HUBBERS BLOG

Today I completed my first sprint-triathlon. The location was the picturesque rowing lake at Eton which will be used for the for the rowing at the 2012 Olympics in London. The triathlon was a short one with shorter distances called a sprint triathlon. To make it even easier the race was run in sequence so each team member had to complete each discipline before the first team member could start the next discipline.

The whole race was a 400 meter swim followed by a 15 kilometre cycle and finally a 5 kms run.

On the whole I am very happy with my times although my right calf exploded in pain about a third of the way into the run. At the time the only thing keeping me from quitting was the fact that I would have let Grant and Bill down. Five hours later it’s still quite sore so, at Cam’s suggestion, I have two ice packs strapped to it. I’m not 100% I can fully trust Cam as after imparting his medical advice he told me he is training towards an ultra-marathon in the Sahara so he is clearly mad.

Full results here

Today after meeting some friends in Holborn for lunch I rode to the Thames Barrier. I’ve been meaning to get down there for ages to take some photos.

The Tames Path ride isn’t really what I expected. At several places along the Thames, apartments have been built right up to the edge of the river so you have to cycle back to a road to keep heading in the same direction. Sometimes when travelling on one of these back roads the Thames Path is signposted back towards the river and when you get there the path only goes for fifty meters or so before another apartment block forces you back on to the road you just came from. The net effect is that you end up with the feeling that you are zigzagging down the river and sometimes you end up a bit lost or on a main road.

A bit frustrating and not really what I expected from a quite cycle down the Thames.

Today when I rode to work it was SNOWING!

Just after 9am yesterday morning I rode through the intersection of Southampton Row and High Holborn as I do on the way to work every day.

Yesterday the intersection was surrounded by police who had a white tent set up and were filming the intersection. Rather ominously a large white lorry parked half way around the corner of Southampton Row and High Holborn. I chatted with another cyclist about what the likely reason for the white tent was. He suggested it was probably another stabbing as the UK is having an epidemic of them at the moment.

I forgot about it until today when I saw this newspaper banner outside my office in Holborn.

This is the full article form the Evening Standard. Cyclist killed in lorry collision is the second victim in a week

The participants were myself, Bundy, Laura and Grant on team Kiwi. Rachel was team Wallaby, Masha team Anti-Democracy and Karim and Alexia were team Baguette.

Respect to the people who did it with little or no preparation. Masha didn’t get her bike until the day before the ride and Karim and Alexia were “not told” that the ride would be 40 miles long and very hilly. As Alexia put it “Amongst our French friends we are considered the fit ones. But when we go out with you Kiwis …”

Twice a day I ride past the Chinese embassy in London. It isn’t well marked so you would never know it was there if it weren’t for the permanent peaceful protest by supporters of Falun Gong. They are ticked off that their government imprisons them and sells their internal organs before they have finished using them. The other give away is the cop with a machine gun across the road.

Tonight the usual one or two man protest was slightly larger as about a hundred people turned up to protest the deaths of a number of protesters in Tibet. Naturally there was a much larger number of police with automatic weapons. The good news is that we live in a democracy where civil rights are protected by the law and the police don’t gun people down in the street who disagree with the government.

While on the TFL website I also noticed that they have a tube map that shows you where you can take your bike on the tube. The short answer is “not many places”.  London isn’t like cities like Copenhagen where trains are spacious and come with bike racks inside them.

They did have this link to bikeability who can general teach riding skills and how do avoid door ambush.

When I ride through the city I give parked cars a wide berth because you never know when someone will open a door or someone will walk out. This morning I saw a stark reminder of why caution is the best policy.

While I was riding to work around Regents Park I saw a cyclist on the other side of the side of the road passing a parked car when the driver of the parked car opened the door without looking and knock the cyclist off his bike. From where I was it looked like the rider hit the door with his thigh and not his hand/handle bars. Luckily he wasn’t riding too fast but it still looked very painful.

I also found out today that the Transport for London website suggests that cyclists should look out for car doors being opened into your path. They should also suggest that cyclist should have reflexes of a cobra and the ability to read minds of other road users who don’t think looking is important.

• Black cabs swerving to the kerb to pick up/drop off passengers
• Pedestrians stepping out into the road without looking (and most of us do it on occasion)
• Passengers hopping off or on Routemaster buses without looking
• Vehicles turning left across you – even more serious if it is a bus or truck
• Car doors being opened into your path
• Vehicle creepage at junctions
• Delivery vehicles parked in cycle lanes
• Drivers failing to indicate properly leaving everyone guessing
• Vehicles doing impromptu U-turns.

Today I watched large tourist crossing the road nearly get knocked over by another cyclist. After the near miss he stopped for a chat and we had a laugh about how often cyclists nearly hit pedestrians. Anyway to make a long story short he was from Alaska. Bloody friendly people those Alaskans (not sure of the correct collective noun).

My regular route to work is being dug up again and it made me realise that it has been roadwork free for a number of months now. This got me wondering if more roadworks are done in the summer when it is warn and nice to work outdoors. Maybe roadworkers are harder to find in the winter.

If this is the case then it is a real bummer because it is likely that more roadworks will be done in the summer when there are more cyclist on the road creating dangerous situations like the one in this photo.

This made me think of my great new idea for cycle safety. What if roadworkers were only allowed to dig up cycle lanes in the winter when they are significantly less busy? And during the summer they can dig up the regular roads. This way there would be less intrusion during the busy cycle months and therefore statistically the roads should be safer for cycles.

They (you know the they people who control everything) already do other common sense things (no seriously) like fix the tube at night when no one is using it. Why not only dig up cycle lanes in the winter when all the softer riders bikes are collecting dust?