First Ride-By Shouting of 2008

So there we were.

About half-past midnight no New Year's Eve and Mel and I are riding merrily along Brighton's seafront cyclepath.

Given the time and date, it is no surprise to see dozens of pedestrians wobbling about in the cycle lane. Understandable given the whiff of booze in the air.

So we ride along, happily honk-honking (Mel) and ting-a-linging (me) to clear a path through the merry-makers. We're greeted with countless cheery waves and new year wishes as folks get out of our way.

Until one bloke turns around and shouts "What are you doing? This isn't fucking Amsterdam!" We smile and wave back. There may even have been a bonus honk from Mel.

But he was serious: "This isn't fucking Amsterdam!". What could we say? It wasn't.

But it did smell a little like it.

Birthday - Binary, Bikes and Beer

Friday 29th June 2007 was my 32nd birthday. (When bored the previous evening, it occurred to me that if you were into binary, this would actually be my 100000th. Luckily, I'm not into binary...)

A dreary rainy day at work was followed by a beautiful evening. The clouds parted, the sun broke through and the South Downs beckoned Si, Jim and me up towards Devil's Dyke, along to Truleigh Hill, down to Southwick and back to Brighton with roaring tailwind.

I've been playing with Google Maps a little - Here's the route we took

Ended up at the Robin Hood pub by Brighton's Norfolk Square. I've only recently discovered this place. A friendly kind of pub with decent beer, excellent post-ride pizza and some fantastic photography on the walls. Apparently, all the pub's profits go to charity. The three of us sat among Friday night revellers in our sweaty biking gear and were joined by Nic for a few happy pints.

A great birthday evening - a few miles on the hills followed by beers with some of my favourite people.

National Bike Week Comes to Brighton

National Bike Week began for me this morning at around 4.45am, in the English Channel.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we will shortly be arriving in Newhaven. Enjoy your stay in England."

On our way back from a two day road jolly in Normandy, Tom, Kieron, Saul and I clattered down to the car deck of the ferry to retrieve our bikes and cover the final 17km of our 200km journey - the short ride from Newhaven back to Brighton.

All weekend, we had been contentedly sharing immaculately surfaced roads with French motorists, appreciating their wide, careful overtaking, their patience at junctions and the sensation of being able to stop at traffic lights without the feeling that the car behind you is attempting to climb into your back pocket.

After two days of blissful French cycling and fitful night's waterborne sleep, we rolled off the ferry back onto rainy British roads, resigned to the fact that, back on home turf, we could no longer expect motorists to notice us or respect us as equal road users. We span home along the coast in the rain with cars and trucks passing us at speed.

I returned to Brighton, snatched an hour's sleep, and then packed my stuff for work, swapped my road bike bike for the usual commuter and set off on my 15 minute ride to work, the sun now shining. Within a minute of leaving the house I was flagged down by a cheerful lady in colourfully branded T-shirt.

She reminded me that, as the first day of National Bike Week, today was the day that Brighton & Hove Council were laying on free breakfasts for cyclists. I was ushered towards a nearby café. Not only was I given a flapjack, some fruit and a cup of tea, but a spare bike light and, bizarrely, some Body Shop foot lotion also made it into my courier bag, courtesy of the council. A lively jazz band was playing while free of charge bike maintenance checks were carried out.


I met Dean Spears, Brighton council's cycling mastermind, who told me about the new Journey On website and assured me that our local authority is doing all it can to encourage and enable cycling, as the best mode of transport for our crowded city. Facilities for cyclists in Brighton are relatively good, but they could surely be much much better, so I hope his mission is succesful.

Some of the best documenters of the inconsistencies of British cycle facilities is Brightonian Fred Pipes, whose superb Weird Cycle Lanes blog today points out a straightforward Guardian piece by Emily Thornberry MP, picking apart some of the oft-quoted objections to cycle commuting.

As a cyclist, particularly a commuter, it is easy, so easy, to focus on the negative. Inconsiderate driving, poor roads and the commonly-held perception that cycling is solely for eccentrics can make a British cyclist defensive, perhaps too much so. Events like Critical Mass do wonders for awareness of the power imbalance on British roads, but a lot of their energy lies in the implied confrontation between the needs of the cyclist and the needs of the motorist.

