Music

WHAT I'M LISTENING TO:

Belle and Sebastian - There's too much love
Fleetwood Mac - The Chain
Gramophonedzie - Why Don't You?
Stornoway - Zorbing

"Top 5 Records"

Well, quite a lot has happened since I last posted something on this blog. I have finished university (again), got a career, and cycled from Lands End to John O'Groats. ... But frankly, I can't be bothered to write anything about those things.

So, like John Cusack, i'm onto top 5's. Today top five cars.

This basically consist of the 5 cars that would adorn my garage were I able to afford it. Before you start to expect 5 super-mega-hyper-cars, i'm an eco-hippie/petrol-head hybrid so its a bit of an odd lot.

1. Citroen Berlingo.

OK, this is cheating as I actually already own one of these.

When my family first brought a Berlingo Multispace I was at uni. When I passed my driving test back in 2004 my family had a white Citroen Xsara 1.6i that actually shifted a bit. I know this because my parents mercifully (but foolishly) put me on the car insurance and I spent the long evenings after a hard day dossing in sixth-form knocking the thing for six. I'm amazed it survived. I went to university in September 2004 only to return a few months later to find that the medium-small family hatchback I was so fond of had become a bloated invalid carriage. I hated it. For a start, compared to the previous car it handled like a boat and accelerated like a paraplegic in quick-sand. For an 18-year-old this was catastrophic.

It took some time, but eventually I found the joy that can be had with a windowed-van. For a start you can carry just about anything in it. This is handy if you're a cycling enthusiast or a university student with your mother intent upon you carrying at least 14 kitchen-sinks at all times. Its a cathedral of a car! Secondly, you can fit loads of your friends into it - i've done 8. Thirdly, because its designed to be both builder and child-proof it is ultra reliable and you can fix it with a hammer. Finally, its big enough to sleep in comfortably should you rock up somewhere late or if its too muddy and cold to pitch a tent.

So for these reasons and so many more the Citroen Berlingo makes the list.

2. Caterham 7

A slightly more interesting choice. This car was built from the ground up to handle well and even though the desing has been round for about half a century it is still considered one of the best drivers cars ever. It weighs about as much as a bulemic squrril yet is mid engined, and rear-wheel drive. Even though the base models have the same power as a family hatchback, the configuration was prefect. I also like the simplicity. From working in a bike shop I have come to learn from bitter experience that complex things usually create more problems than they are worth. This has all you need. A seat for you and one for a friend, four wheels, a throttle, a piece of fabric in case it rains, and a space for your picnic basket.

But the most appealing thing about this car is that it comes as a CKD kit. This isn't like a normal kit where you get a chassis and not much else - it is a flat-pack car with all the bits included and a friendly Caterham rep on the phone should you have any issues. Not only this but you can buy a basic one for about £10,000 - which is nothing for one of the best performing sports cars on the market today.

I'm definately having one some day.

3. Toyota Aygo / Peugeot 107 / Citroen C1

Don't be fooled - they are all the same car! The point of this one is what do you really need from a car? Lets face it - motoring is an expensive business. Once you've paied for the car (not to mention watched it depreciate daily) you've got to put fuel into it which at >£1 a liter isn't cheap. Then there's tax, insurance, servicing, tyres, MOT's, and washing the thing. And what for? So you can take hours out of your life sitting in traffic jams? Looking for a paring space? Worrying about running people over? Complaining about the state of the roads, other motorists, the government and just about everything else besides? What do you really want from a car? Electric windows? PlayStation 3's? Senually vibrating seats? Since when did cars become brothells? ... No! 99% of the time all you want is to take you and a small amount of luggage, with maybe one passenger, to anywhere else in the UK with minimum fuss and cost.

What if there were a car that could help with these things? Well there is, and its this plucky little Czech creation!

4. Audi S5 Coupé

OK, its fine to have a cheap-as-chips car every day. But what about the times when you don't want people to know that you're a cheap-skate. Something you can turn up at Downing Street in and not feel out of place*. Basically a car to suit your Armani suit and Rolex watch. A uniform. But hey - if you can choose your uniform then you don't pick one thats made of hessian sacking. I saw one of these in a car park a week or two in white and it instantly became my new favorite car aesthetically (replacing the new VW Scirocco). But its not just the looks. I've always liked Audi's. To me four-wheel-drive makes a lot of sense for cars that weigh more than say 1500kg and with their "quattro" system Audi led the way back on the 1980's rally circuit. That combined with some decent engines makes the the formula for the S5 a good-one!

5. Bowler Nemesis

Before explaining this choice I would like to make one thing perfectly clear. I do not like Land Rovers. Unlike most of the cars in this I have actually driven a couple of these and didn't like them. The Defender is the worst. For a start the seat isn't adjustable and are designed for midgets with rickets (which explains the unnecessary step). The build quality is an unwanted hangover from the British Leyland ere (a point proven by my uncle's Range Rover) and the hand break is by your feet to make room for an unnecessary middle seat. What is more is that the TD5 engine they put in most of them these days has no power and the transmission just causes you to rev the tits off the thing on the road. The reason I'm going on about this is that Land Rover is a sort of cult symbol for many of my friends. But not me. I like the idea. Bullet-proof simplicity, and ruthless practicality - but I just don't think that it works in the real world.

However, I do like the Bowler Nemesis. No, I haven't driven one of these, but the principle is to take a Land Rover and make it better. That isn't hard from the way I see it, but with a good few thousand pounds to spend they will have made something pretty special. Providing it all works then the Nemesis will be a pretty decent bit of kit.


* - Just for the record. This is not a way of thinking that I subscribe to. Substance will always be more important than style. But as a product of middle-class England, I can't always help myself.


