Wednesday was meant to be my penultimate day of cycling to work in Edinburgh.
It didn't start well. Coming down the final stretch of road before my destination, a fast downhill at about 20mph, three separate cars in the space of 300m either didn't look or didn't give a damn and pulled out in front of my brightly lit, fluorescently clad but still very vulnerable self.
Cyclists, from the motorist's point of view, can be very annoying. They are slow (relatively speaking), they can be inconsiderate, they sometimes weave in and out of traffic or run red lights. Newsflash: apart from the slowness (and even that's optional), road users in cars are guilty of all these things and more. Whatever their faults, cyclists are also helping to reduce congestion, carbon emissions and NHS costs. Most importantly, they are fellow road users and uniquely vulnerable road users. The Highway Code accords them all the rights of motorists (except going on motorways and dual carriageways) and a few more that reflect that vulnerability.
Why is it, then, that so many motorists forget that?
The day didn't end well, either, though in a different sort of way. No marauding cars this time, but a short way into my journey there was a sproing, followed by a whoosh. My wheel had buckled, one of the spokes had broken and shot up through the tyre, ripping both the inner and outer. I was able to fix the tyre, but it left me with a dilemma. If one spoke had gone, another was likely to go. Should I finish my ride, or give up and go by train?
I didn't want to lose one of my remaining chances at getting some training in, and I figured I could make the bike last at least for the rest of the ride. I decided to carry on. I thought the wheel would last, and the bike is booked in for a service tomorrow anyway. I was almost right. I got within sight of the hotel: Sproing! Whoosh! A second spoke, a second puncture, a rather more badly buckled wheel. It could be an expensive service.
Thursday, 20 December 2012
Thursday, 13 December 2012
ePetition to protect services for deaf children
If you're bothered by the statistics I've quoted, you might also like to know that the NDCS is sponsoring a government epetition.
Many local authorities are cutting services for the deaf as part of the austerity drive, and in many cases this isn't even being clearly communicated. While difficult choices have to be made, these cuts run the risk of depriving deaf children of access to services they need in order to live a normal life - something I would regard as a basic human right.
The petition has passed 10,000 signatures, which forced the Department for Education to post a rather insipid response. The next target is 100,000 signatures, which would put it on the agenda for consideration by the Backbench Business Committee and might lead to some action.
Even if you can't support the NDCS with a donation, you can sign the petition here.
First snows of the winter commute
Snow in Edinburgh this morning, which added a different and slightly eerie dimension to my ride into work along the Union Canal.
For those of you who don't know it, the canal has something of a dual personality (perhaps Jekyll and Hyde would be a more apposite reference) at the best of times. It runs from the centre of Edinburgh out to at least Falkirk (though I've never been that far) and, as I might have mentioned before, being artificial and created by Scots engineers it runs along the tops of ridges and over viaducts and suchlike. At the city centre end, it can be quite beautiful, lit with little cats eyes on the side of the path and winding past playing fields and big old houses. It's flat, quiet and safely away from cars and buses.
The Mr Hyde quality emerges in narrow cobbled strips where it runs under bridges, and chicanes created by pairs of iron gates that are poorly illuminated, painted black and only sparsely decorated with reflective material. In the dark, you can only tell where they are by the brutal speed bumps either side of them (or in one case, a double set of speed bumps on one side only. Did someone forget to put the gate in the right place?). Edinburgh is also, it seems, home to many people who like nothing more than walking on a narrow path shared with cyclists in near-darkness wearing drab clothes. I haven't hit one. Yet.
Further along, there's an old viaduct with a long strip of especially narrow and slippery cobbles, after which the lighting runs out for several hundred metres. The first time I encountered this stretch, armed only with a totally inadequate urban front light (for "being seen" rather than "seeing"), was the closest I have come to identifying with Luke Skywalker [1], [2].
