Wheels, Pedals, Person

Responding to recent reports on the true cost of painting some bits of road blue, danger-sceptic Boris Johnson today admitted he needed to "...pull something bloody special out of the bag". 

"Despite us creating these mega-highroad whatnots for cyclists, it's fair to say we dropped the ball a bit on this one" the mayor commented today. "I've been racking my brains for an idea for these brave cycling chaps - and whatever the female equivalent of chap is - and think we've cracked it". Estimates that currently suggest the Cycle Superhighways have cost between 2 and 4 million pounds per mile have prompted discussions at City Hall. Insiders report that Boris' nemesis Ken Livingstone was quoted to have said "F*ck me, I could have done it in Hammerite for a fraction of that!".

In an attempt to win back the public of London before the elections in May, Mr Johnson unveiled new plans for cycling infrastructure for London. "Given we've spent so much already I reckon we might as well go the whole hog" Mr Johnson explained. 

Estimated to be built at a cost of £4 billion and expected to be finished in 2037, TfL today announced the 'Cloud Tunnel', a network of interlinking tubes attached to rooftops around the London area. "We clearly needed some new ideas" explained an engineer "so when I saw my son's hamster cage, the idea hit me!". Displaying some Photoshopped images of London rooftops linked with brightly-coloured plastic tubing, TfL's engineers described how cyclists would be able to use the network to travel around London at 'near rodent-speed'. "We haven't yet worked out how they'd decend to street-level" an engineer added "probably by some kind of fireman's pole or maybe something like those little wire ramps you get in hamster cages".

The mayor confirmed that the project will be funded entirely from public money. "The funny thing is" he added "whenever we've had any 100% privately-funded projects in the past, they've ended up costing tax-payers loads anyway, so we're not even keeping up the pretense anymore".

Shares in Pets at Home are reputedly soaring due to expectations that TfL will purchase their entire stock of hamster-cage tubing in the coming weeks.

 

Photos from Jess J and cobalt123 used under Creative Commons licensing.

My place has a lot of space for bicycles as it's an empty office block, but I do keep my fixie in my bedroom as I have a fair amount of space and it looks nice. Although one of these bike storage units, the 'Bookbike' from BYografia looks amazing! There are a few lovely storage solutions for Bromptons such as the Bike Box but other than plain wall hooks I've not seen many solutions for un-foldable bicycles.

With enough space to hang your bike and for your helmet, gloves, copies of Boneshaker magazine and some books it'd look great in most places and looks perfect for a small apartment. My last place was a bit of a nightmare to get into often due to my bike in the very small hallway so this would have been perfect. 

The Bookbike bike/book system is perfect for books, bike and bike books!

Northumberland has some very beautiful countryside that you may be tempted to come and experience by bicycle. Thankfully there are some bicycle lanes although I'm not entirely sure who would use this one!

The road is pretty wide and fine for a bicycle although somebody has decided to make a 'Dutch-style' lane to the side. Unfortunately it's pretty much just a mud track filled with debris and potholes. Sometimes it leans to an angle into the ditch and you've got to be careful you don't drop into it! 

Seems a rather strange thing to do but I suspect it's another one of those attempts to just 'do something' for bicycles, not actually doing anything that really helps. Luckily most of the roads are quite alright for bicycles anyway.

It's fair to say that I am a bit of an Olympics-skeptic, mostly due to the effective exclusion of a vast proportion of people who have been told that an Olympic park will be built where they live, but they're not likely to get tickets for anything. In fact the people most guaranteed tickets are corporate sponsors which is not at all a people's event! Although the true measure of sucess of the Olympics is the legacy left behind and we have an amazing opportunity to offer this facility to the people, including young people who would be our cycling stars of the future! Unfortunately governments don't tend to think this way and while they celebrate success, they also tend to expect commercial organisations to provide the facilities to enable atheletes to 'represent their country'.

Anyhoo...I was very excited to snag some tickets for the London Prepares UCI Track Cycling World Cup at the new Olympic velodrome (though these had to by paid for using a particular card type and the vast majority of tickets had already been snapped up by politicians and corporate sponsors).

