I had another (nice) day off work yesterday and headed into London.  It wasn’t a warm day but it was nice for November and at least it wasn’t raining.

Decided to visit the London Eye for the first time and the weather was good enough to give us a nice view of the city.  We were lucky as later in the afternoon the rain started and reminded us it was Autumn and England.

One biking-related thing to note, I saw a tour group from Fat Tyre Bike Tours – a nice idea and a great way to see the city.

Some more photos over on Flickr.

On a Saturday morning, the bike is far superior to the car.

Needing to wash some clothes, I realised I was out of the required ‘fluids’ so needed to head to the shops.  The sun is out today so I had no hesitation in breaking out the Dahon.

The roads around Rochester Bridge always get gridlocked at busy periods due to poor traffic planning around Strood so I figured that if I took the car, by the time I got to the shop and found a parking space I’d have finished the shopping if I’d travelled by bike.

I was right, it was gridlocked.  No problem for the Dahon though and the convenient cycle lanes!

It’s a great utility bike.

No cycling again this weekend as I headed back to Pembrokeshire to see my family.  A great weekend away and very relaxing – it’s far nicer there than here in the South East of England!

Didn’t take either of the bikes so I hope to get out on them during the nights this week.

Some pics of Pembrokeshire over on my Flickr account.

So, as I mentioned previously, I’ve set myself a challenge to cycle every road in Rochester.

Why?  There are so many streets and roads which I’ve never been down despite having now lived here for 12 years (wow, that’s a long time – hadn’t really thought of about how long I’ve been here).  So, I thought that this ‘challenge’ would be a good way for me to get out on the bike and also get to know the local area.

I had the day off work today so I headed out to the bottle bank with a load of bottles to recycle and I thought I’d make a start on the challenge.

Covered just over 7 miles and had a nice hour and a half of lazy ’sight-seeing’.

I need to have a think about how I show progress in relation to this challenge.  I think it’ll be a map.  I’d ideally like to have a list of all the local roads/streets and be able to tick them off as I progress, but that’s not possible as I can’t find a (free) listing of the local streets.  I need to think a little more…

Brompton’s inventor Andrew Ritchie has been awarded a design award by Prince Philip – the Prince Philip Designers Prize.

Congratulations to Andrew Ritchie and the guys over at Brompton!  This is great news and highlights the world of ‘folders’ to the wider community.

Link: BBC News story

Craigslist, the US-based advertising/community site, is sending a fair few visitors my way recently.

There’s a Dahon D7HG for sale in the SF Bay area (although it’s advertised as a D3/D7HG…).  Take a look if you’re over that side of the world and you’re looking for a Dahon.

Took a day off work today to headed into London’s Earls Court for the 2009 Cycle Show.  It was nice to not have to wake up at the unearthly hour I normally do, instead I slept in and crawled out of bed around 0730.

A cycling friend arrived at 0915 and we walked off to the train station and headed West towards Victoria Station in the centre of London.  Although rain was forecast for later in the day, it was a mild and bright day – good for cycling!

The show was well attended but it wasn’t over-crowded.  It was the first public day of the show, Thursday being a trade-only day, and I suppose that Saturday and Sunday are going to be the busiest.  Most of the big names were there, Cannondale, Scott, Bianchi, Colnago, Specialized, Brompton…  No Dahon though.  Thinking about it, not all the big US manufacturers were there, such as Marin, Trek, Giant.  But the Europeans were.

Bikes ranged from under £100 kids’ bikes to £8,000+ road bikes.  My eyes were watering at some of the price tags and my credit card was screaming to get out of my wallet – but I controlled it!  I didn’t buy anything

The high-end road bikes were incredibly lightweight.  I was really surprised at just how light bikes can be made these days.

I hung around the Brompton stand for a while taking a look at what was on offer.  These bikes are hand-made and to prove it they had a guy making bikes there, right in front of you.

It was the first time I’ve got my hands on a Brompton and it was very small and very light.  It was much smaller and lighter than my Dahon D7HG, but it was considerably more expensive too.  There were other folders on show too.  Moulton and Airminal were there, with the latter really catching my eye (but again, very expensive).

After a few hours of touring the stands, browsing the bikes and keeping my credit card in my wallet, we headed out for a few pints and a sit down before returning home on the train via Victoria Station.

More of my Cycle Show photos over on Flickr.

Alton Towers

Only just getting around to sitting down and posting this, after almost a week!

Went away last Saturday to Alton Towers, a theme park near Nottingham.  Went with eight friends from my old place of work and we had a great time.  I’m not a theme park fan but I have to admit that I really enjoyed the rides and the day out with my friends.

The rides were fantastic and by far the ’scariest’ was Oblivion – a ride which hangs you in mid air before letting your drop vertically into a darkened hole in the ground.  I left my stomach somewhere behind me on that ride!

We spent the day there before heading over to Nottingham for a night out on the town.  We were out pubbing and clubbing until 4am!  Fortunately I had Monday off work to recover…

So, no bikes last weekend, only thrills, excitement, beer and dancing!  And a hangover.

Well, the Dave On Dahon statistics page (not publicly viewable) is showing that winter is on its way and that the nights are drawing in.

My posts on the Cateye HL-EL450 and the NiteRider MiNewt Mini USB are climbing the popularity rank.  The Dahon D7HG review and that of the Trek 4300 are always in the top three popular posts but now I’m seeing lighting-related posts becoming more popular.

Shorter days and longer nights appear to be sending the cycling community out to investigate new lighting solutions to help keep them pedalling for longer in these ever shortening days.

The Bikes

Another ride today, 37.7 miles in total around parts of Kent but this ride was a little different – I had company.

I friend joined me for this ride.  We’ve been talking about setting up semi-regular rides and this was our first one.  I normally ride alone but today was fun.  He is fitter than me so he was powering up the hills and leaving me struggling behind in first gear!  To add insult to injury, he was even cycling back down the hills to see where I was! 

We left just before 9am and headed up the Medway valley through Wouldham, Burham, Eccles and Aylesford before crossing the M20 motorway travelling through some of the back roads of Maidstone.  Just before Bearsted we turned North and again crossed the motorway heading towards Detling.

Passing through Detling, we cycled on single lane country roads towards Thurnham and we were overtaken by some road cyclists, groups of four or more, who appeared to be part of a cycling club.  They shot by with their more suitable gearing and slick tyres and a cheery shout of “Morning!”.

The Black Horse Inn

We stopped for a snack in Thurnham, near the Black Horse Inn and Thurnham Keep – good food at the Black Horse, spent many a long evening in there eating good food and drinking great wine.  The odometer read 13.3 miles at this point, 1h23m and an average speed of 10mph.

From that point, we cycled down into Hollingbourne before we hit the biggest hill of the day.  In 0.79 miles we climbed 332.5 ft – it was a nasty hill, I almost gave up but I put my head down and pushed through the pain barrier.

The next place we stopped was a small village called Bredgar where we grabbed a Mars Bar and a Coke from the local Farm Shop (CTC cyclists welcome!) before sitting down by the duck pond.  Nice village with some nice houses – worth a look if you’re passing.

A House In Bredgar

Next stop was at Borden for a few photos of the church  before head down again and cycling back towards the Medway Towns.  Hempstead was our entry point where my friend broke off as we passed his house – he’d already cycled to my house in the morning so we ended up doing the same distance.  Then it was cycling alone back to my house.

A good ride.  It wasn’t sunny, but it was relatively warm.  No rain, which was great as earlier in the week they had forecast heavy rain.

More photos from the ride over on Flickr (click here).

The Route - 37.7 Miles, shown in yellow

The Ride's Profile