New purchases, and a sale

(Originally published on Bike Darlington - The Darlington Cycling Campaign blog.)

Today we became a seven-bike family (four of them are mine). My wife got a free bike from her brother which has been sat in his garage for a couple of years. It fits her and is serviceable enough, although it's not the best bike in the world.

Since she wanted to be able to take out youngest around and about on it, we were thinking of a rack-mounted child seat, but when we was Halfords were selling the two-child trailer for 30% off, we bought that instead. This has the advantage that we can fit both kids in, as well as shopping and toys, and it seems pretty waterproof. It also converts very easily into a pushchair, which will come in useful.

We've had a play with it in the street, but not taken it on a longer ride yet. Once we put four stone of children in you can feel it but it's much easier to pull than riding a bike with heavy panniers fitted, which is what I expect a seat would feel like.

Tomorrow is the big test, when she takes out eldest to the town centre. Thinking about the route has shown to us again that there are still major gaps in the cycle network; pavements will be ridden on at times. If "The Magnet problem" is ever solved we will have an almost traffic-free route from home to town, but for now when faced with a choice between riding on a badly laid out bit of road with the cars or on the pavement we'll be choosing the pavement option I'm afraid.

So, that's the new purchase, what's the sale? Our car. We hardly use it but it costs us a fortune, so a week on Saturday it will make its final journey with us, to some friends in Leeds who are buying it off us. After that we will be car-free.

We've been lucky in that we made decisions which mean we had already minimised our car use: we chose to buy a house close to our family, I only applied for jobs I could get to on public transport, we live near to local shops (and only a ten minute walk from Asda), and we tend not to drive unless we have to. We'll see how it goes, and will report back here.

Solitude Update and Some Links

I'm not going to be using bits from my Kona and Inbred to get the Solitude built up after all. On Saturday I put in an order for Sugino XD cranks, a Surly 36t chainring and some chaintugs to HubJub and for a Brooks saddle (black), a seatpost and some pedals to Chain Reaction.

I just added a load of Bike Links in my siderbar, over there on the right. They're are pretty much the bike-related sites I read every day.

If no one seems to understand, Start your own revolution and cut out the middleman

If no one seems to understand
Start your own revolution and cut out the middleman

Just call us Tom and Barbara

Had a brilliant family day today. We walked to the shops, with E and L riding their bikes, to get a WiFi adapter for the old PC I salvaged from work and a new toilet seat. When we got home, S cut the grass while me and L did some gardening and E slept.

We moved a couple of plants from the back garden to the front to make room for a small (2m x 0.7m) vegetable plot. I used a left over piece of wood to make it into a slightly raised bed, and laid down the cardboard box my Solitude came in as a weed-suppressing mat and covered it in 3 or 4 inches of compost from our composter.

The idea is that the cardboard stops the grass and weeds below from growing up through the new soil on top, which we use for growing veg. After a while the card will rot down, but by then the weeds below will also have rotted. I saw it on TV on It's Not Easy Being Green last year and looked it up online. S was sceptical, but it actually looks OK since you can't see the cardboard.

We've not planted anything yet, but will be growing peas, tomatoes, salad leaves and other stuff.

When E woke up, she helped for a while, then S, E and L made dough for pizzas and bread. We had the pizzas for tea, and will have the bread for breakfast tomorrow.

Brilliant day!

March Riding

Proper rides: 0 miles (again! No proper rides for two months running is pathetic.)
Business miles: 45 miles (five 9 mile trips, road)
Commuting: 105 miles (21 days riding to work and back)
Misc: 20 miles (a couple of trips to town)

Total: 170 miles

Some riding for work trips and having no holiday this month has helped keep the mileage up a little but work and preparation for Darlington Cycling Campaign stuff (the Symposium and being guest speaker at the Lib Dem's meeting) has stopped me getting out for proper rides on a weekend.

I have two weeks off work for Easter starting now, so I should get some riding in; hopefully at least one long ride. I need to cover at least 68 miles to make up for not commuting.

Update: That's actually the most riding I've done in a month since October. That either means it's not as bad as I thought it was, or that I didn't ride nearly enough in any of the last five months.

Update 2: So far this year, I've ridden 406 miles (650 km). That's an average of 135 miles (221 km) per month. At this rate I'll do 1620 miles (2592 km) in 2007, compared to 1700 miles (2720 km) in 2006.

Solitude build gets nearer to completion

Last night I put my tyres onto my wheels. I put the rear wheel and saddle/seatpost into the frame. I connected up the front wheel, forks, stem and handle bars. I couldn't join the front of the bike to the rear, but I got Sarah to hold them together so I can get an idea of the finished product.

It's going to be one beautiful bike; I can't wait to get it finished.

(Pushing a wheel around, connected to some bars could be the Next big Thing in MTBing. I'm so niche it hurts.)

Solitude build a step closer

On Saturday morning the stem and chain i ordered from Wiggle arrived. On-One are currently processing my order for brake levers, canti, innertubes, sprocket and lockring.

If I use some crappy Wilkinsons 700x35 tyres I have in the garage and take the saddle and seatpost from my Inbred and the cranks/chainring off my kona, I only need a headset, BB and brake cables to get the frame built up!

Update: My On-One order arrived today!