Velo club de punk rock!

I’ve finished the Hour book and I’m halfway through the one about Crass, I would recommend both. The Hour by Michael Hutchinson is really funny and yet very touching and interesting, the guy is completely sane whilst also being a complete nut job it’s brilliant. The Crass book starts off with the background of the main players in art school and then sixties ‘counter culture’* and the avant garde art/music at that time through to their emergence as a major force in the second wave of punk bands in the UK. It’s really interesting to see how the use of certain images, words and language for often quite simple reasons was often misunderstood or misrepresented, I’m looking forward to finishing the rest.

Reading is not all books though so I have this on the go too!

Two bags of speed and five hundred copies of my motherfucking fanzine!

I haven’t read Cometbus in an age, but picked up two issues in the US last year. This issue appears to be about ‘alternative entrepeneurs’* and radicals in Berkley in the 60’s and 70’s and is actually really good. Almost like a history of an area but at the same time part biography, I’m not sure how you track it down in the UK but I guess you could write direct to Aaron, PO Box 4726, Berkeley, CA 94704, the fanzine is $3 but chuck in some more for postage (S.A.E?) and I assume he’ll send you whatever the latest issue is.

To be honest I’m really out of the fanzine loop so if anyone wants to fill me in then I would be appreciative! On the book front I think I’m getting the Graham Obree book for my birthday at the end of the month so I’m looking forward to that, the message of todays post? Hey kids get your reading skills on!

*for want of better terms!

I’d like to tell you how cold it was yesterday but I still can’t find the spare batteries for my cycle computer and because I know I have got some spare batteries somewhere I’m loathed to buy some new ones. This also means I can’t tell you what my average speed was although I’d go for in the region of ’slow’, on the temperature front it was cold enough to make you shift up a gear and push harder in order to keep warm, however as the day went on in the long run this was probably a bad idea. My aim yesterday was for a short 2 hours or so to just explore and maybe get a bit further away from home than the other week, 4 hours and 40.5 miles later I was decidedly tired but had definitely ticked the ‘explore’ and ‘further from home’ boxes!

I started off heading north from home on the road up through Blackpole to where the Worcester Warriors stadium is, this avoided the section of Canal that is being resurfaced and then meant I could join Cycle route 45 along the back roads up to Droitwich, the back roads were pleasant enough although covered in water from the melting snow which still littered the fields and verges and a fair bit of mud which soon was speckled across my legs, face and back. Although Worcestershire is relatively flat there is a ‘rolling’ feel to the terrain which means you’re always pushing up a rise or down a slope.

Where are these hills?

Soon I arrived in Droitwich where I though I would try to get back on the canal and head north, however after losing route 45 and experiencing some ‘cobbles-lite’ thanks to some brick paved roads which were suffering badly from the cold weather I realised I’d taken a wrong turn. Doubling back I managed to find the canal opposite Waitrose and the paved section I had seen from the train on my commute up to Birmingham the other week, perfect I thought. Two things happened though, one I managed to end up on the wrong side of the canal and didn’t really feel like testing my skills to jump it and two once back on the ‘right’ side I realised that the paved surface only ran the length of the park in the centre of Droitwich and once under the A38 the canal became a very hummocky dirt singletrack. I knew I could probably have handled the surface but with a tunnel ahead looking dark an uninviting and not wanting a dip in the freezing water to the paths left I decided to rejoin the road.

'Cobbles-lite' not quite Belgium

I decided against a 'Van Halen' moment

So I set off up the A38 and despite this being a pretty busy road it’s actually not bad to cycle along, it’s wide enough that cars can give you room without crossing the centre lines and so tend to do so. I passed Chateau Impney shortly after leaving Droitwich and then after passing under the M5 shifted into the big ring to power past Webbs and up the slight rise to Bromsgove. I think reading ‘The Hour’ (more about that in a future post) by Michael Hutchinson definitely had an influence on me here as head down I was pretending I was in a time trail and so put a lot of effort in before completing what is a relatively lengthy climb into Bromsgrove, I mean it doesn’t go ‘up’ much compared to Yorkshire but it’s a bit of a ’slow burner’ and testing in a high gear.

So I cruised through Bromsgrove and here it all started to wrong, or maybe right if a ‘decent’ distance ride was my goal. I hatched the cunning plan to explore the lanes to the west of Bromsgrove/Droitwich to create a decent loop and then cruise back into Worcester. So I headed out towards Cathill and then took a left towards Bourneheath I had to cross the M5 again which naturally gave the opportunity for a photo and a bit of a rest as there is actually a decent incline on the road before you get to the motorway bridge.

4 wheels bad, 2 wheels good? (Malvern's in the background)

Once through Bourneheath I continued round towards Woodcote Green, I also saw Alpacas which was random to say the least.

Apparently 'addictive'?

Upon getting to Woodcote Green down a small slope, I didn’t actually know I had so I turned more or less back on myself up ‘Woodcote Green Lane’ thinking this was clearly the way I needed to go. The result was that I ended up cycling back up hill and away from the direction I really wanted to be traveling in. However choice made I looped round and crossed the A448 at Chaddesley Corbett, it was at this point I also started using Google maps on my phone so I didn’t get horrendously lost. However as I was only taking it out to check on occasion I just got slightly lost on the next leg of my journey.

