Glad i'm not at glastonbury?

Can't believe its Glastonbury again, another year gone by and another summer just beginning. This year I've done the sensible thing and stayed at home, not only did i save myself the £200 it would cost to get in, i've avoided the festering pools of mud, half eaten kebabs, beer cans and thankfully there's no fear of drunken folk crashing through my home and landing on my bed this weekend...That said, i'm still tuning into the coverage, having a sneaky peaky at what i'm missing- BB King's just finished a stonking set that would have made my weekend......who am I kidding- even in its modern beer fueled form i'd love to be there, if only to hang out in the green field and once again hear the wonderful sound of the Wandering Ska Solar Powered Sound System

Anyway found out these great bike hack pics from my last venture to the festival, its amazing how many uses the bicycle can have when you're not allowed to bring a generator

Brilliant free phone charging. There was a whole rank of these, 20 mins of cycling equated to about a bar of charge on your phone- you can find the instructions on how to make your own here.
















Found this guy working away in the green field, living out of his van and working off this homemade, pedal powered grinder/ polisher to make jewellery, fantastic.










Green Fayre tomorrow- looks like the glasto weather has settled over coventry, but don't let that put you off don your wellies and get down to memorial park for a look.

what a difference a day makes

Lisa has been after a 'dutch' bike for quite some time now- after a recent trip to London (where she saw beautiful bike wherever she looked) she spent the afternoon on Ebay looking for a local bargain. We've looked before but to be honest there are very few bargains to be had on ebay and usually anything vaguely swoopy gets very expensive very quickly. Oddly when she looked this time she found a bike and it was just down the way in Kenilworth, it only had a few minutes left so she bid on it and won it for the princely sum of £20.

To be honest, at £20 I wasn't expecting very much, a further conversation with the owner revealed that since getting a puncture last year it had lived outside( through the winter) leaning on a woodpile waiting for someone to fix it. Anyway, when i picked it up it looked like this:

Complete with cobwebs!

A poke around revealed rotten cables, seized gears, ruined tyres and a broken seat, wherever chrome had been there was now a healthy smattering of rust and flakey chrome- on the upside all the bearing were fine as were the brakes and the frame and paintwork just needed a wipedown.

So I spent the day today removing the broken bits, cleaning rust, fixing puctures and putting it all back together again- now it looks like this:

Beautiful, swoopy and best of all cheap!

Team green britain bike week

We're at the beginning of 'Team Green Britain Bike Week', which is promoting cycling across the UK for the week of the 18th -26th June. There's lots happening- even a few events that you can attend locally to fix and chat about all things bike- not least the wonderful Green Fayre where Dr bike will be present along with (I think) a couple of the local cycling groups.

Have a look at both sites, they're full of useful information.

A great reason to break your arm

Every day for the last 8 months i've been cycling the school run

Its not too strenuous; its a lovely way to start the day, chattering with my daughter as we roll down the big hill to school. We've managed to cycle all the way through the winter and have somehow managed to dodge the worst of the rainstorms (which as any parent knows usually occur around dropping off & picking up time)

This all looked like it would come to a dramatic end (for 6 weeks at least) when my daughter broke her arm. It was amazing really, a small trip and then a soft landing onto grass was all it took to snap both bones in her arm- every weekend until then we'd spent off-roading or bouncing up the bike jumps with nothing more than the odd scratch.

We started the next week with a mix of walking and extortionate busfares (I don't drive), by the next weekend we were thoroughly fed up and much poorer, so off i went to the garage to look for a solution. I already have a tandem which I use periodically,but this was far too big for my daughter, but a quick go on the back proved that she could 'stoke' fine and it didn't cause her any discomfort. So with a couple of scrap bikes (an adults at the front and a teens at the back) I improvised a rough tandem- the only difference being that it was attached at the forks and pivoted in the middle.



It's more stable than your average tag-along but was still too flexible for her to ride at the moment. That said i'm thinking of adding a few more on to see how far the 5 of us can get in the next rugby cycle fundraiser.

