I Have a Dream!

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I have a Dream! 

Mr T poses briefly on the narrow gauge, two way, puncture magnet fiasco at Korinth back in May 2013. Having had his picture taken we both beat a hasty retreat to the relative safety of the busy roads! 

The "horse riding sand" contains countless small, sharp flints. The animals kick the sand across the narrow strip  of cycling tarmac. The designer of this system was obviously not a cyclist. The path is far too narrow for two cyclists to pass safely in either direction without great care and some skill. Pushchairs, prams, wheelchairs and tricycles become an instant obstruction and a hazard for all other users!  

One particular pedant, whom I followed agonisingly slowly for several miles, would not move from the centre of the path. People of all ages, including small children and the very elderly were literally toppling into the rough grass and onto the sand just to avoid him! After repeatedly requesting him to pull to one side I was finally able to overtake. Only to puncture almost immediately afterwards. And then again not long after that. 

I met several elderly people pushing their bikes with punctured tyres. One lady stopped quite voluntarily, as I replaced my second inner tube, to complain that she and her husband had punctured every time they used the path! One very elderly gentleman with obvious joint infirmities had walked for literally miles while pushing his small wheeled shopper bike! Imagine if it had rained while he was miles from home, now on foot in his shirt sleeves, in the full expectation of a pleasant half hour ride! 

"Nobody knows the trouble I've seen." 

The route is superbly unspoilt, travels in a very useful direction, is devoid of  selfish and impatient drivers (whose needs are always greater than ours) and the tarmac is almost perfect. Except for the flinty sand and the width of course. Closure signs were visible as I passed several path entrances on a later ride in the area. No doubt the cost of removing the sand is completely prohibitive at Danish wage rates for contractor work. 

The cycle paths I used in the UK were often surfaced with a fine white, almost sandy gravel. Which bedded down to a fairly smooth, firm and long lasting surface. Albeit with more resistance to cycling quickly and a tendency to puddle and grow weeds. The paths I used usually ran along disused railway tracks. Their width was usually sufficient for safe passing and the tyre noise usually enough to warn others (who bothered to listen) of one's approach. The sun always shone, the birds always sang and one only had to avoid the huge piles of horse and dog droppings at intervals.

Families with inattentive children and dog walkers in particular could often be a major hindrance and serious hazard to a decent riding pace. Though this would obviously depend on the amount of foot traffic at the time. Hopefully those who used the cycle paths for regular commuting gave themselves plenty of time! I cannot imagine how they'd cope if cycling numbers have increased dramatically in the decades since I last rode in Britain. 

Cyclists and any other traffic do not mix well. For some reasons planning authorities seem blind to this simple fact. They see cyclists as being about 30" wide across the shoulder and assume that twice that is all that is necessary for a two way cycling "freeway." Whereas everything from a country lane to a full blown motorway automatically allows plenty of room for everybody. Totally regardless of cost! 

Even in so-called "bike friendly" Denmark the cycle paths are often ridiculously narrow. Not to mention rough, with constantly changing cambers, hazards and obstructions. While right alongside, unhindered by cost-cutting, the equivalent of four lanes width of perfect tarmac actively encourages drivers to travel in perfect comfort at any speed of their own choosing. Speed limits in Denmark remain a standing joke with a very large majority of all drivers constantly exceeding the speed limit. 

As an example; the police set up a speed camera at a roadworks where a bridge was being repaired. The camera caught 50% of vehicles passing where the speed limit had been reset to 50kph/30mph. This was to protect the workers where the road had been narrowed by bollards. 50% of all passing drivers were speeding. I'd have expected higher figures but those few actually adhering to the speed limit were probably baulking many others. 

Isn't it long overdue that the cyclist had their own Martin Luther King?  
There have been cycling martyrs enough already.  

Monday 26th August 2013

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Monday 26th 70F, 21C, windy, sunny. Late afternoon ride for 12 miles. Still taking it easy to keep the joint pain under control. The supermarkets are worse than ever. Endless queues, no stock of basic items and rotten fruit and veg! What do they expect from employing young teenagers without supervision or training? Clear packed soft fruit with white "furry" mould has been sitting on the shelf for weeks! Tomatoes well beyond ripeness awash with liquid in the clear plastic tub! The entire contents of my shopping bag had to be rinsed of watery tomato juice yesterday! Half of the tomatoes had to be thrown away.