Anyway, today the snow had gently settled on the path without having time to thaw and refreeze. It was benign to cycle on (though I still trod gingerly over the viaduct), and reduced sound to the muffled hiss of wheels through soft snow. Alongside, the canal itself had frozen over for the full length of my ride and gained its own covering of snow (leading to the unusual sight of swans' takeoff and landing tracks preserved on the surface of the canal). Overhead, the snow clouds reflected a soft grey glow in the early light.
It was like riding through a gentle dream that constantly threatened to head off into David Lynch territory, but never quite did. That can wait for when the bottom layer of snow's had time to refreeze into a slick sheet of black ice...
[1] "How can I ride it when I can't even see it?" "Use the force, Luke"
[2] Lightsabres are kind of cool, but give me a good blaster anyday.
For those of you who don't know it, the canal has something of a dual personality (perhaps Jekyll and Hyde would be a more apposite reference) at the best of times. It runs from the centre of Edinburgh out to at least Falkirk (though I've never been that far) and, as I might have mentioned before, being artificial and created by Scots engineers it runs along the tops of ridges and over viaducts and suchlike. At the city centre end, it can be quite beautiful, lit with little cats eyes on the side of the path and winding past playing fields and big old houses. It's flat, quiet and safely away from cars and buses.
The Mr Hyde quality emerges in narrow cobbled strips where it runs under bridges, and chicanes created by pairs of iron gates that are poorly illuminated, painted black and only sparsely decorated with reflective material. In the dark, you can only tell where they are by the brutal speed bumps either side of them (or in one case, a double set of speed bumps on one side only. Did someone forget to put the gate in the right place?). Edinburgh is also, it seems, home to many people who like nothing more than walking on a narrow path shared with cyclists in near-darkness wearing drab clothes. I haven't hit one. Yet.
Further along, there's an old viaduct with a long strip of especially narrow and slippery cobbles, after which the lighting runs out for several hundred metres. The first time I encountered this stretch, armed only with a totally inadequate urban front light (for "being seen" rather than "seeing"), was the closest I have come to identifying with Luke Skywalker [1], [2].
Anyway, today the snow had gently settled on the path without having time to thaw and refreeze. It was benign to cycle on (though I still trod gingerly over the viaduct), and reduced sound to the muffled hiss of wheels through soft snow. Alongside, the canal itself had frozen over for the full length of my ride and gained its own covering of snow (leading to the unusual sight of swans' takeoff and landing tracks preserved on the surface of the canal). Overhead, the snow clouds reflected a soft grey glow in the early light.
It was like riding through a gentle dream that constantly threatened to head off into David Lynch territory, but never quite did. That can wait for when the bottom layer of snow's had time to refreeze into a slick sheet of black ice...
[1] "How can I ride it when I can't even see it?" "Use the force, Luke"
[2] Lightsabres are kind of cool, but give me a good blaster anyday.
Tuesday, 11 December 2012
Bonus post: a thought experiment
Imagine there's something different about you. Maybe no-one can tell just from looking at you, but it makes it a little bit harder for you to join in fully. You don't fully understand everything that other people do.
What you do understand is that you could join in, you could do everything that people who aren't different can do - if you had the right help and support and if people around you understood a little more about you.
But you don't, and they don't. And so, in effect, you become a second class citizen. You are less likely to reach the same educational level, less likely to achieve your potential, more vulnerable and more likely to suffer. And all of these things are completely unnecessary.
Let's give this difference a name. Call it race, or sex, or belief, or sexual orientation. We haven't yet achieved equality or fairness for people whose difference has one of those names, but at least the problem is visible, and the need for change is well understood, and as a society we are committed to changing things.
Let's try another name. The issue of deafness is largely invisible: did you realise how vulnerable young deaf people are before you read my blog or the NDCS's website? The need for change is not well understood, so almost by definition our society is not committed to change. The NDCS exists to change that.
Please give generously.
What you do understand is that you could join in, you could do everything that people who aren't different can do - if you had the right help and support and if people around you understood a little more about you.
