Cycling Firsts

Last week, several cycling firsts for the year: my first commute (home) without waterproof leggings. Then my first commute in spring gloves rather than winter gloves.

The first commute in shorts and short-sleeved jersey. Which included the first time up the Big Hill (on my singlespeed) without getting out of the saddle.

In other words, last week was Quite A Week.

Although the year is still young, spring is on her merry way, and cycling is getting easier, more pleasant, more fun as the weather gets warmer and the days get longer. And yes, as I get fitter.

A New Bike

Last week, I commuted on my new bike for the first time.

It was a frosty morning, by the by, not so cold that I suffered brain freeze on the big downhill, but cold enough that my toes were tending towards numbness as I arrived at the office.

The Joys of a New Bike

There's a pleasure in riding a new bike, of course, especially one that has been a long time coming. I've wanted this bike for a year or so. I ordered it in December 2010. That's a lot of deferred pleasure.

Picking a new bike is great fun, certainly; choosing the colour of the frame, the saddle, the bar tape. There's joy to be found in kitting out the bike, too, putting the new bits and pieces on it, arranging it just so. But it's not just the lure of the new, the shiny. It's also the thrill of excitement from meeting a new friend, of learning about their little quirks. Sure, there's always a certain amount of getting used to a new friend; the riding position being ever so slightly different, the pedals needing a bit of tweaking and set-up, the responsiveness of the steering and the brakes.

And there are the unanswered questions, too - particularly with a machine ordered over the Internet, unseen, unridden.

Will I like it? Should I have chosen something else? Was I crazy to pick a singlespeed bike for my commuter, on the Cycle2Work scheme? This is not a bike I can easily sell on if I don't like it - it's owned by my employer for at least 12 months. Am I be strong enough to ride my commute with just one gear?

One of my biggest worries was whether I'd picked the "right" gearing. Picking a singlespeed gearing is naturally, necessarily a compromise: a gear easy enough to get up the worst of the hills, a gear hard enough to make the flats and downhills manageable without spinning out (and if you hadn't considered the latter a possibility or a problem, try it the next time you're going down a decent hill; the old legs are reluctant to go beyond a certain speed).

The Early Verdict

After that first ride, I think I've got the gearing bang-on. On the flat, the gear felt pleasant - definitely spinning rather than grinding - but with just enough resistance that it was fun. After the morning ride I was pleased.

In the evening: I will not claim I glided up the Big Uphill, but I did climb it without stopping and sweating too much. Sure, I had to get out of the saddle to get over the worst of the gradient, but I'd expected that. And at no point had I found the going so tough that I'd even been near considering stopping, slowing or - help! - getting off and pushing. No dismounts, no walking, no worries!

So I figure the gearing is about right.

And an unexpected benefit: because the gear is a touch easier than I might choose on another bike, because I can't change that gear, I spend more of the time spinning rather than grinding (on the flats, at least, where normally I would be pushing a bigger and bigger gear). This means that I can't go quite so fast, but it means that it feels easier. And, better still, it feels more fun! I spend more time in the easier cadence, working less hard, feeling stronger, more aerobic exercise.

I felt, in short, that I was flying more often than I normally do.

One thing I did notice: momentum is key. Because I have to work a little to get on top of the gear from a standing start, it means that I'm increasingly reluctant to stop. I need to plan my deceleration, looking farther down the road, reading the traffic. These are good skills to hone.

In Conclusion

The first ride with my new friend was great. The bike rides really well. Yes, the saddle needs raising a little, and the brake hoods - squat, chunky things - feel less comfortable in my hands than the Shimano integrated shifters I've used for the last 2000 miles. But that's a question of familiarity; they're comfy enough, and so is the bike - clearly the money spent on a bike fitting when I bought the Giant is still paying dividends.

And I was smiling all the way there and back again.

On Plastic

I am not a great fan of plastic.

I mean, I like the qualities of plastic: that it's unbreakable (or, at least, shatterproof), durable, watertight. Lightweight. It's a great idea. But I don't like that it's made from a non-renewable resource (crude oil, ultimately), and is rather tricky to recycle. It's not great at rotting, tending to stick around for ages, clogging up the place for hundreds of years.

So wherever possible, I prefer to avoid plastic, and choose alternatives that are made from renewable materials, or can be more easily disposed of at the end of their life, through recycling or bio-degrading, or composting.

I eschew plastic bags, choosing instead to use my hands and pockets, or cardboard boxes.

I buy my milk in glass bottles (that, as well as being made from the wonderfully renewable glass, are rinsed, returned and reused). I buy baskets and wooden storage boxes. I have a metal toolbox I inherited from my father (and might yet pass on to my son).

There are, though, times when only plastic will do. To store something in a sometimes-damp garage, safe from rodent's teeth, protected from the weather - plastic is pretty much the best choice.

In these cases, I choose plastic that is durable, robust, and - if possible - made from a type of plastic that can be recycled (or, at least, downcycled). And I plan to keep it for a long time; I weigh my current needs, my future plans, and choose the best fit that will last. If I'm going to buy plastic, I want it to be as infrequently as possible, and I don't want to be throwing it away any time soon.

Getting the best - the most - out of what I spend my time and money on. That's my kind of environmentalism.

How to Cycle More 2: Have a Routine

I'm aiming to cycling 2000 commuting miles in 2011, an average of two days a week. In order to achieve this, I've got to be committed, and crafty. Last week, I wrote about how being flexible helps me cycle more.

This week: flexibility is good, and so is routine.

Or, because "routine" sounds like a bind to some people, let's call it habit. Rhythm. Or, better yet, cadence.

There's a rhythm to cycle commuting the same two days a week.