The great thing about this morning's breakfast event, with its music, good food and warm welcome was that it focussed on the positive and it made me smile. It made other cyclists smile, passers by smile and, I hope, motorists smile. Cycling shouldn't be about making a stand and being different. It should be about feeling able to choose a mode of transport which, for most people, offers so many benefits; not least of which is the valuable chance to arrive at work on a Monday morning with a smile on your face.

Flying to Work

Brighton's getting a lot of weather at the moment. After a few balmy weeks, the wind and the rain is back with a vengeance.

Yesterday I rode home along the seafront with a howling wind in my face. As I struggled to make headway on my tired old singlespeed, I wished the wind would let up for me. Then I spotted a couple of guys on road bikes coming in the opposite direction along Madeira Drive. They were going three times faster than me, with the wind behind them and big smiles on their faces.

I told myself that the ride to work the next day would make it all worthwhile. And it was. With the wind behind me I flew along the seafront as fast as my little legs could go to keep up.

Barenaked Ladies - Brighton, 5th April 2007

Watching the Barenaked Ladies at Brighton Dome on Thursday was possibly the most fun I've had in front of a live band.

I can't remember the exact set list; a combination of excitement, ignorance and a touch of alcohol puts that a little out of reach. But I recall rolling in from the bar as they were getting stuck into The Old Apartment to wild applause. They then took us through a healthy collection of great tunes. Pinch Me, The King of Bedside Manor, Intermittently and Some Fantastic stick in my memory, along with some songs new to me, like Sound of Your Voice, which will probably see me adding more BNL to my iTunes over coming days.

They spoke entertainingly of their brief time in Brighton. Ed and Steven made it clear that share Brightonians' mixed feeling of wonder and distaste when they survey our seaside delights - particularly our tacky pier with its eyebrow-raising rides - "Like the ones at Disneyworld but with all the fun stuff removed" observed Ed. A rap followed, describing the way that Ed endulged in Palace Pier's 'Super Booster' ride while Steven let his doubts get the better of him. (As it turns out, Steven's anxiety was well-founded)

I first heard the Barenaked Ladies on the radio some time around 1992. If I Had $100000 instantly grabbed by attention. Music that was warm, affectionate and fun without being sloppy or obvious. That appeal, and of course, the implausible name, stuck in my head and I duly went out and bought Gordon, the BNL's first proper album. I liked Gordon so much I bought the next album, Maybe You Should Drive. Then, for some reason, I forgot about them.

Several years later, a friend tried to re-awaken my interest in the Barenaked Ladies and sent me a mini-disc compilation of their best stuff to date. Living at the time in a rural greek village with a limited selection of music, I'd say it did the trick for those few months. And last Thursday night, when I heard songs like Some Fantastic for the first time in around four years, I was taken right back to an echoey marble-floored room in Greece, where the Barenaked Ladies were delivered to me through a tiny Sony minidisc player and a pair of miniature speakers.

These days, the Barenaked Ladies are very much into technology and the internet. Their website is awash with videos, downloads, fan links and general nonsense. Steven has a fairly entertaining blog. On Thursday they were even offering for sale USB sticks containing the music of the whole concert, just as soon as they'd played the final chord. I'm waiting for Thursday's gig to appear on their download site so I can relive the fun of the other night.

Oh and Meg, thanks for that minidisc.

My other photos of the concert

Bring on the Spring

The arrival of spring, and then summer, has always meant a lot to me, but I've been thinking about it lots recently. Living by the sea it's somehow easier to appreciate the passing of the seasons. Harsh winters of crashing waves and icy cold have to give way, sooner or later, to warm sunshine and long summer evenings.

And so, here we are. At that exciting time of year when summer is easing its way back into our lives. The last five months, mild as this winter has been, have held a routine of chilly mornings, constantly charging bike lights and warm evenings huddled in smoky pubs. (I do notice that the winter doesn't fill me with the same gloom it used to - maybe I'm becoming fonder of the cosy pubs as I grow older...). Next we must re-learn our summer lifestyles; five months of winter is just long enough to forget the simple pleasures of evening beach barbecues and strolling around in shorts and t-shirts. Spring provides us with a chance to remind ourselves how we like to live when the sun shines.

Of course, the passing of the seasons has always been important to us as a society, especially in the days when the production of our food was dependent on it. That's why festivals and celebrations have always marked their passage. From the elaborate festivities of the major religions to the simpler observances of druids and the like, we have always cared about the seasons, however we choose to explain them.

Personally, I like join a group of friends around the time of each equinox (spring and autumn) for our own little tradition:
- our Low Tide Bike Ride.

