Greenwich LIP Exhibition

This is the picture I'm entering into the Second Greenwich Annuale. I'm a little nervous as this is only the second time I've ever exhibited one of my photographs publicly.

The Annuale is the exhibition of photographs taken by the Greenwich group members of London Independent Photography. The exhibition is going to be held at the fabulously bijou Viewfinder Gallery in Greenwich. It runs from 21st to 30th August. If you find yourself in Greenwich please pop in a have a look, I'm sure there will lots of excellent work on display from more than 60 London photographers.

Bicycle Trailer - post #6 (nearly there)

First I must apologise I did say earlier in the week that I'd post some pictures of my, nearly, completed trailer the next day. Well, you know how it is even with the best intentions. Anyway here they are and I'm very happy with it.

I'm pleased with the way the wood looks now it's varnished, sometimes you just can't beat a bit of yacht varnish. As you can see I still have to complete the hitch. I've thought about this hitch for so long its become something of my trailer nemesis!

This is the underside, the wheel brackets, made from some old radiator brackets seem to have worked very well. Of course I haven't put any load on there yet but they seem fairly solid.

Carry Freedom in their design suggest the use of a tensioning device using four rods or cables to keep the trailer square and level. I've tried to show what this would look like above. The red lines would be the cables and the black cylinder just something solid enough to form a pyramid shape.

I think because I've had the luxury of using box section aluminium, and ply, which keeps it fairly rigid I don't think I'll need these. Of course my trailer will also be used on the comparatively flat roads of Southern England instead of in an off-road area, so that should help. I'll keep an eye on it, I can always add them later if required.

So now all I need to do is knuckle down and make the hitch. Hopefully the next pictures you see is of the completed thing.

a quick trailer update

I have to admit I'm very excited, my bike trailer is near completion. I fitted the top this evening, all nicely varnished - there is something very satisfying about a bit of varnish. The wheels are on and I've fitted some brackets to the ceiling of my workshop, so it can be stored out-of-the-way. It was a bit too dark to take some pictures when I'd finished, but I'll post some tomorrow night.

All I need to do is make the hitch - which I've now thought about so long it's now become my trailer nemesis - and we're good to go.

Enjoying the summer? Wildberry

simple is best

How often do you see something that makes you say 'why didn't I think of that'? It's so true that the best ideas are often the simplest. One such idea are the very stylish belts made from old bicycle tyres by Velo-re. Cycling and re-cycling.

They have your standard black tyres or one-off belts made from coloured road tyres like the one above.

Thanks to Lauren on the Big Blog for pointing them out.

Bicycle Trailer - post #5

Things have been a bit slow developing on the bike trailer of late, with sitting around watching the Tour de France, among other things, taking a disproportionate amount of my time. But I have made some progress this weekend.

I'd already finished the brackets to hold the wheels, if you've read previous posts you might have seen I've made them out of some old radiator brackets, which was fine but they were galvanised and I stupidly had forgotten how difficult it is to paint over. They're fitted now and they don't look too bad (as long as you don't get too close).


I've made the deck from some 12mm ply. The two holes on the far edge are so I can hang it from the roof of my workshop, keeping it out of the way when not in use.

The next job is to varnish the ply to make it weatherproof. That then just leaves fitting the wheels and making the hitch (Mmm still not resolved).

I want to get a large plastic box with a clip-on lid that I can use to hold smaller items like groceries. It did occur to me, rather belatedly, that maybe I should have found the right size box and then made the trailer to suit! - something maybe worth bearing mind if you make one. I'd really like some easy method to clip the box into place. I'm thinking about that, any suggestions appreciated.

There are a few more pictures on my Flickr. Thanks as always to Carry Freedom who's bamboo trailer design this is based on.

The Importance of Fun

There are times when life not only doesn't seem fun but it can seem a bit of a downright chore. In this instance you're basically faced with two choices.

You can go for the 'get-away-from-it-all' option that you often read about where daring young things, or daring old things for that matter, up sticks and dash-off to canoe around the world or whatever the fancy takes them. Now this is all very well (and where I show myself as a bit too sensible and you realise I'm never going to canoe around the world), but most of us have some responsibility that makes that impractical or maybe just unappealing.

The second alternative is we look around for a moment and realise that actually where we are now is where other people somewhere else are dreaming of running off to, and that actually it's quite a good place to be.

This article by Dan Germain for Howies made me realise that this week.

Boil life right down to its constituent parts and what are you left with? Birth, death and that’s about it. They’re the certainties.