I bridged the gap across to the A442 north of Rushock and then headed south towards Elmley Lovett, again for some unknown reason although headed in the right direction I elected to turn right towards Hartlebury, this did however give me the pleasure of seeing a giant inflatable Polar bear sat in a hot tub outside the ‘Artic Spas’ warehouse which is a sight to behold! For some reason though I’d stopped taking pictures I think I was starting to get tired.

I quickly realised that I wasn’t where I really wanted to be when I hit the A449 and in the interests of getting home ‘relatively’ quickly turned left and followed the main road south. This ride would have been more pleasant in the latter stages if I had prepared for actually cycling for 4 hours, put simply my kingdom for a sandwich!  Two bottles of High 5 Energy Source and a Torq gel I found at the back of the cupboard probably weren’t enough, on the plus side the A449 does have a really smooth surface which put me back in pretend TT mood and I did quickly nip into the Reindeer Inn to get two packets of crisps! I left the main road after 3 miles at Hay/Haye lane to cut down the lanes to Hadley Heath and then onto North Claines, in doing this I stumbled upon Cycle route 46 again, it seems I can’t cycle north of Worcester without route 45 and 46 cropping up somewhere. Finding the cycle route made it easy to navigate though as I could follow this all the way through Claines into the city.

I’m pretty sure before I got to North Claines I took a really nice picture of the river with the reed beds looking golden in the late low winter sun, however my phone appears to have eaten it somehow which is a shame. There were lots of people out and about on this last stage walking dogs and generally enjoying the first sunshine in a long time. Finally once back in Worcester it was a simple spin down Ombersley and Barbourne road to home. Longer than planned but still enjoyable and with a bit more sustenance in my back pocket my body seems quite prepared for longer rides. I need to test my hill climbing skills or lack of them in the Malverns soon though.

Route

So the CD player in my ‘car’ has stopped working and as I own only two tapes* I’ve been reduced to listening to the radio. Living in the West Midlands that means I have the dubious pleasure of being able to get Kerrang! Radio on FM. Being an ‘alternative’ station the song Kings and Queens by 30 Seconds to Mars is on heavy rotation. The other day I had an epiphany and noticed something, when listening to the song I couldn’t not think about the video, you know the one, the video with lots of people riding bikes. Here it is for those of you who are interested in all things bike but somehow missed it.

So this got me to thinking, maybe the UK government, British Cycling and those other bodies who are trying to promote cycling and increase the number of journeys by bikes should take the positive subliminal effects of cycling in visual media to the masses. I mean the obvious place to start would be the type of joined up thinking we never see and Kano’s next ‘Diploma’ video should also include some people cycling.

The Learning and Skills Council and British Cycling is clearly a match made in heaven but why stop there. I was talking about taking this subliminal messages to the masses. The delivery system clearly should be TV soap operas, if Casualty and The Bill haven’t had Paramedics or Police on bikes yet, why not! But why stop there I bet you could squeeze a tall bike joust into Hollyoaks easy, Coronation Street could visit the Manchester velodrome for some track racing and well Ian Beale setting up a bike courier firm in Albert Square isn’t that far fetched although that particular plot line might actually not feature many bikes in shot (they’d all be hanging around in central London waiting for a job I assume). I’m sure there are some more ‘out there’ options too to squeeze some more bikes onto our screens and into our consciousness.

Easy…if you want to get people on their bikes then beam bikes directly into their skulls whilst they sit tongues lolling on the settee every night. Am I Right? who’s with me? What’s on the telly?

*If anyone would be so kind to make me a cassette tape to listen to in my car I would be very grateful, I don’t actually want to listen to the radio you understand and although I don’t drive my car much these days some cracking hardcore punk rock tuneage would make those few instances I do much more enjoyable. This is assuming that anyone still has the technology to create mix tapes these days I know that I don’t.

Having a day off today and having watched some highlights of the Tour of Qatar last night on the idiot lantern, I figured I absolutely had to make the most of today and get out on my bike. And so this is what I did. Now 2010 has not got off to a great start for me with regards to cycling, as I have (supposedly) been relatively busy on my days off and not squeezed in many rides. This is nonsense, as there’s always time for even a quick half hour spin just to keep the legs and lungs working. And herein lay my problem for this ride; it became abundantly clear to me on the first bit of moderate incline that I really need to get out on my bike more, otherwise it can be quite unpleasant.

I am ashamed to say that at the top of what isn’t really much of a hill in Meanwood, opposite that grim retail park where there’s a big Greggs and an Aldi (the glamour of Yorkshire…), I had to dismount for a couple of minutes breather. At least it was at the top I guess, but still, not good enough. Hopefully, admitting this here will spur me on to sort myself out.

Anyway, as the ride progressed, things got a little bit better and my jelly legs and searing lungs quieted themselves somewhat. It wasn’t an especially interesting ride – I notched up a meagre ten miles or so, just around the north of Leeds, as part of my ride plan was checking out an area over between Chapel Allerton and Roundhay that my friend is thinking of moving to.

But regardless of this, I have learnt a couple of things. The first is that I need to make the most of every opportunity I get to ride, as it makes every ride more pleasant and less painful. The second is that Qatar is incredibly flat, and Leeds is not, and so it is wise to be careful where you take your inspiration to ride from.

and

Fight Bad Driving.

Art imitating life?