Darker Side

Chain coming off, chain(s) going on…

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:49:50 +0000

Chain coming off, chain(s) going on…

Quality time spent with a wire brush and 2.5 lengths of standard...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:23:00 +0000

Quality time spent with a wire brush and 2.5 lengths of standard chain. One side done. And most of a Coldplay album listened to.

There’s something really special about the west coast of Scotland for destroying chains. Even running full mudguards and mudflaps, the ride up the coastal road manages to work salt deep into every link. At least the bike is also orange, so the colours match…

Left hook from First Group bus

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:10:25 +0000

Seeing as First Group Glasgow don’t have a published email for contacting them, we’ll go with an open letter… Regrettably the photo taken further down the road doesn’t show anything useful (unless of course you count braking whilst tailgating another cyclist)

Driving without due care, R150 GSF, 18h05, South Frederick St

Dear Sirs

Can I invite you to discuss with the driver of one of your single-decker coaches, registration R150 GSF, displaying not in service to the fore and a single number 5 to the rear, and whom I’d charitably describe as ‘heavily built and with a diminishing hairline’, exactly why left hooking vulnerable road users is dangerous? He’ll be expecting you.

At 18h05 today, I was cycling at about 20kph (quite happy to provide the GPS trace) southbound down S Frederick St in the centre of the left hand turn lane. Your driver attempted to overtake in the right hand turn only lane, and realised about 10m away from the junction that he was going to be caught in the wrong lane by the amber light. There was no traffic behind me, so the sensible option would have been to pull in behind me, and we’d both have waited for the lights to cycle. Instead:

Optimistically applying his left indicator, he began to pull into my lane. I was midway along his vehicle at this point.
As I realised what he was doing, I braked sharply and pulled tightly against the curb. Your driver continued to force me out of my lane, and when he was on the dividing line between the two lanes, swung left round the junction through the now red light. I was cut off completely, as clearly the back end of a bus doesn’t follow the track of the front wheels.
Walking round the junction, I then cycled to the front of his vehicle and waved (politely, if with some exasperation) at him, expecting an apology; I can vaguely understand moments of idiocy which we immediately regret, although I’d expect better from a professional driver. However, he made eye contact and then ignored me completely, barring a slight revving of his engine
He’ll have later spotted me taking a quick picture of his vehicle as he pulled in to your Victoria Road depot, primarily to highlight how endangering me saved him no time whatsoever

Three cyclists have already been killed this year by HGV drivers dragging them under their wheels as they turn left - please educate this one before he causes the fourth. He can be thankful that I don’t yet carry my video camera during the daily commute, otherwise it would be the police getting in contact with him rather than yourselves. As it is, until First are able to demonstrate that they are able to foster driving which safeguards others on the road, open letters such as this will continue to be posted online.

I’m in the process of replacing worn out bits of the drivetrain...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:02:10 +0000

I’m in the process of replacing worn out bits of the drivetrain on the (now almost 3 year old) Fuego, and have been pondering whether I can improve the chainline at all (which is currently very tube-y). The current plan is to go for the double terracyle idler under the seat, and a single one on the boom to hoik the return line over the front wheel. However, being somewhat tightfisted, I’m wondering what the implications of just running the return straight to crankset alongside the front wheel is, cutting out an idler for the sake of adding in a short length tube. All the “fast people”^TM do this, but then they also probably have fancy wonky forks and don’t have to deal with buses and sharp left-handers.

There’s not a huge amount I can find on the web on chainline for commuting recumbents, and even fewer pictures of what works and what doesn’t. The current plan is to get hold of a load of side-on pictures of bikes (hopeful posts are currently on YACF and citycyclingedinburgh), highlight the chainline, idlers, tubing and any other fancy bits with bright colours, include them with the rider’s comments on how it works, and then stick them all together in a blog post as a reference for anyone else who’d be interested. If anyone has come here without passing via either of these fora it’d be great if you could donate a side-on picture of your beloved steed along with any pertinent comments (model of recumbent, is the chainline standard or have you tweaked it, does it work well, etc), I’ll then colour it in and post it (together with credit and references etc), and then maybe we can all steal each others ideas!

The picture at the top shows what I’m planning. Something like green for drive side and blue for return. Thin and light is bare chain, thick and dark is tube. Idlers are round. Obviously. And similar pictures for a whole load of different recumbents. Anyway, watch this space. Recumbent Chainline Gallery coming to a site near you!

