29th September 2014

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Monday 29th 50-63F, 10-17C, grey, very misty but it should clear quite soon. Very light winds forecast. I have finally broken the 5000 miles/8000 km marks but rather too late in the year. I should never have mentioned punctures! Punctured on a hedge clipping. Probably one of my own! Another day. Another 3 mile walk as the mist slowly burnt off. Sometimes when I stop it is so quiet that it seems almost as if I have gone deaf. Until, that is, I start walking again and the birds scatter in panic at the sound of my Salomon "Shriek and Squeak" boots.

A perfect day for a ride. Though I left it too late to make a real day of it. I didn't have enough food for a longer ride anyway. So turned for home at 30 miles.

The lake at Langesø where I paused for a mature cheddar, cheese roll. A stately home and associated, original farm buildings sits right on the lakeside. Surrounded in beautiful, hilly scenery covered in its own forest. A popular area for walking, jogging and cycling. With many different routes laid out through the woods. 
 
I enjoyed the very hilly lanes as far as Søndersø with my shadow on the road ahead. Then looped on the dead flat lanes to the next village beyond and across to Særslev. From there it was straight into the sun using the most picturesque route home. No ill effects from yesterday but my right quad felt a jabbing pain now and then but soon passed.

The half-pint sized windmill at Sndr. Esterbølle has been smartened up but I forgot to take a photo due to avoiding local farm traffic. The area around there could easily pass for an English parkland around a large stately home. 50 miles. Plus 6 more miles running an errand. I still had plenty of miles left in my legs.

Tuesday 30th 55F, 13C, heavy overcast, light winds, raining. Forecast to rain all day. They were right! Rest day.

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25th September 2014

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The new crops are growing slowly so far but give a tremendous sense of incline and contour. Best enjoyed full screen at full resolution on a large monitor. The trend towards viewing the web on mobile phones badly needs some means of projecting large scale, virtual images. The tiny screens, even on the latest, iSlave6 may need a pocket with arms, to carry them about, but hardly do justice to photographic images. Landscape images on my 28" HD screen are almost 3D immersive. The blog format, while a tremendous improvement on earlier iterations, still leaves something to be desired.

Thursday 25th 55F, 13C, very windy, overcast. Showers forecast. Walked to the woods to watch the pheasants scatter like headless chickens. Saw two ginger-brown deer grazing before they stepped delicately into invisibility in chest-high nettles. Eye watering wind coming back.

Rode to two village libraries via the rural lanes. Saw what I assumed were two different, buff-coloured, female Kestrels. One was retaliating to being mobbed by small birds. The other was trapped on the wrong side of a tall hedge and shot along like a rocket until it could find an exit. Kestrels are not at all common on my travels. Most of the birds of prey I see are buzzard sized. I stayed dry but my wife told me that several showers passed over at home. I was chased by a keen cyclist for a couple of miles into a roaring headwind. I could tell they were keen because they were wearing suicidal black.

The tarmac men are smoothing out the numerous level crossings from the now long-disused railways. It is an absolute tragedy that they can't fill between the lines to provide new cycle paths. Even Britain was far better served with old, railway bed cycle paths decades ago. The Danish tracks are usually reserved as dogs toilets and an occasional few, hired pedal trolleys in summer. Many of the old lines would make superb, direct cycle routes. With remarkably few inclines compared with the corrugated roads and lanes.

Unfortunately they will insist in using tarmac over here. Which must be far more expensive, though longer lived and lower maintenance, compared with self-compacting gravel. The narrow-gauge, Korinth-Ringe path was surfaced with tarmac but foolishly narrow. Worse, it further handicapped by a wider stretch of flinty sand for horses riding alongside. The project architect was obviously working well above his pay grade and a non-cyclist to boot. Probably never a parent either. Or they would know a pushchair leaves no room for a passing bike on a 1.5m [5'] wide cycle path. Another publicly funded tragedy which will probably set back further track conversions to cycle paths for decades!

