Whoops another unfinished draft, this time from way back in 2009! NB Multimap is now Microsoft’s Bing Mapping, but it still has that excellent birdseye view last time I looked.
I had to spend a few days in Evanston, visiting Northwestern University just north of Chicago on the lake shore. Cycling from O’Hare Airport was very easy and seemed to be as quick (under 90mins) as taking the metro.
Whoops, I wrote this last summer and was waiting for some photos so it fell down a crack in the computer. It’s now rather out of date but I’ll follow it up shortly with an explanation of what I’m doing next with the Neuss-B. Basically I’ve decided on a complete rework of transmission and some other things to overcome the problems identified here. I decided that the present arrangement is too complicated and heavy but developments in recumbent bike technology make it worth considering a major upgrade.
So I’ve had my new toy for two months, spent a few days fiddling with the setup and ridden it around town a few times. Today I took a slightly longer ride involving some hills. Read the rest of this entry »
Our Hase Pino Tandem has done a lot of miles by car in Britain, France and India, thanks to the neat way it splits in two to fit into quite small cars. It has flown to India and back (details coming soon) but until last week it has not been on a train.
Any new venture is an opportunity for a gadget addict like me to add to the collection and many touring cyclists seem similarly inclined. Going to Kerala we had a rich set of needs that might be met by a careful choice of gizmos.
Knowing that it was theoretically possible to take the Pino to India by air, and having plenty of experience of flying with my Brompton folding bike did not make it any easier to confront the reality of getting 26kg of very big bicycle, plus everything we would need for a month, to and from a small town in Kerala.
With this team on our side what could go wrong?
Last year I was very pleased to be given one of the new Brompton toolkits as a birthday present. It is a beautiful thing, cleverly designed to fit together into a neat package that slots into the open end of the bike’s frame tube when unfolded. I wanted one as soon as they were announced, not because I needed it but because it seemed to be an elegant way of removing clutter (bag of tools under the saddle) from an elegant bike.
As a boy in the 1950s I loved the great fleet of pleasure steamers that sailed down the Firth of Clyde from Glasgow and the railway piers at Craigendoran and Gourock, where I lived. It’s still possible to enjoy a steamer cruise and it can be a great way to extend your reach when cycle touring. I’ve compiled some information that will help you do that.
A little while ago I posted my thoughts about unreasonable barriers on cycletrails and why I thought Sustrans were not confronting the issue as squarely as they should.
Angle Grinder Warrior or Anti-Social Vandal?
I’ve just had a comment on that post from somebody who calls themself F***Off (I’ve masked the offensive word) who says their email address is f***off@gmail.com (you have to give an address to post a comment)
I’ve deleted it of course since I believe in being open about yourself and somebody who hides their identity in such an aggressively rude way should not have a platform but the comment was interesting so I thought it was worth discussing. Read the rest of this entry »
Having established that the paper maps are very limited I have been thinking about how to use free online mapping.
Google maps might seem an obvious choice Read the rest of this entry »
This Grey Nomad business is sounding a bit…grey and I’m not sure I want to live with it for the next three months
So I’ve been trying out some alternatives. “Silver” is sometimes used as a slightly more respectful way to characterise oldies but I have a bit of a problem with that as there are a lot of silver cars around (I think it’s the most popular colour these days) and they are very boring. Apparently buying a silver car is the mark of a very conventional person.
But having come under the influence of Lakshmi Loves to Shop I may have moved on to a better place. Having been fair-haired when younger both Isobel and I have hair that is best described as white and hers has the faintest hint of blonde colour in it. I like to say that she’s a natural Platinum Blonde. So clearly we are Platinum Blonde Nomads!
And yes, that’s Jean Harlow with her bike in Hollywood. They both look great don’t they?
Previous: 2. Are there maps? <
Next: 4. Online Maps
