#365daysofbiking First Christmas:
December 8th – Busy with stuff for work, and moving this journal to a better, more secure host; but on a quick spin around a darkened town I noticed many of the residents of the new houses alone Silver Street and The Moorings now had Christmas lights up.
It must be a great feeling to light up your new home for the first Christmas there.
I welcome you all to Brownhills. Merry Christmas!
December 29th – Three and a half suspension bridges in one day, cycled two and a half of them. Not sure you can do that many places except the Severn Estuary.
Why the half? Well, the original Severn Bridge is two bridges, really – a huge, remarkably elegant structure over the Severn, and a second immediately to the west over the Wye to Chepstow. To me they are separate structures, as they have markedly different designs, but the Wye bridge doesn’t feel quite eligible.
It’s also a historical tour of bridge evolution – from the early Victorian, beautiful Clifton, so extravagant construction halted because Brunel ran out of money, to the beautifully minimal Second Crossing, one can see shifts in technology and materials, even between the latter two.
I rode the Clifton, The Severn and Wye – and I’m not mad keen on heights. The wind crossing the Severn was astoundingly strong, but the experience was unforgettable. Such wonderful views, great technology and the wonder of genius used to create, not destroy.
My particular favourite were the hundreds of Stockbridge Dampers fitted to the supporting ropes on the Seven Bridge. These are an anti-resonance device and stop the cables humming. They are a wonderful real-world example of harmonic mathematics in action, and it is are also fascinating to see how they’re carefully tuned.
An unforgettable day. More on the main blog later.
May 7th – On the subject of other people’s bikes, just when did children’s trikes evolve into bonkers apparatus like this? It requires a HGV license to push, I’ll bet.
These things seem to be following the same trajectory as baby buggies; once a small thing born of convenience and fun, they’re now hugely complicated pieces of kit that don’t seem to fit anywhere easily.
Evolution, in reverse.
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