Cycle touring and/or night rides: what are the (your) defining feels?

[Kim]

Have you seen James Bradbury's 'Rough Statistics' article in the current Arrivée? https://issuu.com/audax-uk/docs/arrivee_134

I'll get to work on re-programming the Orrery to represent social interaction, morale, clothing dampness and hunger just as soon as Jez has added support for those to the app...   


_{(Worryingly, I've got a reasonable idea for how to measure two of them...)}

[yoav]

The Orrery is a wonderful piece of work - when are you going into mass production ?

 

Alternatively, where can one see it?

[nikki]

I'll get to work on re-programming the Orrery to represent social interaction, morale, clothing dampness and hunger just as soon as Jez has added support for those to the app...   

Emily envisioned a room full of Orreries (IIRC, for the whole Transcontinental fleet, though I might be making that up). Perhaps we could train the ravens to fly between each Orrery in order to symbolise the social interactions?

The Orrery is a wonderful piece of work

Thank you! I'm rather proud of quite a lot of it and it's been very interesting so far, although there's still a lot of work to be done now the thing has been made to exist.

when are you going into mass production ?

AAARRGGGGHHH!

Alternatively, where can one see it?

Currently it's sat on my lounge table.
Nothing in the pipeline atm, though I find myself giving talks about the project every so often.

Once we've got the phone app working smoothly I'd like to just live with it for a while to see what it's like with a long term live connection to someone.

I'd also like to chat to some different people to pull out some different stories - at the moment it's all a bit white middle class and endurance sprot.

[yoav]

So I can't order one for Christmas? Never mind. Do you think you can post a video of it in action. I'm fascinated to see how it works. BTW, are you a cabinetmaker or other craft person by training, or self-taught? How did you get the idea for this and how did you go about designing it? If there's already a website explaining all this then please point me to it. 

[nikki]

Not this year! 

There's a little bit of video here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nikki_pugh/30014702464/in/album-72157670268984281/
In the presentations I give, I talk a bit about expectations for it to do dramatic things (it doesn't), interfaces usually having pause and rewind controls (it doesn't), and generally how awkward it is to try and convey what it's like in photo or video!

The build process however; got loads of photos of that! http://npugh.co.uk/blog/building_the_orrery/

My training is a degree in Metallurgy and Materials Engineering (we didn't make anything) and a degree in visual art (we didn't do an awful lot of making there, either!). I have some making skills, but nowhere near as advanced as a cabinet maker. Usually when I get access to fabrication facilities there's a technician around who I can learn from during the process.

I did a pilot project a few years ago with a phone app moving a few bits in response to the GPS data as I cycled between Birmingham and York, but it was not as advanced or pretty as this version. The framing of it as an alternative to dot-watching and wondering what different conversations it would open up came about after doing an MA and during observing you folks on here 'watching' teethgrinder attempt the year record!

[Cudzoziemiec]

It's not dramatic but it is intriguing. "Why's it doing that? What's it responding to?" The blog of how you made it is very interesting. And is it only me who finds the shape reminiscent of a walnut? It doesn't actually look like a walnut but it somehow reminds me of one.

[yoav]

More like an almond, maybe.

Thanks for the links, fascinating. I'm sure the photos and video don't do it justice. A bit like the swan at the Bowes museum in Barnard Castle - has to be seen to 'get it'.

The rest of your website was interesting too.

[T42]

Fascinating blog.  I'm a bit overawed by the CNC routers & laser-cutting.  Back when I was making furniture I felt apologetic about using a dovetail router bit & template rather than cutting things by hand.

BTW, one of the aspects of night rides that always strikes deeply with me is the smell of maize fields shortly after dark, when there's a night's riding ahead. It always makes me feel prematurely tired for about half an hour, then I'm OK.  That might be a bit challenging to incorporate, though...

Other smells, too: coffee, CAEK, beer...

[Basil]

Village oiks falling and fighting out of pubs as you pass through at midnight.

