Roundabouts revisited

A couple of weeks ago Just Williams drew our attention to Cyclecraft by John Franklin. Yesterday I was in town to sort out some stuff, dropped into the bookshop and bought myself a copy, along with a book of local cycle routes.

Cyclecraft has no less than 16 clear and informative pages on how to negotiate a roundabout on a bike. The book describes the problems, and recommends plausible solutions. It nicely considers the issues from the perspective of both the cyclist and the car driver. I have already picked up on a couple of things that I could be doing better, and will no doubt discover more on further reading. 

The rest of the book looks to be of the same high standard, and my first impression is that Just Williams was spot on when he said that Cyclecraft "deserves to be read slowly and thoughtfully".

Yesterday evening I also explored one of the routes from my other new book (or at least a large part of it). It took me onto some unfamiliar roads, but the nights are starting to draw in, so a lot of it was in the dark. That rather detracted from the point of exploring new ground. However, it was a very satisfying stretch of 25 miles, including a number of roundabouts, all of which I negotiated safely and confidently (thanks, I admit on this occassion, to very light traffic rather than my study of Cyclecraft).

Sod's law proved wrong

Contrary to popular belief, working for myself, from home, is no panacea for achieving a sensible work-life balance. In theory it promises more flexible working hours, but in practice, 30 years of corporate habits are hard to throw off.

However, several days of crummy weather, and various domestic comings and goings meant that by this morning I hadn't been on the bike all week, and I was beginning to pace up and down like an animal in an old-fashioned zoo.

So this morning I decided to bunk off work for the day, and get out for a decent ride.

I headed over Winter Hill to Marlow, then up into Buckinghamshire.

The first few miles were the same route that I use to race Walter Y'Geaux, my alter ego, on the GPS; and it was a pleasant change to take it a bit more slowly. Then I negotiated Marlow, and started the long climb up to Frieth. The first part, to Marlow Common is quite challenging and I was puffing and panting a bit, but quite pleased to be keeping up a decent pace, until a gentleman, who must have been at least ten years older than me, passed at about twice the speed, with a cheery "good morning", and little sign of effort. You can't get too complacent on a bike.

From Frieth I made my way to Fingest, which is mostly downhill. I stopped to look at the church, which has an impressive 12th century tower. Apparently there is only one bell, although there is space for a whole peal. According to the leaflet in the church, local tradition holds that a previous rector lost the rest of the peal in a bet with a neighbouring parish.

After Fingest, I went on to Turville. For anyone who doesn't know, this is all very pleasant countryside, and Turville was the location used for recording the Vicar of Dibley. Then I headed south again, towards Hambleden to join the main road back to Marlow and then home.

After last week's puncture, I had made a special trip to the bike shop to stock up on patches and a new inner tube. Sod's law dictates that if I hadn't done this, then without the means to repair it, a puncture would have been almost inevitable; and because I was well prepared another puncture was highly unlikely.

Well Sod is wrong.

Just after Turville the back tyre went again; and out came the new repair kit. While I was fixing it, another cyclist stoppped to check that I had everything I needed, which was nice of him, but I'm beginning to get quite practiced at this now. Somebody is bound to ask the question I asked myself - "did you make sure the nail wasn't left in the tyre?". And the answer is, yes, and the new hole was in a different place - it was definitely a different nail this time.

All in all, though, it was a lovely day for bunking off, and a very pleasant outing. The weather was mostly overcast, veering between "almost raining" to "almost sunshine". In all I covered just over 40 miles, which isn't too shabby, and logged a few minor roads that haven't appeared on Open Street Map yet. There were also a number of signs for local cycle routes that I don't remember seeing before, so there is a decent excuse for going back to do some more exploring.

Tomorrow, though, I will have to do some real work.

It's PC gone mad

Phone hoaxer claims he's Inspector Morse's sidekick

A man claiming to be Inspector Morse's sidekick Lewis has made a slew of hoax phone calls to local addresses.

Over the weekend police received nine reports relating to suspicious telephone calls in the Dedworth and Old Windsor area.

