“Flying in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.”
Captain A. G. Lamplugh, British Aviation Insurance Group, London. c. early 1930’s.

“In flying I have learned that carelessness and overconfidence are usually far more dangerous than deliberately accepted risks.”
Wilbur Wright in a letter to his father, September 1900.

“We fooled ourselves into thinking this thing wouldn’t crash. When I was in astronaut training I asked, ‘what is the likelihood of another accident?’ The answer I got was: one in 10,000, with an asterisk. The asterisk meant, ‘we don’t know.’”
Bryan O’Connor, NASA deputy associate administrator Space Shuttle, interview in Space News, 10 January 1996

“There is no problem so complex that it cannot simply be blamed on the pilot.”

Dr Earl Weiner

“You land a million planes safely, then you have one little mid-air and you never hear the end of it …”

— Air Traffic Controller, New York TRACON, Westbury Long island

Let brisker youths their active nerves prepare
Fit their light silken wings and skim the buxom air.

— Richard Owen Cambridge, ‘Scriblerad,’ 1751

As Lewis admits in his own commentary,

“I was on the inside lane on the red route lines and shortly after the boxed junctions. As I was riding I suddenly noticed this truck veering slowly into my lane,…he left his indication somewhat too late but I should have dropped back.

This could have resulted in serious injury.

I dont wear Ipods and my eyes scan but somehow missed this one.“

He’s a very lucky boy, because the driver of the lorry either had no idea he was there, or assumed that he’d take evasive action.

He was in a bus lane that disappears as it goes through the junction, at which point the lorry driver starts his signal-and-manoeuvre. It’s not as if he was riding like a lunatic, and if this can happen to an experienced, tooled-up, outside broadcast unit of a cyclist, what can the novice wobbler expect?

Put simply, our cities are not fit for purpose.

Since then I’ve been extremely wary of ice, wet roads, patches of gravel, bits of tarmac that look funny, etc.

Yet I’ve still managed to injure myself cycling this winter. I’ve been riding my Pashley (Seigfried to you) in nice smart clothes, including nice smart work brogues. The trouble is that it’s been pretty cold. I know - cold in winter. Whatever next?

Anyway - I’ve wrapped up warm, wearing skiing gloves when it’s really cold, a scarf, hat, a jumper, and usually my moleskin suit (not made from real moles). But my feet have been in those nice smart work brogues, with nice thin smart-looking socks.

And I’ve ended up with chilblains.

“What are chilblains, apart from some sort of affliction that affected Victorian agricultural workers?”, I hear you ask.

Well, they look like this:

No - those aren’t my toes - mine look far worse, with blue / bruised looking patches of skin. It’s just an image from Wikipedia, which explains:

Chilblains are acral ulcers (that is, ulcers affecting the extremities) that occur when a predisposed individual is exposed to cold and humidity. The cold exposure damages capillary beds in the skin, which in turn can cause redness, itching, blisters, and inflammation.

Yep - that’s what I’ve got. The trouble is that because my toes are inflamed, I’ve been wearing thinner socks… which has made things worse. My toes are painful, itchy and swollen, making even walking uncomfortable.

Chilblains aren’t frost-bite, but the first stage along that route:

• Chilblains; surface ulceration of the skin
• => Frostnip; superficial freezing of the skin’s surface layers
• => Frostbite; deep freezing of the skin tissue, leading to severe damage, gangrene, amputation, etc.

As I also have Reynaud’s disease, I’m probably predisposed to these sorts of things.

I could stop cycling for a couple of months. But apart from the cold, it’s been such perfect cycling weather - clear skies, light winds, and ice-free thanks to the low humidity.

So until the weather warms up, those nice smart work brogues can stay in the shoe rack. I’m wearing my Very Sensible Safety Shoes. They’re insulated, and roomy enough to be worn with Very Sensible Skiing Socks.

…A puncture in my Pashley’s Schwalbe Marathon Plus rear tyre

I’ve had this bike three years, and probably ridden about 4,000 miles on it without a single puncture. What sort of sabot could pierce these tyres?

Well it wasn’t going to fix itself, and I wasn’t going anywhere, so I decided to find out. As it was the back wheel, I didn’t bother taking the wheel off the bike You wouldn’t believe how much of a faff this is on the Pashley - full chain case to remove, hub brakes to disconnect, hub gears to disconnect and then have to re-adjust after putting the wheel back on. Life is just too short.

The technique is to turn the bike upside down, put a bit of air into the tyre, and then see if the offending item is still in place to help locate the leak. Then prise the tyre off just for six inches or so each side of the problem, remove the offending item (in this case a thorn), yank out enough of the inner tube to fit a patch, and put the whole thing back together.

Sounds simple. Except those Marathon Plus tyres are a right sod to get back on.

Thankfully Twitter had the answer, along with this very helpful video from Spa Cycles:

Just one more reason to always carry a pair of leather straps with you.

Sadly, two entries broke the rules (You. Know. Who. You. Are, and we’re really VERY disappointed in you), and deliberately misconstrued the competition’s judging as anything other than the opinion of a sad middle-aged man, who sometimes really can’t be bothered to count the angels dancing on a pinhead, and just wants to marvel at their infinite beauty. The pair of you will do me lines as punishment, while everyone else is out on their bikes tomorrow.

I want fifty lines from each of you:

“I must not get so far up my own saddle-sore encrusted back-side without the use of a proper lubricating chamois creme”

…or there’ll be no cake for you when everyone else gets back.

