It’s starting to get dark earlier; 7:30, 7, 6:30 so that now it’s dark when I leave work, not just when I arrive. Sometimes I find cycling at night dull; there’s a flatness to the city, a literal lack of light and shade. But there are some good rides in the dark, when it’s not just the light which has receded, but life too. There are fewer cars and busses, more deserted corners and buildings empty despite having their lights blazing. Sometimes these moments of emptiness come in the strangest places: the Bloomsbury roads around the British Museum, or right outside Canon Street station in the city. If you come to these places late enough, you feel like you’ve come after humanity entirely.

From a cycling point of view, quietness means speed, and I log some fast rides home after working late, tearing home with the tyres lifting leaves in the air. One or two rides stand out in particular, when the traffic lights all line up and the smoothness of the tyres is matched by redone tarmac and the traffic is non existent, so I can really build up the momentum.

I’ve learned the word “souplesse“ from Bella Bathurst’s excellent Bicycle Book, and these late rides often embody its values: smoothness, fluidity, flow, the bike a thin slice of white metal cleaving the dark city in two. One evening in the middle of the month, I notice it’s cold for the first time, too. The chill of the air feels thrilling and new; it’s still like silk as I ride through it, and on the A2 the traffic is backed up, so there are huge stretches of quietness: empty spaces, free of obstacles, regrets, sadness, into which I flow, the tyres buzzing. This is progress.

One place that was quiet for the first part of the month was the front of St Paul’s: then the OccupyLSX protestors arrive. On the first day, there’s a huge police presence blocking off the actual London Stock Exchange’s offices, but the protestors are pretty mild mannered. As I walk past, one offers me a hug. The camp seems busy each time I cycle past, right up to the end of the month. It will be interesting to see how they cope as the weather gets colder.

I get a taste of winter with a week in Montreal at the end of the month (you can see it in the pictures). It’s a beautiful city in the Fall, popping with bright colours and I take endless photos of the leaves, much to the Canadienne’s amusement. There’s a definite difference between North American Fall and England’s Autumn. The former is all bold colours, bright sharp and cold. The latter soft, musty and faded; red and yellow versus umber and ochre.

We cycle around Montreal on the Bixi bikes (the original Boris bikes); particularly good fun on Halloween, when I cycle out dressed as Sherlock Holmes, complete with tweed cape, deerstalker and pipe. I attracted far fewer stranger looks than I expected. And I also learned tweed is extremely warm on a bike. The Bixis help contribute to a monthly total of 195 miles this month. Now, the end is sight: 332 miles away. It sounds like a big distance, when you think about November and December being cold and dreary, but break it down, think about it day-by-day and it’s perfectly achievable. Even the longest journey is just a million moments. Every life a billion heartbeats.

OCTOBER
Total miles: 195
Commutes: 13
Boris bikes: 17 miles
Total to cycle: 332 miles

(Meet The BHAG)

It’s starting to get warmer; I’ve discarded the winter cap from under the helmet and the big thick winter gloves are gone too. The winter riding gear I settled on in November - Rapha Merino underlayer, Berghaus t-shirt and softshell jacket combo – is starting to feel a bit too warm, particularly as I’m trying to get my time on the run home to consistently under an hour.

A great first week of the month meant I thought I might actually manage the 176 mile a month target I worked out when I first made this plan, but week two poleaxed my optimism with two punctures on two consecutive rides. The first was on a Wednesday ride in, and near the cycle shop in London Bridge. They changed the inner tube, and when I rode home on the Friday, a massive puncture - hissing like an angry snake, audible over the cars – finished the ride just as I’d finished the big hill in Greenwich. It was a long, boring walk to the station, and waiting for 20 minutes in shorts certainly soured my mood.

The tyre itself – the stock one which came with the bike – was looking a bit worse for wear, and the shop really should have spotted it. Decided it was time to swap the tyres for puncture-resistant ones. In brief, the downsides are their weight (they’re literally heavy duty), and the fact that they’re just not as quick as regular road tyres. This forum thread rounds up the options; everyone has their own opinion, but the three main choices are Specialized’s Armadillos, Continental’s Gator Skins and the Bontrager Hardcases.

Evans carry all three, so I went to check them out in person. The Armadillo is clearly a tougher piece of work than the Gator Skin and since I wanted maximum protection from the roads of London, got myself two Armadillos (£24 each) along with a bunch of new inner tubes. For such tough tyres, they weren’t that difficult to fit. It took around 30 minutes to remove both wheels, pull off the old tyres and tubes and fit the new ones, pump them pup and re-assemble the bike.

