Fyne Tyne to Rhine - 4

Whilst in Holland we needed to be aware that the river we were following is called the Waal. Along the course of the river we might have expected to be riding on the dykes but often this was not possible due to the side waterways which aften had crossing points further away from the main river. There might be a bridge or sometimes a ferry for which there is a small charge.

We arrived at the address in Lent, part of the city of Nijmegen but located to the north of the Waal and found ourselves in a community settlement of tall houses with gardens on their roofs. We were shown to a room at the top of the house and once again slept soundly after a day of cycling. Our accommodation is booked on a day to day basis, usually no more than a day ahead, and we try to plan this so we are riding no more than about fifty kilometres a day. This distance is a challenge for us but is manageable providing we take plenty of rest stops along the way. Using a bench located beside the path to sit on and eat our snacks, small amounts of food we carry with us, is fine but sitting outside can be cool in the wind and the rain did not always hold off for us. The weather so far on our trip has been quite windy and cool with showers popping up at any time. We long for slightly warmer weather but dread it becoming too hot too. We had already come a long way south from Scotland and expected it to be warmer as the Summer came in.

After leaving Lent we crossed a significant boundary.

For the first time we were riding in Germany where the river we are following is called the Rhine (Rhein in German). We missed the actual crossing point because we were riding along a cycle path at the time where the expense of such important signage is considered unnecessary. What we did notice almost immediately however was the condition of the cycle paths. No longer could we rely upon smooth red tarmac that hardly shakes our wheels. Suddenly we were being bumped and bounced by the lumps and the loose stones underneath us. And when the path had to cross a side road the signage was often unclear as to who had priority. The cycle paths still existed but the priority given to their maintenance has changed. And worse was to come.

It was on one of the roughest sections of track that my bike suddenly started making horrible grinding noises and I lost all traction when the chain came off. Replacing it gave me oily fingers but the noises continued and it was clear that the rear sprockets were loose and wobbling from side to side.

We urgently needed to find a bike repair shop so as were approaching the town of Wesel, searching the Internet came up with the E-Bike Center Wesel located just five kilometres from where we were. By this time the bike had become unrideable so had to be pushed for much of the way but when we arrived, a kind man immediately took the bike into his workshop and searched for the part needed for a repair - a seven gear set of sprockets. Several hours later it was all fixed, new sprockets and chain immaculately fitted, and we were able to ride on to our next destination in Duisberg. We cannot express enough gratitude to the remarkable man, whose name is Salih, who helped us at a busy time and gave us the opportunity to ride on safely.

At the end of the day we had another pause planned, two nights in a B&B Hotel, but getting to the hotel was far from straightforward. Duisberg is a large sprawling city and our hotel was right at the centre, close to the main train station. The routing directions took us here and there, forever crossing roads which had few of the clear painted markings we had become accustomed to in Holland. Here we faced decisions at every turn, made guesses on the priority of cars over bikes, bounced along cobbled streets and crashed over kerbs which nearly threw us off. Then, as if this wasn't enough, we came to a waterway crossing where the bridge was closed for repair. The detour added another ten kilometres to our already long ride but even after this another road closure meant even more riding. It was after eight pm when we finally wheeled our bikes inside our hotel to a place of safety.

Sadly this first experience of cycling in Germany has forced us to rethink what we are doing. Aside from the wonders of the rapid cycle repair, German cycling infrastructure clearly lags far behind that of Holland and this has made us think seriously about how we should continue our cycling adventure and where we go next. We got out our maps and started some serious planning. We also looked at the weather for the days ahead and could see that there was a severe heatwave coming to this part of Europe. Predicted temperatures in the coming week were to rise to thirty degrees or more with clear skies and almost no wind. This could seriously limit our cycling distance each day and when combined with the condition of the German cycle paths it might all become too much.

We later spoke with another cyclist who had ridden on the cycle path up the Rhein and he confirmed that in the main the paths are uneven and poorly maintained compared with those in Holland.

This was the view as we crossed the Rhine river and waved it farewell. We were now cycling towards the Maas, a river that rises in France, where it is called the Meuse. A day of cycling westwards took us out of Germany and across the border again into Holland, to the town of Venlo.

The heatwave had now arrived. Each day we had to ensure we had enough water with us and we tried to find shade when we needed to stop for a rest. Each subsequent day seemed to get hotter still, particularly towards the end of the day, so that by the time we arrived at our accommodation we were exhausted and overheated. But this did not stop us. The next day we rode across Holland (there is a narrow bit of the country that protrudes to the south with Maastricht at its tip) and followed the Maas river to spend the next night in Thorn, close to the Belgian border. This involved crossing by yet another massive bridge - this time it was trains sharing it with the cyclists.