Of course, in between those two there’s a whole world of possibilities. Love. Swimming. Sex. Broken legs. A holiday in Corfu. Pretty much anything you can think of. It’s a blank canvas. You choose. Not your parents. Not your partner. You choose. It’s your birth and it’s your death, so you should get to choose the pieces in between.

Now then, this is all leading somewhere. And it’s leading to something called Fun. Fun is what should be happening in between. Pure, thrilling fun. Some days it might feel a bit more like got-to-get-up-and-catch-the-bus fun. But it should still be fun. Because you can decide what is and can be fun.

Bus rides? Massive f**king fun. Really. I mean, there you are, riding around at great speed in a big metal box. That is fun. Love. That’s fun. Swimming. That’s insane fun. Broken legs. Well, you get crutches and people writing dumb stuff on your cast. Fun.

The point is, the only person who can make things fun is you. Not your teachers. Not your friends. Not your boss. You.

You have a duty to make it fun. Even when times are hard and the light gets dark. If you don’t, you’ll just get born and then you’ll die.

And that is no fun.

Thanks Dan. Go have some fun this weekend. Wildberry

The Mayor of London's Skyride

What was known as the London Freewheel, the event where the roads of Central London are reserved for cyclists has been rebranded as 'The Mayor of London's Skyride. Yes, Rupert Murdock has got involved, but don't let that put you off.

This year the ride takes place on Sunday 20th September, but the very good news is there are a number of Skyrides planned in different cities. The dates differ so do look at their web site.

Trailer hitch suggestions

Following my latest bike trailer post I received an email from Tom detailing his experience in fitting a hitch to his modified trailer.

He wrote: "In your bike trailer thread you mention your next problem may be a Hitch?

For months on end I scoured the net for a Ball type hitch as used on the back of cars. I ended up having to settle for a Universal Joint for my hitch.

This was up until a couple of weeks ago when I bought a Ball Joint Type Hitch - GREAT.

Here's how the Ball Hitch looks.

How it attaches to my trailer...

There are various types of hitches employed by trailer builders. I think its all down to preference!

My preferred method is the trailer from directly behind the back wheel. I don't like the side pull arm not the under the seatpost arm. When have you ever seen a car towing a trailer/caravan with a long pole attached to the side of the back wheel? - or a pole through the

back window attached to the seat?

I bought this hitch for £12:50p from a bike forums friend - its worked out well for me."

Tom also sent some other pictures of this trailer and a single wheel trailer similar to the Bob Yak. I'm going to create a photo-page for these pictures, and others, that should be up in the next few days. Thanks Tom for all the suggestions.

Making things is great!

As someone who spends much of their working week sitting behind a computer it's easy to forget how great getting my hands dirty and actually making something is.

On Tuesday evening I got home from a long day in the office, it was hot and humid, but I'm really keen to get my bike trailer finished before the summer is over so I forced myself to get out and do something. It was way too hot in the shed, but the garden was lovely and fresh.

The brackets above are one of two pairs needed to fix the wheels to my trailer. If you read my earlier post you'll know I've made these out of a couple of old radiator brackets. Now they may not be as fancy as if they'd been professionally machined, they're certainly not as millimetre accurate as they would have been, but it really doesn't matter. They didn't cost me anything more than an hour or so of my time. Which was spent in my garden on a lovely June evening, and when they become part of the trailer I'll have the pleasure of knowing I made them.

'Great', you say, 'but so what?' Well the 'what' is that as we send more of our manufacturing overseas we gradually end up with fewer people who can make things. Now I'm sure just about anyone could make my brackets, but there are a great many things we use that we're increasingly loosing the skills to do ourselves. Now practically that may not be a big problem, but for a country with such a great engineering tradition it certainly is a shame.

Summer's made for cycling

We're having a great summer here in the UK, with lots of bike riding, and for some reason that always makes me think of this clip.



Ahh, Katharine Ross on your crossbar, does summer get any better? Make sure you enjoy it. Wildberry

Save FM

The UK Government recently announced the prospect of a digital radio switchover in the UK to start in 2015, which will lead to the eventual loss of FM radio (Guardian article). Apart from the current problems with DAB reception in large areas of the UK, this will also result in millions of much loved radios becoming electronic waste overnight.

A campaign 'Save Fm', has been launched, it's only early days but you can sign-up here.

There's also a petition on the Downing Street web site.

Bicycle Trailer - post #4

I've been getting a little frustrated by the lack of progress on my bike trailer so I've put in a bit of a concerted effort today. As you can see the basic frame is complete and I have the wheels and the tyres, they're just balanced there at the moment. The next job is to make some brackets to secure the wheels.