So when does spring really start? Depends who you ask. The vernal equinox (when the Earth is literally mid-way between its summer and winter positions) is reckoned by astronomers to be the real start of spring. Other folks will wait until our clocks go forward before they recognise the arrival of the new season. Other, more old-fashioned, souls are apparently intent on listening for cuckoos...

But I feel able to announce my own list of signs that winter has passed and spring is ushering in the new summer:

• The first time I am woken in the morning by the persuasive light from my window, rather than the nagging bleep of an alarm
  
• The first time I realise, having woken, that going for a quick ride/run/swim might be a really nice thing to to, rather than an eccentric act of winter bravery
• The first time I can leave work without having to switch on the bike lights
  
• The first time I notice myself sat on Brighton beach in the early evening, with groups of beer-supping friends scattered around the stony beach and the occasional hint of cannabis smoke carried by the sea breeze
• The first time I find myself getting cross with the amount of rubbish left on the beach each night
• The first time I notice with admiration how quickly Brighton's litter pickers restore the beach each morning
  
• The first weekend evening I ride home past enormous traffic jams clogging every road out of Brighton, as Londoners return from their sunny day by the sea
  

Seeing as I have ticked off all seven of the above, I am utterly convinced that spring is now upon us. Next stop summer.

Now, where did I put that barbecue?

Better Than Any Screensaver

Every night as the sun goes down, the starlings of Brighton's West Pier do their amazing evening dance around the hulk of the burnt-out structure. They've been there for as long as anyone can remember. After the fire in 2003 they took a while to come back, but return they did. And now they guard the ruins of this once beautiful building.

They fly in tight formation every night, swooping and diving in their hundreds, possibly thousands. Their fluid mass bends and distorts seemingly at random, but with an amazing unity and power. Occasionally the flock gets separated, as the split second synchronisation breaks down for a few moments. Before long, the two clusters re-join and the temporary rebellion is absorbed back into the flock.

Each bird is an individual creature which controls its own flight. Yet the instinct to fly as a flock is overwhelming and this nightly spectacle is the captivating result. It's always different, yet always the same. you can watch it for ages. Better than any screensaver.

After watching the birds for what seemed like an eternity on Sunday evening, I turned around to see dozens of my own kind all standing in unison on Brighton beach, all gazing out to sea as one.

Then I climbed back on my bike and weaved my way home through the hundreds of cars queueing to get out of Brighton for their migration back to London after the sunny weekend.

Flying Away

8.22am on a Sunday morning. Each one of these vapour trails is a plane. And each plane holds a few hundred people leaving Gatwick and heading south-east for mainland Europe or beyond.

Thousands of people. Thousands of far-away adventures beginning in the sky above Brighton on a chilly February morning.

We know that we need to reduce air travel, for the sake of our planet. But is the answer really to tax the poor out of being able to travel, so foreign experiences become the preserve of the wealthy once again?

Let's get more into travelling by other means, so we can all keep having adventures.

Still Waters Run Cold

Yesterday was the coldest day of the winter so far in England. Northerly winds brought cool arctic air down to Europe. The unusual offshore wind in Brighton creates a beautiful peace and tranquility on the water. Which, on the coldest day of the year, made the act of entering the water an excruciating experience.

'Big wave' days may present their own swimming challenge, but at least there is no escaping the cold water as it jumps up at you like an enormous playful puppy.

On cold, still days, one must consciously lower oneself into the icy water, step by step, especially at low tide, when Brighton's beach remains shallow for a long way.

Pigeon-Proofing Our World

Is it my imagination or has every building in urban Britain developed some kind of odd infection? A sort of rash, characterised by thousands and thousands of spikes covering every visible horizontal surface above head height?

In the love/hate relationship between the British pigeon (friend or vermin?) and the British public (friend or vermin?), these 'anti-roost spikes' are seen as the primary tool with which to spare our shopping malls of excessive avian poop.

Everywhere you look, the lines of any town centre building are serrated by these awkward-looking additions to the urban horizon. They look intrinsically uncomfortable, reminding you at every glance that they were glued there as an apologetic afterthought to the building's design.

The effect is particularly sad when seen on buildings in the 'High-Tech' style. An architect designs and builds a structure with neat, crisp industrial lines, then builders cover it with spikes so it looks like a bizarre enormous birthday cake covered in candles. Many, many candles.