The next day we crossed the border into Belgium although once again there was no sign to indicate this. In fact the only sure way to tell was the letter 'B' on the number plates of parked cars. The heat was very demanding so two nights in a B&B in the Belgian town of Beringen seemed sensible. Could we wait out the worst of the hot weather before moving on?

The approach to Beringen took us through a vast forest and we were riding on a path reserved exclusively for cyclists made from smooth concrete slabs which twisted and turned us around the tree trunks towering above us. It was almost completely level and good steering was needed to avoid the oncoming groups of cyclists who were taking advantage of the local public holiday. Without a doubt this was probably the most exciting piece of riding we had encountered to date and the shade provided by all the trees was welcome.

The two days rest we had planned turned out to be far from restful, for me at least. Our room was comfortable but we could not escape the heat, despite our host providing us with a powerful fan. This provided a draft of air but nothing could prevent the heat from outside leaking in. By this time I was constantly sneezing and coughing, something brought on by the extreme heat and with no immediate end of the heatwave in sight we had some tough decisions to make about the next leg of our journey. The mornings were cooler and if there is a breeze then this blew into our loose fitting clothing, drying our sweaty bodies but by afternoon, unless we could escape the glare of the sun, it was uncomfortable riding. Belgium's cycle infrastructure is quite good, almost on a par with Holland in fact, but after much thought made a difficult decision. Given the effect the heat was having upon us, particularly on me, we decided that we must cut short our holiday and make our way back into Holland as soon as practicable.

The next leg of our journey looked interesting in that it  followed the course of the Albert Canal across Belgium towards Antwerp.

In Britain we have canals which are narrow strips of water used today only by leisure craft of various sizes. The Albert Canal is rather different; it is a commercial waterway with industries all along the banks, these being served by large ships carrying all sorts of cargoes. We had to divert several times due to the path being blocked whilst a ship was unloaded and there was no tree cover to allow us to escape from the sun so we ended up resting in the shadow beneath one of the many bridges. Our allotted overnight accomodation this time was a luxury health resort in a wooded area, close enough to Antwerp where we would be taking a train the next day, all the way back to Amsterdam.

Just outside the window of our room was an enclosed outside space which was home to an enormous bath as well as a small flock of fluffy rabbits. This luxury (which we used) was consistent with the quality of all the fittings in our sizeable room, all located in an area of peace and quiet surrounded by woodland. This had an immediate effect on our wellbeing but we were still convinced that our decision to returned home earlier than planned was the right one, especially as there was another predicted heatwave due to arrive from the south in the coming days.

Fyne Tyne to Rhine - 3

By day three of our cycling adventure we decided that we required a pause, a day with no cycling at all, to let our bodies recover.

To do this we booked a two night hotel stay in Rotterdam, a difficult thing to do online when an important requirement for us was to have secure bike storage, not something that is generally publicised as a feature. Our random choice turned out to be in an industrial area close to Rotterdam's ring road, comfortable enough but lacking easy access to the city or even easy walking to find a place to eat after we had exhausted the single vegetarian option on the hotel restaurant menu. It did, however, enable us to meet up with Maartje, our 'Dutch daughter', who we have known since she was very young, and we were delighted to see her again. She picked us up in her car and took us for lunch to a place we would never have found without her. 

So how do we navigate our way around this amazingly cycle friendly country? How do we find a route which takes us to our destination following cycle paths (fietspads) rather than roads with cars roaring along them? The answer to this lies in the powerful technologies packed inside a modern day mobile phone which links to mapping services such as Google. These apps allow one to select cycling as a means of travel so that the offered routing shifts to something cycle friendly. The phone itself knows where it is and which direction we are moving (global positioning satellite technology) so it can display a map with pointers indicating the next section of the route. Then there is verbal guidance as well, we get an American accented woman's voice, which warns of approaching changes of direction although this can often add confusion if it conflicts with what is shown on the screen. It is often simpler to mute the voice.

Naturally all this clever stuff only works if the phone screen can be seen from the riding position and so long as one can hear the voice instructions clearly above all the wind noises and the rumble of traffic coming from the environment we are moving through. On my bike crossbar I have a waterproof phone case which I can glance down at and the voice instructions can be sent to my hearing aids via a Bluetooth connection if I want them. The system is not perfect and it can be very confusing in a busy city environment when there will be many twists and turns, roundabouts and crossroads, pedestrians with young children, not to mention the speeding electric bikes coming from behind to overtake without warning. All across Holland there are several different cycle path signposting schemes and these can be used outside of the cities when the riding is more relaxed and it is easier to stop and check you are still en route.