When i figured it out, if i caught the bus each day to school with my daughter- even if i walked home, walked to pick her up and then we both walked home it would cost £5 a day/ £25 a week and £150 for the 6 weeks of busfare we were going to need. So with this in mind off to ebay I went and found this beautiful machine


In the end it cost £120 and is brilliant, we've just finished our first week on the tandem and i'm not sure we'll go back to our school bikes when her arms better.

If you'd like to see how much cycling could save you check out this cycling cost calculator

...still here!

Shouldn't I be in Scotland by now?...Several months ago i'd hoped that with some winter training and a little luck i'd have completed the Lejog. At that time I had quite a few goals between where I was and where I wanted to end my journey. I've achieved most of what I set out to but I've been unable to get myself organised enough to actually go this year.

Thankfully i'm cycling again, which has come as something of a relief- although physically i'm not as able as I thought I could once again be, i'm enjoying the freedom of being able to get around under my own steam. This is something which is greatly underestimated until you can no longer do it- my advice for all those with dusty bikes and some time on their hands is to go out for a ride whilst your body allows you to have a choice....obviously check the bike first and make a judgement about whether its safe or not!

What I have found quite difficult about the Lejog, aside from the logistical dificulties of absenting myself from my family for two weeks and the physical effort required-has been the sheer cost of taking part. If travelling individually one has to allow for initial travel to cornwall, food/ accomodation/ spares (for two weeks) etc and the return- which I estimated at approximately £500 (if the journey was completed with a large amount of camping along the way). If you were to choose a guided tour you can join in for between £1300-£2000, these take the organisation out of cycling the lejog and look great but aren't for everyone and are certainly not for me. The other option is the charitable route, which is great if a charity you're really passionate about is trying to raise money- but isn't a cheap option if you just fancy a bike ride, most ask for at least £2000 in fundraising.

I love cycling because of simplicity and its accessibility. I like the idea of the physical challenge of travelling from one end of the country to the other but even at its cheapest the £500 I would use in completing the lejog would be better spent on repairing bikes to give away, rather than supporting me on a sweaty jolly across the country! I'm really hoping that next year i'll find a way to go and will continue to try to build on my fitness but am now going to try to focus on more local challenges.

How to lock your bike

...It might seem like a stupid thing to spend time writing about, but every single day I see a bike that has either not been locked or has been locked in such a way that even the most ill equiped cycle thief could walk away with a new toy. After several years of absent bikes, stolen wheels and missing seats this is how I tend to lock mine.






First, make sure you've secured your seatpost and saddle- always the first thing to go. I tend to take out the quick release as well- seems a bit silly to make the thiefs job easier!















Use a lock to attach the front wheel to the frame and then preferably to whatever you've locked the rest of the bike to.











Finally, get a substantial chain- the thicker the better and lock your rear wheel and frame to the immovable object you're locking your bike to. Make sure that you take up the slack in the chain- locks are easier to remove with a hammer if they are resting on the floor.

....surely its too cold for cycling?

Despite my promise, its been a couple of weeks since my last post- not because i've given up on the idea of completing the Lejog, but simply because life has once again interferred with my overambitious plan for uninterupted exercise.

The reality of balancing getting ready with the normal routine of being available for children and the earning of money has finally dawned on me. The recycling project continues to grow and demand more of my time, despite the change in weather there has been little reduction in the number of bikes requested although we have seen more childrens bikes being requested- i'm assuming for christmas- so far we've managed to meet the demand for bikes with the bikes donated but are hoping for more childrens bikes in the next few weeks to pass onto various projects across the city. This week has seen the start of advent and with it has come a steady stream of running from nativity play to choir practice and onto christingle service, just a visit to the cathedral to go and then hopefully they'll be a little time left for christmad shopping and then possibly a little bit of cycling.

The ice and snow this week gave me an excuse to spend a little more time in the garage fixing up the bike for winter training and possibly for the eventual journey. Winterising my bike so far has consisted of the usual bike checks plus the addition of some little mudguards, some bright lights and some nobblier tyres, its still quite comfortable and reasonably light.

To be honest,when I think back my first two weeks of planning and exercise (despite all warnings) led me to overdo everything and left me feeling exhausted and deflated. Fortunately one thing I have managed to get right is leaving enough time to properly prepare, so despite my initial overexhuberance I should still be on course to be ready for the summer.

Take care for now, happy christmas planning!