Videos

May 23rd – An awful day to cycle – blustery, then rainstorms in the afternoon. I left work early for a meeting in Rushall, and dropped on to the canal at Pleck, south Walsall. I prefer the canal in this weather as traffic tends to be a bit mad in heavy rain. Cycling in the rain can be a lovely, sensual experience, and this was no exception, climbing the locks and bridges through Birchills and acing the traffic queue at Rushall was a joy…

The soundtrack is ‘Nice Weather for Ducks’ by the wonderful Lemon Jelly. 

May 16th – Redditch. Pouring myself liquid downhill here is a joy, usually, but one has to beware of vehicles – it’s a bad place for dooring and being pulled out on. This example of shocking, idiotic driving is why I give so much time to maintaining my brakes. Ah well, replacement pads are only fifteen quid a pop…

May 15th – Further into the same ride, I dropped through the lovely village of Weeford. It’s proximity to, and isolation caused by the nearby A38 puts many cyclists off coming this way. A new cycle & equestrian bridge and cycle route were constructed in 2005, yet few realise as it’s not on many maps yet. It really is a dream, and you never have to deal with the dreaded dual carriageway.

May 4th – Morning commute to Sutton, and another great example of inconsiderate, dangerous and stupid driving; this time it’s on the A5127 Lichfield Road in Mere Green, just at the junctions of Harland Road and Holly Lane. This is a shamefully poor piece of road use for which there can be little excuse. Yet again I find myself cut up in a posh area. What gives?

April 27th – clearly, today was drive like a fuckwit day, and I’d missed the announcement. Why is that on some days, you just feel really uneasy on the road and see a whole traunche of daft road use? Today was one of those.

I was on an early morning commute to work in Redditch – 7:50am on the Smallwood Island. Some duffer in a cream car just stops in the middle of the island. I have no idea why. I check he can’t suddenly floor it and hit me, then get the hell out of there.

A little further on, we see a community transport bus overtake me, only to cut me up turning left. It’s why I hate left hand cycle lanes; they encourage this behaviour. It wasn’t dangerous in this instance, but it’s as irritating as hell.

I was glad to get home this evening.