Dutch roads rely heavily upon painted markings on the road itself to show motorists and cyclists where to go and who has priority at every crossing point and these are generally well maintained. A shot from our hotel window illustrates this. Thankfully Dutch drivers are familiar with these markings and generally obey the rules, particularly when it comes to watching out for cyclists - they must know that 'it could be me' on the bike.

Our next day of riding took us out of Rotterdam's busy heart, a place we were glad to have survived safely. The weather seemed to have improved a little although it was still quite cool and it had some rain in store for us as we neared our next destination.

The route bridged across several wide waterways but in the main we were riding on cycle paths alongside wide motorways which were heaving with traffic all day, despite it being a Sunday. The constant noise from this was quite wearing and there was another unexpected hazard... sheep on our path grazing the grass beside the track and leaving their droppings everywhere as they wondered about. Strangely sheep do not react at all to a bike passing them. It is only when we humans stop and dismount that they realise what we are and they will then run away.

Our overnight accomodation this time was at the end of a garden in a perfectly appointed hideaway, a place where we slept well after a meal out with the parents of our 'Dutch daughter'. And we needed our rest since the next day was a big one, the day we would finally arrive alongside our prime target for this holiday, the Rhine river.

This picture hardly does it justice since the land is still very flat and the ships moving along the waterway are almost invisible as they are low above the water so that they can pass beneath the bridges. This is an important thoroughfare for moving goods right across Europe and it carries massive cargoes in both directions. Our plan now was to follow its course upstream for as long as we fancied.

This part of the Rhine is bordered by dykes on each side on top of which was a smooth fietspad designed specially for us. It gave us views across the river and every so often there was a seat with an information board telling us all about the area we are in and often supported by an artwork of some kind. It was relaxing riding, almost effortless with no worries about getting lost, no conflict with cars with decisions to make about who has priority because there were only cyclists on the path. All we had to do was pedal on and pause when we needed a rest or to eat one of the snacks we carry with us. We were tired when we arrived at our next Vrienden's house in Nijmegen and ready for our night's rest, this time at the top of a tall building, part of a community complex close to the river.

Fyne Tyne to Rhine - 2

Our rail journey to the ferry in Newcastle was stressful as we had expected. Three separate trains and fitting the bikes into each one's storage space was a challenge, either because the doors are too narrow or else because a group of Canadian tourists had dumped their enormous suitcases in the bike storage area. The final train from Edinburgh to Newcastle required us to hang one bike from a hook in a small cupboard then squeeze the other one alongside it. Then having arrived in Newcastle we had to push our bikes over a bridge to get from one platform to another and reach the station exit. The forty minute ride from there to the ferry terminal was quite straightforward after all that and thankfully a calm sea journey was what we hoped for and we got it.

The motion of our ferry as it sailed across the North Sea could barely be felt inside our cosy cabin.

Having eaten our breakfast on board we were ready for off as soon as the ship docked. This part of the route we had ridden last year so we knew that just a few minutes ride from the ferry terminal was a National Park with a completely traffic free cycle path through some amazing woodland. It was easy to find the start but there was one change we hadn't expected - the Highland cattle.

These creatures are released into the woodland as an efficient means of managing the undercroft with no human intervention. We first caught sight of these enormous beasts as they ambled along the path in front of us so we simply stopped to let them pass. They presented no danger as they were clearly used to humans, on bikes or otherwise, and they didn't seem to mind having their picture taken either.

After the woodland came a long stretch of riding through the dunes (part of Holland's sea defences) and the highlight of the day came as we stopped for lunch beside the twisty cycle path.

Whilst pausing to eat the pears we had snaffled from the breakfast bar on the ferry we noticed a woolly caterpillar scrambling over the sandy soil and when I offered him the end of my pear he stopped for a big lunch before eventually staggering off again. My knowledge of the Dutch caterpillar language is rather limited so I missed hearing his words of thanks.

Less pleasant for us was the cool wind blowing against us as we rode  down the coast.

Holland may be very flat but a headwind has the same effect as a hill when you are riding and by the time we reached our accomodation for the night we both felt done in. Hendrina, whose house it was, made us very welcome and showed us to our attic bedroom. We have stayed in many Dutch homes, most of which have high ceilings and tall doors because Dutch people are generally taller than other humans. One consequence of this is that the staircases inside are much steeper than we are used to, sometimes frighteningly so, and much care is needed, particularly when descending.

There was a lot of rain in the night but by the time we set off riding  through the dunes again it had stopped.