Every time they run out of organic milk and wholegrain bread they blame their computer ordering system. Organic bananas are almost always unusable due to handling damage or sold while still bright green. Meanwhile the political hype machine is trying to get people to eat more wisely? The supermarkets never run out of fags, sweets, fizzy drinks and booze! As I am writing this a medical specialist, on morning TV news, is saying that poor food choices are the main reason that hospitals have any patients at all!

My Brooks B17 'Special' after nearly 3,000 miles. Strange markings but it must be just the grain of the leather. This saddle seems to be mellowing far more gracefully than the honey 'Select'. Leather saddles are strangely difficult to photograph well. To the naked eye they have very little shine but the camera thinks otherwise. This is the best of a number of shots under a cloudless, early morning sky and deliberately out of direct sunshine. Perhaps I need a polarising filter? Or sunshine? 

Tuesday 27th 57F,14C breezy, sunny start but forecast to cloud over. Stinking of pig shit and industrial strength perfume! My hip is feeling less painful today. It had been aching continuously with the pain spreading down into my thigh. Now, if I can only stop my coughing and clearing my throat. Perhaps the end of harvesting will help. The combination of strong easterly winds, the farming machinery raising the dust and exposed soil is an unfortunate combination. The car is often filthy with the dust which sticks to the overnight dew. Rainfall is and has been almost non-existent. Every drop forecast never arrives. Rode to Assens to shop. Wind lighter than it has been. 22 miles.

Wednesday 28th 67-73F, 19-23C, still and sunny. The pig shit and ammonia scented perfume seems to have subsided for the moment. They have been raking the fields at 30mph. The huge tractor, with a tennis court sized rake behind, is belching black smoke every time it accelerates. The dust he is raising is unbelievable! No doubt we can now look forward to last year's crop residue being sprayed off. Though logic suggests that such vicious raking in dry soil should kill off most of the old roots. It became quite warm and breezy later.

My hip is still in relative remission. Probably because I have been deliberately avoiding lifting heavy things. The Head Gardener wouldn't even let me help with her escape tunnel to Australia. At least that is what she claims it is. I have hidden all the sharp implements. Just in case. :-) Only 21 miles.

Thursday 29th 58-66F, 15-19C, light breeze, overcast, it feels a bit cold outside. A hilly route to the shops. Carrying 8 litres of organic orange juice back. 18 lbs + other shopping. Yet again a supermarket chain is advertising and even showing pictures of special offers without having any stock on the first day of the offer. This is fraudulent advertising IMO. It happens almost weekly. It isn't a case of selling out of limited stocks. They just don't have any stock at all! Headwind coming home. Some would say I can always find a headwind. They probably don't ride 20 miles to be disappointed somewhere in the middle. Another 19 miles.

Friday 30th 59-65F, 15-18C, breezy, overcast. A cool start with showers or rain promised. Though it stayed mostly dry all morning. Another branch of the same supermarket with no stock of their special offer. Lies, damned lies and supermarkets! I've hardly noticed my hip today. The first signs of leaf colour is suggesting that autumn is almost upon us. I read somewhere that it has been the driest summer for 17 years. I wouldn't be surprised. Though it has been a very windy year. Hardly a still day. Only 9 miles.

Saturday 31st 63F, 17C, a strong, gusty wind, sunny periods with occasional showers. Hardly a single driver was keeping to the speed limit. Many were driving at twice the speed limit in the villages. A huge juggernaut was coming at me on the wrong side of the road in one village. He was using up even more of my side of the road as he raced towards me with absolutely no reason to be in the middle of the road on a long straight.

I started waving my arms to get his attention just as he took a sheaf of papers out of his mouth in time to shout "Idiot" out of the window. Obviously a paid up member of Sociopaths R'US. I really must get a decent helmet cam to have evidence of the mayhem these barstewards are causing.

A raggedy wind was pushing me all over the place. Or impeding my progress. Still no organic apple juice in the third branch of the supermarket chain with the special offer. Lies, damned lies and Danish supermarkets! I guarantee they'll have stock on Monday when the offer is over! 20 miles and the end of August 2013 as we know it.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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19th August 2013

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Monday 19th 63F, 17C, overcast, humid and only a light breeze. No ill effects from yesterday's silliness. Off we, jolly well, go. A pleasant ride in light winds. It seems that white van man has made the genetic jump backwards to fully fledged ape. I base my thesis on a shrieking example which passed me in a village. The garden is full of butterflies, bees and hover flies again. My email service is broken to addresses in the UK. Somebody tell the NSA/CIA/GCHQ/MI5.1 (whatever) that they are only supposed to read them. Not stop them completely! 19 miles.

