Tubby Isaacs

Tubby Isaac’s Seafood Stall, Aldgate

Tubby Isaac’s seafood stall at Aldgate is now closed.

Mint Creams

Mint Creams, originally uploaded by Alan Perryman.

Hackney Wick is literally a stones throw from the #lympic park. But the corporate world seems to end at the canal and the forbidden towpath…

London’s Cable Car

Today saw a brand new piece of infrastructure open across London’s sky line: branded Air Line by it’s sponsors, a new cable car from North Greenwich to Royal Victoria Dock.

Cable Car

Cranking it up

Snap!

A few weeks ago I was unlucky enough to suffer a snapped crank whilst cycling to work. As you can see from the dirt in the stub above, this must have been a fairly old injury that had been gradually worsening over time. Even though I am not very mechanically minded, I set out to find the tools and parts to repair. (If you aren’t interested in bikes stop reading now.)

View Tube

View Tube & Tower Block

 

Another shot from film, the View Tube container café is dwarfed by the development on Stratford High St.

Cycling up the Lee Valley

Low bridge is still low, now with added sign!

This weekend I went for an explore of the Sustrans’ route NCN1, north up the Lee Valley. I have a bit of an on/off relationship with Sustrans:  it is nice someone is trying to provide cycling infrastructure but so often the quality is compromised and it always feels like cycling is only a leisure activity, rather than a useful mode of transport.  This is a real shame – large parts of this route could be an excellent transport corridor through the summer months whilst it’s still light after work. I joined NCN1 via the low bridge at Coppermill Lane on Walthamstow Marshes. Most people struggle to walk under the bridge with a headroom of just 5’0″  but recently a sign has appeared telling all of exercise caution. Sigh: I guess someone had some budget to spend before the end of March. (NB I rolled through chin on handlebars!)

Lee Valley may conjure up images of a river lined with nature – it really isn’t, at least not for the first few miles. That’s not to say it isn’t interesting passing through industrial Tottenham and Edmonton, it’s just not all that pretty. A particular highlight was cycling under a row of electricity pylons along the ‘Lee Park Way’. As is my normal experience with Sustrans routes, there is an amount of randomness in it’s direction. Close to Northumberland Park, you’re suddenly directed off the towpath and onto a shared space footpath next to a major road. In fact you have to cross the road to use crossing the road twice in this short section – I reckon maybe 400 meters next to the road. Back on the towpath via a park, the next major problem (apart from the stench of Edmonton’s own Deephams Sewage Works – that was a fun 1/4mile) came at Enfield Island. Again this was on a diversion around the Enfield lock, where I guess a large number of cyclists might pose a traffic issue in a confined and risky space.

Dead end

Poor signage meant I followed a path that just ended in a pile of fly tipping and palisade fencing. Fantastic.  Doubling back and guessing, I eventually came through the Gunpower Park and into one of those new estates designed entirely for car use next to the giant Sainsbury’s distribution park on Meridian Way. Again poor signage forced me the wrong way down a wide straight fast road to a major roundabout.  Doubling back (I had a hunch I was getting further away from the river) I found I had missed interpreted one sign and missed a second. You mean I was meant to cycle along the pavement? Oh. Further into Waltham Abbey and the route led into park, next to the actual river Lee rather than the navigation. This section was really pleasant – in fact there were loads of people cycling here but judging by the rack fitted cars in the park car park most had driven there to cycle. To the north of the park at Holyfield Hall Farm I found time to stop and capture the signage standard that had misled me earlier:

Moo: more poor signage

On first glance I would assume the blue sign was directing me into the road to continue. But no, the red and white (with tiny writing) sign to the right indicates that this is not actually the cycle route – it’s actually the path out of shot on the right. Some proper signs wouldn’t go amiss along much of this route.  A rectangle with a point on it (like a road sign) would be fine, it could even include a way-mark as well as route number for ease of use.

Close to Lower Nazeing and I’d decided I’d gone about far enough, ~20 miles from home, close to Broxbourne station and with plans for the evening. 15 minutes after boarding the train and I was back in Tottenham again! All in all a reasonable ride – but punctuated with frustrating problems. Would I cycle it again? Probably but would I bring R? Good question.

A reminder

On Friday evening on the way between work and the comfort of the pub, I had the misfortune to bear witness to a road traffic accident. The roundabout on the south side of Trafalgar Sq. has never been my favourite piece of London to navigate but it’s slightly less stressful than Parliament Sq en route to the fast road east, the Victoria Embankment.

At the lights on the roundabout heading towards the Northumberland Avenue exit were myself (BorisBike as my steed) and a motorcycle courier – both of us forward of the double deck bus which had angled over both lanes and within clear sight lines for the bus driver. I am on the left on the nearside, the motorcyclist over towards the far side, quite probably in preparation to avoid the parked cars on Northumberland Ave.

The lights change and we move off, but as is fairly normal some pedestrians make a last dash in front of the traffic on the Northumberland Avenue crossing. The biker slows to avoid hitting them. The bus by now has moved behind me into the left lane.

Then rather suddenly: crash! A small Merc taxi with blacked out windows and diplomatic plates has hit the motorcyclist from behind. The impact gives the bike some unwanted momentum, it raises up throwing the biker off onto his back then lands down onto it’s right hand side. The bike screamed as the throttle twisted uncontrollably.

Thankfully the biker got up and was able to walk and after swapping details we all went our separate ways.

But it is an unfortunate reminder: it is a hostile environment out there on the roads.  With the encroaching darkness all it takes is for someone to be in a rush or not paying proper attention to cause disastrous consequences for someone else. Regardless of the mode you choose to use the road – please take time to think about the other users and how your own actions might impact upon them.

First code

First code, originally uploaded by Alan Perryman.

A very nerdy observation obviously…but I’ve seen my first bus stop with the code on it ready for the Real Time information.

In my opinion, it’s going to be such a game changer for bus transport – no more turning up and hoping…check before you leave the house!

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…

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.