The few straight sections on the path may seem like a motorway at first glance until one fits in some cyclists to give it perspective.

The odd shower did little to discourage us and by late afternoon we had found our next Vrienden house in a place outside of the city of Den Haag called 'Monster'. Again we were made welcome by the house owners despite their being distracted by the imminent birth of their latest grandchild at a house not far away. By morning their new family member had arrived safely and we bid them farewell as we rode off towards Rotterdam.

Fyne Tyne to Rhine - 1

As the start of our holiday adventure in Holland approaches we feel the urge to prepare our bodies as best we can when a day of sunshine beckons. An air temperature barely above our agreed cycling minimum, eight degrees C, is enough to coax us onto our bikes for a training ride.

We bring the bikes inside for a good clean then drive with them to Ardrishaig. We unload, batteries are attached, helmets fixed on our heads and off we go, crossing the main road to rise up to the Crinan Canal towpath. We have some sandwiches with us plus something to drink and we know from doing this ride previously that by following the canal towpath we will not be faced with anything resembling a hill. Better still, the wind is blowing from behind us so riding is effortless, no electric power is needed as our bikes are light enough to pedal easily on the flat. We are hardly out of breath.

When we are close to Crinan at the end of the canal the towpath is closed due to repairs to fix a breach in the canal itself but a short detour on the road takes us into the village where there is a snack bar waiting for us and we can refresh ourselves with coffee and a piece of cake. Here we meet another cyclist who is clearly contemplating going down the electric bike route and we chat with him on the merits of our machines. After we leave, another diversion tempts us to ride up to the Beaver Centre, located beside a small loch above the canal. Beavers were released here some years ago and they are now a tourist attraction for those brave enough to risk the loch side path in the dark when the animals emerge. We are not there to observe them, however, merely to learn more about them and eat our sandwiches for lunch. The ride back along the canal to Ardrishaig is upwind (of course) and by the time we arrive back we are grateful that cycling is done for the day. Distance run: Maybe a little over twenty miles.

For our next training ride we decide to attempt the 'West Loch Lomond Cycle Path' which runs between a busy main road and the loch for a large part of its length. We soon discover that this path is poorly maintained and only casually signposted. The broken surface of the first section is very close to the road and we swerve about dangerously to avoid the stones, the soft muddy bits and the rubbish that is strewn everywhere. Sadly from here on nothing changes and after riding some 15 miles we give up and return to the start. How on earth this can be promoted as a safe route for cyclists is hard to understand and by the time we arrive back at our start my rear tyre has been punctured by riding over a sharp piece of rubbish. Distance: around thirty miles of horrible riding.

After a day's rest we find ourselves riding again, this time a local run to Kilberry, a village some fifteen miles away from home along a single coastal track road.

This is a ride we have done before so we know what to expect in terms of hills, some of which are quite vicious. It is a quiet road and thankfully most of the car drivers we meet are kind enough to wait for us at one of the many passing places along the way. The road surface is far from perfect but after our recent Loch Lomond experience this is nothing we can't cope with. Our only disappointment is that the roadside 'Cake Shed' we pass on the way back is empty - baking normally taking place on a Friday.

As I write this we have just a few days to go before our departure yet strangely we seem to have a lot of things planned right up to the last day. Just two days before we leave is the Kintyre Ultra, a marathon running event in which competitors tackle a route which takes them through some of the wildest parts of the Kintyre peninsula and which for the past few years we have assisted by manning one of the check points.

This time we were at Grianain, just north of the village of Carradale, where we were on duty with plenty of fresh drinking water and snacks for those who needed it. For us it is simply a matter of checking the competitors as they come through and topping up the bottles of those who wanted it but was also a day that took our minds off the process of packing our bike panniers and other bags with all our life's needs for the foreseeable future.

At least the 'getting to the station' part of our grand tour is nicely arranged. We have a  friend whose car can carry our bikes and our luggage in exchange for which we are 'babysitting' by picking up her children from school on a day when she is working. Our train tickets are now all booked, the ferry crossing being organised months ago, so for the first time we can focus upon where we will be staying for our first and then subsequent nights in Holland.

Here is how it works.
With a map of Holland in front of us we start by estimating how far we can cycle on the first day after we disembark from the ferry at around nine in the morning. We have the experience of last year's grand tour behind us so we are fairly confident of being able to ride some thirty or forty kilometres in a day, stretching this out with rests and lunch stops so as to arrive at our destination towards the end of the day. From the ferry terminal in Ijmuiden we will ride south, along the coast, which puts the town of Noordwijk within reach. Next we fire up the Vrienden op de Fiets website and load the map page to see what is on offer. We randomly choose one address, a vrienden member's house which might be available for that day, and send off an email, introducing ourselves as fellow members of this amazing community. We are thrilled and delighted to receive a reply just fifteen minutes later saying we are welcome and giving us a suggested arrival time. It does not always happen this quickly but this is the process we shall be following all the way across Holland, making bookings one day at a time just a few days ahead.

