My ink don't flow

I am a fountain pen junkie. One of my late favourites, the Pilot Vanishing Point (bought after a review at the excellent site wwww.everyday commentary.com) started skipping - it just would have huge, and I mean huge problems in starting. 

I felared I had baby bottom problems (see Richard Binder's most excellent site www.richardspens.com; Richard is a nib demigod), but closer examination revealed that the culprit was something else: surface tension. When I pressed the nib to the paper - not gorilla-like you understand but with a not unmanly pressure -  the nibs came away from the feeder and the ink rolled back, presenting a ball surface between tines and feeder, but figurative kilometres (unreconstructed metric guy) away from the business end of the tip. This was bad.

This was actually bloody good. Surface tension is physics. This is laws-of-the-universe stuff. I know a thing or two about them. Newton, Bohr and Feynman got my back on this. I know that soap breaks surface tension. I know that there is a collection of lovely, helpful and fanatic crazies that debate which ink is the wettest (big hello to fellow denizens of www.fountainpennetwork.com). 

So I flushed with very dilute fairy and water (soap), and put private reserve American blue in (consensus is that PR inks are some of e wettest around - but , be warned, high maintenance - and the problem was solved. 

And if you argue that my solution was not from the field of physics but chemistry, i invite you to consider that chemistry is quantum mechanics in action. 

The Brompton Bicycle.

Ah, the Brompton.

Once upon a time my wife brightly suggested to me that it would be a good idea for me to take my son to school once a fortnight for some dad son communication. This involved some sacrifice of commuting miles,as it involved a train journey, so cycling was out for the one day in the fortnight. My perceptive readers no doubt appreciate that this was the thin end of the wedge. It was eventually announced that I should be taking darling son to school three days a week as "he needs his dad, he looks up to him so much" and also aided the beauty sleep of certain family members, all worthwhile aims no doubt, but this presented an unprecedented crisis in terms of commuter miles. Something Should Be Done.

if Dad was to take son to school, he would do so with a folding bike. Because lugging a bike on hands and trains for several years is Not Good, said folding bike should fold up small and be light, preferably titanium and in its folded state be dense, with little void but as full of metal as possible. And it should be yellow.

And so, the Brompton.

Andrew Richie should have been feted in the opening ceremony of the London Olympics as one of the wonders that Great Britain has produced. I would even go so far as to say that the Brompton should be an Exhibit For The Defense during the trial in Encounter at Farpoint (big hello to fellow Trekkies).

The little bicycle that can is beautiful. It is a poem when it folds and unfolds. The highest form of origami and as sharp and precise as a sewing machine, or even a mechanical clock of high quality, or infinitely more irritatingly, an automatic rifle (couldn't these great designers make something more useful, like a bridge? Or something that is not devoted to killing more efficiently?).

And when it rides, it is responsive and nippy and perfect for London traffic.

And another paean should be devoted to its luggage mounting and to the ever wonderful Ortlieb bags - big and small, my only gripe is that they do not come in yellow. But the bicycle; the bicycle comes in colours to please many retinas and tastes including some eye-searing results. De gustibus et de coloribus and so on, as my grandmother often said (though she said it in Greek or more accurately Hellenistic koine - and no, she was not that ancient). I myself am partial to yellow as you cannot have failed to notice, but one cannot deny the simple deliciousness of lacquer show casing the brazing. 

So this post is a love letter. Like one finds an intelligent woman fascinating and appealing ( I know this as I am blessed with one such for a wife) the Brompton has the inescapable appeal of Intelligent Design ( please note that I am an easy going Epicurean, but if you say that evolution is "just a theory" I am afraid we cannot be friends). In fact, the Brompton has had a good deal of  evolution and is still evolving - visit a Brompton Junction shop to confirm this.

But no one is perfect. In every relationship there is a little cloud. For me the biggest one is that the Brompton beguiled me to become a fair weather cyclist. Because when it is chucking down, and it is oh so easy to fold and take it with me on a train, tube or bus, I sometimes give in.

