Clarity

It's time for a rant*. I read on the news this morning that Transport Secretary Alistair Darling has announced that £7m is being given to Durham, the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Tyne and Wear, Shrewsbury, Cambridgeshire and Bristol to develop their own versions of the Congestion Charging Scheme recently hailed as such a "success" in London.

If this proves a "success", a version of the system would be rolled out nationally, and would be used to replace either fuel duty or Vehicle Excise Duty. There is no deception though, it's admitted that this will likely mean an increase in cost to the driver overall.

As a sop, there is very vague talk of improving transport infrastructure as a whole and a "major feasibility study" to develop a congestion management strategy is expected to be published next year. What is going to be published? The plan of the study? The results? How long will the study take? No news on that so far. Yes yes, I may be accused of putting my own spin on what's been announced. I don't apologise for that, I'm putting it into practical context from my point of view.

So we will shortly be seeing a lot of congestion charging pilots of different flavour across the country. There is no mention as to whether these charges will also include cyclists. I trust not.

This is announced at approximately the same time that Southern Railway has announced its intention to "rigorously" enforce their peak times restriction. "The high volume of passengers who use our trains during the peak times means that we cannot accommodate ordinary cycles on Southern services at these times. This means on trains travelling towards either London or Brighton and due to arrive between 0700 and 1000 and trains leaving either London or Brighton between 1600 and 1900. Outside of these times, we accommodate ordinary cycles free of charge on our trains and without a prior reservation."

Also, South Eastern trains say "A limited number of cycles are allowed on our services free of charge except for those trains timed to arrive in London between 0700 and 1000 and depart London between 1600 and 1900. This is because our services are so busy during this time our priority must be to accommodate fare paying passengers and not cycles. However, folded bikes can be carried onboard at anytime." That's good of them.

First Great Western Link's excuse is that there are merely enforcing a policy which Thames Trains first introduced, and then are much more honest and transparent in their reasoning in that the 0-5 minutes delay trigger (on which they are monitored as part of their performance indicators) would be more likely to be tripped if cycles were freely allowed. They discuss the fact that should a cyclist find that the 3 allowed spaces were full on certain types of trains then they would have to try other carriages. True, and makes a very good case for cargo/cycle carriages. I quote: "The main purpose for the enforcement of this policy is to help to reduce delays on peak time services. Admittedly delay minutes caused by bikes alone cannot be quantified. However each delay, even if only of 1 or 2 minutes at each station, act like 'building blocks' which when added up cause substantial delays to FGWL services." I have to give them great credit for honesty and openness.

I would have been cycle and train commuting ages ago if I was able to. It would be a nice 12 miles to Guildford, hop on the train to North Camp, and then about 4 miles to work. Sweet. I would do that happily. If I could take my cycle on the train to work, my fitness would increase hugely. If my fitness was increased, why would I drive to Guildford on a weekend and struggle to park? If I could rely on the train allowing me and my cycle on, I would take the train to Romsey to visit my Mum and cycle to her house.

If I could freely take my cycle onto trains I could give up my car. It would mean some lifestyle and arrangement changes, but it could be done. See the link??!! How long is it going to take for this connection to be made by those deciding policy? Are we serious about carbon emissions or not?

* This is a rant. It is not necessarily reasonable, logical, well thought-out, grammatically correct or accurate. Rants generally aren't.

I was in a fearful mood this evening and gave my other half advance wanting to give him a fighting chance of surviving the evening. So he came home with the below cartoon. I just couldn't keep a straight face which totally ruined the attitude I was trying to maintain. Grrr.

I have still been going out on Jackdaw an average of two times per week since the Big Dark started. Not as often as I would like to. I've sorted out the light problem, although I would like more; I've not been offroad in the dark again as the one time I did, it was extremely muddy and the light was being eaten by the lack of reflective material on the track. It was scary. I needed to go quite slowly and got spooked by figures moving in the trees that I didn't think should be there (if you know what I mean). I would really have liked to pile on the speed but didn't want to end up face-planting into the ground or a tree, so had to brazen it out with confident body-language and poker-face. It seemed to work.

