My Bicycle and I http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk Wed, 22 May 2013 07:31:19 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Olde English Lanes http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/english-lanes/ http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/english-lanes/#comments Tue, 21 May 2013 18:36:30 +0000 Roff Smith http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/?p=4624 As a cyclist it pleases me to imagine that I am pretty well fancy free when I go out for my morning rides, roaming down the English lanes wherever I please on a whim, but the truth is that I tend to stick to the same few favourite courses – westbound over to Pevensey, or eastbound to Winchelsea and Rye, very occasionally north to Bodiam or Burwash. Of these, the big favourite, far and away in terms of mileage, is my old faithful ride across the marches to Pevensey Castle and the back the same way and along the seafront at Hastings. I know it by heart. It is as familiar to me as a nursery rhyme – and so it should be. At a conservative estimate I would have ridden enough miles on this particular set of roads to have taken me all the way around the Equator. I like the route too, and over time I have sort of settled into this comfortable and scenic rut. Today, as though waking from a reverie, I became intrigued by a narrow little lane near the Pevensey roundabout that I had seen and been aware of for some time but had [...]

The post Olde English Lanes appeared first on My Bicycle and I.

]]> http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/english-lanes/feed/ 8 My Bicycle and I http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/my-bicycle-and-i-2/ http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/my-bicycle-and-i-2/#comments Sun, 19 May 2013 18:07:30 +0000 Roff Smith http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/?p=4618 For some time now I have wanted to find an image that would illustrate the title of this blog, and encapsulate the sense of partnership between my bicycle and I as we make our dawn rounds of the English countryside – being the inspectors of sunrises as Thoreau once characterised himself in Walden. And this morning when I crested Galley Hill – a lump of sea cliff over which I have ridden literally hundreds of times – I think I found a good candidate. The sun was just rising, sending a rosy pink glow through the clouds and the sea had the luminous metallic-turquoise sheen that  I like so well. Everything was still and calm. I pulled over and set up tripod and camera as quickly as I good – trying to get this precious bit of light while it was there for the taking – and pedalled away on my Pegoretti pleased with the result. I hope you like it too.  

The post My Bicycle and I appeared first on My Bicycle and I.

]]> http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/my-bicycle-and-i-2/feed/ 4 The Future is Here http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/future-of-transportation/ http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/future-of-transportation/#comments Fri, 17 May 2013 20:06:01 +0000 Roff Smith http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/?p=4612 In the few minutes I had to spare this week I managed to read an article about a group of researchers, academics, industry experts and various high-priced CEOs who met at an invitation-only ‘do’ in Silicon Valley, California this week to discuss the digital revolution and the future of transportation. Lots of ideas were aired as you might expect, on the subject of travel and transport, everything from car-sharing to flying cars, with discussions of the bicycles and the wondrous environmental, transport and health benefits offered by cycling being notable mainly by their absence. What my inner ironist liked best though, in reading the coverage of the event, was an article on the CNN website about how today’s youth was falling out of love with cars. It was written in a rather despairing tone, citing the lack of passion in the young people of day for cars and driving. Not like the gold old days of high-octane V-8s. Many young city dwellers, they noted, do not even have drivers licenses – apparently as many as 30% of Generation-Yers (whoever or whatever they are) in France do not drive. Upfront costs, fuel prices, traffic jams and the hassles of trying to [...]

The post The Future is Here appeared first on My Bicycle and I.

]]> http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/future-of-transportation/feed/ 2 A Willing Spirit http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/a-willing-spirit/ http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/a-willing-spirit/#comments Mon, 13 May 2013 18:28:53 +0000 Roff Smith http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/?p=4606 It is unnerving how insidiously a lack of fitness can creep up on you without your ever realising it until suddenly one day there it is, sitting on your shoulder – literally, in my case. Since I returned to cycling a little over a week ago I had been able to lull myself into the belief that I hadn’t really lost that much in the ten weeks I was side-lined after my spill on black ice last February. Still less had I considered the possibility that in stopping for frequently to shoot photos for this blog over the past year, and the concomitant drop in mileage, might also have affected my fitness Sure, when I started up again last week I could sense that I had lost a step or two in coming up the big hill on St Helen’s Road but I could still do it in the big ring and so no big deal. And so bright and early yesterday I blithely set off up into the weald – the hilly interior of Sussex – to go for a nice long spin on the lanes. It was a beautiful morning. The bluebells were out. The sun was shining [...]

The post A Willing Spirit appeared first on My Bicycle and I.

]]> http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/a-willing-spirit/feed/ 4 Designer Lugs, Anyone? http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/designer-lugs-anyone/ http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/designer-lugs-anyone/#comments Fri, 10 May 2013 13:21:42 +0000 Roff Smith http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/?p=4598 This week has been a busy one with my writing several stories on the trot for National Geographic’s Newswatch column on its website. One of those stories I wrote was about the emergence of 3-D printing – a topic that leapt into the headlines on Monday with news that a 25 year-old University of Texas law school student named Cody Wilson had designed and printed up a functioning .38 calibre pistol out of plastic and then posted the design software on-line so anybody who wanted one – and had access to a commercial grade 3-D printer – could do it themselves. It was a provocative demonstration, and one that earned him a cease and desist order from his Uncle Sam (but not before his pistol design software had been downloaded more than a million times). Writing up the piece was a real eye-opener for me, the tawdry fact that some attention-seeking guy in Texas could use the technology to make himself a Saturday night special being by far the least interesting aspect of the story. It seems the world could be on the threshold of a brave new industrial revolution, one in which creative types among the rank-and-file have a [...]

The post Designer Lugs, Anyone? appeared first on My Bicycle and I.

