How annoying. As I was cycling on the exercise bike indoors, I had yet to realize that someone has taken away my bicycle some time between last night and this afternoon. If you see this bicycle anywhere in London please let me know at mrhazard [at] gmail (.com). There's only two of them in London and I know for a fact that the other one is owned by my friend. Here's the most recent pic I could find.
Here's some nice long cycling videos to keep you occupied on your exercise bike.
I just came back from the third round trip to work this week. It wasn't pleasant. The only rule about cycling in London you should know about: there are no rules. Ignore the red lights, take the sidewalk whenever you want, drive on the left, right or center, it doesn't matter. Take up a whole lane when it's convenient or squeeze yourself in the tightest spot when you have to. I am not exaggerating when I say that, as a cyclist in London, anything goes. Back in Japan I used to think my cycling behaviour was a bit on the aggressive and rule-ignoring side. Now that I'm cycling in London I can safely say that I am a very timid cyclist.
I was stuck in traffic for most of the time today. Two lanes full of cars and buses crawling along at a shit pace, and hardly any space left, right or center to pass. It was mostly zigzagging from lane to lane, sometimes crossing over on the oncoming traffic lane because it was simply too fucking crowded to move anywhere. This is NOT what cycling is about. Why anyone would tolerate this is a mystery to me. Cycling is about long-distance travelling in the countryside, not getting stuck behind buses and dump trucks in a dirty city. I've thought this before, and not just in the cycling context: Why do people choose to live in London when there are so many better places than this?
Anyway, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's talk about helmets. People who know me know that I am the most unorthodox cyclist you can imagine. My bike is shoddy and old and makes creaking noises when you press the pedals too hard, I have hardly any pro cycling clothes (and I would never wear that tight spandex stuff) and I most certainly would never even consider the thought of wearing a helmet. Coming from Holland where everybody cycles and nobody wears a helmet I find the concept ridiculous. I've cycled half of Japan without a helmet and never for a single moment felt that I was in any danger. Simply put: before this week, the word 'helmet' did not exist in my vocabulary.
Obviously that changed. The very first time I drove in central London this week I was amazed by the chaos, and perhaps slightly overwhelmed by how it all seems to work without any accidents. The second time I got used to the traffic flow, knew where the dangerous points were and was able to prepare for them accordingly. The third time I nearly got hit by a fucking bus.
It was indeed no fault of my own. It's happened many times this week that a car, taxi or bus came a bit too close for comfort and I had to prepare to take evasive action. But today I really nearly died. The bus driver really did not see me at all and just cut me off so sharply that if I didn't come to an immediate halt, I would've been crushed. I've had only one closer near-death encounter in my life, and that was when in Japan when I switched lanes from sidewalk to car road, and that was entirely my fault. This one was entirely not my fault, and it made me realize that this thing can happen very easily. Given the complete and utter lack of skill drivers in London have it is not an exaggeration to say that there are at least 10 times per trip where the chance of sustaining serious injuries is just too high. If I am to continue cycling in London, I need a helmet.
But, given that I now convinced myself that I need a helmet to cycle here, perhaps this is just not the place for me.
tl;dr: don't do it!
The weather was near-perfect today, so I decided to cycle to work rather than take the horrible tube. I grabbed my stuff and set off, intending to drive leisurely and find my way to work when reaching central London. The road is pretty much straight up until the very last bit so navigation wasn't too difficult. My route takes from Ealing to the Victoria, either via Shepherd's Bush or Hammersmith. Either route is about 14km. I tried both today.
Finding the right way in London is not very difficult. Actually getting on the right way is fucking impossible. Some of the square roundabouts have such a weird get-in-lane system that its flat-out dangerous to even try and get in the right lane on a bicycle. Hesitate for a split second and you lose your spot and you're surrounded by cars that are actively trying to kill you. I exaggerate a bit, and my exaggeration wrongfully makes the alternative seem like a viable option. Instead of driving on the road for these crossings, you could theoretically take the sidewalk instead. The problem is time: staying on the road takes 5 seconds to cross, driving up and down stupid pedestrian tunnels takes 5 minutes.
Some colleagues of mine who enjoy cycling have told me they quite like driving in central London, or that "it's not so bad". It is. London is just not meant for bicycles. I've been around central London by car (as a passenger) many times. I've observed other drivers' behaviour. It's far from perfect and sometimes downright dodgy, when in a car. On a bicycle those cars turn into kamikaze pilots trying their very best to get you off the road. I can't tell how many times I've been cut off at roundabouts or even just on a straight road. London cars don't know how to deal with bicycles.
I have to mention the road quality. Because it's not very good. There's bumps and holes everywhere. When you're at speed and see a hole coming up you can sometimes swerve, but usually you have to brake massively because the driver behind you is making it clear that he won't tolerate you taking up another centimeter of road. Also, there's glass everywhere.
Then there's the buses that pass you and then stop 5 meters in front of you to let passengers out. Passing the bus on a bicycle is yet another lifethreatening experience because the drivers behind you won't look ahead to see you changing lane. If you do manage to survive then the entire process repeats itself 1 minute later.
I could live with any one of these nuisances (except perhaps the many-many-bus problem), but all put together it's just right there at the border of being enjoyable/unenjoyable. And I mean right at the border. At some stretches it's really great to make progress at speed, but then junctions and buses and traffic jams (that leave no space for bicycles to pass) happen just a little but too often for comfort.