Blackout SOPA

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:22:34 +0000

To add weight behind the shoal of minor websites shutting down tomorrow in protest at SOPA (wikipedia and reddit, to name two) Darkerside will also be going dark. Or at least, not updating.

Given the ability of the American legal folk to create vague legislation and then hand out astronomical penalties for breaching the footnote on page 47 (ITAR springs to mind), freedom of speech on the web strikes me as something worth standing up for.

In addition, with wikipedia down I’d have nothing intelligent to say anyway.

@darkerside

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:59:12 +0000

@darkerside:

In another lucky break with available user names, I’ve broken into twitter. Part of the logic was it’s much easier to update twitter via text, and 3G signal across much of the west coast is patchy at best. It also seems a better platform for random thoughts, grumblings and photos and lets me keep this blog for more in-depth stuff that might be vaguely interesting to read…

Anyway. It’s there if you fancy a nosey. Along with the fetching new black/orange/white colour scheme. Can you tell all my education was science side? Thought so.

Although I could see the bin possibly prompting competitions on...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:00:05 +0000

Although I could see the bin possibly prompting competitions on the theme of accuracy/passing speed…

Finally found what I hope is the original source of this image - Lisbon Cycle Chic* I’m...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:04:14 +0000

Finally found what I hope is the original source of this image - Lisbon Cycle Chic*

I’m going to neatly use this image to illustrate a point made by ExcitableBoy on a recent CityCyclingEdinburgh thread, which I hadn’t really thought about before. Namely:

Cyclists do not delay motor vehicles. Motor vehicles delay cyclists.

Neat, eh? Let me expand a bit. In my mind, a delay has occurred if you get to your destination later than you would have otherwise done. So, lets take a road-hogging, slow, always-in-the-way cyclist called Bob, and (just to keep any public key fanatics happy) a speedy Audi driver called Alice. Who’s on the way to a meeting.

Alice comes up behind Bob on a blind right hand bend. Because Alice is a better than average driver, she decides against chancing it and hooning round the bend on the opposite side of the road and instead sits behind Bob all the way round the bend. Call it 5mph (Bob’s having a bit of a lazy day, truth be told. He might be whistling). 15 seconds (30ish metres) later the road straightens out, Alice checks the coast is clear, moves smoothly out, passes Bob and heads off at speed. Now, has Bob delayed Alice, maybe putting her all-important meeting at risk? Only if Alice is able to maintain the maximum safe road speed all the way to her destination, without any other events causing her to slow down for more than 15 seconds**. Hits a traffic light? Catches up with a car in front? Has to wait to turn right into the company car park? The cyclist delay is wiped out. Bob has had no effect on the time taken for Alice to get to her meeting.

Switch it around. Cyclists rarely catch things powered by burning oil in freely flowing traffic, after all, all we have is Weetabix and the odd banana. We also generally travel at our maximum possible speed (rather than an artificially limited top speed limit), so have much less capacity for making up time lost by delays. Almost every second lost due to the number of vehicles on the road is added on to our total journey time.

So. Drivers. Next time you’re part of a traffic jam and see a cyclist slowly filter past, or stuck behind you sucking in your exhaust fumes, be embarrassed in the knowledge that your choice to pick a 2 tonne metal box to get to the shops is making that cyclist late for their tea. And when you politely wait for chance to safely pass another cyclist, be safe in the knowledge that you’ll still get to that meeting at the same time.

* As an aside, whilst trawling their site to confirm this I also came across a surreal video of naked women riding multicoloured fixies. From this I draw the conclusion that it’s warmer in Lisbon than Glasgow. I digress

** OK, well actually this is only really accurate if you also factor in the speed difference. Assume Alice was doing 30mph and lets assume this is a really upmarket Audi with instant acceleration. Lets also switch to metric (the cyclist’s favourite ego-flattering trick). In 15 seconds she should have gone 166m at 40kph, but instead only went 33m (15 secs at 8kph). She’d lose the same 133m progress with a 12 second stop at traffic lights.

Bike shed no match for wind in “Scotland occasionally...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:07:47 +0000

Bike shed no match for wind in “Scotland occasionally breezy” shocker.

Drying out after its winter bath…

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:02:13 +0000

Drying out after its winter bath…

MacGyver's Shoes

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:58:40 +0000

As subtly hinted at by this morning’s tweet, I have been road testing a budget option of winter-proofing my SPD shoes.

