On the commute today

[marcusjb]

Tailwind home!

[clarion]

Went home via The Womens Library, where I attended a fascinating talk on cycling and the suffrage movement.  NSTN and Butterfly were also there, as well as a few other folk we know.

[sg37409]

Edinburgh council are such a f%ck up. Trams works screwing everyone. 

[jogler]

It staggers me that such a beautifull city can be scarred to such an extent for so long by civil engineering works that appear to the eye as war damage.
IME the city didn't need a tram system in the first place.
In the 80's I travelled throughout Edinburgh & environs extensively using my car,taxis,trains & public transport & getting about was not a difficulty.
Hell, I even walked the length of Princess St many times from Waverley St station just to admire the architecture & promenade.I've never done that anywhere else in U.K. & I don't do walking as a rule.

[Si_Co]

What a stonking ride last night, massive tailwind saw an average speed 0f 24.5 mph before i had to slow to cross the locks, it's quite an odd feeling cruising with the speedo showing 22 and the arrow pointing down to indicate the average is falling.

Headwind this morning, hey ho swings and roundabouts

[citoyen]

citoyen, you just get faster and faster.  It's a bit scary.  One day, you'll be so fast you'll start braking in North Kent and finally come to a stop outside my house.  Come in for a cup of tea, though, won't you?

What's really scary is that I've started to develop an unhealthy interest in esoteric concepts like VO2max and Functional Threshold Power... 

Calling in for a cuppa sounds like a good idea - our routes into work must almost overlap in places anyway, so it's hardly off route.

Anyway, back to more normal speeds this morning, thanks to the wind having changed direction. I don't think my Friday legs were up to repeating yesterday's levels of output anyway. 

d.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Headwind got into the neck of my waterproof jacket and blew my shoulders up like balloons, knocking 3mph off my speed. My jacket is like a drag chute.

[spindrift]

Ugh:

http://bere.co.uk/blog/cycling-anti-pollution-masks-in-london-after-1-month

[SteveC]

Headwind¹, unfitness and a slightly slower cyclist² in front of me made for a slow ride in this morning.

This was counterbalanced by the facts that: I'm on the bike at all as working away from base has been playing havoc with my commuting and it was still quicker than driving would have been.  There was some sort of hold up at the end of the road where I work and the tail back included almost every car which had overtaken me since the middle of our village!

Notes:

1) The headwind has now moved to be a side wind, so I won't get the assistance on the way home 
2) I couldn't easily overtake as I'm really feeling unfit so needed to be in the right place (i.e. going downhill!) and every time that happened there was a stream of cars overtaking me.

S

[TimO]

Ugh:

http://bere.co.uk/blog/cycling-anti-pollution-masks-in-london-after-1-month

The comments on there ask some valid questions.  My nose has a lot more black snot after using the tube than it ever does on a bicycle commute.

[simonp]

Ugh:

http://bere.co.uk/blog/cycling-anti-pollution-masks-in-london-after-1-month

The comments on there ask some valid questions.  My nose has a lot more black snot after using the tube than it ever does on a bicycle commute.

Air quality on the tube is atrocious due to brake dust. Another reason to prefer cycling between mainline stations.

[Kim]

I reckon you'd be hard pushed to find somewhere where such an air filter wouldn't look like that after a month.

[simonp]

I reckon you'd be hard pushed to find somewhere where such an air filter wouldn't look like that after a month.

Hmm. West coast of Ireland.

[Kim]

Yeah.  I was trying to work out where had the same sort of rainfall as Manchester, without the Manchester.

[Wendy]

Surely a lot depends on how evil the particles are too? I'm sure it's not good to be breathing in any particles, but some are worse than others, right?

[simonp]

Surely a lot depends on how evil the particles are too? I'm sure it's not good to be breathing in any particles, but some are worse than others, right?

On the tube, it's brake dust. Evil.

Above ground, in London, it's PM10s (mainly from Diesel exhaust, now officially a class 1 carcinogen), tyre rubber, and brake dust. And your normal, edible dust. Also evil.

[Kim]

Quite.  The respiratory system is designed to filter out particles - that's what all the snot, teeth and nosehair and so on are about - but I'm sure that brake dust and diesel exhaust are a lot nastier than naturally occurring flies dust and pollen.

[Wendy]

AFAIK most of the facemask solutions do nothing for the very small particles, I think PM10s. I wonder what brake dust is like?

[David Martin]

Today's commute was a bit different. Walk to the station and get off at Waterloo. Look for a bike. End up walking to Jubilee Gardens, then head along to Blackfriars bridge. Turning right at the end wasn't the nicest but it wasn't too bad at about 820am.

Then ensued David's Magical Mystery Tour of London, endeavouring to find Barbican and hence Charterhouse Square.

On the way home Iw as heading out to Canning Town/West Ham to pick up my Olympic volunteers uniform.
Bike from Barbican to Bank. Err, no, there were no slots avaialbel and the city has a black hole around bank for bike racks.

Ended up ditching the bike at Aldgate and tube tube dlr (sit at the front and pretend you are the driver) to get the uniform. Then tube and bus all the way home.

[simonp]

AFAIK most of the facemask solutions do nothing for the very small particles, I think PM10s. I wonder what brake dust is like?

Hmm, totobobo claim their filters block out 94% of 0.3um particles, that's a lot smaller than 10um.

[Feline]

I think my vacuum cleaner filter Looks worse than that after a month and that never leaves the house!

[simonp]

I had a look at the list of carcinogens, and collie hair isn't on it.

[Wendy]

I must admit I should re-look at that whole pollution mask issue. I don't think London pollution is doing me much good, and it's very bad here, much worse than I realised since the mayor election raised this in my awareness.

[CrinklyLion]

Puddles and potholes and rain and hail and thunder and lightning and astonishingly brilliant sunshine and a baby bunny to play SCR with and a lemming-like ipod listening (it's the only possible excuse for his behaviour) weasel.  O and some traffic and close passes and beeping and stuff, but that didn't matter.

A weasel!  Probably.  I'm rubbish at all that nature stuff.

I do like the Friday commute.

[teethgrinder]

I must admit I should re-look at that whole pollution mask issue. I don't think London pollution is doing me much good, and it's very bad here, much worse than I realised since the mayor election raised this in my awareness.

I'm not sure that they give any benefit. But I do think it could be a good campaigning tactic if every pedestrian and cyclist wore a pollution mask when the Olympics takes place. It might make an impression on all the visitors from abroad and raise some awkward questions.