Friday Infrastructure: A canal runs next to it

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Welcome back to Feature Friday! If you have been paying attention you will notice a few format changes I made, resizing of the main image and the borders of the blog to better hold data and images, and hopefully make it a bit easier to read.

Today we are in Birmingham, England. As a minor note the main header image was taken here on the same night, albeit a bit later. This image was taken near the end of May at about 9:40 at night. One of the most interesting things, is yes its almost 10pm and yes its still plenty light out! Interesting fact, Birmingham actually has more canals then Venice! This was told to me by one of my friends who lives and works in Birmingham, so he may have been a bit bias, but I can certain believe it. British Waterways has done a really good job restoring and labeling the canal system in Birmingham.

I do not remember specifically where this image was taken, however about 10 minutes later I came across this map, so you can do the math and figure out where I was :P
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It was again the end of the day, and I had an 11:50(ish) train back to Leeds (which turned into a 5am train but another story) so I was tooling around the canals, and circled back around, I don't know how far I went, but it was really nice, if a bit tricky due to the darkness, thankfully I had lights otherwise I would not have done it. Its a really nice rout and with caution can be done well during the day, the path next to the canal is well kept, even if Sustrans does not show it as an official off-road path on their map.

You will note that this is another trek on my Velocampus bike, it served me well that day and even made it truly off-road in a large nature park, which I will cover sometime later.

Approximate Google maps location
Sustrans, Birmingham overview map
British Waterways, West Midlands

Day 1

Yesterday was the test. I picked an apartment for the fall semester ~5 miles from the university. That’s a 10+ mile a day ride, which will be done all by bike, in all weather and at all times of the day. So yesterday, being the first day back was the test. Commute in took around 30 minutes the longish way, and a very brisk pace, no problems, actually met one of my co-workers at the local co-op in her car passing me, we stopped together at one of the intersections on the rout. There is a 40mph 2 lane boulevard I travel on for about a mile and a half, about 2 miles from where I live, and people were nice, moving into the far lane and giving me the entire lane for travel. Might have helped I was in full reflective vest, lights flashing and a nice red helmet, as well as my pannier system on the back. Of course I also don’t have my front fenders on, as I had them off for the trip up, so naturally it rains like cats and dogs just when I need to go get food to stock up and be able to actually eat! I got very wet, and I never thought I would miss having chain guards, like my Velocampus bike had, but man do I miss them. The sun came out later and everything dried up nicely, and my ride home was nice except I forgot that the segregated path north actually dumps me off halfway down another road and I have to cross 4 lanes of traffic and cycle west to pick up the road I was already on, no wonder nobody uses it. Promptly slept for like an hour when I got home. Pictures will be coming once I have a day where I don’t have to make it in early or rush, its really a nice ride.

Sustrans UTravelActive case study draft

Ok so i mentioned this in one of the earlier posts, that I completed a case study for Sustrans Leeds before i left in June. this is the first draft of the proposed article that is going in for UTravelActive. from the website, "UTravelActive aims to increase the level of walking and cycling amongst staff and students at the University of Leeds and Leeds Metropolitan University, and in communities around the Universities." so with this in mind the following bit focusing on the commuting and money saving as well as a bit of health was completed. there will be a second case study put together by Sustran's Sian Bell, whom I interviewed with for these. The second study will be on the website and focus on cycle tourism.

So here is the first draft, there are some changes in it that I have made since it was sent to me, if people would like to comment and add thoughts that would be great. unfortunately due to the nature of its presentation it needs to be short but let me know any thoughts! I would also like to thank Lisa Brannan, who helped me get my velocampus bike as well as set up the case study work.

UTravelActive

When the opportunity to hire a bike inexpensively was offered through UTravelActive’s Velocampus Leeds, John Pelletier, a student at University of Leeds, took full advantage.

He had recently lost weight and wanted to keep it off. He hired a bike through the scheme and found that not only did he maintain his weight loss, he lost more weight as well. He was physically healthier, but he also felt that his mental health had improved, ‘I have more overall energy and a greater mental capacity’ said John.

Although he had cycled since secondary school, John says that he cycled far more miles in the last six months with his Velocampus bike then in the previous 6 years. Cycling every day to University, often beating the buses and cars on his journey in and saving £3.20 in bus fares each day.

If the Velocampus Leeds bike hire hadn’t been available, John would probably not have been able to ride everyday as he wouldn’t have been able to afford to buy a good quality bike. He says 'The Velocampus scheme has changed the way I travel and I feel great!'. He has now permanently changed his travel behaviour and has decided to study for a Masters in sustainable transport and in particular, cycle and walkability infrastructure and development.

Result: Access to bikes gives people a healthy, low cost travel alternative that they may not ordinarily afford and in turn the opportunity to increase their physical activity through their daily travel.

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UTravelActive
Sustrans
Velocampus

Friday Feature, End of the Line

welcome back! For today I am featuring one of the problem spots I found when cycling around West Yorkshire. The trail is the National Cycling Route 66 or the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, which also happens to be part of the thousands of miles of restored canal work by British Waterways. It also turns into cycling route 69 around the town of Saltaire, which is known for the Salts Mill art complex, some really good stuff up by David Hockney, whose photography happens to have inspired a number of my works, as well as a wonderful café (if a bit pricy, but its local and some organic bits so worth it). The Saltaire rail station is right next to the cycle route and the Salts Mill complex as well so makes for ease of mode transfer if so desired.