'Bikepacking' seems to be a term used by touring cyclists who camp out overnight. We use it to describe the process of carefully squeezing all our belongings into our panniers, checking off each item from the long lists we have been building up.

We set aside a full day for this process then finally the day of our departure arrived and we stuffed everything into our friend's car for the journey to Arrochar, our nearest rail station. Here we had booked a night in a hotel so we could take an early train the next day, a hotel with luxury bike accomodation, as it turned out.

Algae and smoke

The rather exciting title to this particular blog entry refers, in part, to our garden pond which currently lies beneath a floating carpet of the first part, algae. Heavy rain will sink some of it to the bottom but any sunshine brings it up to the surface again as it has inbuilt buoyancy due, so we are led to believe, to the bubbles of oxygen it extracts from the water. Pond algae is a type of cyanobacteria that absorbs carbon within its structure and it has been used in some countries as a fertilizer, amongst other uses. All of which is very interesting but when it covers the pond to the extent that it prevents any light getting to the creatures and plants that live beneath the water then it is not welcome.

Our garden slopes downwards from the hill behind and shortly after moving in we made the decision to dig a pond part way down the slope. It lies hidden behind an overgrown bank (to the right in this picture) created from the extracted soil. Inevitably though, being part way down a slope, water from the higher ground seeps into the pond which then overflows onto the (rather boggy) area further down. A pond that manages its own water level seemed like a good idea at first but the algae problem has made us realise that something is not quite right.

After discussing this problem with my brother, who I now realise is something of a pond expert having created one in at least three of the last houses he has lived in, a decision has been made to modify our original pond design in the hope that this will reduce the likelihood of algal growth. It seems that algae rather likes the runoff from the higher land as this is full of phosphate laden nutrients so perhaps if this runoff could be diverted in some way before it reached the pond then this might change things. Since the pond water itself is contained within a plastic liner which has stones placed all around the edges to secure it then perhaps by digging a ditch around the upper edge of pond this might divert the runoff elsewhere.

A rare dry day arrives so immediately, digging begins. The ground is very wet from all the recent rain and as soon as the first soil is removed the trench begins to fill with water from the land above it. This is water that would previously have found its way into the pond and even as the digging progresses water slides slowly along the bottom of the new trench. This shows that there is sufficient slope for the runoff and we make use of an old piece of drainage pipe to help prevent blockages and some leftover bits of decking timber to form a walkway over it. At this point the new trench is completely full of water and it even starts to overflow lower down onto an area below the pond. 

Clearly all the ground around the pond is completely sodden so the trenching is extended a little further on the opposite side too where the slope goes in a different direction. All in all this represents just a few hours hard labour but I am pleased to say the end result is...well not as bad as I expected.

As a finale I scoop up as much of the algae from the surface of the pond as I can, being careful to return to the water any animal life that gets caught up in the net. Dragonfly nymphs have been living there for some years now, the parents returning to mate each year at the end of summer before laying their eggs, so I pick these little creatures out of the net before pouring away the jelly-like algae.

By lunch time the rain has started, putting a stop to my garden activities, but the next day is very wet and windy which gives me an opportunity to see how the pond modifications are coping. The initial ditch is completely full but it needs somewhere lower down for the water to go so I cut a narrow channel to carry away the overflow and this allows the level of water in my trench to drop below the pond water level. The solution is clearly far from perfect as it is simply dug into the soil and will not last long in its present form but if it discourages the algal growth then we can create a more permanent solution in due course.

This is not, however, the only garden work we have been engaged in. On an earlier rain free day we both spent time outdoors, my aim being to incinerate the pile of gorse bits that I had been removing from the wild land beyond our garden fence.

Gorse is a highly volatile plant but the smoke generated by my fire was largely due to the recent rain which had soaked my pile of gorsey clippings. None of our neighbours had washing out so thankfully there were no complaints.

This will not, however, be the last time the incinerator gets used. There is much more to come from all the gorse and rhododendron we are cutting back from close to our rear garden fence. Clearing this has revealed and given daylight to a handful of small birch saplings, a small rowan and some young hollies, clearly the offspring of a taller well established tree. All these young trees were previously in the shade of the gorse which grew taller each year so they are seeing the light of day for the first time thanks to my hard work.

