Newcastle

There are actually some great facilities for cycling around here. They connect up useful places that people would want to travel to or from. They have great smooth surfaces, and they’re wide enough for two-way traffic. Almost universally though, they have the stop-start problem: These two examples are from National Cycle Route 72 as it crosses...
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So for my Important Presentation this morning, I had to go in looking like I meant business - suit, tie, shiny shoes. You know the drill. It was also kinda important to ride there, as I knew this was the sort of thing that would go down well with the audience. This wasn’t a...
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Today looked like spring, so what better weather for riding could there be? Not too hot, not too cold, but just right. So I visited two clients on Siegfried, and on the trip to the second one (just after lunch time) it was warm enough to put my nice red woolen jumper in my...
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What’s the correct thing to do when a driver’s lack of care puts you in their sights? It’s hard to tell if it was out-and-out bullying, or just a crap driver with no appreciation of the fact that bikes do move faster than a walking pace. This was on my way home from Newcastle this...
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So today was my first real trip on Siegfried - into Newcastle, then out to Walker and home. Somewhere around a 20 mile round trip. And I was presenting a workshop in the afternoon, so I had my laptop, projector, lunch, and a set of waterproofs with me (the weather forecast was for RAIN...
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I killed Wilf. Through neglect, lack of understanding, and over-use. But mainly through not knowing how to use a steel ruler to measure the chain. OK, I’m exaggerating a little. But the cost of the components to restore Wilf to health would have been about 75% of the cost of buying an identical brand new...
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I’ve never taken part in a critical mass event. Heck, I’ve never even seen one first hand, so what I’m about to say could just be me talking out of my backside. I have a bit of a problem with the idea of critical mass. The anarchist within me says, “Yeah! Right on! Let’s really...
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I’ve been having a bit of bother with the back wheel on our tandem, Daisy. Basically, the bearing’s either loose, so that there’s some definite wobble in the wheel, and corresponding slack handling of the bike, or tight, so that the wheel doesn’t run free. Neither are good. So this morning before setting off to...
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I was working in Wallsend this morning, and then had to pop into Newcastle for a couple of things, finishing up with dropping something off with Carlton Reid. Whenever he’s come to my house he’s come along the Coast Road - it’s arrow-straight, and runs from the edge of Newcastle to, uh, the coast...
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Like John The Monkey said in a recent comment, people need better writers for this stuff - that’s such a lame headline! So anyway, I’d thought that winter was over, that as a wise politician once said, the green shoots of recovery are just around the corner. To prove it, I rode in to my...
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