Holiday Time

This blog is now going to France for a couple of weeks.

But it will return with tales of running amongst the sunflowers and vines or tales of sitting around and drinking wine.

Who knows what will happen.

Finding Your Way Pt. 2

I have just reread my last post and think it’s a bit jumbled. It had two main points; one was to say that Amsterdam is a lovely city that I greatly enjoyed exploring on foot; the other was to describe the way I try to not get lost in a strange city whilst running without a map. It was the failure of the second part that bothers me. I know it was a failure because my wife read it and said she did not understand what I was going on about.

It may be the old clichés about one of the main differences between men and women being map reading but most of our discussions, about how know where you are, end in mutual incomprehension.

Identify a couple of landmarks; find them on a map; and then look at the pattern of roads around them; keep that picture in your mind and then keep track of the turns you take when you are out. Simple …....I think.

Different canals

Yet again I have been running by canals but this time they had nothing to do with the industrial revolution and the long distance transport of goods and raw materials. Instead I went to Amsterdam for the first time and ran beside the 17th century houses and the water. It was tremendous. I loved the sense of being in the middle of a city but it feeling peaceful and relaxed.

I like cities in the early morning, watching them as they wake up. When the place is new there is an added mystery of not knowing where you are going or what you are going to see. Running adds to the sense of exploration.

I do however have certain rules to stop me getting lost. The first is to fix some landmark, or central space and know a route from there back to my hotel (in this case I used Rembrandt Plein). The next stage is to identify a road that feeds into that place that can be used for orientation (I chose a road running due south from the square). This means you can run around until you meet this road and then find your way back quite directly.

After that it is a matter of looking at the map to get a sense of the layout of the streets (Amsterdam is quit easy because it is like a series of semi-circles ), then lacing up the trainers and running. I like to challenging myself by taking a number of random turns, all the time trying to keep an internal picture of where I have been and where I am going. I find that the risk that I might lose my way forces me to look more closely at where I am going and my surroundings.

There are dangers in that you might end up in a bad area but there is no great risk of that by the canals of Amsterdam. If worried you can always ask the concierge where not to run but I do not like to ask where to run because I want to have the sense that I am in control of my wandering. Sometimes by not going to the more obvious sites you get a better sense of place.

The value of getting to know somewhere by foot is illustrated by the fact that my wife an I came back with a really positive view of the city. We had wandered the streets and relaxed in cafes and parks. At the same time a friend of ours had visited Amsterdam on business and in some free time took a trip into the centre, with his colleagues. They asked the taxi driver to take them to a nice café where they could watch the world go by but the taxi driver could not believe that four English males did not want to got to the red light district. After that was declined he dropped them nearby at Dam Square, which was not the place they were looking for. After a short time they went back to their hotel, thinking that the city was young, noisy and full of fast food.

Fact and Fiction

I have mentioned quite a few times that the Grand Union Canal is my home run. Every time I go there it feels secure, and familiar, yet at the same time there is always something new to notice. Even the name is good - the is something noble and Victorian about a Grand Union. But safety is not something that all canal runners can take for granted. A couple of months ago I noticed this story about alligator attacks in Florida, including an attack on someone running by a canal.

I know they are different types of canal but it did make me think about mild it is to run in the Home Counties. The climate is mild - you can mostly run all year round, the scenery is pleasantly undulating, people are pottering about on boats or strolling by the water. There is an air of easy contentment. However that was not my first thought. No - I immediately thought of Carl Hiassen. It could all have come from one of his novels, especially his first,
"Tourist Season" which is about a small group of terrorists who want to stop the relentless development of Miami and the destruction of the wilderness. It includes scenes of a crocodile munching on humans and also the canals.

At the same time I read about Steve Vaught a fat man who spent a year walking across America from coast to coast. He wanted to loose weight but more importantly reclaim his life(his blog is here). When reading about his story all I could think about was a novel I really enjoyed last year

I am drawn to stories about redemption through physical endeavour and a long lonely journey. By moving outside our normal range in order we see ourselves more clearly. In fiction it is easier to make a neat ending where everything becomes clear, whilst in real life it is likely to be messier, less clear. Steve Vaught was like that he did not loose as much weight as he wanted and his wife left him but he gained a number of insights and moved a long way in reshaping his nature.