]]> http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/designer-lugs-anyone/feed/ 2 Pretty in Pink? http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/pretty-in-pink/ http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/pretty-in-pink/#comments Wed, 08 May 2013 14:47:32 +0000 Roff Smith http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/?p=4593 I see Paul Smith is pleased with the reception his new design for the maglia rosa has been given over in Italy and no doubt he will be hoping it will be gracing a pair of lean British shoulders when the Giro d’Italia finishes in Brescia on 26 May. It is a nice looking jersey, although personally I would prefer it without all the sponsorship logos. Judging by his comments about wanting to make the overall look of the jersey cleaner and simpler than in previous years, Sir Paul himself probably wished he could have done without all the sponsorship clutter as well. But the aesthetics of sponsorship wasn’t really the point of this post –it is the colour of the jersey itself, pink. As any road race aficionado knows, pink was chosen for the winner’s jersey to reflect the pink-shaded newsprint of the Italian sporting journal La Gazzetto della Sport, which founded the race to help boost circulation in 1909. A hundred and thirteen years later, and ninety-six editions of the race, pink is still the colour of victory. What’s more, cycling – and not just in Italy, and at the Giro d’Italia – is one of the few [...]

The post Pretty in Pink? appeared first on My Bicycle and I.

]]> http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/pretty-in-pink/feed/ 6 The St Leonards Lido Shuffle http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/st-leonards-lido/ http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/st-leonards-lido/#comments Sat, 04 May 2013 08:01:18 +0000 Roff Smith http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/?p=4581 One of the tricks to editing my own copy that I have picked up over the years is to leave a manuscript alone for a few days after I have finished it, but before I have sent it off to anyone, and then pick it up and have a read of it as though you had never seen it before. The idea behind all this is that after a few days away you will have lost some of your intimacy with the story and thus be able to read it as one of your readers would, with fresh eyes. It never fails. Omissions, ramblings and awkward bits of phrasing that your eyes glided over earlier become apparent and fixing them a matter of child’s play. You also see what’s working well for you and, taking these positives as datum points, fine tune the flow and rhythm of the piece. In all, it’s a good thing to put aside a story for a while and then return to it, in the same way as it can be good to walk away from a jigsaw puzzle when you just can’t find the piece you are looking for. Then you come back and [...]

The post The St Leonards Lido Shuffle appeared first on My Bicycle and I.

]]> http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/st-leonards-lido/feed/ 0 Like Riding A Bicycle http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/like-riding-a-bicycle/ http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/like-riding-a-bicycle/#comments Thu, 02 May 2013 14:19:11 +0000 Roff Smith http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/?p=4572 It’s like riding a bicycle as the old saying going, a thing once learned that is never forgotten. And a good thing too, I say, after being out of the saddle for ten weeks but alas it seems those special gatekeeper cells in our brains that memorize certain motor skills don’t lock in the myriad other things that go into the making of a bicycle ride – details like remembering to include your cycling gloves in the pile of gear you bring down to the kitchen the night before so you’re ready to slip out the door bright and early the next morning, or recharge your headlights and/or camera battery, or making sure your helmet is dangling from the brake hoods of the bike you’re planning to ride so it won’t be inadvertently forgotten. Over the years I had quite a routine for my early morning rides, a checklist that began with what was typically my last act before going to bed: bringing all the relevant clothes – tights, jersey, jacket, gloves – down to the kitchen so it’ll be ready for me to use come morning. Have camera battery juiced up, the card re-formatted and tripod ready. Mobile phone [...]

The post Like Riding A Bicycle appeared first on My Bicycle and I.

]]> http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/like-riding-a-bicycle/feed/ 0 Handsome Bicycles http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/handsome-bicycles/ http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/handsome-bicycles/#comments Wed, 01 May 2013 17:56:12 +0000 Roff Smith http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/?p=4563 A few months ago when I sheared the threads on my right hand pedal on my old tourer and found myself in need of having to get the crank rebored I was obliged to buy a train ticket and take my bicycle thirty-odd miles up the line up to a bike shop in Tunbridge Wells – there was nothing really suitable any closer than that. I don’t count those automotive shops that also happen to have a few cheap bikes in the display window. Hopefully I won’t have any more of those kinds of misadventures, but if I do at least I won’t have to go so far because a bicycle shop, a genuine serious bicycle shop, Handsome Bicycles has opened its doors in Hastings, right smack in the town centre at Harold Place. In fact, it opened late last November but alas I have been so busy travelling and not being around and about that I hadn’t had time to go down there and take any photos for a blog post. I found the time the other day though, had a chat with the guys who are running it and was really pleased with what I found. Not only [...]

The post Handsome Bicycles appeared first on My Bicycle and I.

]]> http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/handsome-bicycles/feed/ 3 At Last! http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/at-last/ http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/at-last/#comments Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:14:22 +0000 Roff Smith http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/?p=4558 At half past five this morning I wheeled my Pegoretti out of the garden shed, pointed it down the street and set off for a dawn ride – my first since coming a cropper on a bit of black ice early last February. At last – cycling again! My apprehension at climbing back into the saddle again soon vanished, to be replaced by the old familiar jaunty expectancy that always goes hand-in-hand with a bike ride together with that almost aerial sense of liberation you feel when you are spinning along, free and clear and beholden to no one. To be sure my shoulder is still achy and sore – I really did a thorough job of messing up deltoids, ligaments and tendons this time, me thinks  – but it was a soreness that seemed more a part of healing than aggravating an injury. I didn’t go far: ten miles, one decent hill and no mishaps. I brought along my camera but in the end didn’t take any photos. It was simply too nice moving along the seafront and up the big hill by Alexandra Park for me to feel like stopping and setting up a shot.  And so the [...]

The post At Last! appeared first on My Bicycle and I.

]]> http://my-bicycle-and-i.co.uk/2013/at-last/feed/ 8