Setting aside 2 days to cycle means I am mentally prepared to do it; I know it's coming. There's none of that "I'll do it tomorrow" unease that turns into full-blown panic at the end of the week, when I've not cycled and so I have to cycle and it's howling with wind, pelting down with rain and snow, icy and bleak.  There's no joy to be had on days like that.

There's comfort in knowing that Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'll be cycling. I can structure my week around it. I can make plans.

On Monday I can get myself set for the week; bring clean clothes into the office for the days I cycle, buy my fruit and lunches for the week. On Friday, when the legs are tired and the spirit beleaguered from the working week, I can plan to drive home, bringing home whatever I need for the weekend. And Wednesday can be my time to run errands that require the car, or my contingency if Tuesday or Thursday isn't going to plan. My day of rest. Or even an extra cycle commuting day. I can be flexible with my routine.

Because flexibility is good, and flexibility built around a predictable routine; a routine that is adaptable - is great. And it means that I can cycle more reliably, more often, on more occasions - that's something very special.

Related articles:

• How to Cycle More 1: Be Flexible

How to Cycle More: Be Flexible

In 2010, I rode just over a thousand commuting miles on my bike. This year (2011), I plan to double that. As my daily commute is 22 miles, this target means I'll be cycling to work an average of two days a week.

Of course, it's rarely as simple as simply picking a set couple of days and cycle commuting on those two days every week. Real life gets in the way of plans; sometimes I need to have access to a car. Perhaps I need to visit a client site, and it's just not feasible to do so on my bike. Maybe my wife has asked me to get some supplies, more than I can carry. Or, because I work in the countryside, I need to get into town to do some banking or other personal admin.

How to balance the need to fit these everyday tasks with the goal of cycle commuting twice a week?

The answer, I find, is flexibility. Being prepared to drive to work and cycle home one day, and the reverse the next day means I get the benefits of having the car at the office during the day, and cycling too. The "old 4-2-2-4" I call it, being the number of wheels on my commute, morning and evening, over two days.

This week is a case in point. I have a site visit, a lunch meeting, and some errands to run over the course of the week. If I stuck to my allotted cycle commuting days, I wouldn't be able to cycle at all. But by shifting when I cycle commute - driving in one day, then cycling home that evening; cycling in the next day and driving home the second evening - I ensure I've got access to the car when I need it, whilst meeting my cycling commitments.

In some respects, this flexibility is a variation of my tactic of removing excuses - I can't possibly cycle today, I've so much to do! - and also increases my opportunity to cycle as well as the likelihood of doing so. Which brings me ever closer to that 2000 mile, twice a week goal.

Local, Seasonal Fruit and Vegetables

I like tomatoes, I really do. I love their sharp sweetness, the way those little cherry tomatoes burst under the roof of my mouth. I love beef tomatoes, sliced thickly and layered with mozzarella or onion. I can't understand that people don't enjoy them. It's something to do with the texture, apparently.

For me, there's something about the deep red (or orange, or tiger-stripe) of tomato fruits that evoke summer; I can see the colour of the sky as I think about eating tomatoes outside. And there's something about the smell of tomatoes that transports me to my father's greenhouse in my childhood house, green fruit swelling on the plants; and to my own greenhouse, where the thick dark-green stalks with their downy covering exude that intense aroma.

But I can't and won't eat tomatoes when they're watery and tasteless. I asked my wife, not so long ago, if she remembered eating the last tomato she'd had, if she had tasted it. When she remembered eating one that she tasted.

She couldn't.

After that, we agreed not to buy tomatoes out of season, from foreign shores. We've made the same agreement for asparagus and strawberries and all those other vegetables that it's possible to get year-round,  but which taste best of all when they're in season, and grown locally (meaning they're picked and sold in short order, still fresh).

So last week I was pleased and surprised to find the local supermarket had tomatoes ostensibly grown in Britain. And they were tasty enough, even if they're doubtless grown with the help of lots of heated greenhouses rather than in the heat of the sun. A guilty pleasure at this time of year.

This week, they did not. Oh, they had tomatoes, from Spain and Holland, from Morocco and the Canary Islands. Too far afield. Too well-travelled. No tomatoes for me this week.

But they did also have Cox's apples and Conference pears, both from the UK. So this week I have no tomatoes, but I am knee-deep in apples and pears. The break from tomatoes will make them more special when they're available again. If I can wait for asparagus, I can wait for tomatoes. Especially when I've got apples and pears to console me.

The password reset process, revisited

Another example of not telling the user what you want from them, this time from O2, a mobile phone network in the UK.

This week, I needed to visit the secure area of the O2 website, and - of course - because it had been so long since I had last visited, I had forgotten my password. Time to use their password reset process.

So I went through the motions, and - dutifully reading the "Important" text to the side of the new password fields - I entered my new password.

I've recently started using a random password generator, and I faithfully put in the minimum requirements stated on the O2 website. The instructions on this page are pretty clear: the minimum and maximum length of the password are stated, and the statement about mixing letters and numbers indicated that I could use both. I was a little sure what they meant by "other characters" so I added a basic set of punctuation characters to my generation algorithm.

...and fell at that hurdle - see screenshot below.

Despite all the excellent direction in the blue box, there is still some mystery about what "other characters" are permitted. Only by experimenting was I able to get to a password that was acceptable to O2's secret, inscrutable requirements.

Each time I failed, a slap from the website, an invitation to abandon the process and go elsewhere. It's a good job I really needed to get into the secure website. And collect case studies of interaction design for this blog.

Because this is the problem with keeping your website's password criteria secret: user frustration. What percentage of users try again after the first failure? What percentage leave after the second?

Related articles:

• Tell Users What You Want From Them