So in February I will be cycling down to the velodrome on my fixed-gear bicycle to watch some of my cycling heros riding theirs! I'm extremely excited, not only to see cyclists whom I very much admire but to see the facilities too. I only hope that one day I get the chance to cycle around the track too. Of course, this would be for an 'open' event rather than a race; I'm no Victoria Pendleton! Although I have tried to do some digging around with people like the Lea Valley authority, British Cycling and the Olympic Delivery Agency but I've not really got much information about exactly what is planned for the velodrome after the games. One reply was "I'm not sure..."

These photos are from Jack999's Flickr stream, used non-commercially under Creative Commons licensing:

Aerial shots of the velodrome and the BMX track can also be seen on on the London 2012 site:

Have to admit, it looks absolutely amazing!

As finance know-alls Money Saving Expert (dot com) have 'revealed' a rather familiar list of the 'Top 10 Christmas Driving Songs' I thought I'd create my own tenuous list:

'Top 10 Christmas Songs You Listen To While Walking To Work Worrying If You Actually Did Double-Lock The Front Door Or If You're Now Too Far Away For It To Be Worth Going Back To Check But You Know You'll Just Worry All Day If You Don't...Although Maybe You Did Lock It After All?':

10. Jingle Bells by Austrian Death Machine
9. Heavy Metal Christmas by Twisted Sister
8. Christmas Island by Depeche Mode
7. No Presents for Christmas by King Diamond
6. At The Heart of Winter by Immortal
5. Fuck Christmas by Eric Idle
4. Let Us Slay by Gwar
3. Jingle Balls by KoRn
2. Viking Christmas by Amon Amarth
1. Black Christmas by Venom

Many people don't see the point of direct action instead 'trusting' politicians to do something about it. The fact is that often if it's not in their own interests then it won't happen.

Recently a loose collective of residents, cyclists, bereaved families and people that simply want their city to be a more pleasant and accessible place for those that don't wish to drive cars everywhere have banded together. This was due in part to TfL and the Mayor of London's absolute inability to even follow the advice from their own engineers telling them that lives would be lost.

...and lives have been lost.

So today I was very happy to read on the Labour Caledonian Ward blog First steps to remove the hated Kings Cross one-way system from Paul Convey:

“I am delighted that pressure has made TfL change its position so fundamentally. It is bizarre that only a fortnight ago, London Mayor Boris Johnson, told the London Assembly in a debate about London’s worst 10 spots for road deaths that it was “not feasible to remove the one-way system” at Kings Cross. Well, his own transport agency has now acknowledged that it could indeed be feasible … but no-one has yet thought how to do it. This latest announcement starts the process of figuring this out. It is the start of a long struggle but at least it’s a start.”

This doesn't mean that we've suceeded, there still is a huge amount of work to do and more pressure to put on TfL et al, but I think it's fair to say that TfL would not be looking into this issue had it not been for the pressure applied to them by people that truly wish to make change for the better.

For the last few months I've been building a fixie and have just finished it, just in time for the snow and winter - but hey ho! My Dutch bike suffered a puncture and lights failure at the same time, and really needs some down-time (1800 miles without a service, only needing basic maintenance and pumping up the tyres only a few times is pretty awesome really - and yes, I've neglected her really...sorry Gloria!) so that pushed me into finishing my fixie by locating some super-cheap wheels for 35 quid for both! So, after a clandestine meeting at Waterloo Station one morning I had some wheels to go with my 'sticky' front Conti' and my 'skiddable' rear Soma tyres!

Anyway, this is the story...

A while ago I bought a Reynolds 531 frame from eBay for £60. It looked very sad!

So I started by stripping it down and removed the ugly braze-on cable guides on the top of the cross bar by wrapping the joints in wet towels and using a blow-torch to heat the braze-ons until they could be pulled off - a guy at work explained it to me but this was definitely a scary part!

This is it all naked:

After rubbing it down for what seemed like hours, I took it to Armourtex who powdercoated it for me (colour isn't so good in this pic): Then, slowly but surely, I started adding parts. Every single thing I added to this bicycle I had to learn about. I literally knew nothing about how to put a bike together!

