cyclingcultures.org.uk

I arrived at the workshop this week at St Michael and All Angels Church at about 19.30. Light spilled from the church hall doors and I could see and hear chatter and bikey activities taking place inside. I wasn’t even inside the doors before I was greeted warmly by Jamie, one of the organisers equipped with a clipboard. There were twelve already listed – names, type of bike and bike problem. Seven had been crossed out. Some were being seen by mechanics. Others were waiting. I arrived tonight with a touring bike and loose quill bolt issue. Not only did the organisers recognize me but they also remembered which bike I had last time and asked me how that project was going. As I waited I had a cup of tea and piece of cake. Kate had made two kinds: shortbread and lemon cake. I made a donation for the refreshments and chatted to Kate while I waited for my turn with a mechanic.

There were six mechanics working on bikes in the middle of the room. Like last time the floor was protected by a series of sheets and bikes were hanging on a series of stands. Boxes of tools sat on a table to the far left of the room but several mechanics had their own stash located nearby. People stood in clusters around the room chatting and watching.

When it was my turn, which was not long after tea and cake, I explained to the mechanic about the loose bolt in my stem. He turned the bike over, took the wheel off and got a flashlight to see into the frame. He passed the flashlight to me and talked me through what I was and wasn’t seeing in the tubing. This was the pattern of our interaction – he talked and put things into my hands. I learnt by doing and sharing the maintenance. Together we fixed he loose bolt. I pressed down on the stem wedge while he screwed it using gravity and the pressure I was applying. Turning the bike over he rattled the bike to show me it was now fixed. However this shake now revealed a loose headset. He made me do it and I felt a low thudding in the tubing. He explained the headset needed tightening. But then he did it again and said that the cones in my front wheel were loose too. Suddenly I had a list of things to do. What was a simple and quick job turned into the rest of the evening. For each task he would pass the object to me to shake, or tighten or feel what was wrong or what had changed. He showed me not only how to discern the problem but how to fix it. I learned more than I expected. Soon my hands were as black with grease as those around me.

I was interested to see even more brochures on a table near the entrance to the hall than last event. This time there was a visual guide to mending a puncture called “Bike It D.I.Y”. Kate explained how many people turn up to learn basic maintenance and these guides had been provided to help with this issue.

Today I had a morning meeting on Southwark Street, so decided to strap the GoPro – recently repaired – to my handlebars. Unfortunately, the angle turned out to have been a bit wonky, so I didn’t quite get the results I was after. However, the nice thing about the fish-eye lens is that you get some quite intriguing results even if it wasn’t exactly what you expected…

London Fields, Hackney

I chose the apparently most direct route down Bishopsgate. How people choose routes is becoming one theme of the research – in terms of what information they make use of, what criteria they use to make decisions, and what stuff they take with them to navigate (from a GPS equipped Smartphone to my own preferred option, crumpled bits of paper).

My own decisions don’t always seem great, in retrospect. While the route from London Fields to Southwark via Bishopsgate is direct on the map, in practice it was slow and blocked with parked and moving motor vehicles; I often had to slow down and then speed up to nip through traffic, assuming an assertive riding position to make me at least feel larger and more visible. I saw other cyclists doing the same. There were plenty of small lorries, large vans, and buses on the roads.

Here a parked Royal Mail van and a (slowly) moving out of town coach.

You cannot help but be amazed and impressed by an interviewee who was hit by a car on the way to our meeting this afternoon. The impact knocked her onto a car whereby she hit her face on the bonnet and dinted the bodywork with her wheel, yet she jumped up, checked that her body and bike are ok, got the drivers number, continued on her way, made it to our allocated meeting spot at a cafe across the city and then talked for over an hour and a half with a tea-towel full of icecubes pressed to her cheekbone. Seriously! Amazing. Thankyou.

Cycling around Hackney today I took a number of pictures. This one may not look like much, but it represents the rhythm of building and demolition. Just a year or two ago, instead of the crane there was the crumbling Lesney factory that once produced the iconic “Matchbox” toys. While the factory was open, the nearby Kingsmead Estate housed many factory workers. It closed in 1980 and the empty building remained until last year, when the demolition started. Soon there may be flats in place of the crane.

Of course, cycling along the Lea regularly I have been able to see the Olympic complex and its accompanying walls and fences rise up next to the towpath.
And speaking of the grand cycle of decay and regrowth, the water may also be where old bicycles go to die…