The land from which all this growth is being cleared is beyond our boundary fence which does raise the question as to whether we are doing the right thing by managing land that does not belong to us. Who, indeed, does it belong to? One could ask the same question about much of Scotland's wilder places, land that lies beyond the gardens of those living more remotely, and the answer would likely come down to quite a small number of land owners. Our laws give us the right to roam across such land but they impose little by way of obligations upon such land owners when it comes to caring for the land. The hill beyond our garden fence is now completely unmanaged, even the sheep that grazed there when we first moved in are no longer to be seen, which leaves the many deer free to roam wherever they fancy. We see their fresh droppings in our garden from time to time and they have already taken advantage of the clearing we have created beyond our fence, using it as a daytime resting spot.

The argument we would deploy, were our activities ever to be challenged, is that the presence of the gorse so close to our boundary represents a serious fire risk which the owner of the land was taking no action to reduce. After a long dry spell we have seen wildfires burning locally so we know this is always a possibility and the absence of an established woodland on the hill behind our house (largely due to the many years of sheep grazing) makes it very vulnerable. The upper slopes are covered in gorse shrubs - the bright yellow flowers give them away - but at least those closest to our land are now being cut back due to our efforts.

Cycling for ever

Closer and closer it gets. The day of our departure for another mad cycle touring adventure  approaches and inevitably this focuses our minds upon making sure we have all our ducks in a row. We have a box of 'not to be forgotten' items into which we toss more things from time to time in case when it comes to the final packing we inadvertantly leave something behind. We also watch YouTube videos featuring cyclists touring around Europe to see whether they can provide us with more detail on what to expect on our intended route, or what not to forget. The most recent of these featured someone who forgot to bring his wallet with him and who also left his cycle helmet behind but despite this he still managed to continue and indeed to film the whole journey quite successfully!

One of the main reasons why we choose to travel to Holland for our cycle touring is that the infrastructure has so much more to offer when it comes to cycling on safe, quiet paths and roads. To find this locally we have to transport our bikes some distance away from home by road to a location that has a recognised cycle path then unload them to go for a ride. This has proved quite easy up to now but with recent troubling world events now impacting all motorised forms of travel we find ourselves imagining how we might continue to live the way we want to live in a future world, preferably without moving house to a new location. We have electric bikes and at the present time these are considered by many public transport operators as too dangerous to be carried safely due to the risk of fire should their batteries become damaged. Like so many other things, our news media will focus disproportionately upon instances where the lithium-ion batteries fitted in bikes, scooters and cars have caught fire or exploded and this is used as an excuse even when the risk is very small for a properly made machine. Our local long distance buses will carry bikes in their storage area but not if they are electric, which means we have to use our own vehicle if we want to go off cycling somewhere else.

But what if there was another way, something that defeats the system, perhaps.

We think back in our lives to a time when we were living and working in London and, having made a conscious decision to be car-free, a pair of folding bikes were our means of getting around. We later had them with us whilst living and travelling around Britain on our boat and they gave us the means to move around easily on land close to where we were berthed or moored up. We notice that some of our travelling YouTubers are riding folding bikes, the smaller wheels and a frame that hinges in several places allowing the machine to be collapsed so that it can be fitted inside a bag. At this point, of course, the bike becomes invisible! It is no longer a bike at all - it is merely a piece of luggage. One of the big attractions is that these bikes can be folded up for travel by train or bus then unfolded at the other end and for those living and working in a city the 'foldie' can be easily taken into the office and stashed next to a desk until needed for the journey home.

Then we discover that there are now electric foldies on the market, expensive but practical alternatives to a full-sized bike in some situations. So could one of these perhaps be used where a full sized electric bike is not welcome? Of course as soon as we discover this then YouTube begins to bombard us with videos of travellers using such machines, a feature we suspect some form of artificial intelligence is responsible for, but this soon gets our brains buzzing with ideas on whether we might invest in a couple of electric foldies for ourselves at some point in the future. We note that there is one model in particular that has its battery inside a removable bag, hidden from view and mounted on the front of the bike when in use.

We may live a long way from the nearest train station but we do have long distance buses which we use regularly. So here's how it goes...

