My cycle to work is about 3.6km and takes maybe 15 minutes, which I think is about the perfect length. It's enough that I'm getting at least a small amount of regular exercise, but not so long that it ever feels tedious, and even on the rare occasions when there's serious rain (or it's dark on the way home in winter) it's not too daunting. It's also an attractive route, much of it quite pleasant cycling. I begin with a description, which I follow with some commentary on Oxford cycling infrastructure, on which it doesn't shed such a flattering light. (more…)
A dual network strategy for cycling would only make sense if we had a bimodal population of cyclists. To illustrate this, consider Frideswide Square, where the planners are clearly picturing something like this.
On the one hand, the bulk of cyclists are expected to be vehicular cyclists, confident enough to take primary position going around the roundabouts and happy to cycle in dense 20mph traffic flows. Alternatively cyclists are allowed to use the pavement, mixing it with pedestrians with no segregation — the planners seem to be envisioning a small number of families on Sunday outings with children, happy to meander around pedestrians at 5mph and not needing to actually get to or from Fridewide Square. (more…)
Taking advantage of the last few weeks of nice weather, we visited Harcourt Aboretum on the last Sunday of October and then Warburg Nature Reserve on the first Sunday of November. (more…)
A few weekends ago I went on a short cycle trip, with someone I had met on an earlier cycle tour, to two sights I hadn't known about: Wheatley windmill and Bishop Edward King chapel. (more…)
The Grand Canal is its greatest attraction, but the reason Venice is such a fun city to explore is not the canals but the complete absence of cars (more…)
What is it? It's a Kettler Spirit, the product of a respected German company which sells online into the UK (though they do have a showroom in Redditch as well). Basically an upright city bicycle: what one might call a "Dutch bike" or a European city bike, though it's fundamentally pretty similar to my other bike, a thirty year old English three-speed roadster. (more…)
Pete was running the Chicken Beauty Contest at the Binsey Fete, so I cycled up the Thames Path to see what was happening. (more…)
We ended up going to two Olympic events, the archery and the table-tennis. (more…)
Last week we went on a tour of Didcot A. Commissioned around 1970, this is a coal-fired power station capable of generating around 2GW, with four 500MW units. The tour lasted more than two hours and we got to see at least something of most of the parts of the station. (more…)
Last month Camilla and I went to Cambridge - known in Oxford as "the other place" - for the day, to meet up with one of her PhD supervisors who was visiting from Australia. (more…)
A recent visit to Seoul has made me think about "tourist epistemology". (more…)
In August Camilla took an extra day off to go with the August bank holiday and we spent four days driving around Wales. (more…)
Camilla and I, joined by Camilla's colleagues Rosalind and Madeleine, drove to Kent to visit Charles Darwin's home, Down House. (more…)
Some walking trips I'd like to do. Is anyone interested in joining me for these? (more…)
We slept in and had a lazy Sunday morning, but after lunch we drove down to Dorchester, which is just twenty minutes away. (more…)
Camilla had applied for Wytham Woods permit last year, but we'd never got around to using it. But on Easter Sunday we went there for a picnic with Jenny and Thomas and the boys. (more…)
Camilla needed a break from work, so we took last weekend off and visited Bath. (more…)
Last month I went up to Edinburgh, to visit Australian friends Carole and Don who are living there for six months. (more…)
Camilla's sister Amy and her husband Alex were visiting, so we went for at trip out to the Jenner Museum in Gloucestershire. (more…)
We spent a weekend on the Welsh border, staying two nights in Ewyas Harold (pronounced "Yewass") in the Old Rectory B&B. (more…)
