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#365daysofbiking Stars of the fall:

October 17th – It was a beautiful crisp, clear evening as night fell, and I was pleased to see in the western skies the stars were out, just discernible beyond the trees.

I might not like this time of year that much, but the sunsets are well worth it.

#365daysofbiking Galling:

October 17th – I’ve been casually interested into the decomposition of the robin’s pincushion gall I found in the summer in Darlaston.

This once beautiful red and green hairy, spiny gall – created by a tiny wasp laying it’s DNA corrupting eggs in the rose leaf buds of it’s host – is now decaying fast and I’m interested to see how this ball of plant matter wastes away, and if it shows any evidence of the adult gall wasps escaping to freedom.

I’ll never stop being fascinated by these things.

#365daysofbiking Station to station:

October 9th – I’m curious about long term plans for Telford Station. At the moment, it’s a bit player in the huge new linkway bridge project, but for an interchange serving such a large area it’s a fairly poor facility: Just two platforms, a booking office with short opening hours and a couple of waiting rooms. 

There are just two trains an hour in each direction, 15 and 45 minutes apart which is a bugger if you miss the one and have a 45 minute wait.

The peak time trains are fiendishly busy and Telford doesn’t get a fair crack of the whip here at all.

This was destined to change with the introduction of the new timetable in Autumn with a ramping up to three services and hour with an extra, welcome, stopper: However with the Chase Line electrification not completed, the rolling stock is not yet available and the change has been postponed until 2019.

For such a large, economically powerful town Telford’s railway provision is pretty poor.

365daysofbiking Ladies, please:

October 8th – This is a post that will hopefully confine us to a mild winter.

After suffering a spill in November last year on ice while riding summer tyres, I’m taking no chances this year and have the ice studs on now as we’ve already had a couple of heavy frosts, and I’m, getting too old for the falling off lark.

My rubber of choice for the cold months is Schwalbe Active Winter 30mm which has a good tread and several hundred tungsten carbide studs that bite into black ice and keep me upright.

They are a little noisy, and although not slow, not the nippiest tyres in the world.

Now I’ve fitted them, expect it to be warm throughout the winter…

365daysofbiking I am traffic:

October 8th – A snatched photo on the way home in the dark. This is a normal commute at the normal kind of time and I’ll have to get used to this now. Rushall Square is always kind of beautiful at night. Even when traffic free, it appears busy with traffic signals, street and shop light mingling.

These commutes are the hardest of all, the first in unusual darkness. But their urban beauty is hard to ignore.

Ah well, down the hatch…

365daysofbiking Decent, enough:

October 6th – From the wailing and gnashing of the NIMBYs of Aldridge, anyone would think that the block of apartments planned for the long derelict land right at the bottom of High Street on the Elms Island would be some monstrous, hideous carbuncle that didn’t fit with it’s surroundings at all.

Studying it closely while in the village of 26,000 on Saturday afternoon, I actually decided I quite liked it. I’m not fond of the flat roof, which is a cop out in design terms, but the rest of it is an interesting blend of textures and colours, and is actually quite bland, really. It’s not too big, it certainly doesn’t block light to the hHigh Street as some alleged and it seems a good match for the rather stark pub nearby.

I’m sure the elderly folk it’s built for will enjoy living close to the amenities of the ‘village’ centre, too, and it will help keep the local retailers busy.

It seems a decent thing to me.

#365daysofbiking Sucked under:

October 2nd – The Suck is brutal this year. The dark evening commutes are hard and the driving is bad. But today was unexpected, unforecast drizzle all the way, and with no waterproof trousers, I was soaked and miserable.

This is the hard bit of winter. Dark, wet and cold, it’s going to get a lot worse before it begins to improve.

Every year this gets more and more daunting.