We wait at the bus stop with our bikes neatly folded, minus their batteries which we carry in their conveniently small bags slung across our shoulders, a bag similar to what most passengers are carrying. The driver opens the bus storage space and we put the bikes inside. Should he ask whether they are electric (unlikely if the bikes themselves are enclosed in a bag) we can say that they are not, which of course is correct if there are no batteries attached. The perceived risk associated with lithium-ion batteries does not extend to phones, battery packs or other devices which use them nor does it include electric wheelchairs, which have quite large batteries. All these things are allowed to be carried on public transport. The restriction on electric bikes seems to be associated with the risk when carried in the storage area beneath the bus where they could be thrown about in transit resulting in the batteries getting damaged. In this case our batteries would be safely contained in our rather attractive  bags.

At our destination we unload, unfold and reassemble our folded machines then head off on the ride of our choice.

Again, based on those YouTube videos, we learn that these machines, small though they are, can carry considerable luggage on racks at the front and the back which gives us even more wild ideas. We already do shopping trips to distant supermarkets using our buses (travel on which is free for us) so this is really just an extension of the same thinking, one that opens a whole world of possibilities. The possibility of a future cycle touring holiday using public transport has been born, in our minds, if nowhere else. The world we live in is changing, more rapidly than we would like, but unavoidably. Some of these changes are already impacting on our lives - higher fuel prices being the main one that will not go away quickly no matter where our world leaders take us. At present we have a motor caravan, smallish but still a large vehicle and we ask ourselves whether we could manage with a smaller vehicle, perhaps electric. Then we think back to that time when we had no car at all. On the odd occasion when we wanted to venture further afield we might have hired a car but generally we were happy to be car free and it was only when we moved into a house in a remotely located village that our needs changed. This car-less period gives us a background of knowledge and experience which we can apply to our present situation, enabling us to ask the right questions; how would we do our shopping, get to hospital appointments, travel to see the family, get about in the cold of winter and so on.

Are bikes always going to be the answer? Probably not. Age and infirmity will catch up with us some day but if the immediately foreseeable future is what we imagine then our thinking is helping us to prepare. Maybe those reading this will also be encouraged a little too.

First ride of the year

So far, as I start to write this, we have yet to get out and about on our bikes this year as the Spring weather where we live has been either too cold or too wet for us. We seem to be caught in a pattern of weather which shifts randomly between cold squally showers and bright sunshine which bursts through in between. If we leave home with the sun shining then almost certainly there will be torrential rain before we get home. We try to be patient. Surely Summer will soon be here.

Winter has passed, or moved on somewhere else, and our daffodils know that Spring has arrived as they are bobbing their flower heads about in each gust of wind. And there are plenty of them. In fact there seem to be more every year as we view them from the house. On the rare occasion that the wind has abated it has been raining, maybe only a light drizzle but enough to justify us staying indoors. Not that this is where we want to be, far from it. Our bikes are lying idle waiting for us to take them out, and we are keen as ever to bring them into action but cycling in the rain has never been appealing. We might be tempted out and find ourselves caught in a shower but setting off in the wet is not our thing at all. We do get the odd dry day, clear blue sky, which calls us outside to stumble around the garden wrapped up against the cold. Once again the thought of cycling does not enthuse us. The cold air rushing past our bodies, chilling our fingers, making the eyes water and the nose run. Once again, this is not our thing.

Then one day we hear a weather forecast which gives us an idea. We need to do some shopping to top up the food supplies, something we would normally do on foot with a shopping basket on wheels to make the return uphill journey easier. Rain is forecast for later in the day but the morning is sunny, warmth in the sun, and the wind is reasonably light too. We decide, suddenly, that our bikes should take on the mission. We both have panniers which fit easily onto the rear carriers and, of course, we have electric power which we can make use of to ride back up the hill for the journey home. Then, maybe before loading up the bikes with shopping, we think about cycling a little further so we can justify waking the machines from their winter storage. This has become our first ride of the season and it will also be an opportunity to try out our latest bike modification, the handlebar extensions.

We move quickly. The weather forecast gives us a timeline to meet if we want to avoid the rain so we don't hang about. We don some appropriate clothing - light but windproof - fit the panniers then wheel out our machines ready for action. Can we still remember how to ride? Might we have forgotten how to use the gears or the brakes since last year? It seems not. After a quick wobble we are both riding smoothly, chased along our narrow road by an impatient car driver (who we ignore) and soon we are flying down the steep hill to the main road. We swerve across the carriageway so we can turn off to ride alongside the harbour quay then start to relax. Here most of the hazards are pedestrians strolling about in the sunshine, walking their pet dogs or else pushing a pram. What wind there is feels cold on our faces and on any exposed fingers but we press on past our ferry terminal then follow the shore road to its end where there is a viewpoint across the loch. This is our turning point so we dismount here, smiles all over our faces brought on by the experience we have just completed.

