. You usually have to drill out one or two of the old screws due to the heads being fouled, but once you get them out, the cleat leaves an impression in the shoe that the new one locates in. A blob of grease on the screw threads, and crank them up. 

The fit is so good, it’s like riding a new bike.

My compliments to the inventors – these really are a great invention.

May 16th – I’m out in the elements all year round, and from the darkening in Autumn, the loss of leaves and closing in, I long for the days when everything is lush and green again. The jacket summer lends improves just about any spot – for me, it’s not just the warm air, the sun on my face or the birdsong – it’s the emerald greens of a summer in full flush, of the flowering and blossom, and of the maturing and fruiting.

For the last 5 months, this view hasn’t been worth a light, really. But today, on the cusp of another season, the sounds, sights and scents make this a lovely spot.

This has to be my favourite time of year.

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…

February 19th – Meanwhile, at the other end in Telford, another sign of spring: daffodils are growing well on the verges and along the cycleways. I love to see them, and last year they seemed so late. I notice crocuses out, too. I’m a bit concerned, really; the heavy snows of last winter returned in late March. Although it’s wonderful to see such early signs of spring, I hope they’re not wiped out by a return to winter… but this is churlish. The weather is such an improvement, as is the cycling. 

Hopefully, the weather will open out a bit now.

December 21st – From here, it’s going to be OK. Everything will work out, and the battle of the last few months has finally been won.

From 5:11pm this evening, the darkness has been overcome, and every day from now on the daylight will lengthen in a sinusoidal patten until midsummer.

Today was the solstice, and from this point forward, imperceptibly at first, the days will lengthen and open out. There will still be dark, cold days to come, but the madness of the closing-in days has passed. My depression that deepens with the clock change in October will now lift. 

From here, Christmas, then a new year. A couple of cold dark months, then spring. The budding, the flowering, the warmth. The season’s mechanism continues, slowly, inexorably, and I am in it’s thrall.

Every year, I feel this so much more keenly. I need to feel it, to feel the good days. But oh, the blessed absence of light…

Chasewater was choppy, and grey. The fine sunset I’d hoped to catch didn’t come. But it didn’t matter. Darkness must now retreat. Begone.

June 11th – Back in Tyseley, and a change in the weather; it was dark and overcast, but rather warm as I dashed to the station. The changeable weather was reflected in the view of Birmingham City Centre from the railway bridge. Patches of light, and dark, dark clouds, threatening rain. I love this view, and everything it contains; it is Birminghame for me. The train tracks, trees, transmission towers and pub clock, giving way to office block and skyscraper.

Birmingham is a patchwork.