New paintings and regular art updates.
I saw this yesterday. A tandem stye bike. It might be two bikes converted by removing the back wheel of the first bike and the front wheel of the second. I don’t know if it would be stable enough to ride?
It’s been painted gold and might be part of a sculpture trail? I couldn’t get close enough to get a better look, this is zoomed in.
What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)?
Hubby and I were cycling along on our tandem in the middle of the countryside. We were passing through farmland one spring when he suddenly braked to a stop. He had seen a camera in the ditch next to the road on a clump of grass. We think it must have fallen off the top of a car?
There was no one around to ask who it belonged to, so we decided to wind back the film and get it developed. The thought was to try and identify the owners. It was a nice camera with just a dent in the metal ring round the lens, it was worth a bit of money and it would have been sad to lose by the owners. It might have had important memories attached to it.
We waited a week for the photos to come back. There were three photos of the landscape, but nothing to identify the owner, no people and no houses or cars.
In the end we kept the camera. I used it for years, taking photos for college, holidays and family events. I always wanted to give it back. I used 35mm film with an iso of 400. It had a good life with us.
Wifi is back on and I am trying to catch up.
Esther Chilton has another prompt using the word crazy. I wrote about this trip with my hubby….
So many crazy things! Cycling home to my mother in laws house over the pennines springs to mind. It was after an easter camping trip. It snowed heavily as we started home over main roads. It was about 45 miles to cycle. But there was a steep hill to climb at the end. We were heading up about five miles of steep hill. Unfortunately the snow had other ideas. The road had been cleared until we got halfway up. Then we were faced with snow drifts and snowbanks. Even with our combined strength (we were on our tandem with a bike trailer carrying our gear) we realised it was crazy to go on. So a twenty mile detour back down the hill was the only solution.
The place where we stopped? A village called Turn!
My bike…. dont have a picture of our tandem….
We were out one day, and Hubby saw an old tandem across the floor of a garage. He went over to look at it and fell into an inspection pit. Luckily, he was OK!
We bought the tandem (which was two bikes welded together) and my hubby even took the local MP round Penkhull on it!
One day we rode 100 miles in a reliability trial with the local cycling club. It was fun and we got back in seven and a half hours, despite one of my pedals falling off and having to borrow a spanner to fasten it back in place. One chain wheel was on the opposite side of the tandem, so it had unscrewed….
All this happened about thirty years ago when I was a lot fitter.
We would take the tandem or our bikes out and explore the local countryside or cycle from Stoke up to Rochdale, or down to Walsall.
We decided to cycle up through Leek one day, then up to the Roaches. We saw a signpost for Flash so decided to take it (the highest village in England apparently). We were tired but swooped up and down the hills. But I was nervous, two of us going downhill on winding roads was nerve wracking! I was a bit scared and kept houting at my hubby to SLOW DOWN!
Eventually we came down and round a corner and……
We almost ran into a five pony, pony trek that was spread across the road. Hubby turned the handlebars and dropped us into a shallow ditch at the side of the road!
I admit cursing him for being so reckless. But we gathered ourselves back together and set off again uphill, then swiftly down again. I kept telling him to go slower. But he was enjoying himself and we had averted one disaster, what else could happen?
This time we came round a corner and just managed to stop, in front of a scout Jamboree. How many scouts and cubs? Goodness only knows. HUNDREDS of them! Hubby and I had been lucky not to hit one of them, like a skittle, probably knocking others over too!
Again, we got ourselves sorted out. By then I was ready to go home. We saw a TV mast somewhere up on the hills as we headed Westwards and soon, we were looking across the beautiful Cheshire plain, looking at peaceful and hopefully flat farmland to cycle home over. We stopped off at a place selling ice-cream before pedalling downhill towards Macclesfield or Congleton, to be honest I can’t remember because I was more bothered about the danger of going downhill too fast! I think I was probably very grateful that we got home in one piece!
Sleeping is a issue yet again. I’m either too cold or too hot. Lost without my hubby who passed away three weeks ago. I really have a heavy heart. I just spent the last hour or so remembering things we did in the past. Going for bike or tandem rides when we were younger. The feeling of almost flying along, racing each other down hills (I was always more cautious). How he took in a stray cat a few years ago that had come limping into our garden, it turned out to have been abandoned by it’s owner. That cat is now sleeping on hubbys bodywarmer. I think it misses him as much as I do. It’s almost 5am. Going to make a cocoa.
