London 2012 twilight tour

The bus left from Stratford Station. I was meant to go with my cousin, but some sort of snafu meant that she forgot her photo ID. How frustrating, as this meant she, who had invited me, couldn't get in! I asked at the end of the tour, and it's not clear at all if there will be future tours in the coming months as the construction intensifies. Her best option might be to enjoy a cup of tea and the view from the ViewTube that is meant to open next month on the Greenway elevation between Fish Island and Stratford High Street. I mean, there is so little built on site, and what's there is so massive, that you'll probably see mostly everything I saw from up there.

Anyway, on e va! The bus went up an A road and through what looked like a customs point, swung right and went to the Velodrome. Seen below.

Yup, some concrete supports there. Then over to the Olympic Village.

This will be configured as small dormitories for the games with a massive canteen. After the games, the dorms will gain kitchens and become thousands of flats, while the canteen will become a secondary school. To the right of the village next to Stratford station is a Westfield shopping centre, called Stratford City. It's gonna be massive innit? Bigger than Westfield Shepherd's Bush, bigger than Bluewater!

Who will shop there, who will shop there

Voulez-vous, voulez-vous

Locals got no money

I ain't got no money

Nor do you, nor do you.

I'm sure the economy will have bounced back by 2012, though. And now the news:

The world media centre is as big as an airport terminal, truly big, and square, and permanent. They are looking for mee-dya tenants like the BBC, pretty please. We drove down past a mountain of mud to learn that the mountain was not slag but evidence of a massive decontamination activity removing oil, arsenic and other nasties through washing, and other natural cleaning methods, I think she said bugs. Clean mud, eh?

Then the stadium:

What a relief, apparently this isn't how it will look. The horrid darkness at the base will be covered in a designer fabric, hopefully brightening it up a treat. They going to recycle the fabric into fashion umbrellas or something. Just next door is the aquatic centre. Next door because swimming is the focus of week 1 and athletics, week 2. So everything is concentrated together. I've seen this swooping rook a few times now:

But not the view from underneath. I got a good sense, despite the failing light of the delicate thinness of the roof. It's hideously complex, but despite looking a bit small, it's deceptive, holding at least 2, 50m pools underneath. I look forward to trying it out after the games.

And that was that.

Runcorn Promenade

View of the Mersey (click to see full size panorama):

Up the Black Country to Runcorn

Taken near Stafford

Glencoe

If I ever get into walking, I'm gonna try and do this:

Kent High Speed

Just picked up some tickets for a trip to Runcorn on Thursday and I walked over to get the train home from St. Pancras. I popped up to look at the new trains.



Nice, and there was a steady and continuous stream if passengers getting on. Must be popular. I also noticed that the tunnel over to Kings Cross is progressing well.

Handlebars

None of the suppliers of the 3T Ergosum Pro have any in stock. I got 2 cancellations back from orders I made. So I went and had a look and according to Evans, it's really a racing bar, and touring bars are deeper. But I liked the smooth shape of it.

Anyway, these Noodles were in stock, also have very good reviews, look similar and are touring specific. So I've gone nutty for Nitto I guess.

I may also get an A-head adaptor like this to widen my choice of stems.

Bike orders update

1. Got an email from BETD today about the front hub. The 28 hole is out of stock anyway so they'll send the 32-hole version no problem.

2. Apparently getting a Capreo derailler is a bad idea. It may be limited to a single chainring, limiting upgrade possibilities so when it arrives I will exchange it for a Tiagra.

3. Really good news, although my rims are out of stock till next week, they have confirmed that they accept payment by Paypal, so I have just paid over 3G from my iPhone and will avoid Barclay's £25 IBAN fee.
Oh and I love how on the iPhone, when you tell it to pay, it splashes the correct amount in cash over the page (see above, that is the right amount) and in the right currency.

New APB components

I already have the tyres. I chose Continental Sport Contact over Stelvios (now superceeded by Durano) based on...well, I'm not sure. It came with free inner tubes though.

I am not sure what happened with the rims. I bought 36 hole rims last year for my TSR when that was going to have drum brakes all around, and I bought an extra 2 rims (apparently 28 holes) in the same style for the APB. The TSR rims were "non-machined walled" (all painted with no smooth metal area for the brake blocks) which was fine because drums don't have brake blocks, while the ones for the APB were machined for v-brakes. I ordered them when the Pound was high, but the website didn't say that they had none in stock. Waiting and waiting and the banks collapsed dragging the Pound down with it. This effectively doubled the price, so no more (US sourced) Velocity rims (or underwear) for me!

I don't know why I thought the APB needed 28 hole rims. I mean on actually looking at it, it has a 36 hole hubs front and rear! Anyway, the TSR was deemed not compatible with my front drum brake/dynamo, so since the rim was worn, I used one of the 28 hole rims and matched it with a pure hub dynamo. Being a twit though I bought that in 36 hole and then had to buy another in one 28 hole. Bugger; another addition to my white elephant collection.

Anyway, before I recalled this rim confusion, I knew I wanted to get a 9-speed gear train. I had felt this meant Capreo as the safest bet for my 'small-wheel' APB and this was essentially confirmed on the Moulton mailing list. Of course it's not so simple as getting a 9-speed set of cogs, it turns out virtually everything else has to change as well. Dear God. So, here's my first order:

Note the brake levers for later...