A police spokesman said: "In all cases the call was made by a man, who claims to be DCI Lewis, of Morse fame, from Thames Valley Police. He claims there is trouble with youths in the area and he would be grateful if the call recipient could assist him by looking out of an upstairs window, to see if there is any youth activity in that area."

I suppose it's not funny really, but I couldn't resist the headline. And for what it's worth, this article from the Maidenhead Advertiser is captured from the new Google "Chrome" browser - which I installed this evening: it looks pretty good.

Wordle

Crummy weather means no outings on the bike, and hence nothing out there in the real world to post about.

So instead, here is a cloud from Wordle, based on earlier content. With thanks to Town Mouse for the pointer, and for a much better sample.

Sometimes you just can't see the wood for the trees

Open Street Map, and its spin-offs are not the only mapping initiatives that are using volunteers to put mapping data into the public domain. The woodland trust is running an Ancient Tree Hunt which aims to "find and map all the old, fat trees across the UK".

Their interactive map is here, they have forms where you can record an ancient tree, and submit it for verification and adding to the map.

It looks as though there are a heck of a lot of ancient trees out there that need a hug.

Punctures

The puncture that I got on Saturday was the third on this bike in almost 2,000 miles. There is probably some clever statistical formula for working out when to expect the next, but using simple rules of thumb, that's an average of one puncture every 650 miles or so. If I get another tomorrow it will be one every 500 miles, and up to Saturday it was roughly one every 1,000 miles. Although I do most of my riding on country roads, all of the punctures have been in towns, and all of them have been caused by little nails going through the tyre.

On the assumption that punctures are more likely in towns, I guess people who commute by bike experience more, unless they take some kind of preventative action. On my previous bike, after several puncture in rapid succession, I changed to more knobbly tyres, and put a kevlar strip inside the tyre, and never had another puncture. On this bike, covering longer distances, with a puncture every 650 miles, I'm inclined to put up with the inconvenience.

On a longer outing I try to remember to take a set of tyre levers and some adhesive patches with me to do a temporary fix. On a shorter ride I don't normally bother. So far that has worked out fine - all my punctures have been on a longer journey when I've had the repair kit with me, and I've managed to patch things up well enough to get home. I'm normally left with a slow leak, and a tyre that keeps going soft. So when I get a chance, I have subsequently replaced the inner tube. On the only occassion when the temporary fix failed I was only half a mile from a bike shop, so it was easy to replace the inner tube there and then. If all else fails I'm rarely more than an hour or two from home by foot and public transport, but I've not had to resort to that - yet.

So after the helpful responses to my question on roundabouts, I'm left wondering how this compares with other experiences and other approaches. Bearing in mind the kind of riding that I am doing, am I lucky, or unlucky to be getting a puncture every 650 miles or so? Is there a better solution than a temporary fix with an adhesive patch?

Nine inches

In 1971, after the UK moved to decimal currency I was a student, and had a temporary job as an ice cream man. In 2002, when France switched to the Euro I was working in Paris. Now my job regularly involves working in a mix of pounds, dollars and euros. In other words, I am comfortable handling a change from old money to new money.

But when it comes to measuring weight, distance and volume, I still think in stones and pounds; inches, feet and miles; pints and gallons. And so, I am happy to say, does the NHS Direct Body Mass Index Calculator.

This is a web page, where you plug in your weight (in stones and pounds); and your height (in feet and inches), and it works out your BMI, then tells you what it thinks.

Until this morning it has been a bit rude, frankly. But having lost a few pounds over recent weeks, this morning it is being much more polite. To paraphrase a little, the underlying message has changed from "we are disgusted at the disgraceful state you are in", to "we are disapponted that you are not taking better care of yourself".

I count this as progress, and I'm feeling mildly pleased that there is a pay off from a combination of taking more exercise, and my wife keeping a careful eye on my diet.

However as far as I can make out, I am still about 9 inches short of the ideal height for my weight. So no slap up meal to celebrate - the programme continues....