Hills and Headwinds

I had what some refer to as “A moment of clarity,” yesterday. I had to run a family errand in Rochdale during the evening and I decided to ride there. I was expecting there to be little other traffic due to the time of day and I avoided the train because that particular route has been very unreliable lately. The route I usually take to Rochdale has a few hills and is a net climb when heading there from Manchester (making the ride back quite nice). Yesterday this net climb was combined with a fairly stiff headwind and a greater volume of motor traffic than I had expected. On several sections, the combination of those factors made me feel the need to walk the bike on the pavement for a few separate stretches.

On one of these stretches, there was a long section of car-parking allocated on the pavement which was not being used at the time. I decided that despite the hill and the headwind I might find riding along this section of parking bays better than walking. Riding along that section, the hill was still there and so was the headwind, but I was effectively separated from the motorised traffic. I was riding much slower than I usually do (~12 km.h^-1) but the hill and headwind were no longer bothering me.

It was at that point that I realised why I felt the need to get off. The hill and headwind were too much together for me to maintain the minimum speed at which I feel comfortable riding on a fast (40 mph) or particularly narrow road (around 20-25 km.h^-1). I imagine this speed is different for different people, for many it is the speed at which they would travel in a car, hence they are put off cycling on these roads altogether.

If I had been riding on Dutch-style segregated infrastructure, or if the road hadn’t been narrowed to accommodate free on-street parking, or if the speed limits were lower, I would have felt secure climbing the hill against the headwind at a very low speed. Many people say that Dutch levels of cycling are unattainable in the UK because of our geography (The Netherlands are famously quite flat), but the vast majority of people can tackle our hills on bikes. They just need to do so at a lower speed, whilst feeling safe from the threat of motorised vehicles. If that threat were removed, I, and I suspect many others, wouldn’t feel the need to get off and push on almost any hills, even with a stiff headwind.

Dutchie

I spotted this bike parked up at UMIST near Piccadilly station a few days ago.  The manufacturer is Dutchie, I have noticed their site a few times when I was searching for a bike, before I lucked-out with the DL-1. The bike comes with SRAM hubs, which I have mentioned before are some of the more expensive internal hub gears, hub dynamos and drum brakes out there.  The rear hub is a 3-speed with coaster brake, and the front is an i-Light dynamo hub supplemented with a caliper brake.  This particular bike sells for just under £300, which is cheap when you look at the cost of the SRAM hubs and factor in the included accessories and the lugged-steel frame. 

Once again I am puzzled by the choice of the SRAM dynamo hub over the cheaper Sturmey-Archer dynamo hub with drum brake. There may be some kind of behind-the-scenes bulk-discounting by SRAM to influence this decision.  Still, it is quite a lot of bike for the price, always nice to see more of these kinds of practical, utilitarian vehicles being made available to the public.

I hope it didn’t end up getting stolen, the owner seems to have fallen into the trap of “If I can’t take this bit off, no-one can.” All you’d have to do is remove the fork momentarily to defeat the lock.

Spotted in Manchester

One of the things I have noticed since starting this blog is how many interesting bikes I see parked up around Manchester.  I have recently been noticing a lot of vintage bicycles around, in addition to a few interesting new bikes.  When I can do so without looking too abnormal, I take pictures of the bikes I see around town.

A Raleigh “Conniosseur,” spotted at Sainsbury’s in Fallowfield.  By the look of things the bike seems to be very similar to the Raleigh Sports.  I think it goes together well with the Tourist in the middle picture.

A very similar Raleigh to the one above, this time branded as the “Transit.”  I doubt modern Raleigh would name any of their bikes the “Transit.”

A Batavus BUB parked outside Piccadilly station.  One of the few bikes I have ever read about at the prototype stage and seen come to market, it looks like quite a comfortable ride.  One was given away as the grand prize in the LGRAB summer games.  The frame design was inspired by a paperclip.

A well looked-after rod-brake roadster, a Humber according to Sheldon Brown, identifiable by the unusual fork:

Curiously, I think I may have once bid on this very bike on eBay, before it got a bit too expensive for me.

A huge double top-tube Pashley Roadster, with my Tourist to the right for scale, and a Pashley Princess to the right of that.

I’m guessing whoever owns this bike is incredibly tall.

There are some very nice old and new bicycles around Manchester.  There are plenty of crap-heaps too, but they are less photogenic.

Cambridge Trip

As many of you may have noticed from an earlier post of mine, I have recently been to visit a friend in Cambridge. Whilst I was there I was shocked at how prevalent the bicycle was as a means of transport. Based on what I saw I'd guess a modal share of 10-12% which is unprecedented in the UK of the 21st century. This is despite a lack of any real pro-cycling intervention, sure there are painted cycle lanes and ASLs as in Manchester, but there is no proper infrastructure. The main differences are that everyone cycles, so motorists expect to see cyclists more and there is more cycle parking around because of the demand. The popularity of cycling in Cambridge could be due to the affluent university culture, or perhaps due to the number of historical buildings which have prevented the spread of car-centric traffic planning such as the wide, fast modern roads you see in Manchester.

Pairs of bicycles locked together in gardens and outside terraced houses are a common sight in Cambridge.

Traditional English roadsters from the era of rod-brakes are a very common sight.

Every available object is covered with locked bikes. Bikes left leaning against walls and locked through their frame were also a very common sight.

Pashley bicycles are very popular in Cambridge, although the Princess outnumbers the Roadster by around ten-to-one.



The Raleigh Twenty is also very popular here. Cambridge definitely has the highest usage of internal hub hears and mudguards I have seen in the UK, which is odd considering the reputation the UK has for its lack of rainfall.

Obligatory touristy photographs.

Re-assuringly, Cambridge isn't all picturesque.

What I have learned from looking around Cambridge is that you don't necessarily need to invest in cycle infrastructure to get people cycling. It can also be done by not increasing the capacity of motorised traffic the roads can accommodate, making it a pain to drive. people will see that there are better options and take them. People always say that cycling could be a lot bigger if there was the political will to build things such as segregated Dutch-style infrastructure. The political will to do this is always absent. Cycling can also be encouraged by doing nothing to increase road capacity or traffic flow, letting motorists create gridlock and subsequently finding a better way to get around. There isn't the political will to do a lot of things which would make life better, but I genuinely believe that there might just be the political will out there to do nothing to make it better.

Cambridge Train Station

I will write in more detail about my recent trip to Cambridge shortly, for now I wanted to share these pictures taken outside of the train station in Cambridge:

It was hard to believe I was still in the UK.  Compare this to the bicycle parking facilities at the Manchester train stations and consider that the Cambridge urban area has a population of 130,000 and the city of Manchester (excluding Greater Manchester) has a population of 464,200.  Puts into perspective just how big cycling is in Cambridge.

Annoying (in a good way)

On Friday I attended the university’s Faculty Research Symposium, which consists of lots of seminars and poster sessions (and free lunch).  This year it was held in the Armitage Centre.  What the organisers didn’t appear to bank on is that large gathering of local scientists means lots of bikes:

 

I was quite impressed with this, an imported American Raleigh.  I’m guessing someone loved this bike enough to bring it over here with them when they moved here from the USA.

I’m hoping next year if the symposium is at the Armitage Centre again the organisers will consider providing some extra parking facilities.  In the end I had to lock the Tourist up to one of the support beams.