All of which brings us nicely to the subject of this week’s competition. Our chaps in New York have identified that locals seem to be using cycle components that are NOT UCI-approved:

I have no idea what this is. If anyone has any idea what this component is for, do please let us know - remember with your suggestions that cycling is a clean-living healthy activity, and anyone on two wheels is as pure as the driven snow. Sort of.

The most accurate / the funniest / the one that I just feel like picking will win this week’s fabulous prize: You’ll be personally fitted with a set of Specialized Zertz vibration-damping inserts. It’s alleged that these give a smoother, more vibration-damped ride, but that might just be marketing flim-flam and waffle-dust. Perhaps the winner could tell us?

The Dream:

The Reality:

The Alternate Reality (do watch this one ’till the end!):

They tell us about the sporty playfulness to be had in towns and cities:

The Dream:

The Reality:

The Alternate Reality:

The tell us how PRACTICAL and essential their vehicles are:

The dream:

The Reality:

The Alternate Reality:

They want you to think you can have your cake and eat it:

The Dream:

The Reality:

The Alternate Reality

And they use the lure of sex to help sell their wares:

The Dream

The Reality

The Alternate Reality

Sadly, I think that given the number of drivers I see chatting away on the phone, texting, or otherwise distracted, the punchline I had in mind for this post seems somewhat thin. Let’s just leave it here.

Then today, this in The Times (do visit their page and sign up):

So now we eagerly wait to see if the other opinion-forming newspapers will fall into line. Rumour has it that The Daily Mail will be next - here’s an advanced copy of their front page for next Monday:

‘Mr Moore had been riding on a cycle lane on the inside of queueing traffic and drew level with the tanker’s front axle virtually as it began pulling away. He tried to cycle straight on but was hit by the lorry - which had stopped in the advance cyclist’s “box” - as it turned.

PC Austin said the Highway Code made clear that Mr Moore had the right of way. “Had he [the driver] looked in his mirrors as Mr Moore cycled up, it’s very clear he would have been visible. He is utilising the cycle lane as is right and just.”

But under cross examination from Mr Gummer’s barrister Alexis Dite, PC Austin admitted: “It would have been a pertinent move, as a cyclist coming down the inside of a large goods vehicle, to show some level of caution.”

… Mr Gummer, who has more than 30 years’ experience as a HGV driver and a clean licence, was found not guilty of careless driving after insisting he had checked his mirrors before pulling away. The CCTV images showed he was indicating left as he waited at the lights.’

According to the police’s road crash investigator, the driver would have had twelve seconds in which to notice James Moor approaching in the cycle lane.

Another case of thoughtless HGV driver doing their bit to keep tree-hugging, sandal-wearing yoghurt-knitting cyclists off the road?

Actually, I don’t think so.

Firstly, 12 seconds sounds like a long time, but given the number of mirrors and other outside hazards that a driver of an HGV is has to keep track of, it could be easy simply not to be looking directly at the mirror which would have shown Mr Moor for the whole of this time.

So I would say that the problem isn’t driver error here, but that we allow such blind-spotted vehicles to use roads within crowded cities.

Secondly, even if we decided that it’s a good idea to have ever-larger lorries in our towns, there’s still a clear fault with the whole concept of the Advanced Stop Line. The dream we’ve been sold is this:

So people on bikes can use the ASL’s box to position themselves in front of the traffic waiting at the lights. They’ll be visible, and get a head start when the lights turn green. To help cyclists get to such a prime position, there’s a narrow feeder-lane to filter them past the odd car that’s got to the ASL ahead of them. How lovely.

The reality is more like this:

…or this:

Those feeder lanes send you into the ASL through the most dangerous place on the road - up the inside of an HGV. If we were thinking of “fault tolerant design”, this would not be it - the length of HGVs means that it can take even an experienced cyclist a good few seconds to pass them, which is more than enough time for the lights to change and for the driver to start to pull away.

So, to sum up:

1. We really shouldn’t be allowing HGVs into town and city centres. The roads are simply not designed to accommodate them.
2. That’s almost certainly not going to happen.
3. We therefore need a better design of junction to replace the ASL and it’s associated feeder lane. Something that provides physical segregation at these critical points. Maybe like this:

This week’s photo comes via the WestfieldWonderer, and features what passes for “ordinary clothes” on the Somerset Levels:

This week we’ve got a simply spiffing prize for the best caption: A chance to experience all the fun of the Frome Cobble Wobble with ride on a cobble-road simulator near where you live. Just head out your front door and try your local council’s idea of a pothole-free road…

As usual, leave your answers below, and remember that I sometimes pick the winner on the basis of their ability & willingness to buy me drinks the judge’s decision is final.

As you can see, the plucky kid makes a break for it at 1:30, but was brought down by the pack of Lycra-clad snatchers.

The kidnappers have issued their demands:

“We want some great carbon wheels, ceramic bearings (’cos, they totally make a difference), the BEST espresso, a complete set of 2012 Rapha, a personal tweet from Lance, and if you could lend me a tube & some tools, that’d be just sooo cool.”

Police have warned that the kidnappers are clearly dangerous extremists and should not be approached. If you see them, do not get out of your two-ton armour-plated personal transport - just keep them in sight and call for support using your hands-free phone, because that’s really really safe. Have a beer while you call, if that’ll help settle your nerves.