BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking

On a bike, riding somewhere. Every day, rain or shine.

Posts tagged ‘night photoigraphy’

#365daysofbiking Lighting the way

January 17th -As well as the Bontrager Flare RT rear light, I’ve also subsequently got hold of an Ion Pro RT – the similarly connected front light that is controlled by the bike computer via Ant+ personal area networking.

It’s about the same size as my beloved Garmin UT800 which has served me well for three years now, but squarer in shape. It has some nice orange sidelights, and the same three stages of brightness with a day and night flash too, just like my normal light.

But the kicker is it’s 1300 lumens – 500 lumens brighter than the trusty Garmin, and the connected nature of it works much better, with a handy app allowing me to set modes directly from a screen on the computer unit.

The photo above is the light on minimum brightness. It’s bloody bright, with seemingly (so far) better battery life and control.

I think this might be a grower. Stay tuned.

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#365daysofbiking Trapped in my steelwork

January 13th – Spring ended with a bump. Leaving a meeting in Birmingham late afternoon it was wet, windy and cold.

On a deserted platform at New Street I waited for a train home. The service seems to have improved a little. It was only five minutes late. And mercifully warm. Praise the lord.

I was half expecting to be buttonholed by West Midlands Mayor Andy Street on the train on the way home, explaining how hard he’d worked to sort the trains out and how I should therefore vote for him.

Thankfully, I wasn’t harassed by Brum’s very own Charles Hawtrey tribute, but it did take a while to get back. As I stood with my bike on the train, gently and rhythmically rattling over miles of steel through the January night, I felt down that there were still weeks of wet, cld and dark commutes like this still ahead.

But they will end, the light will always creep through. The steel, light and shine of New Street by night will once more be a rare treat, and not the trap it seemed like this evening.

Tonight it just looked frighteningly inevitable.

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#365daysofbiking A dark chicken

January 9th – One of the more comedic things about curating this journal and blog is that I comment a lot about a geographical local feature with a very amusing name – the Black Cock bridge. Named after the pub nearby, the Black Cock has long been the source of much schoolboy innuendo and humour, but is actually a decent, old fashioned pub that always looks welcoming when I pass, particularly on a dull winter evening.

It does, of course, have a far cruder colloquial name I shan’t detail.

However, I do love the thought of sweaty-palmed people banging Black Cock into search engines, which then return multiple hits to this journal rather than the desired subject…

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#365daysofbiking Up the junction again

January 7th – It had been raining and the towpaths were gunny again, so I did something I now find myself doing frequently: Leaving the canal by Anchor bridge and continuing down the High Street. It’s longer, but cleaner and less slippery.

Auto mode on the G5X is weird. I honestly feel some aspects of this camera are not complete in terms of software, or have some issue.

Auto seems to go very graining in specific conditions. It really doesn’t seem to know what to make of very white-blue LED light. In such cases it tends to over-expose.

It’s a funny little camera but I do love it, for all it’s faults….

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#365daysofbiking On the spot

January 2nd – Crossing Clayhanger Common on the New Spot Path, it occurred to me suddenly that this was an anniversary for 365daysofbiking.

I started this madness on April 3rd, 2011 resolving to cycle every day of April, to do the 30 days of biking project. I enjoyed it so much I vowed to do 365days continuous.

The following New Year 2011/12, I was very very ill with food poisoning, and slain for 2 days in which I didn’t ride. So I restarted the clock in embarrassment.

So this is the eighth year of cycling very day, rain, snow or shine. That’s 2,922 days, on a bike every day, sometimes with multiple journeys.

It’s fair to say I like keeping the journal and love to ride a bike. I’m slowing up and getting more cautious as I age, but I’m still rolling down the hills and panting up them on the way back.

And I’m still haunting the locality at night, on my way home from work, unafraid to stop in the loneliest, creepiest places… Like Clayhanger Common – to document my life on two wheels.

I’m glad you’ve been there by my side. Thanks. It makes me less afraid of the dark. Not the dark of the night, but the dark of the loneliness of the commuting bike rider.

Here’s to another 365days under the wheels…

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#365daysofbiking Waiting for renewal

December 31st – New Years Eve is not a great time for me. I loathe the enforced jollity, the fake optimism for a time beyond an arbitrary boundary and the excess it engenders. I much prefer the days after, when everything settles and normality returns, with the opening out of the days and the promise of good times to come.

Stuck doing bike maintenance all day to keep busy, a test ride around the canal was fun after tea – the towpaths are starting to dry out a bit and the riding was fast and fun.

Brownhills looked festive but somnambulant and was actually very quiet apart from the odd burst of fireworks.

An unexpectedly fun ride.

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#365daysofbiking A beautiful approach

December 26th – I love Chasetown High Street – day or night, it’s actually a great little thoroughfare: Busy due to the mix of housing and shops, the hill combined with the mixed architecture makes it fascinating.

On a wet Boxing Day evening, on the way back from seeing family it was nice to stop and take a picture.

I’d still like to make a low rent version of the Bullitt car chase here. But on choppers or BMX bikes. It’d be fab.

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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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