Cycling UK Forum

Posted: **14 Jun 2019, 1:09pm**

mercalia wrote:
pwa wrote:To add to the excellent suggestion of a tail wind, I once did a 200k Audax ride from Bishop's Cleeve, Cheltenham on a very windy day. It was a big mistake. The weather person on the telly had forecast gale force winds and advised against unnecessary journeys, but Audax folk are tough and don't listen to such warnings. For the first 140k or so I had a stiff headwind where I was struggling to pedal the bike even going downhill, or a very dodgy sidewind that had me leaning the bike over and struggling to keep a line. And at each control (check point) I was just on time, with no time to spare.

Then there came that magic moment, where I came to the last section and the route turned a corner and the wind became a pure tail wind. I was cycling on the flat without pedalling. It was as if I had a motor on the bike. Maybe 60k of the easiest cycling followed and I felt very happy. Even so, I resolved not do any more Audax rides on stupidly windy days.

Once had a similar expeience a long time ago cycling from Kings Lynn to Lowestoft Tail wind all the way across East Anglia , got home in record time. I didnt want to stop, but the North Sea stood in the way....

There's something wrong with me as I become suspicious of fortuitous pleasures such as a strong tailwind, which deflates the pleasure. Also, I enjoy those pleasures which are "nice when it stops", including the battle agin' a terrible headwind, as the feeling of arrival is fantastically pleasurable.

I used to enjoy camping in filthy weather in the middle of desolate fells for the same reason. The sight and feel, when you are cold and soaked, of a nice wee pub in some small village, with a hot hearth, cakes and ale! However, now I am old and soft so tenting in the cold & rain seems a risk too far. Mind, it might be quite pleasurable to get pneumonia then recover........? No, perhaps not.

Cugel

Posted: **14 Jun 2019, 1:21pm**

Tangled Metal wrote:
Cugel wrote:
The shavings were so nice, fine, translucent, gossamer and otherwise purfek that I couldn't bear to throw them out into the woodburner ignition-fodder sack. The ladywife had to do it.

Cugel, a plane fetisher and fondler.

I can understand that. Both good photos. Made me feel happy looking at the planes but I'm not a woodworker so can't understand why.

The knowledge and skills enabling creation; the tools to do so; the process as a nice thing grows from an inchoate chunk of material under your hands.... I believe all humans enjoy creation processes and associated doings, whatever form the creation takes. Woodworking with planes, chisels and saws is a particularly visual thing, for the observer too, as well as a feeling-thing for the maker.

The tool I love most is the woodworking bench, particularly it's various vises, hold-downs and other workpiece-grabbers. In line with the tradition, I made my own woodworking bench as a sort of cabinetmaker's rite of passage. After machine sawing and shaping the main chunks that compose it, the whole thing was jointed and assembled with hand tools, part of the rite.

: The bench just finished

: Planing the top flat

: Final scrape of the difficult-grain areas

: Making the dog holes

: The Veritas twin screw vise

Cugel

Posted: **14 Jun 2019, 4:35pm**

I just love those vice handles.
That is what I call attention to detail.

Posted: **14 Jun 2019, 5:33pm**

Free concerts, lectures, hearing and learning new things, went to a talk about street names recently.. etc &c
Don't even mind paying occasionally, so many are free that the average price is very low

Posted: **14 Jun 2019, 5:42pm**

First time of the year you feel heat in the sun.

Watching snow fall.

The sound of a woodpecker.

Posted: **14 Jun 2019, 5:44pm**

lying on a sunny day but in the shade in my £12 hammock feeling the breeze and not a care in the world.

Posted: **14 Jun 2019, 6:03pm**

The way Wheateaters fly from fence post to fence post in front of me when I riding in the summer.
Seeing Kingfishers on the L&L where it once was polluted.
Looking down and seeing the cranks going round
Watching Swifts and Swallows on the wing against a blue sky
Bull rushes
Watching Chubb swimming in a local brook that was so polluted when was a boy nothing could live in it.
The Spirit leaps at these sights

Posted: **14 Jun 2019, 6:51pm**

I am made disproportionately happy just by looking at the photographs of Cugel's planes and bench. (Not a twinge of envy, surprisingly — I have all the beautiful tools I need, and lack only sufficient time to use them as often as they deserve.) It makes me smile to see tools that have been designed and constructed, and are now with such thoughtfulness and care.

Posted: **14 Jun 2019, 6:57pm**

Return journey by car from our place in France.

One of our lunch stops is just north of Sarlat: a place we aim to stop at each time we pass, because it's an excellent spot for a picnic lunch with good views. And the flowers!