Shown half-way through the delicate procedure, you may notice one of the bomb-proof Shimano shoes has been subtly modified to block off the toe ventilation. The end result should hopefully be toasty piggies, whatever the weather.

Does this work?

No. No it doesn’t. Snug feet are achieved, even in the stiff breeze and sleet we had this morning. However, the gaffer cap is already separating off from the toe, so unless you’re happy to recreate this every night, it might be time to pony up for some overshoes.

Anyway, I’ve decided that unless I am physically unable to open the front door due to snow fall tomorrow, the recumbent is getting an outing. Upright bikes in a headwind are such hard work. This means that I’ll be leading with a good half inch of rubber sole, and warm feet are a happy bonus.

Realtime gritter movement from BEAR

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 07:41:32 +0000

Realtime gritter movement from BEAR :

I find this kind of thing oddly fascinating. Look at them go! Ahem…

Anyway, first snow of the winter, so still on the spikey-tyred upright. Mainly slush, so only real issue is hidden potholes. Dug the helmet out of the cupboard for a bit of extra warmth and muppetry insurance.

Oscar mans the breach

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:38:51 +0000

Excitingly (and somewhat mysteriously) the recumbent front disc brake managed to eat its own pads on the way home last night. I know, I didn’t know that could happen either. As a result, you may have heard me limp past last night making a noise like a tin can in a washing machine. It appears that part of the spring which keeps the two pads apart somehow got sucked between the caliper and the rotor, and punched a hole straight through the pad. I was quite impressed at the damage…

Staggeringly the rotor has survived unscathed. However, whilst I wait for Wiggle to shunt me a new set of pads, the upright was pressed into service as a commuter.

Meet Oscar.

Oscar was my daily commuter until I went all recumbent-y. It’s a Kona Sutra, in what I’m sure Kona would rather call metallic chocolate but is in fact brown and glittery. It’s a spectacular bike, has no problem with the weekly shop/recycling load, was the only thing moving (ok, moving under vague control) in the Glasgow Day Of Snow And Ice last year and weighs the same as a small moon. Sadly in full winter get-up, with spikey tyres, DIY fenders, kickstands, a stupid amount of racks and me wheezing on top of it, it did get slightly left behind in the train of bikes powering into the base today.

Still, it was fun being able to see over cars for a change!

Cold & Dark Ride II

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:54:29 +0000

Having missed the first Cold & Dark Ride organised throught the Glasgow Fixed Gear forum due to a front brake cable deciding that existance as two separate halves was just more fun, I finally got out last night with NiallC from the forum for the rerun. Ended up being a very pleasant evening ride along mainly quiet, unlit country lanes. Even the rain held off.

Also discovered that a heavy, aerodynamic recumbent and an upright, lightweight fixed gear go (to steal Neill’s words) ’ at totally different speeds if any form of climb / descent is involved’. The lower bike weight and more efficient upright climbing position is definitely the sole reason for the fixie’s increased climbing prowess. Absolutely. Definitely nothing to do with rider fitness…!

Anyway, I’m quite happy with an overall average of 23kph over 2 hours, especially as I still had the normal work luggage on the back. GPS below (slightly bigger map through clicking on the title)

Cold & Dark Ride 2

Delicately lifted from Ecovelo and originally from (R)evolutions...

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 19:19:27 +0100

Delicately lifted from Ecovelo and originally from (R)evolutions per Minute, watch this for some genuinely spectacular bikes. If you haven’t got time to watch the whole thing, then skip to about 5:00 for a flying Xtracycle and 7:00 for some stonkingly large batteries. Then watch the whole thing.

Electrifying

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 13:13:47 +0100

Wheel back, dynamo fitted, light cabling done, heavy rain falling. Ideal Scottish testing conditions. Watch this space…

The Need For Speed

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 15:45:49 +0100

Finally got around to writing the post that really describes the point of this blog. Regret you’re unlikely to find a philosophical epiphany, but there’s some faintly amusing alliteration.

I have a 30 mile (each way) commute, which is a bit of a pain. Currently 20 miles is done by train, which costs 30 quid a week. Travel time is about 3 hours a day. Disregarding the sanity of doing this just to sit behind a desk all day, the aim of the game is to decrease the time spent commuting without having to remortgage the flat and without becoming a broken cripple of an individual come the evening and weekend.

