Bike Shaped Object

Monday 29th March 2010... the day I overtake an electrically assisted bike shaped object which looks a bit like a mopped but isn't.

I had been following this machine up the Rodwell Trail and decided that I just had to try out my 'bent legs and their new found muscles... as you can see in the video, the pilot of the electric device pedals to help the batteries get her up the 1:50(ish) gradient of the old track bed but to no avail - mere electricity is no match for a pair of finely tuned 'bent legs!!!

Given all the extra effort one would have to put in to move the battery weight around when the charge drops I often wonder if there is any net benefit at all in these machines.

Bike Shaped Object (BSO) is a slightly (well OK very) derogatory term used for the <£100 machines you can get from national chains - they tend to:-

be heavy;
have full suspension for no apparent reason;
not particularly well made or finished;
be and ridden for 3 weeks until boredom or in the worst cases actual pain - from the completely bad setup - sets in.

A BSO is technically a bike because it has two wheels... however the rest is mmmm well you probably get the idea by now.

As an aside I find it a trifle odd that this point in the commute is about 50% of the way to work, yet takes 1/3 of the time taken for the whole journey.

Traffic on the trail

What ever next? Pedestrians using a shared path? how very dare they? it is only shared after I have finished using it!!!!

Well actually it was a bit of a comedy of errors.

Woman stops to empty her dog at the rubbish bin just by the junction.
I pass her and start the descent off the embankment. I notice the chap in Hi-Viz struggling up the hill and manage to control a fishtail - the rear wheel locked up and slid on the white paint of the give way sign - he fails to decide exactly where he is going to walk until almost too late...

Today was the first day that there was any significant traffic on the Rodwell Trail and it just had to be at the most awkward section (from my point of view) though earlier on I had met a council truck driving along emptying the rubbish bins... getting past him was fun and I was glad that the Orca is much narrower than the upwrong handle bars.

All in all good fun and no harm done to anyone. Just after this I was caught out by the 30s lights - they changed much more quickly than I was expecting which makes a change.

30 Seconds

Just how long is 30 seconds anyway?

This is a terribly boring video where nothing much happens, though at about 15s in I comment about the lights....

One second is scientifically defined in wiki for those that are interested.

My personal definition of 1 second is 1/30 of a lifetime spent waiting at traffic lights. This is the first time using the Rodwell trail commute that I have been held up (though not by much apparently) at these lights.

I suspect that a lot of road rage comes from the time distortion effect of the road - things that actually are insignificant (in this case a delay of 1/2880th of a day, 1/6th of a 3 minute egg or 1/100th of a Dr Who Episode) are magnified to a problem which only total annihilation of the cause will solve.

Humans are funny creatures at the best of times, and the act or travelling seems to make us more animal than necessary.

Test for Lois

Well Lois wanted a link to the blog post, so I Googled around a bit and found Twitterfeed it is a service which posts each blog post to my facebook wall and provdes a link as well.
All being in order there should be two updates about this post, one from blogspot email which will just say "[Me and My Orca]Test for Lois" and the other will have a link in it I hope.

Wet II

No video for this one, cos it was so wet I had to take the camera off the helmet before setting out - relatively cheep though the Muvi is I wouldn't want to have to buy a new one just yet.... one can get a waterproof housing for it but at £30 it is rather rich for me.

Anyway back to the erudite prose... rain. I have a love/hate relationship with the vertical wet stuff... I love it when it is happening to other people, or the outside of the building/tent/wherever I might be but I dislike it falling on me when riding any bike and the Orca particularly...
"Why so?" I hear you cry... well I know you only get wet once but the rain seems to bring out the worst in car drivers so they tend to pass rather too close (not on camera - see above!) and they also tend to drive rather more unpredictably. The other reason for not liking it is that I notice my feet slipping around on the pedals rather more than is comfortable and for a while I was pedalling with my trainer on the wrong side of the M324 SPD pedals.

What to do about the slippery shoes? For my birthday I will be buying some Shimano MT32s (or 42s) unless of course someone recommends another SPD compatible shoe that works well as a trainer as well, even with cleats attached.

Rodwell Station

Rode through here on Tuesday and attempted to post the video about 3 times since then. i will add meaningful txt sometime.
This is Rodwell Station

How rough is a road?

In the case of Lanehouse rocks road in Weymouth the answer is Very. It is uncomfortable enough on the upwrong and it feels worse on the Orca.

The camera shake, once I get past the keep left bollard, is almost completely down to the road surface which has been getting worse and worse over the last year or two.

The other side of the road isn't much better - in some ways it is worse because it is marginally less bumpy however there are 'tram line' type defects in the road surface.

The road surface in both directions is why I have doubled the length of my commute - and got more opportunity for video footage.

We will see what happens in the next year or two as the 2012 Olympic sailing is taking place in Weymouth bay with the marina in Portland Harbour being the base for the sailors. Lanehouse is one of the designated Olympic routes so should get a refresh as far as the roads are concerned.

I am not holding my breath.