Gherkin

Gherkin, originally uploaded by Alan Perryman.

With the demolition of a building on the corner of Camomile St and Bishopsgate there is a new view of 30 St Mary Axe (aka the Gherkin).

Can’t imagine it will stay like that for long!

Skyride London

So with a long train journey ahead of me on Friday morning, I’d prepared the photos for a few blog posts to be written. Then the Wi-Fi on the train refused to work…

Never mind, a few weeks ago it was London’s Skyride after which I posted a short video. Here are some further photos and thoughts.

Blackfriars Ramp

Normally this is a very busy road and I’m using it to gain speed before joining the traffic on the Embankment. Despite the wet it was nice not to have to worry too much about the traffic at the bottom.

South bank sights

Even Ruth got into it eventually – whizzing past the sights of the South Bank.

Buck house lady

I wonder if the Queen ever rides a bike?

Closed cycle lane on The Mall

Yes – to allow for Skyride to go ahead they really did close a cycle lane. Crazy eh?

Whitehall

I wonder what those tourists thought of the bikes rushing past behind them…

QR Crazy

QR Crazy, originally uploaded by Alan Perryman.

A quick tech post for a change – spotted this use of ‘QR codes’ at Gloucester station allowing anyone with a smart phone (that can read QR of course) to download a PDF timetable.

Potentially useful – but most smart phones don’t have QR built in yet. Anything which takes away the potential for error could be helpful. Anyone reading this use QR to convey information?

Speeding through the Skyride

So this weekend saw the return of ‘Skyride’ (formerly Hovis freewheel) the cycling event that closes off a large chunk of London so Londoners can meander round on two wheels. Apparently this year saw a drop in attendees, with just 55,000 attending compared with last years 80,000 but then it was raining for much of the day so hardly surprising some people stayed at home. It was good fun – but as you might spot in the video above, put a hi-vis on an over enthusiastic marshal and you invoke their internal god-complex and bring the proceedings to a halt. Ho hum.

Of course, away from the Skyride circuit it was situation normal.

Regional winner

Rochdale pool, regional winner, 1987

It seems like it’s been ages since I’ve written anything down. I thought about it but somehow the keystrokes just haven’t been forthcoming.  Last weekend I spotted this sign in the foyer of Rochdale baths after having swum just over half a mile in the ‘big pool’, which unusually, is 100′ (30.48m) long. The pool itself is perfectly functional if a little rough around the edges – the concrete rot has set in  and plans are a foot to replace it with something shiny and new next door. Still, the regional winner of 1987 plaque is still there. And still polished.

There’s some cycling stuff on the way soon, but I’ve started to put small nuggets of cycling at http://piepowered.tumblr.com/ for anyone that way inclined.