Then the route that I had chosen with good surface, a fun mixture of street-lighting and Absolute Black, a logical turning point and rest-and-drink place turned out to be depressingly short in distance. It seemed remarkably hard work for such a short distance though. Wierd.

My average speed has also dropped to an obscenely low level - it's getting embarrassing to even look at come the end of the ride.

After having entered all this bad news into my spreadsheet a few times, reason kicked in and informed me that it's impossible that it can be two miles to the village centre and back but only be one mile more to go considerably further. I drove the route on the way to work. The computer is recording less than 50% of the total trip distance.

Cycle computer was checked for correct rolling distance; it was recording 95% of the distance travelled - not enough to explain the 50% drop). Magnet and sensor position relative to each other checked - fine. Clean - yep. Distance from transmitter to computer mount measured - well within the maximum distance. Checked again and again and again as I was convinced it must be one of these things causing the problem.

Went to cycle computer manufacturer's website and looked at online manuals and tech support. Minimum operating temperature? O°C. Ahhhhhh!!! We have a culprit. The car has been recording between 3°C and 4°C on the way home for weeks now and after sunset it's bound to be a lot lower. With the windchill of me going between 8 and 18mph, faster if I go for some hills, the temperature will be considerably less! Especially when the temperature does not even get into positive figures all day, unless in direct sunlight.

So the truth of it is that my average speed, rather than being gobsmackingly low, has actually been increasing nicely, and my trip distances have been coming along nicely too. All I have to do is to make a note of my departure time and time arriving back home, right? I know the mileage of my route and can therefore work out average speed.

There is a teeny tiny problem remaining however.

I like to poke around and lurk when on my bike. I like the feeling of being able to explore this lane or this track or see what’s around this corner just because I feel like it at the time. I especially like to stop, turn off all lights, stand in the lee of a tree and just take things in for a while sometimes. Thursday night was a classic example – the moonlight was simply blaring down onto fields white with frost, with bare tree silhouettes on the crest of the hill, and that kind of deep quiet that you usually only get when it's snowing.

I can’t really see me dutifully recording these starts and stops in a little notebook so as not to mess up my average speed. I think I should take this as a reminder that there is, and always was, much more to cycling than numbers and performance increase (however slow). If that were all there was to it, I may as well be in a gym or in my bedroom on the stepper. I wonder how everyone else copes when the stats are not available any more.

My hubby brought this little cartoon home for me not too long ago - he found it in a paper abandoned on the South-East train system and thought of me. He's a very clever man and knows me very well indeed.

The sunshine and crunchy trails and frosted leaves and mist and sharp cold are out there and I'm stuck in an office. Bah. Why is it that it was grey and freezing and totally un-inspiring yesterday and today it's like this??? Blue sky and blinding sunshine out there. It's really such a tease.

It was so grim yesterday that I could not bring myself to cycle out - ended up on the cardio exerciser upstairs whilst entertaining myself with Buffy Series 3 and Black Books. Productive, in an exercise sense, but boring. Grrrrrr.

Poor Ian. Ever since he was informed of the latest attempt on the Highest Doughnut Pile Guiness World Record attempt this week, he's been consumed with longing for a squashy, moist paper bag containing selected samples of the Krispy Kreme confection. His boyhood in London offered him endless opportunity to sample, but now the nearest outlet is more than a 60 mile round trip.

How will he cope???

I've managed to get my grubby mitts on a Flybook to evaluate over the weekend. Mmm mmmmmm mmmm mmmm.

After being out so long and for so late last night at the local firework festivities, I was quite tired and dragged myself out of my nest in the early hours of this afternoon to see some quite spectacular rain and wind. Being deranged, I suggested to Ian that we drive down to the coast with blankets, biscuits, flask of hot Horlicks and cameras and get as close to the seafront as possible as I had an inkling that it might be quite wild down there. And so it was.