But you don't, and they don't. And so, in effect, you become a second class citizen. You are less likely to reach the same educational level, less likely to achieve your potential, more vulnerable and more likely to suffer. And all of these things are completely unnecessary.
Let's give this difference a name. Call it race, or sex, or belief, or sexual orientation. We haven't yet achieved equality or fairness for people whose difference has one of those names, but at least the problem is visible, and the need for change is well understood, and as a society we are committed to changing things.
Let's try another name. The issue of deafness is largely invisible: did you realise how vulnerable young deaf people are before you read my blog or the NDCS's website? The need for change is not well understood, so almost by definition our society is not committed to change. The NDCS exists to change that.
Please give generously.
Two tests
The trip is looming ahead of me like the south face of Aconcagua itself [1]. In a month's time, if all goes well and my calculations are right, we will climb from Nido de Condores (5,560m [2]) to Camp Berlin (5,930m) ready for an attempt on the summit the next day, weather permitting [3].
At times like this, a not-quite-so-young-as-he-once-was man's thoughts turn to one thing [4]: am I in any kind of shape to do this?
Fortunately, the last two days have offered me two reasonable tests. Last night Leah scored tickets for the recording of the Christmas edition of "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" [6] [7], which found me in a long queue for the lifts at Russell Square. It was a golden opportunity to ignore the dire warnings [8] on the stairwell and climb. As far as I can tell, it was a 57m climb up that tightly spiralling stair case. I managed it without stopping, and without getting particularly out of breath.
Not bad. But from the start of the walk to the top of Aconcagua is about 70 times that. That's a 1,053 storey building [10].
So tonight, I hopped on the treadmill in the hotel gym, jacked it up to 15 degrees, and yomped [12] away for 40 minutes at 5 km/h. While carrying a 35lb pack [13] and wearing a cycling mask [14]. Job done.
Feeling a little more confident now. But see footnote [17].
[1] Not that I will be going up the south face, you understand, though one of the early acclimatisation walks will be a trip to see it up close.
[2] Which is, almost to the metre, the highest altitude I have ever reached - at Kala Pattar on my trek to Everest Base Camp. Everything beyond this will be - for me - terra incognita.
[3] If you'd like to follow the weather on Aconcagua, you can do it here. Pretty scary, eh? In theory, it should get better as we get to high (Southern hemisphere) summer in January.
[4] And for once it's not kit. [5]
[5] Though I have ordered a new insulated Camelbak, insulated covers for my water bottles, stuff sacks for, well, stuff, and some skincare stuff. The psychologist in me knows that this is displacement activity, but it's still nice to have new kit.
[6] Very funny, especially the Hamish and Dougal sound charade of "Towering Inferno". Catch it on Christmas Eve if you can.
[7] It was, apparently, the first time that tickets had been allocated by ballot - 19,000 applications for just over 900 seats. Not entirely sure I believe them. Except about the number of seats.
[8] "175 steps! As high as a 15 storey building! Please, for your own sake, wait for the lifts. If you ignore us and climb the stairs, not only will you have only yourself to blame for the consequences, but all the staff will stand around pointing at you and laughing." [9]
[9] I'm pretty sure that's what it said.
[10] Imagine having to wait for that lift [11]
[11] Unless you were Tom Cruise in Mission:Impossible and could just climb up the outside.
[12] Are you old enough to remember yomping? That really dates us both, I'm afraid.
[13] 16 kilos, if we're being consistent. But it sounds like more if I say 35lbs.
[14] In my mind, I was rocking the Tom Hardy look, but in the gym mirrors [15] it was more Tom Lardy
[15] I mean why? Just why? Have you ever met anyone who actually looks good in the gym mirrors? [16]
[16] And if you did, I bet you didn't ask them out. Too self conscious. All those bloody mirrors. [17]
[17] Excessive footnoting is another displacement activity. I guess I'm not really that confident after all.
Wednesday, 5 December 2012
Thank you...