I decided on only one brake, as I'd be riding it fixed so can slow the rear wheel with the pedals anyway. Also, a guy at work told me all about his research on the braking coefficient of front vs rear brakes, of which I understood enough to know I didn't actually need a rear brake as if the front brake is operating at maximum the rear wheel is actually slightly off the ground!

So every part of this bicycle has been fitted by myself (apart from the bottom headset race as the frame needed to be 'reamed' to get that on so the lovely guys from Tokyo Fixed in Soho did that for me.

Until after a lot of work on Friday night, I finally got it all put together!!

...and I absolutely love the bar tape! Anybody that knows me will agree how perfect all the skulls, 'broken' hearts, snakes etc all over it are! 

Let me tell you too - this bike is fast! I chose a 48 crank and 19 rear cog and it shifts! Going from a Dutch upright (as great as these are for their purpose) to this is such a difference! It's much faster to accelerate and turn than my Dutch bike. When I want to turn that, I need to send a message to the engine room who then power up the engines and send a message back up to the bridge and slowly the ship comes about. With this fixie it's immediate! 

All of this has made me think that more people should build their own bikes - I've spent less than £300 and have an amazing bicycle! I do hear about lots of guys building bikes for their girlfriends but why don't more girls build their own bikes? I knew nothing about building bikes before I started but I now have a bike that I know every part of and am confident to change any part! You don't need to know anything before you start - just read up (on the Internet for example) about each part as you think about it.

It's as easy as riding a bike!

Emerging from a press conference about the new cable car over the Thames, bumbling whack-job Boris Johnson — carried away on the excitement of it all — announced further plans for London's transport infrastructure. Sponsored by Victoria Wines and dubbed the "Thames Free-flyer" Boris unveiled an idea he'd been working on '...during a late evening bender with some old chums from school'; a full-scale medieval trebuchet designed for 'Passenger transport for the 20th century'.

Award-winning design conglomerate 'Ittle-Knotwork' unveiled plans at the press conference amid speculation that the current Mayor of London 'might have finally lost it'. Quashing this opinion was a local Conservative Party MP who was quoted to have said "Hahaha, that's f*cking amazing!" before wandering off with two glasses of champagne.

The project's Chief Engineer, who declined to give his name, explained the mechanism; "The passenger, having bought what we're calling a 'boarding card', is loaded into the rear of the trebuchet before the mechanism is wound up and they're flung across, well mostly across, the Thames. Any luggage or belongings can be transported separately, dragged across using a rope we've strung from the railings next to the river".

Estimated to be complete in time for the Olympic Games, Mr Johnson hoped that "It will hammer home the point that London is a modern and innovative city, ready to face the 1990's with both barrels blazing!". When asked about budget, Boris confirmed that it would be 100% privately funded, although he did admit "We might have to borrow a bit for catering, because often it's just those small triangular sandwiches and that salad that nobody eats and there aren't even any Monster Munch!".

Caterers were unavailable for comment.

Photos from Jeremy73 and ckhowley under Creative Commons licensing.

Helmets are being discussed in the House of Lords again, but at least the response is pretty sane. I should say I *do* wear a helmet most of the time, but there's no real evidence that this will help me in anything other than the type of event where I stop pedalling, forget to put my feet down and then continue to grip my handlebars and land directly on my head. But, it does help keep my hair less frizzy on my cycle to work.

Lord Laird asks: "...why, given that helmets can reduce the chances of death and serious injury, they will not make the wearing of helmets mandatory"

Earl Attlee replies: "We have no plans to mandate the use of cycle helmets. Helmets offer cyclists protection in a limited number of circumstances and, as such, whilst we encourage their use through the Highway Code we believe the decision on whether to wear a helmet should remain a matter of individual choice. In addition, mandating the use of helmets could lead to a reduction in overall cycling levels, resulting in the loss of the significant health benefits derived from cycling."

In my humble opinion, absolutely bob-on the money, Lord Sir Rear-Admiral Count Attlee!

Unfortunately it's often actually how these questions are asked is the problem; "...given that helmets can reduce the chances of death..." is pretty speculative and rather emotive. In fact we could also ask "...given that helmets provide the ability to levitate..." cos my mate Dave reckoned he wore a helmet after a rather prolonged Buckfast-drinking session and swore he levitated!

