Markt man: Biking Brum's Christmas canals

German Christmas Markets seem to be everywhere these days. We've been visiting a few - Leeds, Sheffield, York, Birmingham (right, picture Stephen Harper) - in the echt German way.

That is, on bikes, and not spending more than we can afford.

Which means not spending anything, when they want four quid for a sausage.


The Birmingham trip was an excuse to cycle the canal network, with its exciting tunnels (right) and quaint bridges.


It's a little-known fact that, compared to Venice, Birmingham's canals actually have more Somalian muggers.

So the handwritten warnings on the scruffy underpasses and abandoned-factory walls imply, anyway.


A more enticing canalside notice (right) was here, somewhere en route to Bournville.

I had no idea Birmingham was so liberal these days. First it's latte cafes in Gas St Basin, next it'll be naked saunas in Selly Oak. Now that would be authentic German.


Obviously we didn't, out of consideration for the camera-toting trainspotter in the picture (right) awaiting the flypast of a goods train from Immingham.

Canals apart, Birmingham is a horrible city centre to cycle in, with fast heavy traffic ripping along the dual carriageways, and virtually non-existent provision for cyclists.

The odd Sustrans route, such as NCN5 which passes through the Rea 'Valley' and a park by Edgbaston cricket ground, can't really make up for it.

German visitors might at least politely recognise some elements of the Christmas Market; I doubt they'd be as complimentary about the cycle facilities.

Oh come and cycle, all ye faithful: London’s Christmas Day bike ride

Guest blogger Alex Crawford of Southwark Cyclists reports on this year’s annual 25/12 bike ride – the ideal antidote to Chr***mas, and a highlight of London’s cycling year

Roughly 100 riders, from every end of London and beyond, converged at Southwark Needle - friends, family and strangers - all keen to do what they love most on the friendliest day of the year.


Having bunged my turkey in the oven, I donned my flashing earrings and made my way down through the deserted city, where I was greeted with big smiles and a warm shot of sherry at Southwark Needle.

Some other kind soul was offering homemade mince pies and shortbread while festive-looking Barry Mason briefed the masses on today's route. It took us first to nearby Druid's Cycles. The owner Thor had turned the workshop in to a cycling Santa's grotto, complete with flashing lights, reindeer on the roof, and cups of steaming, brandied wine and Glühwein.


We then braced ourselves for the cold again and set off for Putney for a scenic drink at the Duke's Head on the river. Then, numbers dwindling to 46, we set off for a cheap but good Lebanese lunch on Edgware Road via Chelsea, Knightsbridge and Hyde Park. Only us, tourists, dog walkers and the odd car (no doubt late for lunch) were out and about.

After lunch, most peeled off, either for home or Critical Mass. Others went east through the city. I was long gone, back at home boiling brussels sprouts and steaming puddings. I wouldn't have missed the ride though - next time I'll try harder to get the family along too...

Thanks for images too, Alex. There's an 0101 ride to bring in the New Year too - see the Southwark Cyclists e-group for details.

Let them eat Christmas cake. Then cycle it off

A typical Christmas dinner with trimmings packs 956 calories, according to the British Nutrition Foundation. Add cake (249 calories), pudding (587), a pint (185), two mince pies with cream (368 x 2), and a few glasses of wine (87 x n), and you can see why many people’s New Year Resolution is to get that flat-tyred bike out of the garage.

The level four miles from my house to King's Cross uses 68 calories, according to my odometer’s arbitrary-looking figure. At that rate, I’d have to cycle 175 miles to burn off my mum’s Christmas lunch.

So it’s just as well there are lots of other reasons for cycling today or over the next week, and not just cancelling out a surfeit of plum duff. Going out for a spin is the perfect antidote to yuletide ennui: those gaping holes between the Queen's speech and the blockbuster film, or Boxing Day and New Year, that can't be plugged with nuts and sherry.

