Tag: lights

#365daysofbiking Back to black

January 16th -Thoughts of spring had been very seductive, but as the following day had proven, it was way too early to call yet. A very wet, windy but warm day, I got soaked on the way in to work and soaked on the way home.

A day with bad traffic, near missed, lousy weather and terrible light.

Returning I had to leave the canal at Catshill Junction again, although I wanted to be well away from traffic, but the water on the towpaths was so bad I had no choice.

At least the lights of the Anchor Bridge Junction were pretty reflected on the canal.

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#365daysofbiking Cubic

January 13th – I’ve been given a new rear light to try out, a Bontrager Flare RT. it’s a funny little black cube, about an inch square. It’s eye-burningly bright, with multiple modes, an ambient light sensor, and a shocking degree of intelligence and connected features.

It’s got bluetooth and ant+ wireless communications, so it links to my bike computer and a nifty app lets me control the light, change it’s pattern and have it detect deceleration and work like a brake light too.

The instructions are bizarre and opaque. It’s not got great battery life, but it does recharge via USB. But it’s certainly bright and very, very red.

I not sure what problem it’s trying to solve, but it’s a fun, impressive thing for sure. And it’s actually pretty cheap for the huge amount of tech it’s bristling with.

I’ll report back when I’ve got a feel for it’s quirks.

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#365daysofbiking Linearity

December 29th – The ride cut a bit short due to the sunset alert, it was a good chance to try the long exposure on the M6 Toll from the Pool Lane bridge.

It rarely disappoints, I just wish it had been a shade busier.

These shots always make me think of science fiction artwork: the vanishing points, the defined, rigid lines. The tapering geometry.

Splendid, and very fun to take, even on a cold night.

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#365daysofbiking Spruce up

December 28th – I called in a a friend’s house, who’s garden was done the whole hog for Christmas – but unlike the usual garish, flashing lights theirs were small, gentle and beautiful.

There is something unendingly charming about Christmas lights on spruce, and I can see why it has captivated generations.

It was nice to see something so pretty amidst all the garish flashing and glare elsewhere.

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#365daysofbiking Further abroad

December 23rd – And on, from Ashbourne to Matlock, then Bakewell. Bakewell was a different proposition – night was falling, and there were early revellers around (including one in a rather fetching sprout suit)…

In Bakewell it was Christmas: Bitingly cold, with beautiful lights and a hushed air of determined shopping. The shops themselves were gorgeous.

Several hours were spent before returning for home. A great pre-Christmas trip.

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#365daysofbiking Welcoming


December 16th – Another wet day, and again the camera stayed most in it’s case. But returning through Walsall Wood, it was nice to see the tree and the old church looking warm and welcoming; there was clearly an event inside.

I’m not a religious man but that did make for a lovely scene on a very dark evening.

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#365daysofbiking Tinseltown in the rain

December 11th – A fowl night again found me returning home in heavy rain. Really heavy, almost torrential.

Photography was near impossible, so I grabbed a couple of flying shots of the downtown Christmas lights of Brownhills with my phone.

I actually. like these, they’re atmospheric and exactly how the night felt.

I really will need treatment for webbed toes soon, I feel.

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#365daysofbiking A tale of two trees

December 10th – Christmas trees in Walsall Borough have to be externally funded and the council won’t pay for them. In the district centres where they are present, someone has either usually been generous individually (like the three councillors who personally pay for Walsall Wood’s tree) or the public have come together to pay for them.

Setting an early example in the public subscription stakes has always been Rushall, whose community work hard every year to raise the money required to pay for a tree to be erected on the square outside the ‘Village Hub’ – the old library – and jolly festive it looks too.

Contrast that with the pitiful string of lights thrown on a random tree every year on the public open space in Shelfield, on the corner of Four Crosses Road and Lichfield Road.

I really don’t know why they bother there, I really don’t.

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#365daysofbiking Waiting on the line

December 10th – I spend a lot of time waiting at traffic lights, and of all of them, I think I like the ones on the Arboretum Junction on Walsall’s new ring road least of all.

Ostensibly heuristic and adaptive, the loop sensors here don’t always pick up my bike, and often I watch a whole cycle take place before the lights allow me to go.

Tonight was just such a night – because the controller didn’t find me, my phase of the lights was completely absent first time around.

Nothing to do but shuffle the bike on the loop and swear…

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#365daysofbiking Festive colour

December 6th – Every year I swear will be my last visit to Birmingham’s annual Frankfurt German Market. After catching an almost identical one in Leeds in 2018, I’d concluded that these things were just a concoction for tourists selling all the same tat every year.

However, whenever I’m presented with the reality – the smell of food, the noise, the colour and spectacle – my heart melts and I really enjoy a potter around. I’ve found the best time to go is at night, midweek: Busy enough to be fun, calm enough to be tolerable.

I never buy much – save for the obligatory meaty and sweet treats – but I enjoy the frenetic beauty of it.

I must say, the people who lit it and New Street this year did a cracking job.

Merry Christmas Birmingham!

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