What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)?
We were cycling home on our tandem one summer evening, when suddenly we turned round in the road. I had no idea what was going on, it was a narrow country road and it surprised me.
We pulled up and my hubby started looking on the grass verge. There was a camera just lying there! We didn’t know what to do, so we took it home (we were in the middle of the countryside), with the idea of seeing if there was a film inside and getting it developed if there was. We would try and get it back to its owners somehow? This was about 30 or so years ago before we had the Internet, so there wasn’t much hope of finding its owners.
We sent the film off, but it came back blank, it must have been lost when someone put a new film in, maybe put it on top of a car and forgot to move it when they drove off.
I have to say I had forgotten all about it until I saw this prompt, and now I feel guilty for not reuniting it with it’s owners.
Are you seeking security or adventure?
At my age I prefer security. I used to like adventure, but I’ve grown out of it!
When I was young we used to cycle all over the country, riding a bike or a tandem for miles. We would go out and ride at weekends to different destinations. We would also catch the train and then cycle from there to campsites or a place to visit like a castle or a forest. One of my favourite places was Grizedale Sculpture park. On that occasion we had got a car and the bikes were tied to the top of it. We parked at the campsite and used that as a base to cycle all around the lake district.
One day I was cycling home from a friends houss and was hit by a car. I ended up with a fractured skull. From that day I became nervous of cycling. After a couple of more years of riding the bike suddenly collapsed underneath me. It had been damaged in the accident and the brazing had broken on the bike headset. It took months to get my bike repaired by which time I had started to drive more frequently. My health got worse and I was not able to ride my bike any distance.
I think it was about then that I became more risk averse. I still liked to go and do adventurous things but I was more careful. Nowadays I am even more concerned with safety. Covid and the pandemic has made me more aware of my situation and my security. I guess that I realise my life has changed, and I can not do things I would have happily done in the past.
Seen today
Green trike, eagle head
On front mudguard
Long and low
Tandem seats
Lying back
How do you see
The road?
Chrome, black and green.
What’s the most fun way to exercise?
When I was a lot younger my then boyfriend (now hubby) encouraged me to buy a bike because I couldn’t afford a car. We would cycle short distances but gradually I got fitter and we found we would go off into the countryside to enjoy the landscapes or put the bikes on the train and visit our families (both about forty miles away).
But then we started to cycle to and from the family homes, we had both got to the stage where we had got fit and healthy. It’s a great way of getting around and we eventually bought a second hand tandem which was actually two bikes welded together! We manages a hundred mile reliability trial, despite a pedal falling off because one of the chain wheels had been put on back to front. We then got a Gitane tandem, it was much better but the chain was always too slack. We could get up a good speed on it. We would cycle along and down country lanes. Once we ran into a boy scout jamboree, and also a pony trek with ponies stretched across the road up in the Staffordshire moorlands.
My regret? I got knocked off my bike and ended up with a fractured skull. I carried on cycling for a year. But then one day I was cycling up a hill and the bike collapsed underneath me! I took it in for repair and the cycle shop lost my bike for a year! I got it back eventually but I’d got a car and although I still cycled work got in the way and I didn’t use my bike as often. I now can’t get my leg over the bike because my hips are too stiff. I regret losing that fitness and a wonderful exercise.
You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?
When I was young I could cycle forty miles in three hours (including hills). We once did a hundred mile reliability trial in five and a half hours, we used a tandem. The one we rode on was two bikes welded together. One of the chain wheels was on back to front so a pedal unwound and fell off during the ride.
After I sustained an injury we got a car because my bike was damaged in the accident. It went in to be fixed and the shop lost it! I don’t drive much or very far now. In fact I travel less than I did when we cycled. Most places we go to are only a few miles away unless we go on holiday. I drove less than a thousand miles last year, so I guess my carbon footprint must be low.
No, I don’t use the train. If you go anywhere from Stoke-on-Trent on the train it’s hard to find one that comes back late in the evening so you either can’t spend a long time away or you have to come back the next day. We are also bypassed by the West Coast main line I think…. Bad for a city! Bus? Yes sometimes, but it depends again if there is a bus back and the routes keep getting changed or cancelled. And planes? Are you kidding…. Too scared.
Mallaband-Brown