Fr. Matthew Cashmore

The problem is of course I’ve not swung my legs over my supple saddle for almost a week. It’s never a good feeling to be without a throbbing lump between my legs, the air forcing its way into my lid, and the rain creeping down my neck. But when you’re staying in one of the most beautiful places in the world, surrounded by stunning views, roads and cafes, and knowing your ride is 250 miles away; it all just seems worse.

I miss the bike. I spent a sleepless night slipping into dreams of riding through the lanes here at Swinton Park. I’ve got a full weekend that doesn’t include a ride, not to mention the fact I’ll be without my bike for the next three weeks, with a couple of exceptions.

Next weekend is the TLB / LB France Ride, fantastic! The weekend after is the JTR Training run… wonderful!

So here’s to the weekends, the lanes, and the dreams of rides to come. But before you start to feel sorry for me, just look where I’m staying this week…

What a fantastic day! Weather was a bit dodgy to start with, but soon cleared up as I blasted around the North Circular to the Ace. Had a huge breakfast there, great as always, and then met up with the rest of the crew. 30 of us in total at the Ace, and for some reason by the time we arrived in Clacton there were 40 of us.

Route was okay ish – made a ITN file for the Tom Tom but it went a bit wrong, well more than a bit wrong, it took me the wrong way on two occasions, and tried several more times – I must sit down and work out how to fix this before we go to France. On the plus side I got the tracking to work really well and created a KML file of the route, couple of bugs to fix but nothing spectacular.

I know this isn’t really about biking, but I went on my bike and these guys are the main sponsors for our Journey To Russia – so I think it counts.

The guys held a fantastic party this evening – full of energy, and fun – full of entertainment and great conversation. I think trustedplaces.com is going to go from strength to strength if the people who were at the party were anything to go by. Intelligent, interested, and full of opinions – I don’t think you can get a better combination of people to write reviews of their most Trusted Places.

The Samba band was amazing – along with the dancers – the whole room was jumping with the beat as everyone took part – there must be something deep down inside us all which responds to this most basic of instrument.

So well done guys – the trustedplaces.com Rio part was a huge success – can’t wait for the next one!

… no I’m talking about some big Hollywood blockbuster, I’m talking about the English weather. For the last four months we’ve been hit with rain, wind, snow, hail, ice, slippery leaves, not to mention a whole host of other strange weather like raining sand.

But now the end is near, we’re towards the end of February and that means only one thing… warmer weather, dryer roads and slicker tyres. I left work for the first time today in the light, it was wonderful, I very nearly went for a blast around the lanes. Had it not been for the rain then I think I would have. There’s another point, now we’re past the worst of winter it’s actually getting warmer, which means when it does rain it’s not mixed with the evil salt that the council sees fit to contaminate the roads with.

So the battle draws to an end, the English weather can try as hard as it likes, but it will never stop me riding (unless it snows REALLY heavily).

Wrote an article today for londonbikers.com about the extension of the congestion charge zone in central London. The interesting thing for me is not the moaning mothers of Kensington but rather the amount of rich kids who’ll get round the charge by buying the latest, most stylish scooter, doing a CBT in short order, and hounding the streets.

The problem isn’t one of scooter snobbery, or even the fact that on the whole I don’t like scooter riders (there are obvious exceptions), it’s the fact that these people will be hurtling around central London with no experience, very little training and thinking they own the road.

Whilst I’ll be enjoying the less congested streets I’m wondering how long it will be before I get rammed by a scooter rider not thinking where they are or what speed they are doing, how long will it be before the accident statistics get to the point where the government ‘must do something’.

We don’t need this kind of attention as the EU are already talking about making the test process more difficult and only available to those who can afford it – but perhaps I agree with them about the CBT not being enough before people can actually ride on the road.

Here’s the article from LB.

Congestion Charge Extension.
19 February 2007, 08:07
by mattcbf600

Feb 19th sees the congestion charge extending west to Bayswater, Notting Hill, North and South Kensington, High Street Kensington, Knightsbridge, Chelsea, Belgravia and Pimlico.

