Images

November 11th – I noted that I was using Specialised Armadillo tyres earlier in the week, and mused if they’d be any good on ice. This morning gave me my answer – they’re crap.

Dashing to work just as the sun rose in the first hard ground frost of the season, I rounded a bend in Darlaston, forgetting I was on an untreated backroad. There was black ice lying in wait.

I went one way, the bike went the other. I came off at about 18mph.

Save for bruised legs and a sore elbow, I’m fine apart from the damaged pride, but I’m going to have to get the studded tyres on as soon as possible. If only to forestall snow…

November 10th – It was a very long, tiring day; I was in work early, and in the afternoon, made a couple of errands by bike in the Black Country and Wolverhampton. Whilst there, I was called back to work take on a very urgent job, so I hopped on the train to Coseley. Sadly, as I boarded the train, it started to rain, and it caught me in a downpour from Coseley to Darlaston.

I found myself starting work again at 5pm, soaking wet and cold. I finally got home around 10.

I love my job but sometimes it’s unrequited.

November 9th – Passing through New Street on a drizzly, cold November evening, I caught the lights and signals of New Street mingling with the city skyline, centre stage the brilliant Brutalist gem, Alpha Tower.

One of the joys of winter is seeing this view, the signals, the reassurance of light, warmth, machinery safely in control and life above going on as normal.

Birmingham is glorious in it’s beauty sometimes.

November 8th – For the past few months, I’ve been running different tyres to my preferred, trusty Schwalbe Marathon Plusses – I was wanting to go back to 28mm tyres, but the frame is just a tad too slim to use marathon plus 28s, so I bit the bullet and tried Specialised Armadillo 28s instead. I’d heard great things about them, but wasn’t expecting them to be as good.

They haven’t been bad, actually; maybe not as tough, but the tread is wearing better than I’d have expected, and they’re only a little less grippy than my favoured brand. 

Despite being classed as ‘all condition’, I’m not sure they’ll be suitable on ice, but we’ll see. So far, so good. Genuinely shocked.

November 7th – I’m still not happy with the low light performance of the TZ-80. In lichfield I’d been using the Nikon, which seems to love the night, but this particular incarnation of the Panasonic compact seems very middling.

When you can get it right, as above, it’s not too bad, but the reflection of the street light is better than the light itself. 

On the TZ70 if I munged with the aperture, I could get the hard sharpness I liked, but not on this one.

Something is obstructing me, but what? This was the best of 20 odd shots, most unusable mush. I suppose if it comes down to it, I could always read the manual…

I’ll crack it.

November 5th – Stopping on the Pool Lane bridge over the M6 Toll to try another long exposure shot, I noticed the lights here seem to have been changed to LED white from the old orange sodium ones.

Whilst the change is undoubtedly for the better, I miss the orange glow and the peculiar light of the older types – but it’s interesting to see a shot like this with such clear and true colour.

November 4th – And then, in the afternoon, again crossing Kings Hill Park on a short errand to B&Q, the twin sisters caught in the soft sunlight of an autumn day, surrounded by turning leaves.

This scene has occurred every year for over a century, and makes me feel safe in it’s constancy.

November 2nd – I was lucky to pass through Darlaston tonight as the sun set, and the view over the landscape – today, a genuinely black Black Country – was beautiful; once, this view would have been marked by chimneys, stacks and furnaces; this evening, house lights, clear air and the glow of sodium discharge made the urban sprawl look like glowing embers of a fire that caught the clouds alight.

Watching on, like a sentry, the cellphone tower; constant, contracted, monitoring, trading it’s hundreds of concurrent conversations with the ether.

And there I stood, camera in hand, caught for a moment in ideas of technological progress and the beauty of the place I love.

November 1st – It’s coming on winter. That was cold, and a shock to the system, for sure.

Now commuting in both directions mostly in darkness, the cold and the nights are drawing in. Already seeing evidence of the communal madness that commences with the darkness every year, this run up to Christmas is my least favourite time to be on the road on a bike.

Stay safe everyone, and wrap up warm – it’s getting chilly out there.

November 1st – Also in Kings Hill, a character I see a fair bit, this elderly black and white puss with no teeth. Gummy and grumpy, he’s actually a charming chap when you catch him in a good mood. Today, he was startled by workmen on the Chapel renovation and their grinder, so he wasn’t feeling accommodating, and yowled at me to stop it.

It’s totally unacceptable when your daytime activities are disturbed by workmen.