Danny’s attempt at building a recumbent was doomed from the outset

was clearly a winner. Your crate of Redbull is in the post.

This week, I read with interest that someone has built a full-size X-wing Fighter out of 5.3 million Lego bricks. It doesn’t fly, but it IS the largest Lego model ever. Rumour has it that the Empire has plans for a much larger construction, which will be roughly the size of a small moon. You heard it here first.

ANYWAY… This week’s caption contest features a street scene that some will find familiar (you may click to embiggen):

The question is, what does this scene represent?

Best answer wins a great prize this week: The perfect personal transporter for the discerning Sith.

Good luck!

In the last few weeks I’ve had innumerable vehicles pass so close that I can tell what brand of shampoo the driver uses, had busses pull out in front of me, had cars abort overtaking me at the last second at traffic islands, had a driver brake test me (and then get REALLY ANGRY when I touch his car to fend off from scraping my bike down his gleaming paintwork), watched in horror as the learner driver overtaking me was himself overtaken by a car from a rival driving school, had passengers shout at me to get on the path, and pedestrians telling me to get on the road.

Seriously, it’s been really shit.

A bit like this from Monkeynutscom on Youtube:

I’m starting to ponder my options:

• Tool up with cameras? Don’t get mad, get evidence?
• Tool up in line with the obvious Mad Max nature of the roads? Probably not a good idea - riding in a leather jacket & trousers would be very sweaty
• Forget all that Vee-hicular Bicycling rubbish? It’s supposed to be a survival strategy, but to be honest I’m not sure it’s working. From now on, should I ride like a timid gutter bunny?
• Ignore it all as just a random throw of the dice. Like that time I rolled five straight sixes, but nobody saw.
• Sell my bikes and drive a car. I’ll spend a shed load of cash to get fat and die young. But at least I won’t spend my life in an advanced state of terror.
• Find out if David Hembrow has a spare room? I’m sure that with practice I could learn to weave baskets for him…

I’m firmly of the belief that one should try every new experience in life (with the accepted exceptions of incest and folk dancing of course). So when Richard offered to take me out last Friday to show me what this this “mountain biking” (as they call it) is all about, I had to accept.

But I was quite nervous about this for three reasons:

1. Richard is quite fit. Put it this way - I can keep up with most people I meet on the road, but on the two occasions when I’ve met Richard when I’m on a bike, my attempts at keeping up have lasted less than half a mile, and ended with tunnel vision and a taste of blood in my mouth. He came 14th in this year’s Fred Whitton (and was disappointed with this result). Gulp.
2. Richard is a somewhat experienced “mountain biker”. If you follow that link you’ll see he gets podium finishes in international races. He does things like 24-hour endurance races. Gulp.
3. I’ve basically never ridden off-road. OK - that’s not entirely true. When I was a kid we used to take our bikes to the woods, and the last time I did this I was eleven. It ended with me falling off the back of my Raleigh Commando, and the Sturmey Archer toggle chain taking a chunk out of my right shin as the bike fell on top of me. Lesson learned, I have avoided such situations for the last 32 years.

The route we took was from Blyth to Morpeth, having met first at Furnace Bank. I’d taken the road from the South, which is steep and has a nasty, rough & gravelly hairpin bend about halfway down it, and was waiting on the North side of the bridge. I heard a commotion on the other side, and saw Richard emerge from the trees with some foliage wedged in his brake levers. He’d decided to take the shortcut down the side of the hill instead of bothering with the road. We went and had a look back up it… it looked pretty much vertical to me, with tree root steps at the top. What was I getting myself into…?

It actually turned out to be quite good fun. The route we took followed the course of the River Blyth to Bedlington, then did a short on-road section before again going through the woods to Bothal, and along the River Wansbeck to Morpeth. I even managed to pick up some of the language of this subculture:

• The route was mainly “singletrack”. This means it follows a narrow path.
• Sections of it were “gnarly”. So there were tree-roots and rocks sticking up.
• There were some “sketchy” patches. I’ve still no idea what that means, but I’ve been dropping it into conversation, and it seems to go down well.
• The route got gradually more “technical”. This means that it got less like a road, and more like an obstacle course. So the “singletrack” route was sometimes steep with sharp turns, or right next to a river with overhanging trees to dodge.
• Sometimes we were “exploring”. This means the same as “lost” does to non-mountain bikers. I know the roads around the route we cycled pretty well, but I spent most of the ride having absolutely no idea where we were.
• I was definitely “late” home. Again, this is like the kind of “late” you can get by visiting the pub on the way home, but without the beer. Or the pub.