The bike clearly feels different with the Armadillos. With the original tyres, it was a fast machine, and it always seemed to want to go quicker. There was an appetite to it, and in contrast, there’s real a heaviness to the Armadillos, a sticky dullness. It’s not huge, but it’s noticeable. I can now actually pedal when flying down the hill in Greenwich Park, and going up hill seems slightly tougher. My top speed doesn’t seem to have taken a huge hit though, the grip level is similar and the ride isn’t notably harsher or more uncomfortable.

And for the rest of the month, zero punctures, and the tyres are still holding firm at close to 120psi. Given the grotty weather, filthy roads, gleaming pebbles and watery potholes, this is a victory, and gives me a big bump in terms of commute cycling: despite a week off the bike, I’ve managed 11 commutes this month, a grand total of 132 miles.

That said, I find January and February, these two awful silver months, hard to deal with. Under dull monochrome skies, motivation has to be scrabbled from the corners, counted up, rationalised, held close. It wasn’t until the last weekend of the month, a sunny Sunday morning, that I actually went out riding for fun. It helped the council has re-opened the Greenwich foot tunnel, so I rode through the park, then under the Thames and round the Milwall docks up to Westferry and Limehouse. On a Sunday, the roads are dead and there’s a wonderful sense of London’s naval history, salty and slightly spooky, in the old warehouses. Then onto one of Mayor Boz’s new cycle Superhighways, zipping down Cable Street before looping over Tower Bridge and taking the usual route home down Jamaica road.

An 18 mile circuit, quiet, fast and scenic, it brings the month’s total to 150 miles, 17 short of the target. With 1,773 to go, and ten months, I need to be covering close to 180 miles a month to make it. Still, a few decent spring rides should help.

FEBRUARY
Total miles: 150
Commutes: 11
Total to cycle: 1,773

I cycled quite a lot when I was a teenager, but stopped when I came to London – my big, heavy mountain bike was a pain to haul around and it sat mouldering at the top of the stairs before I gave it away. Ten years since my cycling heyday and I decided to get back into it, buying myself a bike through the excellent Ride 2 Work scheme.

Here are some things I’ve learned from cycling to and from work. Obviously, YMMV.

1. Don’t bother with a hybrid. The problem with hybrids is that they seem so logical – particularly if you’ve been away from cycling for a few years. If you had a bike as a teenager, it was probably a big heavy lunk of a thing made by Raleigh, and designed to be knocked around. It probably looked like a mountain bike. Problem is, if you look at mountain bikes now, well, they’re pretty much like motorbikes without the engines. Disk brakes, chunky tyres, suspension front and back, strange shaped frames – exciting stuff, but not really what you want for riding through London.

So the natural next step is a hybrid; they look like the mountain bikes of old, only on a diet. They still have the flat handle bars and a little bulk, but they’re sensible. You can ride them on and off road. It’s the best of both worlds… right?

The problem I found when researching is hybrids are invariably compromised. Some come fitted with slick tyres – so you’re not going to be able to ride off road without changing those. Then there’s the fact they’re not really that light, and don’t always come fitted with larger wheel sizes. Light bikes with big wheels go further and faster with less work from the rider.

And really, are you ever going to ride off road? I wanted a light, fast bike that I was mostly going to spend riding to and from work, or around South East London. So I bought myself a real road bike. It’s brilliant; fast, nimble and something I really look forward to riding.

2. Light bikes are great. Faster, more fun to ride, better when it comes to manoeuvring around traffic and easier to get into the house at the end of the day. If you have a choice between features such as disc brakes and features that will save weight (like a carbon fibre front fork), go for the latter.

3. Components are complex. Talk to the staff and try and work out what your options are. One of the reasons I went for my bike, which is from Fuji, a less known brand, is that it has the mid-level components (i.e. gears, brakes) of a Specialized or Trek, but for a couple of hundred quid less.

4. Good locks are heavy, necessary and only as good as your locking technique. Once you’ve bought one, learn how to lock your bike properly – I have a D-lock and a cable for when it’s left in public, as both wheels are quick release. Ideally you want to have the lock going through the back wheel, the frame and a very well anchored object, and then you can use the cable to tie in the front wheel.

5. Cycling clothing is expensive, and often just because it says “for cycling” on the label. I’ve got a couple of these Berghaus tech t-shirts, which are great for the British summer – ludicrously quick drying (as in, they’re almost dry when they come out of the machine), good visibility and warmer than you’d think for a single layer. At £28 they’re cheap compared to “proper” cycling jerseys.