It's also an experience in itself. Roads feel better, with virtually no lorries and only a few family cars doing the rounds. In cities, the absence of buses on Christmas and Boxing Day (whenever that is this year) makes the streets blissfully quiet – but the street cleaners are off too, so watch out for broken glass. Railways are at a standstill, as may you be after that dinner, so keep distances modest (no sag-wagon train back). Daylight's short (8am-4pm in London, only 9am-3.30pm in Inverness) so make the most of it.

Pubs are usually open at Christmas lunchtime but not evening; finding an open cafe or eatery will be tricky, so phone before to check. If you live near an ethnic area where today is another working day, enjoy the difference and try a new restaurant.

Any present is an excuse for a ride: why not test-drive that new pair of socks? Do your family-and-friends visits on two wheels – no risk of drink-driving.

Everyone's friendly. Ambling round on Christmas morning you'll be greeted cheerily by dads in new sweaters and kids taking their new fifty-quid mountain bikes round the block for the first (and probably last) time.

If you have a White Christmas, a bike is the best way to enjoy countryside whiteouts, or your town wrapped in cotton wool.

So enjoy that seasonal spirit from the saddle, and earn your rosy cheeks from fresh air rather than the sherry. Then if you do indulge, at least you have an excuse. You might even have worked off a few calories.

(This is updated text from an article I wrote for the CTC magazine in December 2007. Other bits of the article were posted yesterday.)

Give yourself a present with a Christmas Day ride

Cycling in London is mostly great fun, but it can be a bit unpleasant at times. You get forced into doing things you don't want. Shouted at when you've done nothing wrong. Abused by people taking out their stresses and anxieties on you. Generally, you're treated like you simply shouldn't be there, even when you've no alternative. Talking of which, I'll be going home to spend Christmas with my relatives...

Nah, only joking. It'll be great, back up in Yorkshire, eating and drinking and laughing and probably doing a few social rides with rels to see friends for a sherry and mince pie, play with the huskies, and perhaps fish for some seals through a hole in the ice.

And there's probably a social ride on Christmas Day near you. Well, if you live in London or Cambridge, anyway. Here's what two cyclists will be doing tomorrow. (The text is updated from an article I wrote for the CTC magazine for Christmas 2007.)

London
Barry Mason of Southwark Cyclists talks about the 25/12, a Christmas Day ride through London

Where do you go?
We start late morning, see some unknown bits of wonderful Southwark, and break at a riverside pub. Then it’s central London for the sights and parks. Around 3pm or so we'll have a late lunch at a wonderfully accommodating Lebanese cafe on Edgware Road that caters for omnivores, veggies and vegans. And then drift back towards Southwark and maybe a pub. It's a slow ride, paced for all: maybe 30 miles in four hours.

Who comes?
The first year, 2002, three people joined me on a wet day. Last year about 170 turned up. We're now listed in Time Out and the papers. I love the mix: some regulars but mostly new faces, some tourists even.

Some people are out for an hour or two before a family day, some are delighted to escape the TV, some might be home alone that day otherwise, some seem to want to stay out forever.

I hope the four German goths in drag and high heels turn up again, but who knows! And if a few singles meet new friends, even better...

What's special about it?
Christmas is hideously commercialised. For me, the ride is an antidote to all that, and a great excuse to do something I love in the city I adore with like-minded people.

The buzz is the happy people and the atmosphere. It's the most smiley ride of the year too: everyone in childishly good sociable moods. Pedestrians love us. And almost no other traffic! In many ways it's what the season is all about at its roots: peace and goodwill to all.

What advice to anyone inspired to do one where they live?
Give people a lie in. Don't start too early. Be inclusive. Make sure the ride's clearly for everybody and that it's easy. Tell local media – it's newsworthy. Don't be put off if only a few people turn up the first year; those who do will treasure the experience, and there will be more next time.