Also, I always think about when does the time shift occur?  I.e.  at what time do the occasional motorists passing me stop thinking "Blimey, that cyclist is out late"
and start thinking "Blimey, that cyclist is out early"?

[Kim]

It's interesting how different people respond to the Orrery as an artifact.

Obviously, on account of my involvement, I can't help but see it as a badly-structured software project wrapped up in some prototype hardware and some lovingly-polished wood, but if I squint it becomes a deliberately obfuscated remote cycle computer.  If I didn't have the intimate knowledge of exactly how it works, I'm sure like Cudzoziemiec I'd approach it as a puzzle to be decoded^[1].

Barakta, I think, sees it primarily as a box of uncooperative string. 

Others focus on the cabinet itself.  I saw that briefly before we ruined it with mechanisms, and I rather like the contour effect.  Particularly when illuminated by the 'sun', which is the one part of the project that I'm actually satisfied with.

Or the ravens, which you can take days (and a couple of re-writes of the gradient-plotting algorithm) to actually pay attention to.

And of course nobody notices the fan...



_{[1] Indeed, "Why's it doing that?" was a major part of the development process.} 

[Kim]

Village oiks falling and fighting out of pubs as you pass through at midnight.

One of the great things about the bicycle is that it allows you to experience all that, while providing a bubble of safety.

Your front light means the oiks can't see that you're an opportunistic target until you're right upon them, and then you're out of reach before they have time to act.  Even with the advance warning of a group, you're still insulated by the 'cyclists' identity, and any abuse or assault is proportionately impersonal.  Even being egged for the lols is infinitely preferable to being queerbashed or sexually harassed as you wait for a bus, and for the most part it just doesn't happen.

Bicycles:  Best personal safety invention since the Walkman.

Also, I always think about when does the time shift occur?  I.e.  at what time do the occasional motorists passing me stop thinking "Blimey, that cyclist is out late"
and start thinking "Blimey, that cyclist is out early"?

Morning twilight^[1] is my usual assumption, but that doesn't really work in winter when the commuters are out at dark o'clock.


_{[1] Civil, nautical or astronomical twilight left as an exercise for the reader.}

[mattc]

Also, I always think about when does the time shift occur?  I.e.  at what time do the occasional motorists passing me stop thinking "Blimey, that cyclist is out late"
and start thinking "Blimey, that cyclist is out early"?

My guess is that it depends on why he/she is driving at such a strange hour!

(i.e. just got out of bed, or on the way to bed)

[Kim]

Also, I always think about when does the time shift occur?  I.e.  at what time do the occasional motorists passing me stop thinking "Blimey, that cyclist is out late"
and start thinking "Blimey, that cyclist is out early"?

My guess is that it depends on why he/she is driving at such a strange hour!

That's a good point.  Where are they going?  Isn't that a long way?  Is it for charity?  etc.

[Feanor]

I'm always a wee bit wary of cars at that hour, because I reckon they are more likely to be driven by someone drunk or doped up.

Having said that, on a DIY 400, Pingu and I were riding up the Lecht in the pitch dark at somewhere close to midnight o-clock, and it was a police car that passed us on the climb.  I did wonder if it might stop to enquire "what 'ave we 'ere then", but no.  They just carried on.  But I'd like to have heard their discussion!

[yoav]

A similar thing happened on the Carlisle to Newcastle FNRTSR a couple of years ago. We were climbing up to the military road and regrouped at the top where a police woman was sitting in her car, no doubt enjoying a quiet night shift at 2am when a dozen cyclists suddenly pull into a lay-by she thought she had to herself.

[Kim]

I'm always a wee bit wary of cars at that hour, because I reckon they are more likely to be driven by someone drunk or doped up.

Same goes for cyclists really.  Or worse, they could be audaxers.