A typical sign found at the edge of privately owned, Danish woods with public access paths and tracks. The added yellow text tells us that cycling is allowed on paths suitable for normal cycles. Which suggests that mountain biking is prohibited on more demanding routes. This seems rather vague and might well lead to some discussion as to its exact interpretation. Access is limited to the hours of 6am-sunset. 

Which reminds me that the Continental 4000S tyres have yet to puncture. Famous last words if I dare to venture to the Korinth cycle path. My first set of 4000S punctured repeatedly on the first ride and were left full of gaping holes thanks to microscopically tiny flints! 21 miles.

Friday 26th 56-61F, 13-16C, grey and windy. Walked for an hour. Nearly run over by a registered blind, post office driver of a postal mini-bus. The driver had 200 yards/meters of straight road to see me ahead but still swung over to the white line on the verge just before he passed me. I took to the grass verge. It stayed dry all morning as I continued the war against the thorny hedge. Heavy showers after lunch continued on and off all afternoon. No pressure to go out. Another rest day.

Saturday 27th 56-61F, 13-16C, light winds and sunny. Windy and cloudy forecast. 3 mile walk up to the woods and back another way. The wind had picked up to 25mph gusts by the time I left for a ride. It remained sunny and rather too warm for my least windproof winter jacket. I rode an oval loop along the lanes down to the south coast and back. Coming home I was buffeted by a gusty crosswind. 25 miles.

Sunday 28th 55-63F, 13-17C, heavy overcast, light breeze. The SW winds should remain under 20mph gusts but it will be rather cloudy.Walked 3 miles in an hour looping through the woods. Saw a couple of Jays. Went for a ride after coffee. Lots of birds of prey. The area above Fåborg is a gorgeous mix of hills, fields, steep lanes, ponds and and woods. I was caught by a chap on an electric bike and he rode alongside me while we chatted. He dropped me easily going up a steep hill once he decided to press on. Bit of a headwind building as I came home with sunshine breaking through at the end. I hit 30 mph on a very bumpy, winding descent and nearly lost it! Today's temperature was comfortable for cycling. I wore the knitted cycling jacket. Which helped to avoid overheating on the many climbs. Almost no traffic in the lanes making it a very enjoyable ride. 45 miles.

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22nd September 2014 Has winter arrived?

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Monday 22nd 50-57F, 10-14C, overcast, very windy from the north. The temperature has plunged today. Threat of showers but it stayed dry all day. Spent more hours attacking an overgrown hedge from a ladder. What not to do when you already have sore knees? Lean your knees on the top rung while you hack away with saws and branch loppers.

Left mid afternoon to shop. It was like being bopped by a giant, down-filled bolster every time I passed a gap in a hedge. Still feeling tired. No idea why. First day this autumn with fingered gloves. Still wearing my bare knees though. Wore the Aldi rain jacket in the absence of my winter wardrobe being laid out.

It takes time to organise everything at the start of the cold season. Jackets, tights, vests, hats and gloves all need to be made ready so I have a free choice. I have at least three variations of winter jacket depending on the day's temperature. Several choices of gloves and several different thicknesses of tights. The difference between being cold and too warm is important on a trike. I suffered far too long from agonizing cold when I first started triking again.

Thank goodness for charity shops. Investing in a new winter cycling wardrobe from a bike shop would set me back hundreds of pounds. I still can't make up my mind about a new rain jacket to replace the Aldi. That was bought secondhand in a charity shop too. I probably paid half the new price! Having a decent, breathable rain jacket means I would no longer be at the mercy of wet weather. Normally, I would just take a rest day. It pays to go shopping for wet weather gear when it is raining hard.