Details for tomorrow's ride
Meet 10am Cutty Sark / 11am Southwark Needle. Southwark Cyclists
(This being the last Friday of the month, December's Critical Mass ride is also on this day, departing from outside the National Theatre at 7pm-ish.)

Cambridge
Nigel Deakin will be on the Cambridge CTC DA’s annual Christmas morning ride
What's the ride like?
This is probably our shortest ride of the year, but one of our best-attended, with about 20 riders. We meet at a civilised 10am and ride at a gentle pace through familiar local lanes for about 20 miles. We end up at a pub about five miles from Cambridge before making our individual ways home for lunch.

There's always something special about riding on Christmas morning. Everyone we meet seems in a good mood. Christmas Day is traditionally a day for over-eating and drinking a bit more than usual so it is nice to get some exercise before returning home to carry on the tradition!

Details for tomorrow's ride
Meet at Brookside at 10am for ride to The Hoops, Barton for a lunchtime drink. Leader: Mike Stapleton.

Happy Christmas everyone

(The postie with the tinselled bike, by the way, was snapped at West Wittering on the south coast)

Rage against the cheap machine

In Christmas 1909, a bottom-of-the-range bike from Gamages cost just under £4. That was equivalent to a little over an average month's wages, or 300-odd pints in a pub.

A century later, Asda will flog you a 'bike' for £70. Even on minimum wage that's only two days' earnings, and even in Wetherspoon's it's only thirty-odd pints. Or 175 profiteroles.

This is a testament to a hundred years' engineering and marketing progress: today, for a tenth of the cost, we can manufacture something that lasts a fiftieth as long...

I'm banging on about cheap bikes again in my Real Cycling column in the latest issue of Cycling Plus. No doubt there will be several bicycle-shaped objects under the Christmas tree this time next week - gaudy, crackling, stiff packages held together flimsily by sticky tape. And that's before they've been wrapped.

And as for the weather, well here in central London this morning it's nothing like last February (picture). A few flurries but no settled snow. The roads and pavements are a bit nasty with black ice, but that doesn't photograph well, being invisible. Think I'll postpone that Christmas shopping cycling trip for a while.

Bike installations? Wheel 'em on

What is it with bike wheels all of a sudden? Seems they're just the coolest thing to give a twist to urban installations these days.

See, for example, the Bike Wheel Christmas Tree (right) that went up over the weekend in Bermondsey Square, already the site of the coolest bike shed in London.

Is this some sort of art movement? Seat-post-modernism? Handlebaroque?


Meanwhile at Cosmobar, a bistro just north of the Barbican so trendy people probably communicate across the table in Twitter, their window (right) has just been enlivened by an all-wheel mobile. It appears to illuminate at night; I hope so, or else the City Police vigilantes will be fining them thirty quid for not having working lights.


I'm not talking bike shops, which have done this sort of thing for ages. Pedal It!, a bike shop near the Elephant for example, has always had wheels as part of its facade furniture (right).


But it makes you wonder where all these wheels are coming from. Does this explain the increasing number of frames like this (right), stripped of anything circular, that we see on London's railings?


Even this bike (right), on the road outside Queenstown Road station in Battersea, wasn't immune.

Light relief

We've decided to give our garish Christmas illuminations this year a cycling theme.

Nice lights. But where's the fairy?

OK, I give in. I've put Christmas lights on my bike.

It's not particularly that I want to be festive. It's more an extra bit of illumination.

Yes, I already have the reflective jacket, reflective armbands, reflective leg bands, steady front light, flashing front light, steady rear light, flashing rear light, reflective panniers and reflective pedals and front and rear reflectors.

But in this solstice run-up of office-party stumblers struggling to make the tricky discrimination between a six foot bloke on a bicycle and thin air, every little helps. I know from experience it's only a matter of time before I nearly collide with an amiably drunk, party-hatted suit stepping out into the road in front of me, and they say Sorry mate, I didn't see you...