You have to consider whether you'd prefer to tolerate the extra pigeon crap than these peculiar spikes breeding on every near-horizontal surface on every building. How about taking the cost of installing these spikes and putting it towards the salary of a guy with a shovel...

Other than that labour-intensive option, what can we do? There must be a better way. It's a long while since I was studying architecture but I hope that somewhere some building design experts are hard at work coming up with less visually offensive means of reducing the perceived tendency of pigeons to perch upon our buildings and shit on our heads.

The local council in Kingston-upon-Thames considered the employ of a marksman with which to dispatch pigeons and reduce their menace to the public. The resultant response in the public comments section of the Surrey Comet website article has to be one of the most humorous reads on the internet.

Of course, the best way to reduce the amount of pigeons occupying our towns is to stop feeding them. The litter and discarded food which gathers in every corner of our urban environment is what encourages our feathered rivals to compete for our living space. And, of course, we need to literally stop feeding them, as some eccentrics see fit to do. (Not only pigeons, but seagulls benefit from the generosity of certain Brighton eccentrics)

So until we change our habits, we are forced either to tolerate the hungry birds or get used to the ubiquitous spikes - surely a great way to make buildings look stupid, destroy intimacy and ruin high-tech architecture.

Brighton Goes Off

A big day in Brighton.

Big weather, big waves. Not really a morning for swimming!

Here's a video of how things are looking from the roof of the Neilson office in Brighton Marina:



The shakiness of the picture is a clue as to the difficulty I encountered while trying to stand upright on the roof of a three-storey building in 50 knot winds.

The weather is just one item on the long list of things that make Brighton such a great place to be. When it's sunny, we get beautiful warm weather with beach barbecues and lazy bike rides on the South Downs. And when the storms come, the ferocious winds and enormous seas batter the seafront and remind us about the power of the elements. It's amazing.

Amazing, but damn hard to ride a bike in a straight line...

To see how Brighton is looking right now, have a look at the webcam and weather summary in my sidebar.

Sea Swimming

After tentatively dipping my toe in the cold English Channel, I have now taken the plunge and fully joined up with the 'Arch Section' of Brighton Swimming Club.

In December.

Cold?
Yes, it is.
It really is.

But it's a nice surprise to discover how much more there is to it than that.

For a start, there's the small matter of the sea. It's not just the temperature that makes the English Channel such an interesting opponent at this time of year. The sheer power of the waves is amazing, and has to be taken seriously.

Then there are the wonderful people. Our guides for this adventure are Brighton's collection of hardy sea-swimmers who meet every morning on Brighton's seafront at 7.00am. With years of swimming experience under their belts, they make superb and trusted companions, ever happy to offer advice on handling the day's conditions. Hyper-keen senses assess the size of the waves, the state of the tide and the wind's direction, deciding in a second how the sea should be approached.

Along with Nick and Tam, also recent converts, I am one of the youngest members of the club, at the tender age of 31. Most other members are in their 40s, 50s, 60s and even 70s. Since I joined I have been told of fond collective memories of a former club president who recently passed away at the age of 83, still an advocate of taking the waters of Brighton.

On mornings when the waves are big, concentration is required to ensure a safe entry into the waves. Speed is of the essence and the issue of the low temperature doesn't occur until you're safely way from the beach and treading water in the swell. After a few minutes of playing in waves, the time comes to plan your escape. Once again, the breaking waves don't favour the sluggish, so when a gap in the waves is chosen, quick progress up Brighton's stony beach is recommended. Only when the excitement of escape is over does it occur how painful the stones can be beneath icy cold feet.

Once back on dry land, we retreat into the Club's eccentric clubhouse, beneath the arches of Brighton's promenade. Conditions are basic and crowded, but warm showers, a kettle, and the camaraderie of fellow swimmers make it a wonderful cocoon from the outside world.

It seems only right. Brighton (or Brighthelmstone as it was) practically invented the very English practice of immersing oneself in icy seawater for the good of ones constitution. My new friends are continuing this fine tradition, to the eternal amusement of of local onlookers and journalists, who find the whole practice rather quaint and eccentric.

In reality, there's no over-dramatic derring-do involved - just a healthy respect for the power of the ocean. The swimmers don't consider themselves heroes or nutters; they just love starting the day the way they do. And it's a priviledge to be joining them.

Another member of the Club is Flickr legend lomokev, who has captured the fun of sea swimming perfectly with his photos.