G8 CycleCaravan

There were about 25 of us at the ride last night, which is enough to make an impact. Especially when one of the bikes is a tandem with recumbent front and mountain bike rear. And another has 2 dogs (real ones) wearing fighter pilot style hats in a front carrier ( I really am going to have to get a new camera).
We'd been out for about 15 minutes when the police finally caught up with us. A cop came up to me and said "you must be the ring leader because you've got the whistle" which I thought was funny, the only reason I have a whistle is because i'm in a stilt samba band. He tried to tell me about the highway code but couldnt quote any sections, luckily I knew section 139 says that cars should give bikes as much room as they would another car when overtaking.
He then decided to go and harass one of the others for handing out leaflets. Eventually we agreed to leave one lane clear, and as some of the cars passed it was good to see some of them smiling and waving - perhaps we arent hated as much as we think we are.
Some of the group are going on the G8 bike ride, I'd love to go to but I'll be working - anyway its good to know that some people will be there representing Belfast.
Looks like i'm getting to go on a ride today. My wife is taking the kids to her aunties for a bbq, but I have a show this morning which means i'll have to ride down later - about 7 miles each way. Her village is having a country sports fair this weekend (fox hunting, shooting etc) so you never know, there might be another chance for a bit of direct action.

Critical Mass

I got a puncture this morning, the tyre has needed replacing for a while now, but I’ve been to lazy to replace it. I’d used my spare tube last week and didn’t have a puncture repair kit, but luckily I was near a shop that sold them so I was back on the road quickly enough. I always leave bike maintenance too late, I really should make more time for it.
I saw a poster this week for critical mass tonight. There hasn’t been one for ages in Belfast. They used to have them more regularly, but Belfast is quite a small place and the numbers attending were always quite small. So now they seem to be incorporating them in to other protests – last year they had one about the war in Iraq and this one is about the G8 summit. I once did critical mass on my unicycle, which was fun, but I’ll be on 2 wheels tonight.

Cycling in Fishnets

It was great to see an article on cycling in the Guardian weekend magazine. Bikes rarely get good coverage in the press, and it’s usually in the news section. To get people on their bikes we do need to portray cycling as something to aspire to, and I can’t think of many better places to do this than in a lifestyle magazine. Plus you’ve got to have something to counter balance all the adverts for SUVs. Reading about Zoe Williams cycling in her fishnets (she reckons if more people are looking at her legs – they are less likely to crash in to her) brought a smile to my face. And if I weren’t a cyclist already the thought of seeing a woman cycling in fishnets would certainly get me on a bike.

Blog Route

You may have noticed the blog route logo down the right hand side. Its still quite new, but a great place to check out other cycling blogs. Well done to Kent Hall (velodiablo) for coming up with the idea.

Happy Cycling

The bike seat / trailer bike combination is no more. My 7 yr old now rides her own bike to school and my 5 yr old goes on the trailer bike, which make the whole journey a bit easier.
On the first day I wondered how I was going to get my daughters bike back home. But with a bit of experimentation I can now safely secure her bike to the trailerbike with bungee cords and ride the whole lot home again. Don't know what I'm going to do when she gets a bigger bike though.
The weather has been brilliant this last week, and the kids love being out on the bikes. We even went to Wallace park at the other side of Lisburn which is much nicer than our local park which is usually full of broken glass and grafitti. I can see some bigger expeditions coming on this summer!

my profile and links seem to have dissapeared down to the bottom of the page, dont know why. I've fiddled about with it and seem to have made it worse, So you might see things looking a bit different till i sort it out.

some great ideas here for making a living on your bike.
Posted by Dave