I was having some trouble finding some suitable steel for the job and then my eyes alighted on a couple of old radiator brackets in the shed that I'd kept just-in-case they came in handy and it looks like they're going to.

The next thing, and probably the trickiest, is the hitch for the connection to the bike. In the latest edition of Velovision I see that Carry Freedom have come out with a very clever looking rubber hitch. I did wonder if I could make something based on that, but it's probably going to be easier to stick to the original design based on the one detailed in the bamboo trailer plans.

a small service announcement

Apologies if things at the web site look a bit all-over-the-place. As it's Glastonbury this weekend, and I won't leave the house in case I miss any of it, it seemed a good idea to do a small update on the web site.

Actually that's not entirely true. Ever since Apple launched Safari 4 everything's been looking a bit wonky and nothing bugs me more than a wonky web site. All should all be back to usual by Monday.

Have a good one. Wildberry

New Bike Podcast

I fear that I'm in danger of sounding like a promoter for the Guardian but there are some things they do very well and one of those is podcasting. A new bike podcast is launched today with Chris Hoy talking about improving fitness.

I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet but the thing that appeals to me is they plan to focus on ordinary cyclists, not just the sport, and if there's one thing that sums me up is 'ordinary cyclist'. Now all we need is a podcast about bike trailers and I'll be a happy man. (I've got the tyres by the way.)

Take care out there. Wildberry

Bicycle Trailer - post #3

My wheels have arrived, hoorah! Still waiting for the tyres, boo! Now I can really get on with the business of building the frame. I was a bit nervous of starting without the wheels, just-in-case there had been a miscalculation, fortunately all is well.

It would be great to have it up and running in time for the Kingsnorth Summer Fete - but I think that's pushing it!

More news shortly. Wildberry

Kingsnorth Summer Fete

Are you coming to the Kingsnorth Summer Fete? Oh, go on you know you want to!

A number of campaigning organisations including Oxfam, Greenpeace, RSPB and Stop Climate Chaos are holding a summer fete near Kingsnorth power station, and the proposed site of a new coal-fired power station, on the North-Kent coast on Saturday 4 July.

There's going to be lots going on including forming a Mili-band (referring to Ed Miliband UK environment minister) around the site of the proposed new power station.

I'll see you there. Wildberry

Guardian Bike Blog

The Guardian (newspaper in the UK) have launched a new bike blog. It's only the first post today, but it might be interesting. You can find it here.

Bicycle Trailer - post #2

I've drawn out the arrangement for the frame of my trailer in Google Sketchup (a free 3-d drawing program that's great fun and totally exasperating in equal measure), but hopefully it shows you what the frame's going to look like. The wheel axles are on that black line that goes through the centre of the frame. I did try to add the wheels and that's where I lost my patience with Sketchup. The layout is based on the Carry-freedom bamboo trailer - see my earlier post for a picture which will hopefully make sense of the drawing.

So I've got the aluminium box section tube and I've cut the four cross pieces to length. But I don't want to cut the others until I have the wheels, just-in-case I've miscalculated. I'm waiting for the wheels to come in, I've had to order them from Decathlon. I really tried to get hold of some secondhand ones, I scoured freecycle and the local paper but no joy. Decathlon are the cheapest I could find selling 20" front wheels for £12.95 each, but they don't stock them for some strange reason - so here I wait.

I've added some other trailer related links to the cycling section of the directory.

Enjoying the weekend? Wildberry

Observer Ethical Awards 2009

The fourth Observer Ethical Awards have recently been awarded. I'm particularly pleased to see Peter Tatchell get the award for Campaigner of the Year. He gets a lot of stick from the reactionary elements of the press, but he does a lot of really good work and is prepared to put his own neck on the line to get his point across.

Congratulations to all the winners. I'm certainly going to be checking out Naturepaint (I hope they don't mind me 'borrowing' their great graphic). There are videos and more details on the Observer web site.

Keep safe out there - Wildberry

The full list of winners

Lifetime achievement award: Sir David Attenborough

Sir David Attenborough, broadcaster and naturalist, has spent his life devoted to the natural environment.

Politician of the year: Caroline Lucas

Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green party, has firmly established herself as progressive and decisive figure in the climate change campaign.

Campaigner of the year: Peter Tatchell

Peter Tatchell has campaigned for over 30 years for sexual freedom and human rights

Best local retailer: Warren Evans

Warren Evan creates unique, handmade beds and bedroom furniture.

Best online retail initiative: The Good Energy Shop

The Good Energy Shop is a website that selects suppliers for their energy saving credentials making it less confusing for buyers to make the right choice.