[Cudzoziemiec]

When the Bristol crew (which did not include me) were on their way back west on the return leg of the Bristol-Hackney mix 'n' mash-up 400 a summer or two ago, they were riding along the A4 near Silbury Hill at about 4 a.m. enjoying the freedom to use the whole of the road, or rather half of it, when headlights were espied astern. So they singled out but as the car drew level it slowed to their speed, took a good long look then gave one flash of the blue twinkles as if to say "You've all got lights, several of you have beards, we suspect of possession of nothing more than jelly babies, and you all seem to know where you're going and how to get there so we reckon you're alright, even if one of you does appear to be riding an 80-year old pile of rust that his dad used to ride to work on". All of which was perfectly true.

[tonyh]

 

[Dibdib]

This thread is really making me miss night riding. I don't think I've had a proper after-dark ride since the last time I did the FNRttS.

[Vince]

And of course nobody notices the fan...

I did! Mainly because I had to install one in a 19" rack we had built and so created a router jig to cut the hole.

[Kim]

And of course nobody notices the fan...

I did! Mainly because I had to install one in a 19" rack we had built and so created a router jig to cut the hole.

At risk of spoilers, this may illustrate my point

[nikki]

It's not dramatic but it is intriguing. "Why's it doing that? What's it responding to?"

If I didn't have the intimate knowledge of exactly how it works, I'm sure like Cudzoziemiec I'd approach it as a puzzle to be decoded.

It's been challenging trying to find the balance of how much to explain to people what each bit does. Ideally I'd like to leave it with a household for a few weeks, explain to them how to work the phone app and then I'd disappear and come back later, curious about what meanings they's found for themselves. I imagine some people would set about examining the cause and effect relationships and try and decode it that way, whilst others might be more content to go for more intuitive interpretations.

In practice, I find people immediately want to be told exactly what each bit means. I'm still working on how much I want to resist that.

Anyway, happy to be hitting the intriguing button for some people - that's a nice territory to be operating in!

And is it only me who finds the shape reminiscent of a walnut? It doesn't actually look like a walnut but it somehow reminds me of one.

Now you mention it, I do see something walnutesque in the texture. Or almondesque.

BTW, one of the aspects of night rides that always strikes deeply with me is the smell of maize fields shortly after dark, when there's a night's riding ahead.

Hannah mentioned the wheatiness of the air when we did our triathlon conversation bit together; made me hyper aware of it when I was cycling around Northamptonshire shortly afterwards. ...and then, by the time of the Rutland weekend, then being hyper aware of how it was now muck-spreading season. Made me wonder if you could construct a calendar based on the smells. What sort of resolution do you think it could have? Maybe better than 'seasonal', perhaps not so much as 'monthly'. Not sure - will continue paying attention!

 

This thread is really making me miss night riding.

Me too!

[Wowbagger]

I had forgotten about this thread to the extent that I just read if from start to finish and it was only when I got to my own post that I realised I had been here before. A bit like a bike ride really. And I never did come back and contribute when I'd got a bit more time.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yes, perhaps it's the texture rather than the shape.

Smells are mostly a rural thing, I think. Urban night smells are not so seasonal: beer, exhaust fumes, litter, greasy takeaway joints, and indeed joints in certain places. Still some seasonality of course.

[Kim]

BTW, one of the aspects of night rides that always strikes deeply with me is the smell of maize fields shortly after dark, when there's a night's riding ahead.

Hannah mentioned the wheatiness of the air when we did our triathlon conversation bit together; made me hyper aware of it when I was cycling around Northamptonshire shortly afterwards. ...and then, by the time of the Rutland weekend, then being hyper aware of how it was now muck-spreading season. Made me wonder if you could construct a calendar based on the smells. What sort of resolution do you think it could have? Maybe better than 'seasonal', perhaps not so much as 'monthly'. Not sure - will continue paying attention!

Somewhere, in the depths of YACF that elude the search function^[1], I wrote a ride report entirely in smells...


_{[1] Neither SMF nor Google allow you to search by smell.}