At least I still don't have to wear the crappy, polyurethane coated nylon, mobile sauna of my youth. I thought I was setting a trend for wearing an orange cagoule. On the mountains and on the bike or trike all it ever did was get wet inside. Once I was wet I couldn't take the damned thing off in case of hypothermia. It was a nightmare when I was winter mountain walking and camping in Snowdonia! A new black bin bag a day would have been cheaper. Except that bin bags don't usually have arms. Riding 15 miles to work required a change of clothing and half an hour to lose the sweaty heat built up inside the jacket. Only 13 miles.

Tuesday 23rd 44-57F, 7-14C, sunny and still start to the day. Walked for an hour. Knees still hurting. I also have a sore throat after two days of feeling tired with a slight cough and thick nose. Left on the trike after morning coffee. Sunny but rather cool, with an increasingly strong headwind coming home. I kept my cycling cardigan on under the least windproof, lightweight jacket and it was just enough. Wore gloves to start and then shifted to mitts for the return journey. Two cheese rolls, a banana and a box of apple juice kept me going.

While I was out I visited a huge charity shop which has a barn/hall full of furniture, old bikes etc. There I discovered a Viktor mobility tadpole trike in almost new condition. All but identical to the one in the image. I was keen to have a go as I have admired the design for several years. A few bored furniture browsers glared at my daring but I'm well used to that.

Thanks to a handy corridor between the furniture I was able to ride about 50 yards. The trike ran very smoothly on the concrete floor and the clever steering felt very positive and natural. Though the track is probably too wide for most doors. It even has a small degree of inward lean designed in when it turns. Though I had no room to test this out in practice. I imagine this offers a greater feeling of security on corners. The front hubs and coaster rear brake worked really well too. Far more powerful than my own delta trikes with rim brakes and Ultegra blocks!

The problem came when I tried to lift the front end around in a very cramped space to ride it back. I was almost unable to lift it at all! Being fairly fit and used to lifting fair weights I am arguably in a far better physical condition than most likely buyers and users.

For example, I have just spent several days constantly moving and climbing 10' extending ladders as I hacked back 30 meters of overgrown hedge from the second top rung. I used assorted and lumpen, extended reach, power and hand tools. So I had to imagine myself as a rather frail Viktor owner having to bump the trike up over a typical pavement on a shopping trip. Or even over the threshold into my own trike shed. Did not compute!! It would be like trying to lift the complete trike over a wall! Or up a flight of garden steps.

I just checked online and the descriptive blurb on the Viktor says 30kg. [66lbs!] It really felt more like twice that weight! Almost as if there was a bag of cement in the front basket! I kid you not and I have been lumping bags of cement about only recently.

http://www.vanraam.com/t-bike-front-tricycle-trike-viktor/itm/14165

However much I might like the design from an aesthetic and technical standpoint I would have to say the design is a failure because of its quite incredible [unbelievable] weight. The rear end was not much easier to lift off the ground! The charity shop was asking ~£250 for the Viktor. A lot of money but only 1/7 of the new price of £1750!

Had it been 1/3 the weight I might have been tempted to smash the piggy bank and go without food for several months. As it is, I left it sitting there, feeling terribly disappointed at the crippling weight handicap of such a gorgeous and seemingly competent design. Does it really have to carry the burden of being built from heavy gauge water pipe? Perhaps it was the only way to make the beautiful, single tube design strong enough? Perhaps they wanted total stability and didn't care about the weight? Who knows? An aluminium model would be far more attractive but the price is likely to be even more prohibitive!

The width across the front wheels was easily too great even for my generous shed door anyway. Which may explain why I usually see them standing on lawns at sheltered housing units or in carports. The Viktor is what you might call; the triumph of design over functionality. Beauty and the beast. All rolled into one. 39 miles.

Wednesday 24th 54-57F, 12-14C, heavy overcast, windy. Forecast to rain from 9am-9pm. I walked for an hour in wind chill conditions. It hardly rained at all until a cloudburst mid afternoon. Then it forgot to stop. Though my knees are better today I still think a rest day is in order.

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