Bike stuff

Whilst we were out on Sunday a couple of things occurred to me about cycling that I thought it might be good to share. I appreciate some of you regularly do long rides, but some of you might not


False flats
This is the name given to sections of a road race course that were you watching it on the telly box, or indeed riding it, you would assume are flat but are in fact not. Going from the flat to a hill in open countryside (where you have a horizon, objects to work out scale and distance against) is one thing. You can judge your speed and gear selection before making a measured approach.

On slightly more closed in roads (overhanging trees or high hedges) you will often get a false impression of the incline/decline of the road. On occasion you will be convinced that you are going down a gentle incline to a little hill at the bottom when in fact you are already climbing and it's about to get steeper. Your eyes will only tell you so much. You need to trust your legs.

A short section of the ride on Sunday conformed to this type and it gets really tempting to try and work it all out. In reality a better approach is to relax and see what happens.

Bottomless puddles
Water collects in depressions in the road to form puddles. During a rainy part of the ride several cars went through the same puddle at speed. Each one of them made a crunching/slapping sound as they grounded the bodywork into the water. Under the puddle was a pothole the size of a car wheel.

Where possible avoid riding through puddles on roads you don't know, especially those on un-edged country roads as who knows how deep they'll turn out to be.

Never pass up the chance to use an actual toilet
You never know where the next one will be. Ditto for filling up water bottles, buying extra fig rolls etc. If you get a chance...take it. I went on a ride to Brighton and spent ages looking for the perfect pub lunch... only to find they'd all stopped doing food and I had to go to a tearoom instead as it was all that was open. Hardly a hardship, but in Holland I very nearly missed the chance to eat for a whole day by forgetting to buy food before I joined a cycle route through the middle of nowhere.


Anyway... That's all for now


Dominic

Olympic triathlon

This saturday morning we got up at 05:45 to get down to Hyde Park and pick up Tickets for the Lido Cafe breakfast/triathlon event. As you can see from the pics, this particular part of Hyde Park was fairly uncrowded as it was a private event.Like much of the olympics, you got what you paid for.

A great time was had by all, which extended to watching Team GB's greatest ever athletics session and a bit of world class cycling.

Bike to bestival

I am starting to get very, VERY, Exited!

On the 27th it will be a year since weset of to do our Land's End to John O'groats ride as Buskers on Bikes (we raised a total of £10,000 for Cancer Research UK - so thanks a million to everyone who donated). This year Warren, Sophie and I have tried something a little different.   - this September we're organising, the inaugural Bike to Bestival: a 2-day, musical 90-mile ride from London to the Isle of Wight with 35 other cyclists…

All the riders have already paid to go to festival, and have stumped up the costs of the ride out of their own pocket. All sponsorship monies go straight to Cancer Research UK. We've set each of the riders a target of £200 which we're hoping they'll exceed, but as one of the organisers I've pledged to do the same.

You can read all about the planning for the musical and cycling parts of the ride on our blog and Facebook pages
 
http://biketobestival.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.facebook.com/BikeToBestival

You can see our event on the festival website in the news section. If you'd like to sponsor me then you can find my justgiving page here:


http://www.justgiving.com/DominicBall

Anyway... This Sunday we're meeting to play together as a band for the first time!! Very Exited!!

Bodies in urban spaces

Random stuff

My new(to me) guitar

Back in the late 80's or early 90's I scraped enough money together to buy a useable guitar. What I bought, much to the amusement/approval of the owner of the store was a late 70's early 80's harmony. Little did I know that this was a name of some weight, used latterly by a far eastern company.

When I moved to London I became friends with Rob, who explained that harmony had been a mass producer of instruments that real people could afford. It seems appropriate that they are now a vintage instrument that real people can afford.

Years later Rob decides to sell his 53/1. Needless to say I bought it. If Rob says it's in good nick then it is. It plays better than any guitar I've owned and is very pretty indeed. Better still it begs to be played, smells like an old blues bar and already feels like an old friend.

WNBR Brighton 2012

WNBR London 2012

 Well,

Anyone who has read this blog for a while will know that I ride the WNBR (or World naked Bike ride) most years. Effectively the WNBR stands for 3 principles

• Pro bike(and bike safety)
• Anti-Oil dependency
• Body acceptance

This year's ride took place on the  9th of June and as per last year the weather in London was gloriou (the weather in Brighton was yet again not ideal)

Anyway. If you want to know what it's like to ride naked around the capital... Come and try it next year.

Sculpture in the city of London.

Mostly bikes

Today the lovely miss s bought herself a bobbin bike. She had tried out a couple, but after much deliberation this was the royal blue bike for her.

We rode back through the city of London, where I saw a guided tour stopping at the old bailey, all on bromptons.

We stopped by the allotments for a spot of bean tying and tidying before heading back via the park

As I speak I can hear toad in the hole cooking in the kitchen. A truly lovely day.