Anyway, I digress in a rather odd direction, but I honestly don't think helmets being mandatory will actually help in any measurable way. If you're hit by a car then a helmet is next to useless as it offers absolutely no 'crumpling' and simply transfers the impact 'straight to your membraine'. It feels like another of those instances of people wanting everybody else to follow rules just because they have to. If I can't park my Bentley outside Harvey Nicks, you're sure as hell going to have to wear a helmet...I'm a lord you know!

Recently there have been quite a few 'pundits' hawking their views about cyclists. I think they deserve to be listened to so I've gone through a few of their 'suggestions' and have been thinking how we can incorporate these helpful ideas into bicycle manufacturing.

Lighting

It's been suggested that cyclists should have 'headlights' and indicators, so I'm going to propose that this be taken into account when designing new bicycles; Each new bicycle will have two 'headlights' and two matching rear lights. They will also have, as a legal standard, two left turn indicators mounted front and rear and two right turn indicators similarly mounted.

Helmets

There are often comments that cyclists should wear helmets (ignore the evidence that suggests that helmets provide minimal protection to the cyclists themselves, if they want to bicycle, they should at least look like idiots!). So, I propose a new standard of helmet that will really protect cyclists in all but the most terrible of incidents. This would be a protective shell around the cyclist, preventing any injury should they be hit by a vehicle. I'm going to also propose that this should have safety glass fitted to enable the cyclist to see the road ahead clearly. It need not, however, enable the cyclist to see behind them as this is not important as they will be travelling forwards, mostly.

As this necessary equipment will add to the weight of the vehicle, I also propose that bicycles now be fitted with four wheels instead of the popular and comical 'two' so that the new safety equipment can be carried. These wheels should also be widened so that more rubber is used to help the tyre industry and aid the braking coefficient of the — now heavier — bicycle. 

Speed

It's clear from popular opinion that cyclists hold up other road users when "they're only trying to get on with their important days". So, I'm also proposing a rudimentary petroleum-based combustion engine to enable the cyclist to travel at the correct speed so as not to inconvenience other road users and aid in the transportation of the correct safety equipment.

Safety

As it's totally unfair to ask other road-users to see a cyclist unless they're wearing bright clothing, I propose that the new 'helmet' be painted a jolly, bright colour such as orange. Bicycles should only be allowed on the roads if they are highly-visible so other road users are saved the time of actually looking for cyclists.

Saddles

Carrying only one passenger is un-efficient and, quite frankly, a bit selfish. After all, why do with yourself what you can do with 4 other people! So, all bicycles should now be fitted with at least four other seats, even if they are never used and you cycle alone. After all, you might never know when you have a small shoulder bag to carry and this can be carried on one of the spare seats of the bicycle.

Legal

We all know from reading tabloids and hearing the unsolicited opinions of some drivers that bicyclists continually flaunt the law by filtering alongside traffic jams. This must be stopped. We live in Britain, for goodness sake, and we know how to queue! So, in order to ensure that cyclists never commit traffic offences, as other road users don't, I propose the registration of all bicycles and the mandatory fitting of number plates front and rear.

Money

As we all need to pull together in these bleak times, I also propose that we tax bicycles due in part to their proposed petrol engines which I'm dubbing 'eco-pedals' (as they should be thought of as environmentally friendly so giving them an 'eco' name is really important!). All bicyclists will therefore pay 'bicycle excise duty' which will also give the cyclist the legal right to shout at pedestrians; "You don't pay road tax" if the pedestrian should set foot on a road.

Parking

Let's face it, nobody likes a city crammed with noise, buildings and people. We all hark back to our ancestors' pastoral days, so I propose that all the old buildings we don't use much, like old churches, schools and hospitals be demolished and nice open spaces be created near to the few  buildings that will remain in the city, such as Top Shop and Starbucks. We can all then roam free in our cities and be able to park whenever we want a skinny latte or some leggings.

I've engaged a bicycle design firm to produce a prototype of this new bicycle - I'm sure you'll agree...

...it's the future!