The recumbent was the first step down this road, giving a slight speed boost and a huge advantage in comfort. The other key benefit of such a bike is that the fettling of recumbents in search of going faster is a well documented and wide open avenue of discovery, glory and fibre glass. If the idea of some quality shed time appeals, there’s hardly a better subject.

So, some ground rules and objectives.

Commute time will be measured door to door and I’ll use an average taken across the week to measure progress.
I’ll be completely open about costs incurred in the pursuit of speed. Given my other half occasionally audits these pages, this places full carbon disc wheels firmly out of the question.
To link 1 and 2, I’ll ‘pay’ myself £10 an hour. Therefore consistently saving 5 minutes a day would be worth it for a cost of £4.16 a week (£10 x 5/60 [fraction of hour] x 5 [days in week])
All day lycra and Spar sandwiches are both pretty grim. The bike must remain able to carry a change of clothes and my lunch.
Getting squashed forfeits the game: the bike must remain road legal. Lights and brakes folks, lights and brakes.

So. How to approach this wee project? And where, for that matter, is the promised alliteration?

I reckon there are three groups of things that can be done to decrease commuting time, which I’ve given suitably cheesy titles:

Drop the Drag: Everything to do with reducing the forces slowing the bike down. Aerodynamics, surface drag, weight - get it here.
Push the Power: More power reaching the rear wheel means more speed. Ish. Think things like training, nutrition, reducing drivetrain friction.
Maintain the Motion: Cruising at 30mph is no good if the route is peppered with red traffic lights, or if every corner slows the bike to a crawl.

Right. Game on…

P.S. For the sceptics, note that driving would save 45 minutes a day, plus the £30 of train fares a week. Using the scoring in point 3, the total time and money saved comes to just over £3k a year (assuming I work 45 weeks a year). The best car route is 33 miles one way, so we’re looking at a total of 14,850 miles in the same year. Based on the AA’s latest cost of running tables (using 37.15p/mile) that’s likely to cost £5516, not including buying the car in the first place or the fact that insurance is generally hilarious for 25 year old males. Superior transport indeed…

Ambulance cover for the Great North Run

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:08:00 +0100

The Great North Run 2011 took place last Sunday. As well as being the occasion where a large number of unsuspecting men lose all the skin from their nipples, it is one of the world’s largest half marathons with over 38,000 runners and therefore a somewhat challenging duty to cover from an Ambulance point of view. It’s one of the few events where British Red Cross, St John Ambulance and the NHS Ambulance Services cooperate in a big way. A big part of the cover provided (and for a significant chunk of the race, the fastest responding assets available) is the ambulance cycles.

Effectively, if you call 999 anywhere near the finish line, it’s one of the above that will be sprinting to your aid.

I won’t sing the praises of cycles in this particular post, but instead I’ll give you an idea of what we got up to over the course of the day. Myself and a colleague from Northumbrian SJA provided the final pair of bikes, covering the patch after the finish line up to the metro station and ferry, where runners are cooling down, standing in long queues for public transport, and generally getting fairly wobbly.

The GPS trace is at the bottom, but most of the day was spent slowly cruising through dense crowds and dodging the queues of buses parked up. The only real emergency run you can spot was after the 30km mark, with about a km run at around 26km/h. Considering the weight of the kit (gas cylinder, defibrillator, full treatment kit), the knobbly tyres and the people and traffic (being able to stop cars and legally go the other side of road islands helps…) this isn’t too shabby in my mind.

Anyway, happily the ‘collapsed 50 year old male’ had recovered and wandered off by the time we arrived, and the nearby Diabetes UK charity tent graciously donated free cake to speed our recovery…

St John Ambulance C6 and C7 during Great North Run

For the terminally intrigued, I’ve thrown up pages with a bit more detail on the machine in...

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:21:44 +0100

For the terminally intrigued, I’ve thrown up pages with a bit more detail on the machine in question, as well as the loon riding it. You’ll find the links at the top.

It's rude to point

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:19:00 +0100

It’s also unnecessary if you are blessed with the conventional style of indicators in your car.

The easiest way to indicate from the Fuego appears to be a nonchalant bent-elbow pointed finger in the direction intended. Whilst in the front of a queue waiting to turn right at a crossroads, I noticed that the driver of the car opposite was also pointing out of his window, signalling clearly that he also intended to turn right. Whilst I appreciate the extra effort to communicate with cyclists, I think in this case the bright flashing orange light is sufficient…