March 14th – In Birmingham, Newhall Street junction by the old Remploy headquarters. A great safety warning on the back of a truck. I only have two issues with it:
Regardless of how cycle lanes are marked, don’t come up the lefthand side of traffic folks. It’s not big, not clever, and is what kills most of the adult cyclists involved in road accidents in the UK.
March 1st – one of the markers of spring is leaving early on the first Saturday in March to visit Erdington Bike Jumble. A lovely ride in spring sunshine through the Roman Way estate, Sutton Park and Boldmere, then an hour or so browsing tat (mostly) spending huge sums (£3 this year) and chatting to old pals, passing acquaintances and debating bike stuff.
This year it clashed with a similar event in Long Eaton, and it was a little poorer than usual. However, the catering this year was ace – fresh fried pakora and samosas as well as the usual bacon rolls. Don’t mind if I did.
Always nice to see other people’s rides, too. That Major Nicholls fixie is a lovely bike and well loved – you can just tell.
I did like the Moser frame. Whoever bought that got the beginnings of a nice bike there.
February 15th – A rough day. Weather was bad, with a high wind and periodic, squally rain. I needed to get some shopping in, and popped to Morrisons in Burntwood. I found myself on The Sportway, the drive to the Rugby Club that runs alongside the Chasetown bypass.
This is a good tip – I know this route well. Just where the grass is on the foreground corner of the cycleway, there is a huge, wheel-swallowing pothole unseen under the water. Because I know it’s there, I give it a wide berth. Someone coming this way for the first time, wouldn’t know.
My point is this: in this weather, be careful riding through puddles. They can hide a variety of nasties – from tire-shredding debris, to holes, to uncovered drains.
Take it easy and be wary.
February 3rd – In Aylestone, Leicester: a little bit of utterly nonsensical cycle ‘infrastructure’.
This is so bizarre, I have nothing to add.
January 29th – Micro asphalt is a pain in the arse. There are several installations of it in Walsall that I know to. The system is simple; a thin layer of resin-based coating is applied to a poor road surface, levelling the dips and sealing cracks. Unlike conventional tarmac, this is a chemical adhesive process. It’s way cheaper than resurfacing fully, and purportedly much more effective than tar and chipping.
Sadly within Walsall, in places it doesn’t seen to have gone too well.
Manufacturers claim a life of 20 years for an application, but this stretch in Green Lane, Shelfield is only a couple of years old, and is already forming potholes and ruts like a ploughed field.
It’s actually easier to see the effect on a wet night, as the water pools in the ridges and dips. Riding over this is afoul and makes steering unpredictable.
This road is now worse to ride than before the new surface was applied. Nice work, Walsall. Nice work…
January 26th – Beware, canal towpath walkers and cyclists. As pointed out by Warren Parry on Facebook a week or so ago, the brickwork on the embankment edge of the Wyrley and Essington Canal between Catshill Junction and the Silver Street Bridge in Brownhills is falling away.
A considerable cavity is opening between the towpath and the edging brickwork, large and deep enough to take a bike wheel or foot. I guess it’s caused by a combination of the weather and general erosion.
I shall contact the Canal & River Trust tomorrow to report the problem. In the meantime, watch where you’re going!
January 24th – Speaking of rubbish… On the way to Chasewater, I noticed this discarded inner tube in the scrub on the canal embankment at Ogley Junction. I found this depressing, particularly in light of the previous post. A synthetic tube like this won’t biodegrade, and will present an entrapment hazard to wildlife. It was clearly replaced for another, so why toss it? Put it in your pack and take it back home.
The same goes for your bottles and wrappers. You brought it with you, please take it back.
The scumbags who do this really piss me off. One of the joys of cycling is the environment. What’s the point if you just foul it with your own rubbish? Arseholes.
22nd January – In Birmingham, I was intrigued by this venerable old Claud Butler well locked up outside Moor Street station. When this was new it would have been a very expensive bike indeed – the brand was considered the Rolls Royce of bikes back when I was a lad, but not so much now. This seems fairly true to the original, too; down tube shifters, tight angled quill stem, lugged steel 501 frame and cotterless cranks.
This is clearly a favourite ride for someone, and looks like a well loved and well ridden steed. It’s also a remnant of a great cycling tradition.
January 19th – Sometimes, a solution to a problem is so simple that you wonder why it’s not in common use. At the bike jumble the day before, I got two of these water bottles (known as ‘bidons’ to pretentious roadie arses everywhere) which have a dome cap that loosely clips over the nozzle and remains attached by a band around the collar of the bottle.
The purpose is simple; it stops mud thrown up by the front wheel from contaminating the bit you drink from. This is a common problem with mountain and cross bikes as you can see, and I’m not convinced drinking from a mud-contaminated bottle didn’t give me the dreadful bout of campylobacter I suffered over new year 2011/2.
In conditions like we’re enduring at the moment, this is a godsend, and ensures I’m not throwing away half bottles of drink due to the fear of the dirty nozzle.
These bottles are marketed by cycle accessory brand BBB and I got two for a pocket-pleasing fiver.
Bargain!
January 10th – Time for another cycling tip. This is one I repeat often, and is very important, so it bears repeating. Following the rain we’ve had, the roads are currently filthy. This isn’t just country lanes, but major roads, too; the Chester Road up to Shire Oak from Stonnall northbound has a band of wet silt stretching nearly a metre from the kerb for several hundred metres, and it’ as slippery as hell. In the country lanes, the wash down has deposited grit, marbles and hedge-flailings containing sharp thorns into the road, right where we cyclists normally ride..
Watch where you’re going. Beware of puddles that could hide deep potholes. Corner carefully, and maintain your space on the road, so you have somewhere to move to if an unseen hazard appears. Carry spare tubes or a means of repair.
Take it steady out there, folks.
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