Biked Drinks

It's amazing how much you can carry on a bicycle. In those far off, pre-car, pre-Vespa days of dwelling in Zone One I could bring home a weeks shopping on my bike. Rucksack on my back, newspaper down my jumper and carrier bags swinging from the handlebars. Easy. Beer bottles are hard work, though. Awkward shapes, hard to pack. Easy to smash - and they're heavy.



But look at this, from Etsy's Walnutstudio. A darn site more useful than its original purpose of carrying a bicycle polo mallet. A what?

(Thanks to my old friend Rubyspirit - creator of fine and unique jewellery - for the tip-off)

Monoculture

First proper trip on the homemade singlespeed this morning. Normally, it takes me about 40 minutes to ride the 5 or so miles to work. Even though it's a nippy bike, I tend to ride like one of John Major's spinsters cycling to evensong on my Trek 7.3FX. The head-down geometry of the Raleigh shaved more than five minutes off my journey, and that's with stopping at every red light on Mile End Road Of Death. Having just the one gear really encourages you to get spinning. My legs now feel like they're made of wood. As for comfort, It's not exactly like sitting in an armchair, but neither is it like sitting astride a mediaeval torture device. It's just right for the job. The narrow bars make it track like it's on rails.

The only original components on the bike are the frame and forks, the seat pin, the handlebars and the crank. The frankly dangerous sidepull brake calipers were the first bits to be replaced, followed by the wheels. I had to 'cold set' (a posh term for 'bend') the rear triangle with a plank of wood to accommodate the new Rigida Chrinas, a procedure that filled me with terror but was actually a doddle. A delightfully 80s (and surprisingly comfy) 'new old stock' saddle was sourced from ebay, as were those creaky but effective bargain bin Tektro levers. The all-important 16 tooth singlespeed cog on the rear hub is from Superstar Components. The spacers that came with it made it easy to get the correct chainline - a crucial bit of fettling; you don't want the chain jumping off at precisely the wrong moment.



I originally intended to keep the handlebars as drops, but the brake levers work far better with the 'bars chopped and flopped - a ten minute hacksaw job. So, now the bike goes in the direction I point it, and stops when I want it to. And very quickly too, for what the bike snobs sneeringly call a gas pipe bike. Can't really ask for more than that.

Missin' Linx

The final part of the singlespeed jigsaw arrived this morning; a cheap - and hopefully cheerful - KMC chain which will be fitted this weekend to my new ride. The only original components left on the bike are the frame, crankset, handlebars and stem. The build has been fairly straightforward so far - the biggest hiccup being thieving ratbags at our Royal Mail depot a pair of new brake calipers being delayed in the post. Test flight to follow - no doubt it'll ride like a garden gate fitted with pramwheels.

The Flat Earth

The 300-odd acres of sandy grasslands and mature trees that make up Wanstead Flats are seen as a bit of a sacred site in our part of town. It's where you walk your dogs, play footy, ride horses, fly your remote control 'plane, go to the circus, lounge in the sun, watch fireworks, bareknuckle box and (sometimes) poison the wildlife. Leytonstone locals hate the idea of any development, no matter how small (or 'temporary' like the mooted Olympics police HQ), encroaching on the flats. It took me by surprise, then, to find this spanky new cyclepath on my way home one evening. I can only think this was allowed because it was previously a muddy 'desire line' worn into the turf as a shortcut from Francis road to the boho crescent of Bushwood, which leads ultimately to the North Star (the boozer, not the celestial feature. It's not that long a road).


This being a Waltham Forest Council project, It's beautifully flat and smooth until it stops at Francis road, suddenly terminating in a compacted earth berm - what BMXers used to call a 'whoop-de-doo'. Oh well. It's hardly the start of a Copenhagenized E11 but it'll make getting back from the pub a bit easier.

Hire Ground

We're veteran bike hirers, Mrs Wheels and I. Cities all over Germany, rural Austria and Italy. Even in Nanjing, which we explored on prehistoric Flying Pigeons. We've never had the guts to try the Paris municipal hire system, the Vélib, although cycling in the City Of Light can't be worse than in London, where the first hire scheme kicks off this friday. Lately, the bike docks have been springing up all over like willowherb after a heavy rain. Here's my bike demonstrating the docking method outside the Barbican yesterday.



Apparently, the Parisians have had to replace almost 100% of their bikes, due to vandalism and theft. Last year, my brother-in-law drove past a farmer grinding his way up a hill on a Vélib in the countryside outside Marrakesh.