So, on our last visit, just two weeks ago, we counted no fewer than thirteen different species of wild orchid. All within a few steps of where we sat to have lunch:

Pyramid orchid (very common in those parts - grows like a weed).
Bee orchid (also very common)
Lizard orchid (also very common)
Fly orchid
White helleborine
Red helleborine
Lady orchid
Military orchid
Man orchid
Burnt orchid
Violet limodore
Greater Butterfly orchid
Lesser Butterfly orchid

(the last of these is quite rare, but I think I've identified it right).

I also spotted a golden oriole. Hearing their call is quite common, but actually catching sight of one is quite unusual, they're very shy birds. Only the third time I've ever seen one, and the second time for a male.

That stop was quite a feelgood moment.

Posted: **14 Jun 2019, 8:28pm**

The work benches remind me of my time in engineering and how things changed by department. Everything in the welding shop was welded, most things in the maintenance fitters shop were drilled and bolted together. Nice to see a good woodworking bench made of wood.

The rest of us have old kitchen surfaces and cable ties I think

Posted: **14 Jun 2019, 10:32pm**

Mistik-ka wrote:I am made disproportionately happy just by looking at the photographs of Cugel's planes and bench. (Not a twinge of envy, surprisingly — I have all the beautiful tools I need, and lack only sufficient time to use them as often as they deserve.) It makes me smile to see tools that have been designed and constructed, and are now with such thoughtfulness and care.

Hee hee - it's such a pleasure to collect man-toys. Or are they man-jewels? Anyroadup, it's good to have more than just shiny bike bits to fondle and operate. :-)

More edge tools and their chaw, for them as enjoy the nice toolen:

: Messy business, spokeshaving to a template

How many tools in this one pic?

: Spokeshave having a rest

: A big Chinese ebony try plane & blade setting hammer

One taps the plane body to make the blade rise up for a thinner cut; taps the blade-top for a thicker cut; taps the blade side to make the blade unskew so it takes an even cut across it's width.

: A wooden grooving plane

Inexpensive but very effective, if crude to adjust.

: A skew plane trimming a big tenon

Expensive but very easy to adjust (and use).

Cugel, currently shaping four oak clothes stand buttresses with spokeshaves.

Posted: **14 Jun 2019, 10:49pm**

iandriver wrote:The work benches remind me of my time in engineering and how things changed by department. Everything in the welding shop was welded, most things in the maintenance fitters shop were drilled and bolted together. Nice to see a good woodworking bench made of wood.

The rest of us have old kitchen surfaces and cable ties I think

That bench was a monster to make. Everything in it weighs a ton!

The timber was all reclaimed from various old buildings, commercial woodworking shops and even a local small docks where small boats bring in exotic timbers. All would have been burnt, landfilled, thrown in the sea or otherwise wasted but for Cugel the skip-diver and bonty-raider. :-)

The vises are Lee Valley (Veritas) things - unique twin screw vises made to hold enormous or teeny parts & everything inbetween without going cockeyed when tightened, like some single screw vises you can purchase. They too weigh a ton, especially with the large wooden jaws one adds to them oneself. I had to buy them; and the huge bed-bolts holding the long rails to the ends, to make the bench knock-down so it can be moved without getting a hernia.

The cupboards underneath were also made with rescued old bits - mostly window frames and discarded veneered blockboard.

Cugel

Posted: **14 Jun 2019, 11:06pm**

Cugel
I admire your traditional(English,Chinese and Japanese)techniques of working and bow to your devotion to a handtool approach.
It makes me disproportionately happy to see such techniques still alive and well

PS, your plane collection is disgraceful and beautifully high end that only a true craftsman can appreciate,Krenov would be proud of you :wink:

Posted: **15 Jun 2019, 8:13am**

Comfort foods
Rice pudding, lentil soup, free wild cherries next week
Lying in a bath tub
Weather, at home now, stormy and grey, almost dark outside
Shades of colour, grey, brown landscapes although I am 'colour blind' (just means I can only distinguish a few thousand colours, normals can detect many more
..
Should there be a whole section for this sort of stuff on these fora? It could be called 'Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part Four!'

Posted: **15 Jun 2019, 8:20am**

The children's faces, 2 weeks ago on a boat trip off Tenerife, as we where surrounded by playful Dolphins ...... they where still reeling from the pilot whales when a huge pile of dolphins played around the boat. It went on for over 20 minutes.
The 2 youngest, 9 and 7, where literally speechless ... the eldest, 15, put his phone in his pocket ... "Want to see this with my eyes" .... top kids !!

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