Adrian Fitch’s random rambling

Thanks to Adam Bowie for for pointing me to First Draft to see this fabulous bike parking facility at Tokyo’s Kasai Station.

For a single-use fee of ¥100 (about 50p) or ¥1,800 for a monthly pass, customers roll their bikes onto a platform and use a control panel to have them whisked away into the secure underground facility that can accommodate over 9,000 bikes.

The video shows that it takes the system only 23 seconds to retrieve the reporter’s bike.

It strikes me as the ideal solution to one of the biggest reasons why many people say they don’t cycle to work — the lack of secure bike parking.

Interesting piece here on an initiative to reduce cyclist deaths by building materials firm Cemex.

The company introduced a number of measures last year including additional nearside mirrors, warning sings and proximity sensors.

The sensors work when the left-turn indicator is activated and give a verbal warning to cyclists should they attempt to pass on the nearside, and an audible alarm for the driver.

I just need to find the equivalent for my commuting bike that tells me when a vehicle is trying to pass too close but I can’t see a verbal warning being that effective at warning them off.

Perhaps it could flash them a warning light and then scatter a handful of tyre spikes into their path if they don’t back off.

Kimbofo has posted a new ad from Transport for London in its “Look Out For Cyclists” campaign.

It shows just how easy it is to miss something you’re not looking for.

I even played it again to make sure it was actually in the first half and that the replayed portion was using the same footage.

I wonder if anyone would get it on first viewing, but isn’t that the point?

I cycled 700 kilometres in February, almost the distance between Ankara and Beirut.

All but 180 kilometres were through my regular commutes - I still haven’t caught public transport to work this year.

Since I started this little virtual jaunt in September I’ve made it all the way from London to Beirut.

If sharing the road with thousands of other cyclists sounds like fun then you can register for this year’s London Freewheel here.

Many of the capital’s roads will be traffic-free and open only to cyclists.

The 2007 event saw more than 38,000 bikes descending on the city’s streets for the day.

Cyclists enjoyed an afternoon of entertainment, picnics, stalls and cycling.

Dubbed as an ‘extraordinary day’, the event stopped traffic along 14km of the capital’s roads, turning the city centre into a bike friendly mecca for Sunday cyclists.

It all sounded like a little too much fun for me so I gave it a miss.

We’ll see what happens this year.

This morning was my first hard ride of the year.

My plan is to ride hard during my morning commutes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then easy for the rest of the week.

Hard mornings usually involve 30 minutes of warm up and going hard where possible on the way to Richmond Park, 20 minutes hard around the park and then 30 minutes of going hard where possible and warming down on the way in to Soho.

London’s drivers of course do not appreciate being overtaken by a cyclist trying to keep his heart rate over 90% so my main opportunities to put the pressure on outside the park are when accelerating away from lights and on the few hills along the route.

The rest of my training plan involves a decent length, moderately paced, hilly ride on Saturday mornings and then complete rest on Sundays.

I cycled 840km (522 miles) in January, the same distance that separates Thessaloniki in Greece and Ankara in Turkey.

Three quarters of my total distance was through commuting and one thing I’m quite proud of is I haven’t yet used public transport to get to work this year.

The rest of my miles came from a couple of Saturday morning rides out into the North Downs with a small group from Dulwich Paragon plus one Sunday visit to Richmond Park.

All quite slow and steady riding, just trying to put a good base in before I start the harder work in mid-February.

By then there should be enough light before work to get in a couple of Richmond Park circuits each week.

It still seems quite a long way off, but by late April I need to be ready for the 150km (95 mile) White Horse Challenge.

I’m hoping to raise a little money for WaterAid by completing the ride so if you’re in a generous mood, please visit my sponsorship page and do what you can to help provide safe, clean drinking water to those less fortunate than us.

The British time trial champion was killed on Tuesday after being knocked off his bike by a van while training in Scotland.

“He was the best road cyclist in Scotland and as good as anyone in Britain. He was in the prime of his career,” said Bryan Smith, a former Scotland manager and Olympic rider (Reuters).

It’s actually never as bad as it looks from inside your warm, dry home.

There is nothing that tempts me to catch the train to work more than a howling wind lashing rain against the windows of our conservatory as I’m having my morning coffee.

However, once I’m out there, it’s always a surprise as to how the expectation doesn’t match the reality.

The rain is never as hard and the wind is never as ferocious as they seemed when I was sipping on my morning brew.

The key of course is to also dress well.

I think it’s the Scandinavians who say something like there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.

Once you’re layered up with a good dryshell on the outside then everything seems so much more pleasant.

Photo by Eli Long. Used under license.

This year I cycled nearly 10,000km and nearly two thirds of that was through commuting alone.

Fun weekend rides and a cycling holiday in Holland added nearly 1,000km while almost 1,500km were through training for cyclosportives.

The events themselves added just over 1,100km to my total.

I don’t plan to ride any further overall next year and I’m adopting the same approach to sportives that I did this year.

From April to November I’m going to ride in at least one event each month and use them to see a few of the more attractive parts of this small green island near Europe.

Cyclosport.org has already listed what I think are all of next year’s sportives so I spent some time picking out my favourites and then seeing which of them I could fit into a sensible calendar.

April: White Horse Challenge. The perfect start to a season taking you past four chalk white horses carved into the hills around Swindon with 3,000 year old Uffington the oldest (and highest).

May: Gran Fondo Cymru. A very hilly looking meander through Wales’ Snowdonia National Park.

June: London to Brighton charity ride. A frustrating experience if you don’t get an early start but for a good cause.

June: Circuit of the Cotswolds. A chance to revisit some of the scenic villages I toured through in August last year. Hopefully at a slightly greater pace this time.

July: Dunwich Dynamo XVI. The legendary overnight ride from London to the medieval sunken city of Dunwich on the Suffolk coast.

Aug: Devil Ride. A new 100 mile event over many of the classic climbs of mid Wales, including the infamous Devils Staircase.

Sep: Southern Sportive or the Circuit of Kent. The Southern was thoroughly enjoyable this year but the Circuit of Kent also looks good.

Oct: Ride of the Falling Leaves. An iconic end of season ride that starts from London’s Herne Hill Velodrome before a very energetic spin out into the hills of Kent past Winston Churchill’s home and back.

So, despite my cycling saving me what I’d normally spend on public transport and going to the gym, I’m now spending that on the travel, entrance fees and sometimes accommodation for these events — but getting a much better return on the investment.

Also, there’s an opportunity for a two-week cycling holiday at the end of October and Laos looks highly likely, but that’s another post.

Good luck to you in realising your goals next year and I hope you managed to achieve everything that was important to you this year.