Looking at the picture, I see I forgot something. Gear levers! Here we are then:

None of this is cheap. But at least I had the rims, except the Capreo is a 32-hole hub. To get matching rims, I would need to get a 36-hole version. Here's the frustration. Shimano's website says that it comes in 24, 32 and 36 hole, but the 36 hole version is not sold in Europe. I considered ordering from the US but then noticed that the 36 hole rim I had was 'non-machine walled' so not suitable for the v-brakes on the APB. Then I looked at the 28 hole rim for the front wheel and noticed that my APB had a 36 hole hub at the front so that wasn't compatible either. So I needed new rims anyway.

Well, what actually happened was I thought I would use the 28 hole Velocity rim at the front with a new front hub. So I just needed a 28 hole front hub. Can't be too hard to find one right...right? Cripes these are pretty rare it seems and quite pricey. I ended up ordering this Welsh exotica in 28 hole:

I ordered on Friday morning and have emailed them asking to change or exchange it to 32 holes. Why? Because I wanted matching rims. Looking again at the Velocity site, they made a 32 hole rear rim that would match my 28 hole front rim. But did anyone sell it with a machined wall for v-brake? I couldn't find it anywhere except on the Peter White site, but he doesn't do online orders so I looked at alternatives: Alex DA16 - can't find it on sale anywhere, Sun CR-18 - a bit plain jane and not in 32 hole. I saw a rim from Shürmann (who?), but there was just 1 retailer that I found. I have settled on getting some Rigida X-Plorer rims from Komponentix Germany. I will save the 28 hole Velocity for my TSR front wheel.

Assisted by Google, I have learnt that zoll mean inch and lock means hole. So I will order 2 "Rigida X-Plorer, 406 mm (20 Zoll), 32 Loch, schwarz". I've just ordered some, all in German and this is scary. I have to learn how to do an IBAN money transfer. I hope I can figure this out, why can't we all just get-a-long use PayPal. [Update - oh no, IBEX is expensive - £25 from Barclays - ack...FAIL!].

The last thing today will be handlebars. I haven't decided yet, but my intial choice is this or someting ergonomic like it:

Bike Trauma

So, neither of my bikes are working. I'm taking the APB to the local bike shop on Saturday for them to order me a new rear triangle.

This happened October 5th 2007. Riding around Wandsworth Station towards Kew my rear triangle snapped. Luckily the triangle forced the wheel onto the broken chain stay, acting as a gentle but forceful brake. When I get the new triangle, hopefully they'll spray it in the same electric blue colour, and while they are at it, I'll ask them to re-spay my front forks. I got new forks back in, I think 2005, following a bike crash where the forks had absorbed the impact when a car drive into me head on. I was thrown and suffer no injury. Annoyingly, the forks came back in black.

In January 2006 the rear suspension collapsed into the seat tube. Here's a view of where the rear suspension touches the rear tube.

It is possible that this was weakened in the crash of 2005 and the rear suspension had just been tap tap tapping at it since. The seat tube collapsed going over a speed bump near Waterloo Station in London. Again the failure was graceful because the x-frame cross struts essentially held the seat upright enough for me not to fall off. I initially thought I had a flat tyre before I noticed that the frame had failed.

4-months later I got a new frame, seen here after riding back from the shop without mudguards.

Now in servicing, all the other parts of the bike have been replaced, except for the brake levers and pedals. So, there will be no major parts of the bike older than 4 years once this is done.

I've decided to upgrade the gearing while I'm at it. The original gearing never worked properly for me, and I guess I didn't know how to maintain it right (adjusting the cables etc). Anyhow. I will order a Capreo hub, cassette and derailleur for the back. I may have to buy a 36-hole hub from the US if I can't find one over here.

My TSR on the other hand needs new dropouts. In this picture, there is not meant to be any space around the wheel nuts, and Sturmey Archer should be horizontal.

The cause was simple, progressive weakening of the drop out from excessive torque and repeated repair (banging back into position). After the third repair, the bike shop told me that it was unsafe.

Looking back through my iPhoto collection and can see that this has happened before:

This photo was taken on September 23, 2007 and shows my hub following an incident in Peckham where I had entered the high street directly in front of a bus, but in 7th gear. I selected 2nd gear and pushed without lifting off and the hub pushed through making an almighty crunch. The hub went out of alignment and I had to miss the first London Freewheel that weekend. However when I rotated the anti-turn washers to face backwards, the hub worked again.

I did not realise that the dropouts were damaged, and rode for several thousand additional miles till the hub ran out and wheel started to disintegrate. I had the new hub fitted and the shop banged the drop outs back into place. They were banged back a second time when I had the wheel rebuilt to solve spoke issue, but it was rebuilt with washers that were too weak and which cracked on the first test ride. Then another bike shop fix (chain replacement) left the drum brake loose and the brake turned, putting more stress on the dropouts. And finally just riding in 8th gear, pushing down Peckham Rye hill caused the dropouts to spread a few days later. When they were bashed back again, apparently they were soft. So I'm waiting to see what the bike shop/Pashley can come up with.

Concrete

Look at this concrete in my garden! I am smashing it up. Miserable but not too bad, just taking a long time, can't wait for this to finish!

It's the base remnants of one of these.