I'm taking anti-claustrophobic photos at the moment as it's that time of year and I'm obsessed with the sky, but you can see the waves and the tiny shore on the left, so you can see how close to the sea we were! The car was rocking on its wheels and the rain was lashing down. Can you guess what happened? Ian went off to collect stones to tumble, and I curled up in a huge fleece blanket, listened to music, wiped the rain off the windscreen periodically and ran the fan heater occasionally. For three hours.

Hmmmm. Have you guessed yet? Ian came back eventually, soaking wet, and warmed up whilst darkness fell and the rain came down harder. When it was pitch black and we couldn't see a thing any more we decided to start home and I turned the ignition. Click click click click. Ah. Click click click click. It's times like these that you really don't want to discover that you don't have any signal on your mobile.

But I did, and the AA man arrived and jump-started my car and it all ended Happily Ever After. Whew.

I got treated to a screening of the new Pride & Prejudice film yesterday evening. Having been bought the BBC series recently by a very kind husband I was trying not to make comparisons. For the record, I honestly don't see an issue in the artistic assumption that Darcy would swim in his own lake if he felt the urge.... I would! And I don't see that the fact that scene is not in the book should lessen its importance in the series..... (Heh heh heh.) So was the film any good? Well, if your judging in terms of costume authenticity and keeping the important parts of the story in, it was rubbish. But it was sexy as hell. Matthew MacFayden was stunning, and I was not surprised to learn that he's also played Hareton Earnshaw (Wuthering Heights) in a TV production in 1998.

On the way to the cinema, we walked along the river, and I noticed that the local Borough Council have decided this to be a good idea:



Now yes, I know all about the wanton wastage of power and blah blah, but honestly, I thought these were much nicer than the usual filthy yellow lights that I'm usually treated to in dark corners. It was really dark, so I couldn't show the lights reflecting in the river as well.

Daft I know, but it gave me a lift to see these colours. I think attention to detail in planning how a town will look, even after dark, is important. I also realise that I become absurdly pleased about the strangest things.

I was picking up some emergency shopping on the way home and saw this on the way in to the shop:



So funny. Now admittedly, that's not a quick-release seatpost, and I guess the owner had measured the desirability of the bike against how much effort someone might feel it worth to try and remove the saddle, but, honestly, it only takes a spanner and five seconds... I know, I'm crediting them with far more intelligence than they are likely to possess.

I wonder about these scary bike theft stats when I see things like this - also the family not far from where I live who have Mum's and Dad's and 2 x sprogs' bikes out in the garden leaning against the house, loosely covered in plastic, right on the main road.... and the house across the green from me who leave a mountain bike in their front garden over night, night after night..... I think they want the insurance payout.

I resigned from the leisure club that I have been a member of since stopping smoking a year-and-a-half or so ago last night. I called them to find out how to resign and spoke to an irritating half-wit on their Reception which prompted me to print the letter, pop the membership and locker cards in an envelope and hop on Jackdaw to run the whole lot the mile or so down the road to save the cost of a stamp. Ate spaghetti from the stash in the back of the cupboard for supper too, so no cost there. Cancelled the £40 monthly direct debit too.

I felt that was quite significant. It’s the first of a bunch of decisions taken literally in the last few days. The others have to do with not putting off things that I want to do. If I want to visit a relative, I should arrange it. If I want to see a film, I should book it. In the wise words of Gwen Stefani, “What you waiting for?! Take a chance you stupid ho!” There are reasons why I have got into the habit of being timid and procrastinating, but they are all being addressed now.

So far because of this crisis a trip to Prague is being planned, two cinema visits, a girls' pajama party, a mystery bike ride, a fantastic plan for the upcoming village bonfire and fireworks this Saturday and a visit to my second-oldest schoolfriend and her new partner. Much, much more is in the pipeline!