We pause there for a chat with a local man who is out for a walk and, so it turns out, is also a keen cyclist. Before we know it we are comparing different ride experiences, both local and further afield. He has yet to experience the joys of cycling in Holland but  understands perfectly why we have chosen this particular day for a ride. He is even perhaps a little envious. But then we recall our mission, which is to do our shopping, so we bid him farewell, remount and ride back into the village. Our local supermarket has recently undergone a complete refurbishment so it is disappointing to discover that there are still no cycle racks outside but after locking the bikes securely to a railing we enter the shop. Our shopping mission doesn't take long and we trolley everything outside so we can transfer what we have bought into the panniers. We can immediately feel the extra weight but set off undeterred back up hill to our house. Some firm pedalling and a boost of electric power is required for the steepest section but we are soon back home, mission accomplished. This short ride has given us so much joy and the new handlebars work well too.

As it turned out the rain held off until mid afternoon in the end. Not that we cared in the slightest. Each day now we study the forecast in detail for the coming days, looking for the next cycling weather window.

Touch Typing

In a conversation recently I was prompted to think back to my time spent at College in my late teenage years. I spent the duration of the course (two years) living in the spare bedroom of an elderly (as I perceived her at the time) lady who would provide me with breakfast together with a meal each night when I returned from my day at college. By coincidence it was during this period that our country changed from imperial to metric coinage; a shilling became ten pence and we lost farthings and halfpennies along the way. My landlady, having been brought up on pounds, shillings and pence, was quite disturbed by this change and I can recall her asking me whether our clocks would also be changing, minutes and seconds becoming decimalised. I hope I gave her the assurance she needed.

As part of my Diploma course I was required to produce a 'thesis', the subject being of my choice but the end product had to be a set length.

It so happened that around this time my parents had bought me a portable typewriter, a heavy clattery thing that went 'ping' each time you got to the end of a line and had to shift the paper to the next row. The positioning of the letter keys, what we now call 'qwerty' after the letters on the top left row, was developed in the 1870s by a man called Christopher Sholes and it was designed to prevent the typewriter levers of character pairs used most often when writing in English from jamming against one another. The layout has broadly survived since then although the French have 'azerty' and the Germans, 'qwertz' to suit their own languages.

If my typewriter still exists it will be on the shelves of a museum somewhere by now and I cannot recall using it much, if at all, after my college course finished. At the time, however, something prompted me to use it to type out my thesis and in doing so I made a decision which still lives with me to this day. Rather than simply pressing the keys with one finger, the simplest way for a non-typist, I deliberately made myself type using all my fingers, each key having a 'correct' finger allocated to it. I forced myself to learn to Touch Type. Thinking back I have no real recollection of what made me decide to do this; I was under no pressure from anyone to learn this skill and had no need for it for many years afterwards. Furthermore it slowed down considerably my efforts to produce a typed thesis since correcting my mistakes, of which there were quite a few, had to be done with 'Tipp-Ex', a white fluid that had to be painted on carefully with a brush then allowed to dry before it could be over typed. I struggle to recall what prompted me to put myself through all this.

The use of computers in the home came along some years later and then finally I found myself faced with a computer and keyboard in my workplace. My fingers were delighted to find themselves facing another qwerty keyboard where they were pressing the very same letter keys that they had been taught to touch years before so they didn't complain at all when they were asked to type something. 'We've been here before', they shouted, as the old skill came back. And it has stayed with me. I still far prefer using a keyboard to write anything more than a short message. My brain has memorised the position of the letters so well that I only have to think of a word and my fingers know where to go. This all happens without any conscious effort. Even when no keyboard is present I can tap out the shape of a word on any flat surface if requested.

 

The technology we use in our everyday lives keeps on changing and today we have small pocket sized computers (we call them 'phones') but these things will still present the user with an image of the qwerty keyboard on the screen. This has resulted in a new form of touch typing, this time using the thumbs to tap the screen whilst the other fingers hold the device steady. Some people can do this very rapidly, maybe even close to my own typing speed when I am going flat out. And our phones will go one step further by presenting a suggested word on the screen after only a few keys have been pressed, something my typewriter could never do. Phones are even clever enough to type the words we speak into them, although both of these talents can lead to rather embarrassing mistakes for which the bottle of Tipp-Ex is no help at all.

Today, those of us who still prefer to type with all fingers on a qwerty keyboard can also go small by using a folding version of the gadget. This is (naturally) powered by a rechargable battery hidden inside and the absence of any connecting wires indicates that it will send signals to a nearby screen using Bluetooth radio waves. Somehow I cannot imagine my elderly landlady coping with such cleverness were she still with us today.