I’m very lucky to have pals who commit to big plans and full days out; I asked my friend Maria if they’d be free for ‘a ride’ on a coming Saturday, and they immediately came back with a full .gpx file going from Hackney to Brighton overwhelmingly off-road. For me this came to a day’s 165km/100mi of riding. We kicked it off at 0715 to make the most of the sunshine and to hammer it out of London before it got too hot, and we met up with two other pals in Richmond and Weybridge. It was a great day out with some big wins and learning points, so here they are.
Tag Archives: biking
My top 3 ways to ruin your bike and get an expensive repair bill
As a teacher at London Bike Kitchen, and doing my own bike maintenance work, one of the first things I talk to people about is how much money maintenance can save you. It’s tempting to tell people that cycling is ‘free once you buy the bike,’ but this quickly becomes untrue if you let maintenance problems build up, and let your more expensive components become unduly damaged and worn ahead of time. This is a short blog about the best ways to ruin your bike through lack of maintenance, which hopefully you’d use more in a what not to do sense. But it’s more fun to talk about it this way!
Learnings and feelings after 6 months of cycle educating in London
The other day at London Bike Kitchen, where I teach as a freelance tutor, I ran a ‘introduction to maintenance’ class for two people who were several decades older than me. Correspondingly, they probably had in the order of 40 years more of experience regarding riding bikes than I did, since I only really began cycling properly (in the sense of leisure and transportation) in around 2017. Writing this, I’ve been teaching classes like this, or working as a community mechanic, for about 6 months now, and thought a blog post about what I’ve learned and how I’m feeling about it may be interesting to you.
What I learned doing the Dunwich Dynamo on my fixed gear bike
Despite me having been a cyclist in and around London for about 6-7 years, I’d never done the ‘Dun Run’ before. It had coincided with the now sadly discontinued London Orbital Audax (the night of a full moon being particularly good for long rides to spare you cycle lights battery life). But in 2024 the calendar worked out that I could give it a go.
I’d done some longer fixed gear rides before, such as the Audax I did a few years ago before the pandemic, but it had been a bit of a break so the nerves were getting to me a little in the run-up. Luckily, it ended up being a marvellous ride. Hopefully you can learn a bit from this blog post and feel like a fixed gear Dun Run might be the thing for you in 2025.
What I learned riding ‘the Purbeck bimble’ aka ‘Purbeckspedition,’ a MTB/gravel and bikepacking route on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset
I’ve just come back from the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, where I re-rode a route I did a few years ago. It’s a really great weekend away so this is a short blog about how to make the most of it and what I learned on the ride (and the camp).
What I learned: Riding on the ‘old chalk way’ from Tring to Pangbourne
To try and focus my blogs and keep them from being an unstructured mess, I fix them around ‘wins and losses’ from a given ride. This time it’s around a great day out from last Sunday, where I got the train out to Tring from London Euston, and followed a route called ‘the old chalkContinue reading “What I learned: Riding on the ‘old chalk way’ from Tring to Pangbourne”
Calum On Wheels 