Yep. I can definitely see me fitting right in with this.

By the time I got home, I was a bit of a mess. I’d started the ride a little dehydrated, hadn’t had anything to drink, and done a lot of physical stuff that you don’t have to do on the road. Wife was full of sympathy, laughing at me and saying that now I know how people feel when I take them out for a ride…

The cyclist involved, Toby Hockley, wasn’t seriously hurt… but it was a close thing. He’s lucky to be alive, and it’s only due to the cushioning effects of nettles & restorative nature of post-ride ice cream that he’s alive to tell the tale.

We’re not going to talk about that though. Or the rights & wrongs of Emma’s tweet, which claimed she had right of way to knock someone off their bike because they don’t pay a mythical “road tax”.

No. We’re going to have some fun instead:

“What do you think the eventual outcome of the Norwich Police’s investigation into this incident will be?”

Place your bets now:

• 100:1 - Emma will be charged & successfully prosecuted for dangerous driving & leaving the scene of an accident. She gets a prison sentence, and is banned from driving.
• 66:1 - Convicted of dangerous driving & leaving the scene of an accident. She gets points on her license, and does community service.
• 30:1 - Charged as above, but the court accepts her plea of careless driving or driving without due care & attention. She gets points on her license & does community service.
• 25:1 - Charged & successfully prosecuted for careless driving. She gets points on her license & does community service.
• 10:1 - Charged with any driving offence, and found guilty, but gets a conditional discharge (i.e. no punishment) due to her “previously good character”.
• 8:1 - Charged with a driving offence, but the CPS deem there is insufficient evidence to take it to court.
• 8:1 - Found not guilty. She successfully sues Toby Hockley for the damage to her car.
• 5:1 - Interviewed by the police, who decide that a caution is the best way to deal with the situation.
• 5:1 - Interviewed by the police, who decide that their hands are tied. The best they can do is advise Toby to seek a “local resolution“. As part of this, EmmaWay20 reinstates her Twitter account, and tweets, “Sooooo sorry that I knocked you off your bike Toby. xxxxx I’m still ROFL”
• 1:1 (even money) - Her employers, Larking Gowan conduct a disciplinary investigation and find that she’s committed gross misconduct in bringing them into disrepute. They dismiss her without notice.

“We want to send a clear message to dangerous drivers: If you continue to show complete disregard for the safety of other road users, we will catch you – and we will punish you.”

Around 3-5% of the drivers you see on the road will be in the middle of making a phone call, or texting - that’s somewhere between one in thirty and one in twenty of the cars that pass you.

About half of those will be hands-free, and half, with the phone clamped to the side of their heads (other options include using the speakerphone & holding it in front of your chin, or for texting, holding the phone in your lap).

According to the RAC Foundation, 48% of drivers aged 18-24 admit to sending or receiving texts while driving.

But we all have more time-pressured lifestyles these days. Couple that with the fact that people are obviously much better at multi-tasking (’cos, like, we do it all the time), you could be tempted to ask what the real purpose of this “crackdown” is. Indeed, many readers of the Daily Mail’s article on it suggest that it’s just another stealth-tax for the gummint to pick the pockets of the already hard-pressed motorist.

Then there’s this, via the RAC Foundation:

So basically, using a hands-free mobile phone (completely legal in the UK) has twice the effect of being at the legal drink-driving limit; texting (illegal) has three times the effect; and a hand-held phone (illegal) has almost four times the effect.

The penalties for drink driving are severe:

• Being in charge of a vehicle (i.e. sitting in it and holding the keys in your hand) while unfit through drink: Up to three months in prison; £2,500 fine; possible driving ban
• Driving or even just attempting to drive (i.e. putting the key in the ignition): Up to six months in prison; £5,000 fine; driving ban of at least a year.