The Rat Race

Much as I adore riding my scooters, mixing it with the traffic on Mile End road isn't my idea of a proper larf. I haven't used the Vespas to ride to work for many months, having worked out a cycle route where I can remain largely unmolested by East London's numberless untaxed, unlicenced, uninsured, untrained and un-brained drivers. Unfortunately, London's famous black cab drivers have it in for me and they are everywhere. A couple of recent incidents involving cabbies mean they won't be getting any tips from me for a while, but that's another story. This picture was taken yesterday morning in cab-free Victoria Park, which I'm delighted to say makes up about a fifth of my ride. Leyton behind me, Bethnal Green and the City up ahead. Yesterday's ride was a stuggle - I was suffering with what the Germans call a Katzenjammer.

The night before had been one of those rare evenings where friends and colleagues shift patterns align and we all found ourselves guzzling Harvey's at the Royal Oak. The Best was superb, but the Pale Ale was a bit lip-curling. It seemed like a good idea at the time to finish the evening with a couple of pints of Thatchers Traditional. It's been a while since I knocked back a Thatch, and the robust balance of dry and sour floated down a treat. Stick that in your bunghole, Malcolm Gluck. I used to drink Thatcher's at the Fighting Cock in Bradford, where as teenage idiots we used to put ice in it to deaden the flavour, pre-empting Magners by about 20 years. By the time I took this picture I was realising those last two pints had not, in fact, been a good idea. I was still realising it by teatime.


This other pic was taken on friday's ride home and shows the state the Olympic stadium's in at the moment. At night it looks like the Starship Enterprise. Out of shot on the other side of the canal is Fish Island, an enclave of industrial units now becoming populated with artists priced out of London's Trendy Shoreditch (TM). While I was stood here an Afghan hound trotted up to say hello, but legged it before I could get a picture. It was the image of Paris Hilton.

Souvenir Of The London Olympics

My route to work skirts what will be the Olympic Park - there's a cycle path between Leyton and Hackney Wick. The road traffic thunders to my right, and the 2012 games site grows at a barely believable rate on my left. There's always something new to see, and often something new to avoid. Yesterday a series of holes had been dug in the middle of the cycle path. In the fenced-off spoil heap I saw this bottle.

"If that's still there on my way home, I'm having it" I said to myself. If whoever dug it out wanted it, they'd have taken it. It's better in our house than back underground or broken up. 6.45pm and there I am, digging away under the fence like a fox after a chicken.

So, dear visitors - any idea what it would have once held? There's a similar (but cruder) one on the Museum Of London website, described as a 'Spirit Flask'. Which spirit? Gin? Whisky? Intriguingly, it's got a glass marble sealing the neck which is threaded for a (presumably) rubber bung. Something inside rattles. There aren't any markings on the bottle at all. I sincerely hope I haven't brought home a latter-day Witch Bottle.

According to my stats this blog gets about 12 visitors a day. They can't all be spambots. Don't be shy - say hello. Especially if you know about stoneware bottles.

700mm Wheels

Getting re-aquainted with my bike in july, I remembered just how much I love cycling, despite the odd encounter with appalling cretins in ugly German cars, no doubt paid for using the limits of several dubious credit cards (I'll get to that later). I started pedalling to work once or twice a week on my old Specialized Hardrock A1 - something I now undertake four or five times a week on the bike I got myself as a fortieth birthday present. It's a Trek 7.3FX, a sort of flat-handlebar road bike and so light compared to the Hardrock that it seems to float an inch above the tarmac, even with me on board. And here's the odd thing - despite the longer route via Victoria Park, I'm always at my desk ten minutes quicker than if I ride in on my Vespa. I have no idea how.

Today, Mrs TIW and I took part in the London Skyride. With 50,000 other cyclists we enjoyed the slightly odd feeling of riding from Tower Hill to Buckingham Palace on traffic-free roads. As with the Great London Rideout, there's some sort of Nobel prize to be earned in working out how it is that despite the number and density of participants, we saw no collisions. Apart from helping one lass who'd apparently fainted, the paramedics - also on bikes - were bystanders, chatting to what must be the most polite and cheerful marshals I've encountered. Also present was Chris Hoy, looking like a human designed by Sir Nigel Gresley.



All the cycling tribes were there - the beardies on tourers, the eccentrics on recumbents, the sandal-wearers on Moultons, the families on Asda specials, the City workers on Bromptons, the Very Serious Roadies on high-end Italian carbon and the hipsters on fixed-wheel death traps. And everyone was smiling.



Even the gentleman we encountered on the way home didn't ruin our day. He turned left in his Audi* immediately in front of Mrs TIW, so close that the side of his car brushed the front wheel of her bike. He'd done this manouever - at high speed , without indicating - to travel precisely one car length. When I told him what I thought of his driving he shouted at me that he'd "punch me out". Until then I'd never seen somebody so angry that their eyes were actually popping out of their head. Despite this, I was still smiling, which made him even more angry - so we rode off for a pint nearer home. A pox on him.

* (it's the new BMW, folks)