In Argentina

I'm now in Argentina for a few months, updating the next edition of the Bradt Guide.

I've started an occasional blog at http://updatingargentina.blogspot.com

Buenos Aires has a few cycle lanes, and you do see a handful of intrepid ciclistas threading their way through the cut and thrust of the New-York-style traffic mayhem.

But in the world's sixth-largest country, I don't think I'll be doing much getting around on two wheels...

Last post: It's goodbye

This is my last post here. Possibly for a few months, possibly for ever. I'm leaving London and going walkabout.

There may be occasional posts from exotic places round the world - Argentina, Stevenage, Japan, Hull Job Centre, who knows? Life is what you make of it. Except usually the instructions are missing, and the screws are the wrong size.

I'll miss this a lot: 717 posts, at least one per day, since 11 January 2009. I'll miss having the excuse for cycling round London and nosing around taking pictures and talking to people. I'll miss your comments. I'll miss you other bloggers. I'll miss the sheer exhilaration of living in a city where everything happens, everything and everyone comes to you, and it's all only a bike ride away.

I won't miss the psycho bus drivers, arrogant taxis and lawless minicabs. Or the Elephant and Castle roundabouts.

It's been a remarkable year, with the advent of the hire scheme and the Cycle Superhighways. London is certainly enjoying a cycling boom in terms of bike culture, buzz and PR; for the adventurous urbanite, there's no more exciting place in the world to explore by bike.

One day I hope to be back in London, and I also hope it's a better place to cycle. A place not just for wasp-men in sun-yellow jackets, wraparound shades, helmets and road bikes jumping lights, but for real cyclists: people in normal clothes simply going from A to B, where A and B might be shops, school, work, pub, home, friends', or even undefined, because it's just fun.

But a lot will have to change. Facilities remain patchy at best, and usually non-existent or positively dangerous. We're not even as far as the O of Copenhagen.

So now it's up to you. See you. Safe cycling everyone.

Freewheeling uphill: Scotland's Electric Brae

Cycling in Scotland the other day I took the chance to do some uphill freewheeling near Ayr.

Croy Brae, often nicknamed Electric Brae, is a 'gravity hill' - an optical illusion that fools you into thinking an up slope is a down slope, and that the laws of thermodynamics are being temporarily suspended.

It's on the A719, about seven miles of gentle climb and coastal views south out of Ayr. A sign warns you of slow traffic: lots of cars can't resist the temptation to stop, let off the handbrake, and roll magically against the gradient.


There are several such gravity hills (I featured one in Aston Clinton, near Tring, in my Quirky Bike Rides book). But Electric Brae is the best one to cycle.



The illusion really is astonishing. This stretch of road clearly goes downhill into the trees, doesn't it?

Actually not, as the detailed stone plaque informs you in the lay by. In fact it's a quarter of a mile of 1 in 86 descent the other way, towards the camera.

If you stop on your bike 'down' in the middle of those trees and face towards the camera, you roll 'uphill', reaching a freewheel speed of about 10mph. (Conversely, of course, cycling the other way feels oddly strenuous for a 'downhill'.)


The strangest thing is how the illusion disappears the instant you lower your viewpoint (right), particularly when you're looking through a camera. With the surrounding hills out of your eye line, it's suddenly clear that the slope runs towards you. It's a remarkable demonstration of how subtle, but powerful, the subconscious effect is of the skyline on your mental spirit level.

Model cycling facilities at Wimborne

Cycling in Dorset the other day I popped in to Wimborne's Model Town.

This is one of those 'world famous' attractions that has the term 'world famous' in quotes, which means you'd vaguely heard of it from an uncle when you were little, or from that primary school teacher from Poole you failed to chat up once.

The Model Town, opened in 1951, is a charming one-tenth size reconstruction of Wimborne as it was then, shops, houses, minster and all. You stride around the traffic-free streets, sixty feet tall, like a benign B-movie monster in search of a cycle shop.



There are two, both with miniature (but rather modern-looking MTB-style) bikes in their windows.

Crawford's (tel. 347) looks the place to buy a decent new bike for a few guineas, while Dacombe's (tel. 452) seems the place for repairs and advice, or buying an inner tube for a 2.7 inch wheel.


Not much sign of bike parking in 1940s Wimborne by the looks of it, though.

Afterwards you can cycle round the full-size modern-day town, to see if the shops are still there (they're not). It's a pleasant enough place, but when you get cut up by a white van you wish you were sixty feet tall again.

It's the only language they understand

Our East of England correspondent has sent us this picture he snapped on a ride near Ely over the weekend. It instructs road users to drive and cycle on the left, not just in English but also, helpfully, in Spanish.

Here are a few similar signs we'd like to see in London. (We accept no responsibility for clumsy Babelfish translations.)

Japanese Biggu Ben no shashin o toru to, watashi no mae ni doori ni tachanaide kudasai. When having your photo taken in front of Big Ben, please don't step out backwards into the road in front of me.

Russian Если вы сидите рядом с пивом канала выпивая, то пожалуйста дайте мне комнату задействовать в прошлом If you are sitting next to a canal drinking beer, please give me room to cycle past.

Italian Cammini prego sulla pavimentazione, non sulla pista ciclabile. Particolarmente quando siete un gruppo di 24. Please walk on the pavement, not on the cycle path. Especially when you are a group of 24.

Dutch Ja, weten wij onze het fietser faciliteiten shit zijn. Geen behoefte houden vertellend ons. Yes, we know our cycling facilities are rubbish. No need to keep going on about it.

Domino effect: Pizzas by bike

The branch of Dominos pizza in Queen St, in the City, does a lot of its deliveries by bike. (Delivery policies are not set centrally by the company, but locally by franchise holders.) We saw six of them stacked up the other day.

Given the current bike boom in London, we think restaurant menus should add some new pizzas for cyclists:

Bike Hire Scheme pizza Half the time, arrives as an empty plate. The other half, the pizza does arrive, but there's nowhere on the table to put it

Cycle Superhighway pizza Whatever toppings happened to be there before, only now coloured blue

Boris pizza Lots of capers but little else

2010, year of the blues

Blue is clearly the biking colour of 2010: the Barclays-tinted hire bikes, the kerbside cobalt of the Superhypeways...

Now a dive shop has got into the act as well, with this icepop-coloured advert bike, spotted outside Sainsbury's in Clapham. Very nice, but I wish people wouldn't use our bike racks as free advertising space when I'm stopping off to buy a loaf.

Unless, of course, it's some sort of wry comment on the depths to which London's cycle facilities have sunk.