Seasoned London commuter, doing my best to stay rubber side down and never stop moving forward.
Took a day off work today to sort out some loose ends, however this afternoon made for an impromptu Essex ride out. Weather was perfect, bit overcast, but warm and calm. With my wife, Mary pillion we sent off from Dagenham, with a plan to get a late lunch at Pizza Express in Braintree. Our route consisted of:
Most bikes have a small storage compartment under the seat, ideal for essential kit for them tricky emergencies. You probably already have the factory supplied mini tool kit in there, so here I’m going to go over other useful kit you should pack on an every day basis. Some I’ve found useful myself, some I’ve been recommended by others.
A chilly morning and just cleaned the bike. As recommended, I used cold water to not accelerate rusting, but damn my fingers are numbs now! Why cold water? Well hot water provides more activation energy for the oxidisation process, thus increasing speed of corrosion. Chemist geeks can read up on the details of reaction temperature dependency and the Arrhenius equation that governs it.
Uh-Oh. Right hand heated glove stopped working half on route home. Appears I may have another loose connection in the controller wiring, again. 🙁 At least I have a spare now…
On the back of the excellent BikeSafe course I did on Saturday, already I’ve found one of the tips covered useful and prevented a potentially hairy situation.
Riding home in the dark, along a quiet tree lined avenue, I spotted up ahead the nose of a car protruding from a junction. Its indicator was flashing to turn right across my path and was slowly creeping out. I changed position, moving out towards the centre of the road, to make myself visible around the tree. The car hit the brakes and waited for me to pass.
It was a simple trick, being aware the tree was blocking the line of sight between myself and the car driver, and changing position accordingly. But had I not moved out the car driver would not have seen me until much later, and likely would have pulled out in front of me.
So, tip of the day, position yourself to be scene. Consider what may obscure you.
Today, I attended the BikeSafe day over in Romford, run by the local traffic police. After hearing many good reports in the course and its benefits, I decided to give it a go.
Check out your local Lidl store next week, they’re doing a bunch of biker gear cheap. Lids, boots, gloves and thermal base layers. The Lids, gloves and boots look a bit cheap and probably only worth bothering with for occasional pillion use. However the thermal base layers look decent. Although the worst of the winter is over, it’s still pretty chilly out there, so will still be useful before next winter. Offer starts Feb 28th, but be quick, once the stock has gone, that’ll be it.
Distinctly frosty and foggy this morning. But once wrapped up warm, it was a good ride into work. So glad I’ve got my heated gloves and Pinlock visor. I do like riding into London on a foggy day, coming in past Canary Wharf, with just a sun blinding glint coming out of the fog where some skyscraper is hidden. The Shard (pictured) was particularly dazzling as it poked out above the fog, and just the top most floors visible and catching the sun.
This shot of the Shard was taken from just off Bermondsey Street.
The first issue of my Ride magazine subscription arrived today. Excellent Christmas present from my wife. I had picked up the odd issue previously and found it a very good read, with loads of great articles. Not just reviews or new bikes I can’t afford, but decent riding tips, maintenance info etc.
This month they have several pages dedicated to bike security to help prevent theft. The subscription also had a free gift, some Oxford heated grips, potentially very useful. Not sure I’ll use them myself since I have heated gloves. However, my wife is keen to get her own bike and fancies them for that… 🙂
In the wet, minimise risk of locking wheels and skidding; apply front and back brakes equally, 50:50 each, gradually and smoothly.