Today we went to the Cycling Electric roadshow at Herne Hill Velodrome to have a bit of a poke around.
All-in-all there were many learnings, not the least of which was that e-bikes are bloody heavy!
I liked the Giant ones, and Ribble were nice and a lot lighter (alu frames I think).
Although even cocking my leg over the seat of one to get on betrayed how bloody wobbly I am and I think I’d need a lot of try-out and probably a concrete diagnosis before gambling on what could turn out to be a 2-3 grand white elephant.
Oh, and Tern and all the other cargo bikes were doing an absolutely roaring trade. You can’t take two steps here without bumping into Mum and two offspring doing the school run on one.
Claire has had one for ages, absolutely loves it and puts me to shame by using it, with an iffy hip, most days to commute the couple of miles to work.
Hers is a relatively entry level Dawes but seems decent enough quality, certainly nothing has failed or fallen off in the couple of years she’s had it. She wishes the tyres were a bit chunkier but that’s about it.
I’m getting a gravel bike made by the Casati brothers in Monza. I got measured in the summer, they built the frame last month & now it’s back from the paint shop
Aching a bit this evening. 7 o’clock this morning riding on the ring road bike path and another cyclist appeared out of the dark at speed heading straight for me. I was only travelling about 15mph and had the chance to prepare for impact, so I leaned into him as he hit me. Somehow I remained upright as he bounced off my shoulder and then lost control, cartwheeling down the tarmac. Luckily neither of us was badly hurt, although he did get some nasty grazes.
I was wearing a reflective jacket and have decent bike lights, so normally I am well visible. It sems that he was cycling towards a slow moving, oncoming line of traffic, went to overtake a pedestrian and missed me among the glare of a line of bright headlights.
Failed clamp/weld on seatpost this morning. I am lucky to escape with just cuts and bruises after flying backwards onto tarmac while travelling about 20mph. 10 seconds later and I would have been under a bus
) and looks amazing (which never hurts).
