classic cars

Next weekend the is a classic car race on some closed public roads in Aarhus. They are already showing some of the cars in the courtyard by the Cathedral.

  www.craa.dk

What's this.

So what’s going on here. They’ve put up a large greenhouse thingy on the church roof. A new observation platform for Ashtoners?

Probably not.

Aarhus, Scaering beach.

Took myself off for a bike ride up the coast north from Aarhus today. Found this unexpected beach of white sand. It’s at a place called Scaering. Still to chilly for sunbathing though!

The city of Aarhus is way off in the distance on this photo.

Dog in Buggy!

I always thought it was the English that were dog lovers, but here the Danes ferry their dogs around in child buggies! Now that’s just spoiling the dog I say!
:-)

Aarhus harbour

So I randomly managed to get the lap-top and the mobile, Blue-toothing with each other again. Still don’t really know what I did to fix it. Anyway, I took a snap of the view from my apartment balcony showing the harbour in Aarhus. The white ship that can be seen is the ferry to Odden on Zealand, which is the island that Copenhagen is on. Occasionally Danish war ships moor here along with regular merchant vessels. All very nautical. Actually I know nothing of the sea and ports, but I seam to be learning stuff as I watch the ships come and go.   

Angry Blue Teeth!

My Blue tooth phone will no longer connect to my computer.


So after an hour of trying every option/setting on both the laptop and the phone, and setting them to discoverable etc. they both say the other does not exist. This means I have no way of uploading photos until I retrieve my camera from England. Don’t you just hate computers (and I work in I.T.!!)

The Bells!

I have a problem with my new apartment. Here is a short clip of the level crossing out side the building I live in. This bell ringing goes on randomly from 4:30 in the morning till midnight! So, that’s me waking up at 4:30 every single day. Unhappy.

Every day scene.

I don’t have a camera yet here in Aarhus, Denmark. Just my dodgy mobile phone camera, which will have to do for now. Also I don’t have a broadband connection, so I’m very limited on what I can post. I have a favourite cafe that does Wi-Fi so I get one hour to do everything I need to online. One hour is not enough! I’ll do a piece on the Danish cycling infrastructure when I’m more sorted out, but it’s far and away better than the UK. Bikes have right-of-way on roundabouts. Cars actually stop on the roundabout and let you trundle round to your desired turn off. Also bike lanes running along side a main road have right-of-way over traffic turning off/on the main road. A bike lane in the UK would have a row of dashes across it indicating that you should give way. Again, here cars actually stop and wait for you to pass by, before turning off the main road. Try that too often in Manchester and you’d get squashed.

Oh, hours up, must dash...

Danish art?

Spotted this ‘sculpture’ on the way back from the pub one night.

It is almost artistic.

What!

No idea what they’re selling here. Those crazy Danes!

Red Ways

The Red Ways of Milton Keynes are a great help to the commuting cyclist. Red Ways are for use by pedestrians and cyclists. The tarmac is not really red, but defiantly a shade of pinky grey. There are also bridal ways for horses although not so many of these. The Red Ways typically run along side the road, but are almost always totally segregated. Wonderful. But they could have been better by simply labelling up the Red Ways with the name of the road it follows. As a newcomer to MK, I got totally lost on them. The problem is that they defiantly don’t always follow the road, and can disappear into a housing estate. Trying to find your way out and recover your direction is a matter of trial and error. That said, they are far better than anything in my home town area, Manchester. Imagine the Fallowfield Loop, but all over Manchester. The thorny question of how to get a push bike across a roundabout is totally solved by bridges for the use of pedestrians and cyclists. This type of infrastructure could not realistically be retrofitted to Manchester. But, all in all, a pretty good solution for Milton Keynes. 
     

A Red Way cycle route with bridal way alongside.

  

Here is a Red Way / Bridal way crossing.

Wheelers Brunch

So the first Wheels Brunch arranged by LC at naturallycyclingmanchester went well. About 20 people showed up for breakfast in Odder Bar, Oxford Road, Manchester.
Nice to meet some of the other Cycling Bloggers. We didn’t just chant about nerdy cycling things and cameras, oh no. We talker about ... OK, there was a lot of cycling chat to be honest.

Some of us struggled to find it. Me included. But is there any wonder. Can you find it in the shot below. Well I guess you can, but that sign is not jumping out at me along side all the other neon lights of Metropolis Manchester.

So here is the cycle rack, amply packed with ‘Wheelers Brunch’ bikes.

Cycle to work

Been watching some of the cycle videos that have been posted on some of the cycle blogs. Don’t know why, but they fascinate me, way beyond their actual visual content would merit. So I thought I’d try doing one. Now I don’t have a cycling camera, but my trusty Kodak V705 does have a video option. I don’t use that much, but duct taped it to the front of my bike and cycled into work, and back again. It was taken today, a Sunday, so I didn’t actually go into the office, but it’s my regular journey.
Click: Cycle to work.
Click: Cycle to home.

Stuart Smith

R.I.P. Stuart Smith - the greatest stockcar driver to ever grace the oval track.

Defeated.

Even the mountain bike could not get through the snow.

The trip to the pub had to be abandoned.

Snow!