My latest fundraising email went out last night and the response has been fantastic. Thanks to Kathryn, Howard, Claire, Iain, Hugo, Geoff, the West-Marwoods, Sarah, Martin and an anonymous donor, we're now at £2,845.
In mountain terms, that moves us from the tip of South America to the Chilean Central Valley, and to a couple of metres below the summit of Villarica, one of Chile's most active volcanoes. We're now only about 400 miles from Aconcagua itself, and in terms of the trek I would be nearing the start of the Horcones Valley, where the first day of actual walking begins.
I'll hit that point on 2 January - so here's a challenge for you.Can we raise enough funds that each day in December we match the altitude of the campsite for each equivalent day in January? If we add in the Gift Aid we've raised, we're just shy of Confluencia (£3,390), which I'll reach on 3 January. But from 4th to 9th January we will make our base camp at Plaza de Mulas [1] - £4,350. [2]
Do you think we can make it? Of course we can. I believe in you all.
[1] So named because it's the highest place that mules will go to. Up til that point, a beast of burden can carry your gear, but from then on you're lugging it yourself.
[2] We won't just be hanging out there for 5 days - there are a couple of rest days, but mainly we will be doing acclimatisation trips to climb Cerro Bonete (5,004m) and carry equipment and food to Plaza Canada (£5,050) - the next campsite.
In mountain terms, that moves us from the tip of South America to the Chilean Central Valley, and to a couple of metres below the summit of Villarica, one of Chile's most active volcanoes. We're now only about 400 miles from Aconcagua itself, and in terms of the trek I would be nearing the start of the Horcones Valley, where the first day of actual walking begins.
I'll hit that point on 2 January - so here's a challenge for you.Can we raise enough funds that each day in December we match the altitude of the campsite for each equivalent day in January? If we add in the Gift Aid we've raised, we're just shy of Confluencia (£3,390), which I'll reach on 3 January. But from 4th to 9th January we will make our base camp at Plaza de Mulas [1] - £4,350. [2]
Do you think we can make it? Of course we can. I believe in you all.
[1] So named because it's the highest place that mules will go to. Up til that point, a beast of burden can carry your gear, but from then on you're lugging it yourself.
[2] We won't just be hanging out there for 5 days - there are a couple of rest days, but mainly we will be doing acclimatisation trips to climb Cerro Bonete (5,004m) and carry equipment and food to Plaza Canada (£5,050) - the next campsite.
Tuesday, 4 December 2012
Four weeks to go
Only four weeks to go. In 28 days' time, I should be camped at Confluencia (named for being at the junction of two of Aconcagua's rivers), getting some rest before trekking to view the vast South Face of the mountain as an acclimatisation exercise.
Training is going well. I can now complete most of the ride between my office and hotel in the highest gear I've got available (there is a higher one, but I can't select it until I've got time to get the bike serviced. Cable trouble). Two weeks ago, I couldn't manage to sustain that level of effort for that long. The only trouble is that Edinburgh's entered a period of alternating rain and cold, which makes some parts of my usual route treacherous. The long, narrow, cobbled, cambered footpath along the viaduct is particularly nerve-wracking, but even the ungritted turning onto the path is dicey. I came off this evening, and decided to ride back on the roads instead.
As it gets closer, I wanted to take a moment to remind you of my fundraising. The trip is a private one and I am paying for all the costs ourselves, but I wanted to use the
opportunity to raise money for the National Deaf Children’s Society. My
youngest daughter Cora is hearing impaired, but she’s one of the lucky ones: once she’s old enough for
treatment on her glue ear, she should be able to live a normal life.
Deafness is not a learning disability and with proper support deaf children can do anything that other children can. There are 45,000 deaf children in the UK, and around
1,600 more born every year. Many of them are not as lucky as Cora. The statistics are truly shocking:
- 65% of deaf children fail to achieve 5 A*-C grades at GCSE
- Deaf children are 60% more likely to suffer mental health problems
- Deaf children are more than twice as likely to be abused as other children.
My target is £6,962 – the height of
the mountain - and everything I raise will go to the NDCS. We are 35% of the way there. Please do give generously.