Ethical garden

Winner: Lower Shaw farm

Lower Shaw farm is based Swindon and is an environmentally friendly place where adults and children can enjoy a range of activities all year around.

Runner-up: RISC edible roof garden and alternative kitchen garden

Jupiter Big Idea

Winner: Naturepaint

Naturepaint is a totally natural paint product that comes in a powder form.

Runner-up: Shiply.com & More th>n Green Wheels

Ecover ethical kids award

Winner: Lomeshaye Marsh Local Nature Reserve and Stockbridge Junior Rangers

Lomeshaye Marsh local nature reserve is a small nature reserve in Lancashire that is looked after and developed by a local special needs school.

The Stockbridge Junior Rangers are a group of young people 8-14 years old from the Stockbridge Village estate in Knowlsey, Liverpool, that look after their local environment.

Runner-up: Queen Elizabeth II high school, Ronague, Isle of Man

Ethical business award sponsored by Triodos Bank

Winner: Riverford Organic Vegetables

Riverford Organic Vegetables mission is to bring organic, seasonal vegetables to your door.

Runner-up: Traidcraft & Pants to Poverty

Conservation award sponsored by National Grid

Winner: Fighting to Save West Thurrock Marshes

Fighting to Save West Thurrock Marshes is a charity devoted to the conservation of invertebrates.

Runner-up: Garden Africa & Make the Link with your Sink

Fashion and accessories sponsored by Marie Claire

Winner: People Tree

People Tree specialise in fair trade fashion in hope to alleviate poverty. It focuses on Bangladesh workers.

Runner-up: Nudie Jeans & Pachacuti

Bicycle Trailer

We've got a new cycle path that passes about a mile from our house that goes past the garden centre, our local pick-your-own farm and the local Sainsburys. So a bicycle trailer would be really good way to cut down our local journeys by car. Although there are some great trailers available for sale I really fancy the idea of making one, and of course it should be quite a bit cheaper.

I've settled on basing it on the Bamboo trailer design from Carry Freedom (Carry Freedom sell some great trailers if you're interested in buying one). Although they call it the Bamboo Trailer you can really make it from anything that is reasonably rigid. I've settled on box-section aluminium, not as cheap as bamboo if bamboo happens to grow up the road from you. Located as I am in South-East England there isn't a lot of bamboo growing around here. I like this design because it doesn't involve any need for welding or brazing.

I thought it would be interesting to take some photos and document the build as I go along - I'll post the first pictures here shortly.

There are quite a few alternative designs on-line, here are some I've come across:

http://bikecart.pedalpeople.com/
http://drumbent.com/trailer.html
http://www.geneandsue.com/bike_trailer/bike_trailer.htm
http://www.ibike.org/economics/trailer.htm
http://www.biketrailers.20m.com/MAIN.htm
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2006/10/homemade_bike_t.html
http://www.instructables.com/id/Bicycle-cargo-trailer--200-lb-capacity%2c-%2430-for-pa/
http://www.appropedia.org/Backpack_frame_bike_trailer
http://re-cycle.org/trailer/instructions.html

If you know of any other links please send them to me, I'm going to add all the links to the cycling section of the Wildberry's directory.

I've been looking around for some second-hand 20" bicycle wheels but no joy so far (if you have some spare please get in touch 'nigel (at) wildberrys.org.uk').

Take care out there.
Wildberry

Change Your World!

Sustrans have launched their Change your World campaign for this year. Do your own small bit to reduce carbon emissions and make yourself a bit healthier in the process by committing to swap one of your car journeys for a journey by bike.

The Change your World campaign runs from 29 June - 4 July. Sign-up here.

Updated Animal Welfare organisations

I've been contacted by Anna Rackett from Animal Defenders International who has asked me to add the following groups to the Animal Welfare section of the directory, which I'm doing now.

Long time since I've said hello - I hope you're well?