6. If it says Bianchi – especially on your pants – it probably means you’re trying too hard.

Like most journalists, I am largely fueled by coffee – to the point that I do actually have my own cafetiere in my desk drawer at work – but getting a well made coffee in a cafe. is one of life’s great pleasures. Via the blog of Lantana, a lovely new cafe near our offices, comes this link to a map of the UK showing the best places to get good coffee. It’s particularly strong on London, listing excellent places such as Flat White (where the picture was taken), Milk Bar etc.

It's very black

Took the shot above yesterday at Tate Modern, and it’s the first one I’ve got from the iPhone’s camera that I’ve been really happy with. It’s from Tate’s excellent Mark Rothko exhibition…

Part 1: Overheard at Mark Rothko
Well, I say it’s excellent, but that’s if you like Rothko. If you don’t, it’s fair to say it’s not going to change your mind about him. It’s not like there’s a secret room of photo-realistic portraits or delicate watercolours in the middle of it. Despite the fact Rothko is one of the few 20th century artists to be widely known, plenty of people there seemed annoyed, offended and upset by what they found. Best exchange I overheard was a father leading his 10 year old son through the rooms, at pace, saying:

“Right, so the last room was the purple and black series. This one is the grey and black series. You see the difference?”

In close second:

(Man, looking at a massive canvas that’s absolutely covered in paint) “Well, it’s not really painting, is it?”

Part 2: The Camerabag iPhone app
You do get some interesting people at exhibitions. Families with babies that literally look like they’ve just come out of the hospital, perplexed French tourists and people who appear to have dressed solely to look like cliched art fans. It all makes for great photos, but unfortunately you have to contend with the gallery guards and the no photography rule. This meant the SLR was out, and the iPhone was in. I’ve written about the iPhone’s camera before, and as it’s not brilliant, I’ve tried out a few apps to see if they could improve it. By far the best has been one called Camerabag; it’s cheap, regularly updated (most of the bugs have now gone) and allows you to apply a series of filters to pictures you take with the camera. The idea is that the filters mimic certain camera styles – Lomo, Polaroid, monochrome etc – and it’s easy to use, and as you can see from the picture I took at Tate, allows you to get a bit more out of your phone pics. Well worth the £1.79 cost. For more, check out the Camerabag Flickr group.

Previously on the Wired Jester:
Art: Visiting Tate Britain’s Holbein exhibition.

Today I had to visit Harrods to buy some presents for relatives and friends I’ll soon be visiting overseas (don’t ask me why, but they all want Harrods tote bags); while there, I spotted this monstrosity – an oversized armchair made from minced up teddy bears.

Children walking past it were both fascinated and shocked. This is not surprising given that it looks like someone’s taken several armfuls of cuddly bears, chucked them in a rubbish compactor, mashed them up good and proper, and then stretched their furry little pelts over a threateningly large chair.

More pics of the monstrous Chair ‘O Bears after the jump.

Sunday: Went to see the Sleeping & Dreaming show at the Wellcome Collection on Euston Road. The entrance, complete with austere-posh cafe by Peyton and Byrne, is open and airy in a way that recalls the Great Court at the British Museum, but the overall effect is overall, nearer, newer, far less grand. Same goes for the gallery space itself: it’s not as crowded as other London museums seem to be at weekends, and the exhibition itself strikes a good balance between curios and context, and serious and silly. Well worth a look, especially as it’s free to get in.

1. Going to see St. Paul’s. I ended up on a bus going past there a few days ago, and remembered I’ve never been inside. Time to set that straight.

2. The Hogarth show at Tate Britain. London’s big museums put on some fantastic shows, but they do tend to get very crowded, so seeing one while everyone else is at work will be fun. According to one of the freebie papers, there’s also a show at the Haunch of Venison by French artist Philippe Parreno; it contains video of a Victorian automaton, which I’d love to see.

3. Lots of reading. David Mitchell’s latest, Black Swan Green, has just come out in paperback, and I’ve also got Don Quixote on the go, plus a pile of other bits and pieces, including Michael’s Frayn’s The Human Touch, and one on the history of language entitled Empires of the Word.

4. Some more photography with my D40. According to the BBC Weather forecast, it’s going to be nice and sunny all week…

I’m currently spending my weekends house hunting, and roving far and wide in search of prey. Criss crossing the capital, I realised on Sundays, you can park on Waterloo bridge, so stopped the car and grabbed this shot of the Thames and the city.

[link via Jean Snow]