Monday 27 July 2009

still to adventure and battle we ride


On Saturday I decided to mark the centenary of Louis Bleriot's flight across the English Channel by recreating his historic flight. Only we did it in the Morris Traveller, and we used the Severn Bridge instead of the wings. And flew from England to Wales, rather than France to England. And flew a bit faster than M. Bleriot (50mph, which was a whole 10mph faster than his aeroplane). He flew a bit higher than us, though, at 250 feet. Oh, and we drove rather than flew. But generally, I think you will agree, a pretty close fit.

Here's how it went.

I wanted to follow the Wordsworths' route through the Wye valley up to Goodrich, when they went walking in 1798. John came along for the ride, and Katie's friend Alexa joined us so that they could sit in the back being moody and disaffected - apparently it's in the contract somewhere.

We rumbled out of town past Filton aerodrome, and up onto the motorway at the Almondsbury interchange. As we swooped down the long descent to the Vale of the Severn, John told me about his plan to buy a new bicycle, using the government's CycleScheme. John's got his eyes on a machine with belt drive. We got to discussing the relative merits of Shimano (good) Rohloff (v good but extremely expensive) and Sturmey Archer (useless) hub gears. This discussion was quite engrossing.

I paused.

"I think we're on the wrong motorway," I said.

"I didn't want to say," said John.

We were heading for the wrong Severn Bridge now. This reminded m of the time that I accidentally got onto the pay-as-you-go section of the M6, and was doubly frustrated because not only was the road taking me to the wrong place, but I was going to have to pay for the privilege.

We did a tour of the roundabout just before the Second Severn Crossing, and headed back for the Almondsbury interchange.

As we struggled to gain height up that long incline, the engine started misfiring. I dropped a gear, and we screamed up. Well, screamed up at low speed, if you see what I mean. And then we went all the way round the Almondsbury interchange again. Motorway interchanges certainly take up a lot of space, I reflected as we completed our circumnavigation.

At last we got onto the right bridge. The engine didn't miss a beat. Far to the west I caught a fleeting glimpse of Lavernock Point, the wind turbines at Avonmouth and odd bits of Somerset. And then we were over, and heading for the Wye valley on the long straight road past Chepstow racecourse.

There was a moped ahead of us. I accelerated. We overtook. The engine misfired again, then died. The oil pressure and ignition lights came on, bright yellow and red. I made a perfect forced landing in a convenient side road.

"Maybe we won't bother with Goodrich," I said.

John agreed that it might be over-optimistic.

We waited a few minutes to let things cool down, and started up again. I drove into Chepstow, as it was on the way home anyway. We wandered down to the river, where Katie and Alexa slumped, looking even more bored and resentful. They'd obviously been practicing. I chivvied them along until we reached the Severn Princess, one of the former Severn ferries, now lying in a derelict state under the railway bridge.


They perked up a bit when we scrambled on board.

The ferry had been lying around in the West of Ireland, and brought back to Chepstow with the idea of restoring it. The project seemed a bit optimistic, looking at it.

Look, that's the turntable where cars arriving on board got swivelled around into position on the deck.

...by now we were very hot and in need of ice cream. We settled for an eight-pack of Jelly Baby wobbly jellies from the Somerfield supermarket. I wish I'd taken photos of that. They were kind of droopy and faintly obscene.

Heading back to England, we had to detour to the Second Severn Crossing, as there were roadworks on the old bridge. A squall blew in across the Severn, and helped cool us down. There were no more ignition failures, probably because of the drop in temperature. (I think the HT coil might have been overheating - I shall put in a replacement, and hope for the best). So there; another Bleriot connection. He escaped ditching in the Channel by flying through a rain cloud to cool down his engine.

10 comments:

  1. Re: "We got to discussing the relative merits of Shimano (good) Rohloff (v good but extremely expensive) and Sturmey Archer (useless) hub gears. This discussion was quite engrossing."