Consider the alternative: taking the tube. It takes about 2/3rds of the time, could be boiling hot and packed full of people, and costs money. I am a lazy person by nature. That is why I know that I can't allocate a lot of my free time to exercise, because I simply won't do it. But replacing an already annoying commute by something almost equally as annoying, yet providing exercise, that might be something to consider.
If only it didn't always rain in London...
I cycled to Horsenden Hill today, apparently the highest point in Ealing (my borough of London) at 84 meters high. I have nothing else to say about it.
I hope the author doesn't mind that I quote here in full the bit he wrote in bicycle traveler of January 2012. Just reading it makes me want to hop on my bike right now.. You can also find it on his blog: http://revolutioncycle.ie/?p=400
Someday, all of this will come to an end; the sleeping rough, chiseled calves, calloused arse, taking 8 hours of exercise a day, wearing the same clothes for two weeks straight, having an interesting topic for conversation, worrying about incline, gradient and road surfaces, eating like a horse, being able to eat a horse, not knowing the name of the town I’m in, forgetting the name of the person spending the night with, cycling another twenty km till lunch to save 50cents, living out of a waterproof bag in a steel trailer, saying Irlanda 30 times a day, saying no/non/niet/nine/ not Hollanda… Irrrrrrlanda, assessing the quality of a book by its size and weight as well as its content, wondering why anyone would ever wear clothes that are not waterproof/breathable/quick drying/light/thermal.Someday, I’ll be home; I’ll have a fridge, a cooker, a shower, a cupboard and a bed, I’ll be able to close a door and be by myself, talk to people in complex English with an Irish accent using colloquialisms, slang and very specific Alan Partridge references, I’ll be able to get out of my bed and not have to pack it away, and go to bed without waiting for darkness or asking some one’s permission, I’ll have to get up at a specific time and do tasks that someone else dictates, I’ll have a phone and a set of keys.
Someday, my life will be normal again, and uninteresting, and I’ll probably miss my stop on the train because I was daydreaming about when I lived on a special simple world called the road.
Look at that! Santa gave me in-screwable bar ends for my bicycle! I find this absolutely brilliant.
Also, this was my end-of-year summary post. Ha!
I finally fixed my flat tire this weekend!
The slime inner tube I bought turned out to fit perfectly for my rear tire, which is slightly wider than my front. I doubt that it'd fit in as easily in the front tire too. Unfortunately the slime tubes with presta valves don't come any smaller than 1.75".
As you can see the brake blocks very urgently needed a replacement too. I drove around in London for weeks with these without running into issues simply because it's so flat around here. I finally got the tuning of the brake blocks right and they're better than ever.
Xi let me borrow a really nifty chain cleaning tool that you can see in use here on the top bit of the chain.
It brushes each link in the chain while you rotate the pedals, and then the dirt gathers up at the bottom.
It's clean now. I sprayed the chain and it's running smooth again. It's going to be in this condition for a while as I probably won't be taking it out a lot this winter. London is just a shit place to cycle. Everything looks the same, the road quality is terrible and there's busses and other horrible traffic everywhere. Besides that, the areas in London are very regimented. Residential areas are really only residential. You can go in and explore for a bit but the only way out will be to go back to the main road that you came from. The main road that's full of buses that overtake you and then stop right in front of you at the bus stop, only to repeat the process again 1 minute later. London is not for cycling.
But I know some countries that are. :)
I go the gym twice a week. It's become a fairly regular activity. When I first started going to the gym a couple of months ago, I did a bit of running and a lot of cycling, in about a 4 to 1 ratio. These days, I'm only cycling, and for a longer period of time. Twice 35 minutes is my current workout. I can keep it up nicely at a medium to high pace. But I've reached my limits, and I cannot surpass them. Not with the amount of time I've got, anyway.
Last year, cycling through Japan, being on the bicycle for 8 plus hours each day, I was improving. There is a certain point of change, under which you slump back into being what you are now, and above which you will start to improve yourself. Given my build, my current weight, and the amount of time I make myself available to train, I am unable to improve myself. Simply put: I'm quite fat and I have a weak heart. The counterpoint to that is that my muscles are strong. Whereas most cyclists seem to do very high rpms to decrease the burden on their muscles, I prefer to burden my muscles and decrease the load on my heart. Whether this is to blame on genetics giving me a crap heart or lifestyle and lack of self control making me fat, fact is: my muscles are the most reliable part of my body. Yet I can't improve them.
My lack of self improvement issue very evident my the modern machinery they have available in the gym. I know exactly how much calories I spent, what my average rpm was and what my heart rate was like during the exercise. Knowing that it's very easy to tell myself: "next time I'll just do a constant 10rpm more"' or "next time I'll increase the load on my muscles". But I've tried that, and I don't improve. My performance is as constant as the massive puddle of sweat under the fitness machine after I've finished exercising.
Time is the key factor. I know I'm slow at improving, especially when it comes to physical matters. But I simply don't have enough of it. To surpass that point of improvement, beyond which I will see tangible results, I can't reach my goal by just spending 1 more hour each week. It's not that easy. I need 8 hours or more. This is an absolute and unchangeable fact I have come to understand about myself over the years. I have a full-time job, a 1.5 hour long commute, a girlfriend, and many hobbies that I enjoy very much. Exercising more means neglecting other important parts of my life, not just because of the physical effort, also because of the mental effort (and tired mental after-state) that accompanies it. Therefore, I must remain mediocre at best.
Until my next cycling trip, that is.
