Another screamer

This evening I did a quick thirteen mile loop round the edge of Maidenhead at about 5:30 and met all the frustrated drivers on their way home. There were a couple of close shaves with motorists in too much of a hurry, but the unpleasant incident was a woman in a blue VW beetle who wound down her window and had a good shout at me for some reason. I'm not sure what I was supposed to have done wrong, but something had obviously upset her, and she really let rip.

It was a bit of a Basil Fawlty / Victor Meldrew moment, and by the time I got home I couldn't help feeling sorry for someone who felt she needed to let that amount of venom out of her system. Then I discovered this on Twitter from Jack Thurston at the Bike show. 

You have to laff.

Silchester angel

I managed a long ride today, of just over 60 miles, to reach Silchester and tick off another church in my Jenkins quest.

St Mary at Silcester is another lovely old church, which lies inside the surviving walls of the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum, and dates from the 13th century. It contains some impressive woodwork, including a row of angels along the top of the Chancel Screen.

The route I took was a dash along the A4 to Reading, just to cover distance quickly. Then I followed National Cycle Route 4 along the Kennet & Avon Canal. This part was new ground for me, and it was very pleasant, though a bit slow because of the number of people who were out for a walk on a fine Bank Holiday Monday.

When I reached Midgham I turned south, and made my way on more familiar roads to Aldermaston then Silchester. To get home I followed National Cycle Route 23, and the Round Berkshire Cycle Route.

I should have got myself a bit better organised for lunch. Shops were closed, pubs were busy, and I left it all a bit too late. I should have attempted more long rides in recent weeks, so that my legs weren't suffering quite so much as they now are. But the destination, the route, and the weather couldn't have been bettered. It was a good way to spend a bank holiday.

Losing to Walter

One of the neat things about my GPS is that I can record a ride, and then go back and race myself to see if I can cover the same route more quickly. I think of it as racing against Walter E. Geaux - my alter ego.

It's been a while since I used this feature, but this evening I decided to test myself again, racing the Winter Hill loop that I originally set up last year.

If I had thought this through at the time I would have taken the first ride a bit more slowly, and set up less of a challenge - but I didn't. Since then I've been struggling to get round the same route more quickly.

This evening I was held up by traffic quite early on, but I pressed on and managed to make up the time I'd lost, until somebody stopped me to ask directions to Maidenhead bridge. 

"Turn left at the bottom of the lane, then when you get into town, turn left at the main road". 

• "So that's left at the bottom of the lane, then left at the main road"
  

"Yes that's it" tick, tick tick.....

• "We turn left twice, to get to Maidenhead bridge"
  

"Yes that's it" tick, tick tick.....

• "So it's left and then left"
  

"Yes!!"

• "Then once we get to the bridge, do you know how we find such-and-such road" 
  

I could have stalled the timer for a while, but I didn't think of that until later. By the time we had sorted it all out I was several minutes behind schedule. 

I tried really hard to make up the time. As I passed through Cookham I was almost back on track, and by the time I reached Maidenhead riverside I was  ahead. Unfortunately I couldn't keep up the faster pace, and in the last few miles heading home I ended up losing all the time I had regained earlier.

So it was all a bit frustrating, but for a short outing it was a pretty good ride, and afterwards I was certainly ready for a good dinner. I'd like to think that Walter was too.

We are amused

As it is the weekend, and it's raining, I've been working out how to add local government boundaries to OSM this morning, and ended up circling the whole of my local authority (Windsor and Maidenhead).

It's surprisingly tricky to do, because the out-of copyright map doesn't show the boundaries very clearly, and things have been chopped around with re-organisations of local government. Much of the northern boundary of the authority follows the Thames, and the area around the eastern boundary is mapped on OSM to a very detailed level, so there is a lot of other data that you don't want to mess with.

Anyway, I think I've got it reasonably accurately now. Others are doing a sterling job in the rest of the country, so an open map of England's administrative boundaries is beginning to come together. Progress is nicely tracked here.

I'm a bit conflicted about campaigns like this and this to release more public data into the public domain. On the face of it, it's a fine principle that taxpayers should have free access to data that they have already paid to collect. But then shouldn't those with a special interest or need for the data contribute more of the cost than everyone else? Somewhere there is a sensible line to be drawn, and I'm not sure where it is.

But when it comes to electoral boundaries, I can't help feeling that they should all be released into the public domain on principle, not on economic grounds. Anyway, I've amused myself for a few hours setting a little bit of data free. There are worse ways to waste a rainy Saturday morning.

Pootling about

Ambitious plans were thwarted by my laziness today. After a morning mucking about I set off after lunch, and spent the afternoon pootling around plugging a few gaps in OSM around Beaconsfield. The weather was fine, and it was all very pleasant, but I've not been keeping up the distances recently and after 37 miles it showed.

There's another planet out there

And I'm thankful that I don't live on it.

GWUK

The Guess Where UK pool on Flickr is one of the treasures of the interweb. A year ago I could even win the occasional point by recognising somewhere before anyone else, but I was never close to being in the same league as the real experts, and these days I am in awe of the standard of detection.

The regulars have excelled themselves for April Fool's day though. It's worth another look if you haven't dropped in for a while.