    Do tell more! I'm also interested in the belt-drive bike, since I'm unconvinced by the transmission on mine. I thought hub gears were in terminal decline (in this country at least) until a few weeks ago when I saw one on a nice new Thorn bike made by SJS Cycles. Looking at the website, it turns out to be a Rohloff.

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  2. I'll get the name of the bike from John, Tom. As for hub gears, I always preferred SA3 hubs to derailleurs, as you can change gear while stationary and they're reliable and unfiddly. And simple to overhaul. But SA boxes with more than three gears are not good; I worked for ages to restore a SA4 on an old Moulton, and it relied on the relative bounciness of two springs in opposition. Useless. The SA5 on my Pashley was clunky and reluctant to change gear in cold weather, and generated a lot of drag in some gears; I think its mechanical efficiency was way low.

    I've got a Shimano Nexus7 on my Claude Butler, and it is very good indeed. Apparently the Nexus8 is better. People get a bit reverential talking about Rohloffs, but I think they're out of my league, price wise. I saw a Thorn bike with Rohloff in Tetbury; it looked very nice indeed. I wonder if that's the one you had in mind?

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  3. I thought that Nexus were broomsticks for quidditch...

    Lovely pics. Was that the flight were someone else fell asleep and so didn't get to take off first? Imagine how history would have been different.

    I used to be good at getting onto the wrong moterway.

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  4. "And still to adventure and battle I ride" From my favourite hymn when I was a child. Though I had diffuculty with the idea of giants flying back into the story books.

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  5. Nice pics...

    Good to see the spirit of Earhart alive and well and undaunted by the perils of crossing the Severn.

    Apparently Bleriot arrived at the aerodrome that morning in his Morris Traveller. Conceivably even your Morris Traveller Dru? ;-)

    I used to live in an Odd Bit of Somerset. Had something to do with the scrumpy I think.

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  6. The Thorn bicycle I saw was on the Avon Cycleway audax last month, when I also saw Mr and Mrs Thorn bicycle (sorry, don't know their names) on a tandem.

    Having spent a few minutes on the Thorn bikes website, I'm convinced hub gears have their advantages, and that they can indeed be the subject of engrossing discussion.

    http://www.thorncycles.co.uk/

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  7. Rohloff was used by guy a few miles up river from here to break round world record, reasonable recommendation for reliability but some price. My SA5 was possibly the worst piece of bike gear I have ever owned, I had bad thoughts about what should happen to those responsible for it!

    Your Traveller was just behaving normally, at least as remembered from my time owning one.

    Caroline x

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  8. I'm not sure about the falling-asleep pilot, Anji. Any more clues? That hymn was one of my favourites too! -along with "Lord Of All Hopefulness", also by Jan Struther. BBC hymn book? -we did our acts of worship at primary school through the radio, as we didn't have a hall.

    I actually drove him to the take-off field, Jo. Brewed him up some tea on the Trangia, with lots of condensed milk for energy. He was very grateful.

    I hadn't realised that Thorn were so local, Tom. The only thing I don't like about the modern hub ears is their complexity; it was always reassuring to know that I could strip down and overhaul the SA3. I wouldn't like to try it with a Rohloff. Though you shouldn't need to, of course.

    On the other hand, Caroline, it's always got me home. so far. If on a wing and a prayer. :-)

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  9. Great Traveller adventure views, Dru. If I had had a camera on July 27, 1989, I might not have tried to swim across the Hudson River at Peekskill Bay, a flight of fancy aborted a couple of hundred yards (or feet) out by a small speedboat seemingly on autopilot. I escaped drowning, well, by grace, a practiced breaststroke, and a lot of help from people I didn't know were my friends till then.

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  10. I just had a look at Peekskill Bay onGoogle Earth, Larry. Crikey, it was (or would have been) quite a swim. And it turned out to be quite a swim, as well. I'm glad you escaped the drowning bit.

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