March 6, 2018

Is there such a thing as a cyclist philosophy?

Cycle journeys, mountain biking, city cycling - cycling shapes my life, my mind and my body. Cycling is a varied experience including many different reasons to ride, such as commuting, fitness, or racing. Experience is further shaped by the type of bike and environment.

Some people cycle purely for functional purposes but for some there is a real philosophy and culture behind cycling that unites a sub-culture. Even though there’s no uniform bike culture, many individual people have their own philosophy. You can find some biographies or autobiographies about cyclists who describe their own attitude toward cycling and how it has changed them.

February 14, 2018

Audience Questions about Weave of the Ride - Cycling Across Europe

The following are common questions I was asked when I did talks about my cycle travels.

how much you spent in each country and how long you were there for?

It depended on where I was travelling. I lived very much on a shoestring. In European countries it could be 5 euros per day, but in India 5 Euros would be a very expensive day and I spent more like 2/3 Euros. Of course, there were times when I was in a touristy area or decided to stay in a hostel or hotel for a night after a couple of weeks of camping.

February 7, 2018

Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

When I lived in London I walked a lot. London is a good city for walking, partly perhaps because it is a historical city where the streets were designed more for people and horse drawn carts. Designed for a time when people would be walking on the streets. However, having visited Dubai and attempted walking around that city, it is clear that Dubai is not designed for walkers. This may be down to the climate but also a ‘road focussed’ city design culture as opposed to one focussed on getting people walking.

February 4, 2018

Alternative Careers for Website Developers

When I attended secondary school the internet was relatively new, but amongst my friends we started learning about it and trying to make websites. I used Photoshop to create graphical buttons with rollovers and used tables to create a simple layout.

Then I discovered alcohol and girls and my attention span reduced to about 10 seconds for a number of years. When I went to university I studied a huge range of things in my course from ecological fieldwork to coastal zone management and forestry management. In my third year of university I attended some classes about business and I became convinced that starting a business was the way forward.

February 2, 2018

Digital tools for Productive Nomads

Whilst travelling I blogged from internet cafes and carried a hard drive around to back up photos from my Camera’s SD card. Technology moves on so fast, that there are now a wealth of options for ‘digital tools’ that help you to process your documenting and communicate to the world. There are thousands of apps for just about every possibility from navigation to finding accommodation to medicine available.

If you are am going on a long bike tour and intend to blog about it, take photos then you need to have an equipment set up to allow this. Do you take a tablet pc or netbook and try to use wifi rather than internet cafes? What software should you use for organising and backing up photos, blogging, and editing for podcasts and videos, protecting against viruses and prevention against theft of your device? Googling offers plenty of idea but here are some thoughts from my own experience.

January 29, 2018

An interesting take on buying a new bike versus building your own bike from scratch

If you have been a cyclist for a while then you will have built up a certain amount of knowledge about bikes, bike repair and so forth. I always find myself having a dilemma between buying a new bike off the shelf or building a bike from parts when it comes to getting a new bike.

These days you see a lot of bikes which are hybrids in terms of design. For example, I recently saw range of bikes from Shand. One bike had mountain bike tires but dropped bars like a road bike. It made me wonder if it was a tried and tested design, an experiment or some kind of fad.

January 1, 2018

How to get more people on bikes in Central London and other cities

Cycling is better for inner city journeys and the government is responding to this. However, there is still a long way to go to catch up with the Netherlands, Germany and other European cities.

Cycle lanes

The infrastructure in Central London is not conducive to designated cycle lanes with narrow roads designed for the horse and cart as shown in the documentary by Andrew Marr - England from Above. Boris Johnson’s cycle superhighways are a start towards improving the infrastructure.

December 13, 2017

Should I Buy Cryptocurrency?

What is it?

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency which is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses cryptography to secure its transactions, to control the creation of additional units, and to verify the transfer of assets.

Bitcoin, created in 2009, was the first decentralized cryptocurrency.

Decentralized cryptocurrency is produced by the entire cryptocurrency system collectively, at a rate which is defined when the system is created and which is publicly known. In centralized banking and economic systems such as the Federal Reserve System, corporate boards or governments control the supply of currency by printing units of fiat money or demanding additions to digital banking ledgers.

September 25, 2017

Urban Cross Country Trail Network - Trails in Cities

‘Desire paths’ are where people cut off the corners of paths because it is more convenient. If you look in fields near to housing estates you will often find footpaths and bridleways that are more worn than the countryside.

Trails could be created that joined up bits of off-road trail, cycle path, trails through small areas of landscaping on business parks. Most of the infrastructure is there perhaps just needs a few more markers.

September 25, 2017

New Project Wants to Connect Mountain Bikers

What they say:

Mountain biking can create great friendship stories like ours. Jonathan and I started riding when we were 13 years old and we quickly understood that this passion would drive our lives…We enjoyed our local trails in Reunion Island until we had to move for our studies. Wherever we travelled, our bikes always followed. In this way, we have been exploring trails in Europe, Africa and North America…One evening while preparing our next MTB trip, we noticed that we’ve always struggled to find riding buddies to guide us through the trails and to book bike-friendly accommodations. That’s how MTBNB adventure started!