In that context, the minister’s “crackdown” on people using the phone seems like pretty small beer - more like there’s a war on teh drinks industry than on the motorist in general.

Using a phone relieves the boredom of driving (distracting us from what we actually should be doing), and re-enforces our sense of importance. Culturally we’ve brainwashed ourselves into thinking that using a mobile phone and being in constant contact is essential for our modern lives. This plainly isn’t the case, and if anything means we’re putting the lives of others at risk.

So what would a genuine crackdown look like?

• The same penalties as drink driving?
• Increase the penalty to six points, effectively making it two strikes and you’re out?
• Incremental bans? Start at one week for the first offence (no hardship defence for this - just take a week’s holiday), but then eight for the second, a year for the third, etc?

Normally when I’m there I manage to borrow a bike - either from one of my university hosts, or from the hotel where I stay.

But now it seems, they’re trialling a third option - Osijek has a bike share scheme:

Unfortunately, it looks like it’s still very much in the trial phase - no new passes being issued. Hopefully it’ll have been sorted by the time I get there later this year - I’d look great on an orange bike!

In discussion, he brought up something that’d quite passed me by - even though I’m a reasonably regular user of the Tyne Pedestrian and Cycle Tunnels. The refurbishment of these, which was to start last autumn is now going ahead:

SO BOTH TUNNELS WILL BE CLOSED FOR TWELVE MONTHS FROM 20TH MAY 2013.

The local authorities either side of the Tyne will be operating a replacement FREE shuttlebus service to take you and your bike through the road tunnels. A timetable can be downloaded from the Tyne Pedestrian & Cycle Tunnel’s website. This is a turn-up-and-go bus, which has capacity for 24 passengers and 16 bikes.

Pickup in Jarrow is from Tyne Street (the approach road to the pedestrian & cycle tunnels), and in Howdon, from Tyne View Terrace (the road that runs past the access down to the pedestrian tunnels - behind TT2’s offices).

But as you’ll see from the timetable, the first bus leaves Jarrow at 06:00, and the last one again heads North, leaving at 20:00.

Outside of those hours, TT2 will be operating a shuttle service - so if you work shifts, you’ll not be stranded. However, this service must be pre-booked. You’ll need to print out and post a registration form, which is available from this page.

“The rider must be new and forgot to have them installed.”

Anyway, while leafing through my complete collection of old copies of the Daily Mail, I came across this story from last month:

“Agony of bike daredevil: Catalogue of injuries keeps internet stunt sensation from cycling for two years”

Yep - it turns out that Danny MacAskill has found out that learning how to do, and then performing his totally amazing stunts is enough to push your body past its breaking point. So now he’s barely able to walk, and has headed off to California to see a doctor who specialises in re-assembling stunt men (and women) for the movie business.

We of course wish Danny well… But this photo of him from the Mail’s article does need a caption, doesn’t it:

Best caption this week wins a fabulous prize: Enough Redbull to give you wings like Danny’s. Second prize is enough* of Aldi’s ersatz-Redbull to make you think this is how you should ride to work.

Good luck!

Slack-jawed amazement from drivers, intense excitement from shall children (who shout things like, “What a totally amazing bike!”. No, really.), and incredulous hilarity from teenagers - but ONLY when they’re with enough friends to see that they’ve such a cool reaction to the weirdo who’s not driving a car. That sort of thing.

Funny thing is, I’ve never understood why. But my friend Seth was up to stay for a few days over the weekend, and we had to run an errand that involved the cargo bike. He shot some footage…

Apparently MY view of the reactions this bike causes only just scratches the surface - riding with me, Seth could see the full glory of the wake of amazement it generates. He was able to see that drivers were actually steering clear of the Frankenbike (obviously intimidated by the waves of pure masculinity it generates), and that attractive women were visibly swooning (for similar reasons, no doubt).

Or at least that’s what I like to think.

Best answer gets our usual level of fabulous [virtual] prize: A CCTV system to keep an eye on your precious ride.

Good luck!