The Mayor has said that since the introduction of the original congestion zone, traffic entering central London during the charging hours has been cut by around 20%. TFL expects a 10-15% reduction in traffic in the new zone, reducing congestion by around 15%.

But many in the new zone reject these claims and say it will actually penalise those who can not afford it. Around 55,000 vehicle owners are included in the new zone – they will receive a 90% discount on the fee, some believe this will lead to more congestion in Central London as those from the new zone return to their cars to commute.

As well as extending the zone west the hours it operates will change, it will now end 30 minutes earlier at 6pm.

On Saturday, up to 50 cars took part in a protest organised by the West London Residents Association – they believe the charge will damage their businesses and cost residents hundreds of pounds a year.

Transport for London on the other hand claims that the Congestion Charge has helped fight pollution, reduce road accidents, and increased the number of cyclists and bikers, as well as turning more and more people to public transport.

TFL’s director of congestion charging Malcom Murray-Clark said, “London still has significant congestion problems.

“Surveys indicate that of all areas adjacent to the zone, congestion is most intense in the west where there are sever delays through the working day”.

Whilst TFL have spent a lot of time assessing the impact on cyclists and public transport no thought appears to have been put into the inevitable increase in bikers. As people turn from their cars and look for alternatives, poorly or little trained riders will seek scooters and other small powered machines to avoid the charge. We already know our bike bays are rammed to the hilt – can they take another scooter explosion this summer?

More novice riders on the road will lead to more accidents, TFL needs to think about it’s policy on access to bus lanes for bikers as well as how it plans to tackle this issue.

I tried to get in this morning because I had a really important meeting that I really didn’t want to miss… so even though the snow is a foot deep – I checked the BBC Jam Cams for Central London and decided to give it a go.

It’s only cost me an alternator plate on the bike, when I dropped it getting it back to the house… it’s still coming down really heavily here and I’m expecting another foot or so over the next couple of hours, I get the feeling had I not got back now, it would have cost me a lot more.

I also want to rant about how stupid car drivers are in the snow – especially 4×4 drivers who think they are invincible… but I can’t say what I want to say in polite company.

Yes I know I make a habit of calling London’s bikers – well London people in general – southern pussies when it comes to things like rain and snow…. but even I am considering the sense in going out on the bike today…

There’s a main road there somewhere… more photos on my flickr page

There’s a great bike show in London – it’s just a shame half of it is at Ally Pally and the other half is at ExCeL.

The Superbike Show at Ally Pally this year didn’t go down well – just a quick read of the londonbikers.com thread on the topic shows how disappointed people were with the overall event – very little there, not much sparkle. In fact, most people thought it was more of a bike jumble, with the great discounts they were getting.

Then there was the MCN London Motorcycle Show, set to be the best ever at a state of the art conference centre in London’s East End, there was a lot of potential, but one small problem; it was horribly clinical. No manufacturers were there except for KTM, Ducati, BMW and a few other small representations. There were a lot of smaller indie bike shops though, and that was nice to see, as well as the show regulars (like the woman selling pink anti fog sticks), but the prices were not exactly cheap. Very few bargains to be had (unless you were buying tools).

I came away with a nice selection of new tools at very good prices, as well as a signed book – Into Africa, by Sam Manicom – and rather sadly the best thing I bought was an airtight salt and pepper holder. So when a motorcycle show highlight is a condiments container, something is amiss.

The problem, I think, lies in that fine line between a venue that is cheap and has character, and a venue that is more expensive, but allows more visitors, and gives the exhibitors access to state of the art technology to sell their wares. MCN must be rubbing their hands with glee, it was packed yesterday, many more people than I saw at Ally Pally last year.

Ally Pally is a wonderful venue, when you arrive you feel part of the biker community in London, everyone parking on the pavement outside, there’s something very ‘London’ about the place that you don’t get at Excel.

I’m sure the MCN show is going to go from strength to strength at Excel, and we’ll see the Sportsbike show go the way of the do-do, but I think that’s a shame, and we’ve lost yet another important part of London’s biker history.

Patrick has a couple of interesting this to say about the show too, specifically about the new Ducati. It was rather nice, the only problem was that my arse completely blocked the air intake valves at the rear of the seat. Ducatis and fat people don’t mix.