But on the whole, thank you Mr Ritchie, and the people at Brompton, even though you made me wait four months for my titanium build.

And you wonderful Brompton people, you made handle grips in yellow, and a yellow saddle. The grips are on the bike, and if I can negotiate with my wife, the saddle will end up mounted in a frame on a wall like the piece of art that it is, but it is not as comfortable as The Brooks Saddle, customised to my posterior. But this is another relationship, and the subject for another post.

Useful things to know for the Dunwich Dynamo

You're gonna hurt. Your palms will hurt. And your arse will hurt. 

Now that we got that out of the way, let me say some things I wish I had known beforehand. 

It's not flat. The rolling hills of England may be beautiful but they take their toll. It's not an epic advent by any means - 932 metres - but it does get to me after a while. Recall I am a Londoner after all, and therefore fundamentally a flat lander. But it's doable.

Sleep long on Saturday. I stayed up late on Friday and woke up at about 14:00 and got up at 16:00ish. 

Transport: sort out the return. Ideally get a significant other to drive you back because you WILLbe sleepy. Or take the lorry/coach solution. It stops at Southwark and you will not find a taxi. Be prepared for a LONG wait at dunwich in order to get on the bus. The means queuing, standing up in the breeze and/or drizzle.

Water: get a lot. I started off with 4.5 litres. One freon bottle in a towel with the other two in a pannier will keep them nicely cool to the end. you may also want to buy mller bottles from the garages in London during the first part of the ride to avoid digging in you supplies. Cold coffee like iced latte is also nice but doo not start too early. You red unlikely to find water fter the half way stop

food: Flapjacks are good, also breakfast bars and sesame snaps. Cold pizza for next morning. In the early hours enterprising fellows will set up stalls along the way offering bacon rolls and the like, and coffee. Unpredictable as to exact position and hugely welcome when they appear. Queues, but short.

There is also the half way stop. If you get to it early, you will find hot food. And water. And toilets. And queues. The latter three can last for longer than food.

And there is the cafe in the most glorious of places, the Dunwich beach car park. Have not tried, was too busy queuing for transport, though the toilets were welcome and in good condition. Short queues too.

Toilets: "where are your toilets my good peasant?" "In the fields your Majesty." (Greek joke from the time before the current republic).

Partners: riding ones are necessary or at least highly desirable. They can look after your steed while you are communing with nature. Though to be frank you won't need to even lock it as everyone has their own bike.

Lights: yes. Lezyne SuperDrive xl did very nicely.  Extra betteries necessary. Rear lights are good but be considerate: angle them away from eyes and do not run them at a blinding setting. People will see you. 

Clothing: it will be warmish. I was comfortable in the jersey until about three in the morning when it started drizzling and the gilet came out. Waiting in the queue was much better for having a shell with me. If I knew it would rain I would not go.

Get tools, spare inner tubes and a pump. I had no probs but you are on your own. Identify escape routes should bike become unrideable, meaning minicab numbers and rail stations.

Swimming. Do it if you like. Personally I won't go in a sea that I cannot see the bottom of.

Training: I completed with nothing more than about 70km a week commuting. And a strong partner to draft.

There is bugger all to do in Dunwich. See transport.

You will be very glad to finish. You may even do it again.

Manifesto

A new blog like a new calculus book needs some justification or at least a statement of intent.

One could say that as all (non-Borg) individuals are unique the voices will be distinct and therefore in principle with hearing or even invoke freedom of speech, etc. But this would be a copout.

A blog, like a calculus book is an immortality project.

So, I am a geek, and in will be writing about gear and products I enjoy (this makes me therefore a pseudo-Epicurean), experiences and thoughts and rants (moving me closer therefore to truer Epicurean), starting now:

Man,this blogging thing is hard: this is the third time I am writing this post, as every single time I have managed to lose it.