I was struck by the coincidence of reading two stories where reality and fiction had become entwined.

So far I have yet to read the story of a middle aged man quietly running through the domesticated countryside of Hertfordshire, on a pleasantly warm morning, passing a few people out enjoying themselves. If there is such a story it would probably be called "Not a lot happened - but is a good way".

On Buying a Bike and Max Wall

Having been away for a bit, there are some things to catch up with.

One of the things that has given me most pleasure recently is that I have bought a new bike. Now I am going to waffle on about this, so those of you with no interest with cycles can look away now, except that I do wander onto other topics.

For the last 12 years all of my leisure cycling has been off road on a number of mountain bikes. My current one is a full-suspension Marin that is wonderful over the rough stuff but a bit of a camel on the tarmac. Lately however my thoughts have been turning to the idea of going back to a road bike.

I think this is because of the running and appreciating the way you can get into a rhythm that fills you up and in some way makes you content. Off road the experience is very different. You are constantly changing speed, direction and effort and the joy comes from having to concentrate all the time as you can never take the riding surface for granted.

Anyway after convincing myself that I would not be wasting my money on a fancy, the big problem was to work out what sort of bike I wanted. These days everything can be very specialised (no pun). So it was a process of elimination. Didn't want a tri bike - us non-swimmers do not do triathlons. Didn't want an out and out racing bike - I'm a bit old and want a bit more comfort. Didn't want a touring bike - I wanted at least some sense of responsiveness. The answer was a multi-purpose crosser.

Next decision was what material: titanium, carbon, aluminium or steel? In my price range the most common material is aluminium, with lots of advantages of lightness and stiffness and modern looks. But I was tempted by the idea of being a bit retro - steel is still a good material.

This all sounds like a logical way to buy a bike but logic has little to do with it, because what I really want is some sense of imaginative engagement. This might be a strange thing to ask of a machine but, as every bike I have owned has had its own personality, it is not that unusual. Bikes are customisable, tweakable and can be worked on. They might be the last machines that expose the way they work (everything else is moving to printed circuits and becoming a mysterious black box) and there is an elegance in that. You can see the form following the function.

So I brought something because I liked the idea of the company and their way with names: a Planet X Kaffenback.

Planet X are a small company from Yorkshire who design according to their own ideas of what works. There is a strong sense of people having the freedom to try things out. This can be seen in the website of
On One, their more idiosyncratic twin company. Their forum almost has a community feel and, in the best sense, personal.

They also have an attractive way with names. Kaffenback perfectly describes the focus of my Saturday morning rides. In addition their wheels have DN6 rims, which sounds sort of high tech - except it’s their postcode. However the thing that did it for me was that they call their tubing Max Wall, and the decal has an image of the great man.


For those of you who don't know, he was a comedian, born in 1908, the son a music-hall entertainer and thus steeped in that tradition. In his act he used to wear a rumpled formal jacket over black tights, with outsized shoes. He had a funny walk, with his bum stuck out and sometimes almost balletic movement. Above all he had an amazingly creased face that could crumple and gurn. At the end of his career he became a great Beckett actor to such an extent that sometimes I can see his face when I read the words.

I can remember seeing him in a variety show when I was about 11 or 12. The bill included Wilson Keppel and Betty, and Billy Cotton. If anything makes me realise how old I am it is the thought that I saw these people, from a different age, who you can only imagine in black and white (or more accurately faded brown and white). At the time I could have had no ideathat I was watching the end of a tradition.

I now love the idea that I have some direct connection to, some glimpse of, this past. When I think of this I also remember my grandfather, who shortly before his death locked himself in a room and recorded a number of music-hall songs.

I know I am taking about a cultural tradition and not something primeval but this reaching back reminds me of a few lines from a Stephen Spender poem:

What is precious is never to forget
The delight of blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth;
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning light, Nor its grave evening demand for love;
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Now how did I get here from buying a bike?

I think all you can say is that for someone who uses the name Highway Kind - "didn't he ramble."

Oh and by the way the bike is great fun