Thanks in advance, on behalf of Cora and other
hearing-impaired children.
Jason
Sunday, 2 December 2012
30 days to go...
Ulp.
It's butterflies in the stomach time. Last Friday marked the one-month-to-go point. In a little over 4 weeks, Jeremy and I will board a flight from Heathrow to Buenos Aires. The following morning, we'll land in Argentina, and (one hopes) reclaim our baggage. Then the fun begins...
Step one: Getting to Mendoza. Not, sadly, as easy as following the signs for "Flight Connections". Buenos Aires has two airports - one international and one domestic. So, job one is to find our way across an unfamiliar city armed only with a knowledge of Spanish so limited that it does not even encompass the correct pronunciation of "chorizo" [1]. Job two, armed only with the same Spanish, is to negotiate the excess baggage charges on my luggage, which, as you may recall, are likely to be substantial.
On arrival in Mendoza, we need to find the driver from Fernando Grajales (our guides), and then hare around the town getting our climbing permits. This process involves going to one office to pay the money and get a receipt, which then entitles you to go and get the permit itself somewhere entirely different [2]. Our window of opportunity to achieve this is apparently so narrow that we've been advised to do this straight from the airport rather than check in at our hotel first [3]. I strongly suspect that it will all be a bit fraught.
Still, we should have it all done in time to enjoy the turning of the year over a glass of red wine in the southern hemisphere summer. On New Year's Day day, we'll take a minibus to a resort called Penitentes. The real adventure begins the next day, with a long walk along the Horcones Valley to Confluencia, our first campsite. We start at 2,950m - by an odd coincidence, exactly the same altitude as the entrance to the Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal - and climb to 3,390m - the height of Phunki Tenga, a village at a river crossing between Namche Bazaar and Tengboche.
Weirdly, many of the campsites on the route up Aconcagua map precisely to points on the trek to Everest Base Camp, which provides the comfort of knowing that I have already walked to most of the altitudes I will be visiting - excepting, obviously, the last couple of milestones.
Does this give me any additional comfort? Do I feel ready? In the last week, for the first time, I'm beginning to think that I might be. I've made two changes that have boosted my confidence.
Firstly, I've taken my trusty Brompton to Edinburgh with me, and I have been commuting between central Edinburgh and my client's offices in the South Gyle. After experimenting with a variety of routes, I've switched from going along the Western Approach Road and past Murrayfield [4], to riding along the Union Canal. This being Scotland, the country that brought us the Forth Bridge and the Falkirk Wheel, the Union Canal is not at the bottom of a valley. It's at the top of two long climbs, and there's a further climb to get from the canal to the top of Castle Hill - which gives me a decent workout on the bike on top of the basic ride.I already feel stronger and fitter from a couple of weeks of regular commuting.
Secondly, carrying excess weight up a mountain is A Bad Thing. Despite my efforts at training, I wasn't shifting the excess pounds that a year of working in India and not exercising had added to my waistline. For the last week or so, I've been Alternate Day Fasting. Which is almost exactly what it sounds like: odd-numbered days, eat normally, even numbered days, eat very little. It sounds extreme, but the evidence is that it has pretty big health benefits and I've been finding it surprisingly easy. On my fast days, I get by on water and endless cups of vending machine tea. It's early days yet, but I have lost a few pounds and I have to tighten my belt a bit more. More importantly, I feel better. Lighter on my feet, more agile. Perhaps surprisingly, more energetic. I carried my elder daughter up a hill in Richmond Park today and barely noticed the extra effort.
Am I ready? I don't know, but my confidence is growing.
[1] How about you? I always think I know, but my confidence, or perhaps my tongue, fails me at the last hurdle.
[2] And no, I don't know why either.
[3] Our fault - we're arriving a day later than we really ought to. Blame Christmas.
[4] The Western Approach Road is apparently verboten to cyclists, at least if the beeps from cars are anything to go by, although the only indication of this that I've been able to find on roadsigns is that all the bus lane signs have had the pictures of the bicycles covered over.