WHAT I'M LISTENING TO:

Love Grenades - Young Lovers (Sam Sparro Remix)
Miss Li - Bourgeois Shangri-La
Owl City - Fireflies (Reminds me of the Postal Service)
Royksopp - Happy Up Here

A Triumph

Last night, a group of us went to sandies to pretend we were dirt-jumpers. We messed around for too long and only got maybe 45 minutes of riding in before we were forced to abandon the mission due to bad light at about 19:30 (BST). Mind you, in that time Scully forced Matt and I into doing a new and scary (but in no way technical) step-up gap jump. However, for me the highlight of the evening was not the destination, but the journey*. Perhaps I should be more precise and say the vessel in which we conducted that journey, for it was a forty-year-old classic Triumph Herald saloon.

I am not a classic car enthusiast. I am a pretty typical man, and consequently that means I am certain to like at least four things: girls, beer, meat and anything with an engine. I just don't really see the point in classic cars. They are slow, inefficient, unreliable, awkward, and potentially dangerous. All of these points and more were proved last night by Stuart's Triumph. Surely the entire point of engineering is to make things faster, more frugal, reliable, convenient, and safe? If you can have these things then why look back without a hint of anger?

I can certainly think of more practical student cars, especially for a chap that spends his weekends throwing himself down Wales' most treacherous waterways. To strap a kayak to the roof involved some friction-mounting roof bars that look about as old as I am, and a long series of progressively more structurally unstable straps. Concerningly, the same method of attachment went for my bike!

In fact, there was any number of safety issues with the car. Inertia-reel seatbelts were not available in the front, and in the back there were no seatbelts at all. In fact there was not much of anything in the back, including leg room. Jim had to lie across the bench-seat like some desperate porn star. I became aware that safety features in the rear consisted of two pillows and a quilt. The front quarter lights were zip-tied shut (apparently as a theft-prevention measure), and perhaps most concerningly there was a potent and quite overwhelming smell of petrol when the vehicle was in motion meaning that both windows had to be constantly open. Not that this mattered as the cabin heater had to be run on full all the time to prevent the engine overheating.

The engine has as much power as Chad and the roof was as waterproof as the titanic. Yet, I didn't really care. I didn't care that there were places where you could see the prop-shaft spinning like a 10000 rpm death-trap. I wasn't bothered by the break-back seats or the fact that at over 40mph the entire car shook uncontrollably. I didn't even care about these things when I considered if I was lucky to have survived the journey. I loved that car. I loved the way that you could drive through town in the world’s most unsuitable cruiser with the windows wide open to avoid monoxide poisoning and the stereo belting out a pitiful half-decibel from an awkwardly tuned radio. And as you cruised through the countryside with a hand on your bike precariously leaning off the roof and gazed across the mammoth bonnet and formerly ostentatious headlamps you could not help but feel happy. A simple happiness. A happiness at the wonder of novelty.



*If the journey isn't as good as the destination, then you're doing something wrong.

Lunch Time

... I like going to university here.

What i'm listening to...

The Libertines - Don't Look Back into the Sun
Quantic - Time is the Enemy
Stereophonics - Local Boy in the Photograph
The View - Wasted Little DJ's

Ode to my commuter bike.

Just a brief note to express feelings over my commuter bike. This is the bike you are least likely to see me ride, yet strangely, the bike I ride the most miles on. It is my work-horse bike, my faithful friend.

Now anyone who knows me will tell you that I like to keep things simple. Computers, cooking, cars, and - of course - bikes. The subway is certainly simple. No suspension, cable-vee brakes, and base-end SRAM SX4 7-speed transmission. I think of this bike as what late 20th century soviet bicycles should have been. I can imaging going into a bicycle shop in Moscow during the 60's.

Communist: "Hello, I would like a bicycle please."
State appointed transport official: "Certainly sir. In what size would you like your Subway?"

Everything about this bike is practical. It has v brakes to stay out of the way of your paniers. The suspension is in the seatpost for comfort rather than performance. The stem is hideously ugly, but high to keep you looking ahead. The paint is the most boring shade of grey imagineable to keep the pikeys at bay. And I love all this stuff! It weaves in and out of traffic like a cat and cruises along at about 18mph like a ... well, whatever cruises along at 18mph? The frame is a massive 22" which is perfect of a lankey-sod like me. And when you feel like being a hooligan, it is (believe it or not) massively good fun on a sunny day around the bridleways of rural Northamptonshire*.

This is what 95% of people want from a bike and just don't know it yet. Insted they insist on spending half the money on a bike ten times as often. I see it all the time at work. The environmentalist, accountant, and cyclist within me hates this. Why are people so mind-numbingly shallow about shiney paint and useless, cheap suspension?

As an aside, I now have just seven more shifts to work at Halfords before I can be free of it forever. In some ways, I will miss it. In most ways, I won't.

So here's to you, my commutable colleague, my city cruiser, my 22" sub! Long may you're tyres grace the earth, and may all your transmission faults be small ones!

* - If you havn't tried slick tyres for XC yet, give it a go. Its surprisngly good fun!

Calendar

Just a reminder - you can see what i'm up to at the moment using my google calander...

Disc

I have finally caved in and put a disc brake back on the little bike. I have to say that the benefit is enormous! I didn't realise how hard I had to pull on the lever to get any power from the vee brake before hand.

In addition, I have been hiding my bikes from the wardens doing room inspections.

In conclusion, no real riding going on at the moment unfortunately. Don't worry though - South Wales this weekend!

What i'm listening to:

Ben Folds (feat. Regina Spektor) - You Don't Know Me