rachel.blog

Tag: cycling

  • Cycling in the snow

    What do you on a cold Saturday afternoon just as it’s starting to rain? Go for a bike ride of course. Only sissies are afraid of the rain. We cycled to Newton Dee as I was in need of chocolate – it has been at least a couple of weeks since I had my last fix…

  • Another rant

    I just read that a wealthy Aberdeen oil tycoon and his wife have donated £10 million to the hospital in Aberdeen for a new car park. Apparently the wife went to visit friends at the hospital and had problems finding a park. Here’s how I feel about this: Car parking is not a good investment for the…

  • How to make roundabouts safe for cyclists

    The bridge crossing where I have to dash out in front of four lanes of traffic just to cross the road joins a roundabout which is partly why it’s so unsafe. Cars come racing around the roundabout and onto the bridge. By the time they join the bridge they’ve left the roundabout and are usually…

  • Star Wars and cycling

    We took the kids to see Star Wars today. On the cycle ride home I had to dash across four lanes of traffic to get across a bridge that has no crossing for pedestrians or cyclists. I did the same thing yesterday only yesterday a gallant young man stood in the middle of the road…

  • The Bullitt Cargo Bike

    Yesterday I went into town because it’s Elizabeth’s birthday on New Year’s Eve and I had to get her a present. She wants a skipping rope which was easy and didn’t break the bank. I got her a few other things too. As I was loading the loot into Busby another cargo bike pulled up…

  • Deeside cycleway and vegan chocolate

    One of our favourite things to do is to cycle out to Newton Dee on the Deeside cycleway. It’s about 5 miles along an old train line and at Newton Dee there’s a nice cafe and grocery store. It was a lovely ride on the shortest day of the year which is today but it was…

  • A flash talk about cycling

    Here’s my flash talk from the Automattic Grand Meetup in October. I thought I’d put it on my blog as a way to share my love of cycling with more people. We all had to give a flash talk and we could talk about whatever we wanted for 4 minutes at most. I was rather nervous…

  • Rain tent for a cargo bike and homeopathy

    For a little while now I’ve been lusting after a new bicycle. I currently have my heart set on a Triobike. The main reason I want a new bike is because the kids are getting too tall to fit under the rain tent in Busby. However Bakfiets, makers of Busby, recently released a taller version…

  • If it’s good enough for a princess

    I recently spotted this pic of Princess Mary of Denmark, who also happens to be Australian, cycling her kids around in a cargo bike: This image comes from a Daily Mail article but if you Google “Princess Mary cargo bike” you’ll see there are lots of images just like this. This is obviously something she…

  • In town without my car day

    Today is “In town without my car day” and as big advocates of the pedestrianisation of city centre streets we thought we should go along and lend our support. They had closed off some streets to cars which was marvellous and put lots of fun activities in their place like a giant water slide, a…

  • I ate a box of chocolates yesterday

    I turned 40 yesterday; I’m officially middle-aged. I didn’t do anything exciting other than eat almost an entire box of chocolates. I didn’t even feel sick and I’m unlikely to put on weight because a) I’m vegan and b) I’ve got Busby. The interesting thing about Busby is that there’s a positive correlation between my age and the amount…

  • We’re famous

    There are a couple of photos of us in today’s EveningExpress taken at the Wee Jaunt yesterday. Not such a great one of me because it looks like I’m flashing but fortunately you can’t see anything. Ben showed his photo to a PhD student at work hoping to impress him but his response was, “It would look more…

  • Wee Jaunt Aberdeen

    Buying a house seems to have sapped all the fun out of lives so we decided to do something to rectify the situation. This morning we participated in the Wee Jaunt Aberdeen, a Pedal for Scotland initiative to encourage cycling and raise money for a children’s charity. They closed off several roads in a 6 mile route…

  • Cycling infrastructure in Aberdeen

    We went for quite a stressful bike ride today. It was supposed to be a pleasant afternoon cycling along a newly discovered bike path but traffic and a lack of suitable crossings for bicycles made it stressful. I took a photo of one of the crossings we made to point out how inadequate it is for bicycles.…

  • The Rocket Bike

    We’ve been thinking about getting a new cargo bike lately because our kids are getting a bit small for the bakfiets. The main problem is that Daniel is too tall when the rain tent is on – which is all the time – and so the kids have to sit on the floor of the…

  • Turning 40

    I’m turning 40 next month. If anyone wants to send me a present I like flowers and chocolate. The gym I signed up with for the purposes of teaching my kids how to swim offered to do a free MOT so I thought I’d do it given that I’m about to pass the threshold into…

  • Cycle ride to Torry Battery

    On Sunday afternoon we cycled from Duthie Park to Torry Battery. The city side of the River Dee was almost entirely off-road cycle paths which is fantastic. After crossing the river at the Wellington Suspension Bridge – which is exclusively for pedestrians and cyclists – it’s all on-road unfortunately. The first part is also particularly…

  • True safety lies with design

    Originally posted on As Easy As Riding A Bike: I shared some pictures the other day, in an attempt to convey a fairly simple message – that the safety record of the Netherlands for cycling is almost entirely attributable to the physical environment people cycle in, and that it isn’t down to exemplary behaviour (either of people…

  • Allan Park and Newton Dee

    Ben is away in Germany doing some maths at a maths institute in the Black Forest and so the three of us caught up with some friends today and went cycling. We cycled out to Newton Dee which is about 5 miles from Duthie Park along the Deeside Cycleway. Newton Dee is a village for adults with…

  • First-world kid problems, owls, and cargo bikes

    This morning I found Daniel sitting on his bed looking very forlorn and crying to himself. I immediately asked him what was wrong and he said, “I can’t find a good mod”. A mod is an add-on for the computer game, Minecraft. This is definitely a first-world kid problem 🙂 There was an event on…