View from my apartment, and yea, it's definatly snowing... Meant to be going for beers with a buddy who's leaving work tonight. Think he'll be drinking alown.

Manchester

Christmas doesn’t start for me until I’ve had a glass of Gluhwein from the German Christmas market.

Camera work not the best as the first pic shows. It’s a random shot from out of The Mitre window showing the pub across the road, Sinclair’s Oyster Bar. Behind it is the Arndale Centre with M&S on the right.

Second pic shows punters selecting their Gluhwein (warm German mulled wine laced with sugar) actually very nice, but one mug of that is enough for me. A switch back to Euro fizz Lager is soon required.

Frosty!

Jees, how cold was it outside my apartment this morning. Not sure what these berries are, but they are very brave to be still hanging around in this frost.

Caucus

I parked my bike next to this caucus of a bike. Still firmly chained to the railing, but not much left of it.

When I leave my bike overnight, I use two locks. One a thick cable, the other a massively heavy motorbike chain. One through each wheel and both through the frame. The cable lock has been attacked but held. As far as I know an attempt on the motorbike chain has never been made. I don’t know of a way of getting through it, without oxy acetylene cutting gear!

Cable showing the cuts where Mr. Scrote attempted to cut through it.

Electra?

Spotted this interesting old bike outside Kew Gardens. Going off memory, I think it was called an Electra, although it was not an electric bike. Don’t think I’ve seen one of these before.

the pavilion

This is the pavilion that you always see on the TV when they are talking about Kew Gardens.

  



Here is a peek inside.

Looks fine, but I was expecting more. I think in Victorian days, it would have been amazing, but now-a-days your local B&Q will have a small version of most of these plants. So slightly less impressive to modern eyes.

Kew Gardens

This brave little fella stood his ground while the amateur wildlife photographer sneaked up on him. He’d barely time to jump back in his ‘larder’ and then zig zag away with a nut.

Well, it could have been a nut. Dunno really.

Feed the birds

Well here we are. A real life Mary Poppins style lady out in the park by Euston Road, feeding the birds. I suspect with inflation, those bags will be well over two pence now!

Boris’s Bikes

Spotted a row of Boris Johnson’s Electric bikes. A long queue of them here on Endsleigh Gardens in London. Couldn’t resist a look at them and check out the prices. I’ve never ridden one of these and fancied a spin.

No chance. First you need to become a member, that lets you buy a key, you cannot just pick one up on the day and then there are various costs. I wont go into it all, but basically to hire a bike for nine hours (work and back) it would cost you £54. Late charges for returning outside their time slot, that’ll be another £150, and another £300 if you damage it. See here.

Across the whole of Britain (that I’ve seen) , the attempts to get people out of their cars and onto bikes, are laughably inadequate. We all know about the cycle lanes that simply ‘END’, where you would actually need a cycle lane, like at a roundabout, or the lanes that disappear when the road gets too thin to paint in a cycle lane. Also annoying are the cycle lanes that run for five metres, and of course the helpful ‘Cyclist Dismount’ where the engineers have failed to put in adequate infrastructure to accommodate a bike - or more usually, for no good reason at all.

Although I appreciate that they are making some attempt at making things bike friendly, why don’t they see that most of what they do is whole useless, they must know, they’re not stupid people. Just send them on a jolly to Denmark, Holland, Germany etc. to look what they do. All of these countries have very similar solutions and work well. Where needed, bikes get a lane stepped up from the road, similar to the area that pedestrians get. Bikes also get priority on roundabouts, so you can actually go round them without being killed.

Anyone for a weeks commuting to work on one of Boris’s Bikes. That’ll be £270, thank you very much - and don’t scratch it!

Colder

Definitely getting a little wintery! But I’m snug in this duvet - I mean coat.

Ashton-under-Lyne

What happened here! Looks like someone swiped this bit of street furniture with a stray car, it should be upright. There are a line of these plant holders down the centre of Wellington Road. Seen here.

Olympic logo

Well, I’ve thought long and hard.
I’ve given it a chance, and I wanted to like it, but this Olympic logo is a joke.
It’s total rubbish. A five year old with crayon could have done better.
It’s simply an embarrassment that we are showing off to the world.
The committee that chose this should hang their heads in shame

MK bike

 

For no good reason, here is a surprisingly scary pic of me in my apartment with my current bike.

A mountain bike, with fat tyres, as I'm sick of getting punctures.

Sunset

Sunset over Grange Farm, MK.

BriSCA F1 Stockcar World Final

Weekend away at Coventry for the Stock Car World final. Excellent racing, and my guy won, Andy Smith, so I was happy. Some pictures here are of current BriSCA F1 stock cars and some are of the Heritage (old) stock cars.

Modern Stock Cars, they are mostly powered by large American Chevy V8 engines these days. Awesome machines.

These are the Heritage Stock Cars, and they were powered by whatever was the biggest engine in the scrap yard that week!

Notice this one has six wheels! It was actually banned from stock car racing when it first appeared on track over three decades ago, but still runs out in the Heritage event. Actually it won it’s race.

Incase you think you might have seen one or two of these old cars recently, well you have. Some of them featured on the recent Audi advert.

Back to today’s cars. Here’s the rolling lap before they set off next time round. All further photos after this were a blurred mess and ended up on the cutting room floor!