Tuesday 20th 56-67F, 13-19C, still, rather cloudy. A delightful ride down to the outskirts of Faaborg via the bjergevej "mountain roads" of Håstrup. I took a few pictures along the way for the blog. The countryside really is beautiful, and very hilly, on this route. The steep, heavily patched lanes make no allowance for mere mortals as the tarmac rears up and falls away again in quick succession. High hedges and dense woods give way to stunning glimpses out over the distant, glittering sea and strips of offshore islands far below. (Well, by Danish standards anyway)

Those fortunate enough to live in the area enjoy a degree of peace often missing from this crazy world in its headlong dash to be nowhere in particular. A bit of a headwind had sprung up on the way back uphill from Svanninge's famous, black-spired church. I saw fewer cars on the roads than there were harvesters in the heavily corrugated and toppling fields. Vaughan Williams would definitely have approved of today's "pastoral" scenery.

Despite my endless moaning I am incredibly grateful to be able to enjoy the quiet pleasures of the Danish countryside at such close quarters. Much of it is so unspoilt compared with the endless din and rush of traffic in Gravely Blighted. In comparison Denmark's south Fyn is still much like I remember the 1950s of rural England.

As children we cycled , walked and rollerskated the roads and lanes without fear of the hideously roaring monster which traffic has now become. No child who lived later than the early 1960s will have the slightest inkling of the utter peace which had lain over rural England for countless centuries.

The sound of a distant church clock striking. A fence post being smacked home rang clear across the gently waving fields as we watched movement without sound. A cow expressing her delight in the flower rich meadow from miles away.  Hedges full of busy birds and noisy insects enjoying the wild flowers in profusion.

Age had softly mellowed the unspoilt villages before new money laid waste to tradition in their haste to "improve their investment." Consigning centuries of quiet and passive generation change to the council estates of the city. As agriculture became a one man band and then a cooperative and finally a foreign hedge fund investment. The clatter and roar of machinery replacing bent backs and the practised toil of sinewy, chestnut brown forearms and twitching and lopsided, greasy tweed caps through the ever-changing seasons.

The old gentleman tends his decorative Box mushrooms with a ready twinkle in his eye for a passing cyclist. He too knows the futility of it all and is comfortably resigned to the inevitable.

The car brought noisy newcomers from the city and destroyed the peace forever. They had no idea how to behave with respect for those who really worked "for a living." Traffic has done far more harm to the countryside and its former society than all the wars combined. Now it has sucked the last remaining life from the villages. The thriving village shop, butchers and post office have all long gone. Along with the meeting places for all. Where every name was known and exchanged for a dollop of respect and small change and serving in a shop was a finely honed skill. Usually involving men in aprons, a well polished comedy routine, a quickness of wit and a constant twinkle in the eye.

All to be replaced by the distant supermarket staffed by indifferent teenagers on the rat-run commute "home" to the gentrified, temporary dormitory. Where the occupants without geographical roots or loyalty move steadily "upmarket" as annual bonuses, funds and the markets allow. The only time they get together is when their "property" values are threatened by an even worse menace than themselves.

Is there a village left in England where a roadside bench makes any sense at all? Where are their former occupants now? The low voices, the surprised laughter and the gesticulating of gnarled walking sticks driven back by the endlessly passing, supermarket juggernauts. Even the erratic bustle and rattle of the ubiquitous branch line railway has long deserted the village. It could never compete with the endless roar of  the traffic on the bypass. As vast fortunes of taxpayer's hard earned were poured into road building, demolition and building soul destroying concrete structures. 38 thoroughly enjoyable miles.

Wednesday 21st 55F,13C, still, bright with high cloud. Sunny and windy later. Not a good day. I still can't send emails to specific addresses in England. The moment I stuck my head out of the door it was nearly blown off by industrial strength perfume trying disguise a bouquet of pig shit with an after-taste of choking mink food and retch-worthy mink shit. I hate Danish supermarket chains for their incompetence and ignorance. Let's throw in fraudulent advertising for good measure.  At least the dog wasn't loose, this time, at the Ebberup Machine Station. 21 miles.

Thursday 22nd 58F, 19C, light winds, cloudy. It is supposed to brighten up.