Back to the image though, (sorry I get easily distracted by little tidbits and such) this is taken a little bit after route 69 goes on road for the official route part. The section I am on is part of a continued purposed (car)traffic-free rout to replace(I think) the on-road section of 69 into Silsden. This traffic free route is purposed currently to continue all the way north to Skipton following the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. I should note at the time I made this trip I was not aware of Sustrans live map feature (so useful) and thus didn't really know where I was going, or how the route split off at this point, or where I would end up either. I had cycled a bit of the route down the hill from where I lived in Kirkstall, so I knew it went north but had no idea how far. I took the southern route later on in the spring, but that's for another time.

The plan for the day was to ride until about noon or 1:00 or until I reached a town in that time window. I left around 9:20 that morning so by noon a café for a nice healthy lunch was in certainly in order. luckily I was able to do just that! I found This café around 12:30 after spying a rather large collection of houses along the waterway. needless to say a wonderful fresh made sandwich on hand-baked bread with local ingredients ensued finished up with a fresh crushed oh so amazing fruit smoothy. After taking about 30 minutes to eat and rest and look at the pictures I had taken so far I headed back home, still not knowing where I was as I had somehow missed any and all town signs.
Cafe Address

the route off the official path is about a mile and a half long and goes right between some very friendly sheep and the canal. It is very very very bumpy, I took the bike very slowly along this, she held up wonderfully though and was quite a champ! I do not recommend taking this "short cut" until they can make it officially part of the network though. Silsden is a small Yorkshire town, so the on road section did not look that bad and I think it would have been just fine and safe to cycle on it. For those of you looking at the route and are confused, you will get to the point where it says route 69 and an arrow pointing off the trail in nice official form to the left as you cycle north from Leeds, take that on road bit and follow it, it will lead right into down town Silsden. if you continue along the canal you will pass under a bridge, turn back before you do so unless you really enjoy bumps.

a collection of images I took along the official network of route 66 and route 69. I should note that it was not as quiet as it looks, while there were stretches where I didn't see anybody, I just don't typically take pictures of large groups while on my bike since I am busy making sure I let them know I am there and don't run them over.


out for a nice ride, a lock in the background
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never too old
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Lunch!!
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typical quality of the trail
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almost home
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Google Maps
Sustrans Map just look where the green line turns into the royal blue line near the bottom right of the screen.

Profile Image

so for those that noticed (all 1 of you out there) I managed to get myself up a nice (I think so) profile picture(click for full size!!) its very exciting!. For a bit of background on it, the picture is taken outside the walls of Cardiff Castle in Cardiff, Wales. There are huge expansive gardens surrounding the castle and the river. The shadows were right, the time was good, and it was my last few hours so I thought hey why not! It was also yet another opportunity to show off me and the Velocampus bike in yet another location. Part of the whole reason I did show off the bike so much was my work right before I left on a case study for Sustrans and the Velocampus Leeds programme, there will be more on that a bit later, and I will post and link here once the study has been compiled and is online. I did some contrast and colour boost of that in Photoshop, in case you were wondering

the Park is Bute Park

Google Maps

Friday Feature, Cycling in the Park

My, this week has gone quickly, the session 1 kids have left and we get session 2 kids on Sunday, for another 3 weeks of art and farm and fun. Should be good! For today’s image though we are in London, and Hyde Park specifically. When I visited London in late march I had my velocampus bike with me, so of course I used it and didn’t take the tube. I was estimating I was riding 25-30 miles a day for 3 days around London. It was an amazing experience and for the most part quite pleasant, I got kind of lost twice and once at night had to use the London Eye to get me back on track (that’s another story). I think the worst bit of cycling is around Westminster, I wouldn’t even drive in that area, its really bad but I did it I think 6+ times while I was there and no injuries or even yells out the window, so guess I did something right. However I must say doing it at night when its wet was I think the scariest moment of my life, even with plenty of lights and a nice reflective vest. The normal drivers are fine; it’s the cabbies and the lorry drivers you need to watch out for. Anyway back to the image, I got in late actually for the first night (came from Portsmouth), and I was staying with a friend, I cycled this path at around 9pm, it was quite dark, yes I cycled through Hyde Park in the dark, and the world didn’t end. Nevertheless I revisited this as a nice off-road shortcut (not really a shortcut, it just looks nicer) from central London to Notting Hill, yes, that Notting hill, where my friend lives. While this is not an amazing path it is a nice raised cycle path, physically separated from both cars and pedestrians. The picture shows one of the crossings along this rout as well. It is also very much used, I passed by here 3 times I believe and I always saw usually 10+ other cyclists in the 3 minutes I was on the path, the road is a little heavily travelled, but the speeds are slow and the separation gives that safety. The road splits the edge of Hyde Park, bordering Kensington Gardens on the west and is called West Carriage Drive. Or The Ring (according to the google)


Google Map
Sustrans Map
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