It's butterflies in the stomach time. Last Friday marked the one-month-to-go point. In a little over 4 weeks, Jeremy and I will board a flight from Heathrow to Buenos Aires. The following morning, we'll land in Argentina, and (one hopes) reclaim our baggage. Then the fun begins...
Step one: Getting to Mendoza. Not, sadly, as easy as following the signs for "Flight Connections". Buenos Aires has two airports - one international and one domestic. So, job one is to find our way across an unfamiliar city armed only with a knowledge of Spanish so limited that it does not even encompass the correct pronunciation of "chorizo" [1]. Job two, armed only with the same Spanish, is to negotiate the excess baggage charges on my luggage, which, as you may recall, are likely to be substantial.
On arrival in Mendoza, we need to find the driver from Fernando Grajales (our guides), and then hare around the town getting our climbing permits. This process involves going to one office to pay the money and get a receipt, which then entitles you to go and get the permit itself somewhere entirely different [2]. Our window of opportunity to achieve this is apparently so narrow that we've been advised to do this straight from the airport rather than check in at our hotel first [3]. I strongly suspect that it will all be a bit fraught.
Still, we should have it all done in time to enjoy the turning of the year over a glass of red wine in the southern hemisphere summer. On New Year's Day day, we'll take a minibus to a resort called Penitentes. The real adventure begins the next day, with a long walk along the Horcones Valley to Confluencia, our first campsite. We start at 2,950m - by an odd coincidence, exactly the same altitude as the entrance to the Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal - and climb to 3,390m - the height of Phunki Tenga, a village at a river crossing between Namche Bazaar and Tengboche.
Weirdly, many of the campsites on the route up Aconcagua map precisely to points on the trek to Everest Base Camp, which provides the comfort of knowing that I have already walked to most of the altitudes I will be visiting - excepting, obviously, the last couple of milestones.
Does this give me any additional comfort? Do I feel ready? In the last week, for the first time, I'm beginning to think that I might be. I've made two changes that have boosted my confidence.
Firstly, I've taken my trusty Brompton to Edinburgh with me, and I have been commuting between central Edinburgh and my client's offices in the South Gyle. After experimenting with a variety of routes, I've switched from going along the Western Approach Road and past Murrayfield [4], to riding along the Union Canal. This being Scotland, the country that brought us the Forth Bridge and the Falkirk Wheel, the Union Canal is not at the bottom of a valley. It's at the top of two long climbs, and there's a further climb to get from the canal to the top of Castle Hill - which gives me a decent workout on the bike on top of the basic ride.I already feel stronger and fitter from a couple of weeks of regular commuting.
Secondly, carrying excess weight up a mountain is A Bad Thing. Despite my efforts at training, I wasn't shifting the excess pounds that a year of working in India and not exercising had added to my waistline. For the last week or so, I've been Alternate Day Fasting. Which is almost exactly what it sounds like: odd-numbered days, eat normally, even numbered days, eat very little. It sounds extreme, but the evidence is that it has pretty big health benefits and I've been finding it surprisingly easy. On my fast days, I get by on water and endless cups of vending machine tea. It's early days yet, but I have lost a few pounds and I have to tighten my belt a bit more. More importantly, I feel better. Lighter on my feet, more agile. Perhaps surprisingly, more energetic. I carried my elder daughter up a hill in Richmond Park today and barely noticed the extra effort.
Am I ready? I don't know, but my confidence is growing.
[1] How about you? I always think I know, but my confidence, or perhaps my tongue, fails me at the last hurdle.
[2] And no, I don't know why either.
[3] Our fault - we're arriving a day later than we really ought to. Blame Christmas.
[4] The Western Approach Road is apparently verboten to cyclists, at least if the beeps from cars are anything to go by, although the only indication of this that I've been able to find on roadsigns is that all the bus lane signs have had the pictures of the bicycles covered over.
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