Rant/You really have to laugh: The Bag Lady (PM of Denmark) has decided to tax those who use woodburning stoves. Apparently it would be too difficult to check if anybody actually has a stove. Despite the mandatory, annual chimney sweep's visit to every home. So she (The Bag Lady) is putting a tax on the fuel when it is purchased commercially. Logs, blocks, pellets etc. (all green energy) will now be taxed at the sales point.

The idea (allegedly) is to make the wood burner pay for their particle release into the atmosphere. Let's completely ignore the huge masses of Danish drivers who went over to chip-tuned, diesel cars when the gov't decided to meddle in fuel pricing. The result of which is an increasing smog of diesel carbon particles in every town and city. <cough-cough-cough>

The fabled Danish district heating is horribly expensive and only available in towns and cities. Denmark is mostly rural with countless detached homes and tiny scattered hamlets. All of which haven't a hope in hell of "enjoying" the expensive, gas fired (fossil CO2 releasing!) district heating. There is also a lot of imported East European timber going into the district heating systems. It's enough to make you hot under the collar! ;-)

Now here's the really funny part in all of this: Demolition contractors offer lorry loads of waste, mostly painted timber. Those daft enough to take "advantage" of this "generous free offer" can then heat their homes and water practically free of charge. This, very obviously, highly toxic mix of materials may include plywood, coated chipboard, Formica and MDF etc. As well as having heavy metal paints and plastic finishes from a time when toxicity was largely ignored and house painters died young. Presumably this ready source of woodburning fuel and highly toxic carcinogens will remain tax free? <cough>

I have just been down the drive to park the wheely dustbin so that the lorry can easily reach it. A few minutes outside the house and my clothes now stink of burning! So, Watson, how do we know your neighbours are burning these free painted planks and board materials? Because they have huge demolition contractors lorries dumping their loads in broad daylight. Their carports are full of rough and broken painted planks. AND the lucky free fuel owners still use their knackered chainsaws and circular saws to cut it all up! Cutting logs takes far longer than zipping through thin, painted planks. Even a fool can tell the difference in the sound! <cough>

So who is really as thick as two short planks? The painted wood burners? Or The Bag Lady? <cough>

I went to the local council to ask whether it was allowed to burn these highly toxic materials when our house filled repeatedly with the smell of burning paint. We are both suffering from constant coughs and endlessly clearing our throats. <cough> Nothing happened! The burning goes on uninterrupted! Black smoke still belches from their chimneys. Even in a 80+F heat wave the three car family still needs to heat its free hot water! <cough>

Y'all couldn't make it up! <cough>  LOL.<cough>

<cough> /rant. <cough>

Went for a ride through the Gelsted forest to cheer myself up and get some fresh air. A lady pheasant refused to leave the road as I passed slowly by. They have a naughty habit of crossing your path if they panic. The harvesting is still in full swing. With harvesters blowing clouds of dust and hay bails of all shapes and sizes now dotting the landscape. Tractors and trailers toil back and forth with the drivers all welded to their mobile phones. A good day for insects. The swallows were out in huge numbers today. Yellowhammers foraging on the road. The tarmac chaps were busy on some stretches. 24 miles.

Uspolerede stråtækt bindingsværk stuehus > Unspoilt, thatched and half-timbered farmhouse.

Friday 23rd 56F,13C, light breeze, sunny. I'm expecting trouble on the streets. Carlsberg has run out of stocks of fizzy sugar bombs due to a strike. If the sugar addicts can't get their heavily subsidised "gas bottles" at the supermarket it might get very ugly. People could get crushed to death! Or something.

Talking of deliberately causing your own ill health: The government has put only 3Kr (30p) on a 39DKK (£3.90) packets of fags. In a recent poll half the population want the price doubled or more. The government says that will just lead to border smuggling. Historically, large numbers of Danes have driven down to Germany to buy their fags, booze and sugar bombs in border hypermarkets. Which might suggest that it is petrol and diesel which aren't remotely expensive enough! Or they place no value on their own time as they might if they were working. I have an appointment for a hip scan today. So only 10 miles. Two choruses of; "Your leg bones are connected to your hip bone?" 

Saturday 24th 58-68F, 14-20C, windy, sunny with of a cloudless sky. It was blowing a gale by the time I escaped. Even in the forest there was a strong wind. 19 miles. Plus 8 miles later. Still a strong and gusty easterly.

Sunday 25th 70F, 21C, very windy, warm and sunny. Just a gentle, afternoon tootle for 13 miles. Lots of classic cars about in the lanes.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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