Wildberry x

Animal Defenders International (ADI)

With offices in London, San Francisco and Bogota, Animal Defenders International (ADI) is a major international campaigning group, lobbying to protect animals in entertainment, replacement of animals in experiments; worldwide traffic in endangered species; education, vegetarianism; factory farming; pollution and conservation. ADI also rescues and relocates animals in distress worldwide. ADI has become a major force for animal protection, and through undercover investigations has secured legal protection and advanced legislative action all over the world to protect animals.

website: www.ad-international.org
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National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS)

Founded in 1875, the National Anti Vivisection Society (NAVS) is the world’s first anti-vivisection group and continues to lead the worldwide campaign for animal experiments to be replaced with sophisticated, non-animal methods. The NAVS campaign for the abolition of cruel and futile experiments on animals and petitions against animal research on both a national and international level. Through its sister organisation, the Lord Dowding Fund, they promote non-animal research by awarding grants in excess of £2 million.

website: www.navs.org.uk
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Lord Dowding Fund (LDF)

Founded in 1974, The Lord Dowding Fund is the research wing of Animal Defenders International (ADI) and the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS). The LDF awards grants totalling £300,000 a year to fund humane research across a wide range of fields, including microsurgery, toxicology, breast and lung cancer, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, cot death, cataracts and brain damage. Named after WW1 Air Chief Marshal, Lord Dowding, a former President of the NAVS. The LDF also supports new and advanced methods of research such as cell culture, biotechnology, brain imaging and computer packages which replace the use of animals in the education of school and university level students.

website: www.ldf.org.uk

Flightless Incredible Journeys

It seems that the non-flying holiday is really catching on, so much so that the champion of the long haul holiday Lonely Planet have published, or are soon to be publishing, their first book on the subject.

'Flightless Incredible Journeys without leaving the ground' - "the 26 real-life stories in this extraordinary collection explore the complexities, delights and insights of surface travel, from walking to pedal boating, from camels to cargo ships and anything from two to four wheels ? or no wheels at all. Ever wondered just how far a tuk-tuk can take you? Who do you call when the ice cracks as you?re walking across the Bering Straits? Do you know how long it takes to rollerblade across the US? Ever considered riding a pizza-delivery bike through South America?"

You can read the unedited story of one of the contributors who travelled from San Francisco to study in the UK car-free and flight-free.

Cardboard Bike

Oh yes Blue Peter style DIY doesn't get any better than this, it really is the cardboard bike!

Blimey it's Open Tech 2008!

This Saturday I'm off to Open Tech 2008 it's billed as "an informal, low cost one-day conference on technology, society and low-carbon living, featuring Open Source ways of working and technologies that anyone can have a go at." I've not been to any of the previous OpenTech events but the 'environment' series of talks sounds really good.

One of the techie things being discussed, is one of my favourites, OpenStreetMap, basically a WikiMap of the whole world (no small ambition here) with a great cycle map view. A far better way of looking at the National Cycle Network than the legendarily slow Sustrans online mapping (I love Sustrans - but would someone please sort out that website!)

If you see me I'll be the slightly confused looking one with the Wildberry's badge.

Book 'em Danno

Inspired by Plasticfantastic's good works in showing 4 x 4 drivers the error of their ways, I've been and gotten myself over to website of SUV campaigning pioneers 'The Alliance Against Urban 4x4s' and bought some of their 'poor vehicle choice' spoof parking tickets.

"Will this make any difference?" you say, "don't 4x4 drivers already know they're polluting the planet, it's just that they don't care?. You could be right, I'm sure most know and just don't give a monkeys. But I like to think that just one or two may stop and think a little - before they screw it up and throw it in the bin! It's worth a try.

Pinhole camera photos

I've got the results of the first film from my homemade pinhole camera, generally I'm pleased with them. There was an incident when I forgot to wind on between pictures, but all-in-all I'm fairly happy. I've made a couple a couple of changes to the camera and I'll have another go. You can see the rest of the results on my Flickr.

Pinhole Camera

As a consequence of my recent Holga camera obsession I discovered, or more properly re-discovered I'm sure I must have known this, that it's possible to make your own pinhole camera out of cardboard or such like. My camera above is based on the Populist, apparently it's obligatory to use at least a couple of elastic bands in any pinhole camera design.

My first film has been posted off and I wait with great expectation. In fact probably too great an expectation as most websites, on the subject, suggest that the results of your first film are usually somewhat disappointing. Never-the-less I'm optimistic. As soon as they come back, if I'm not thoroughly embarrassed, I'll post a couple here, and if they're all too dreadful I'll make-up some unbelievable story about at disaster at the lab!

updated: I should have said there are more pictures of making the camera here

Towards Car Free Cities Conference

This week one of my favourite cities, Portland Oregon, is hosting the Towards Car Free Cities conference. Many of the proceedings are going to be streamed live on their website and San Francisco blogger Jon Winston is going to be reporting back on his excellent blog and podcast.

It's a Holga world

I've bought myself a Holga camera and it's opened up this whole new world to me. I really can't even remember how the Holga came to my attention, one day I didn't know about it, the next day I did.

For those of you who don't know, the Holga is a plastic camera with a plastic lens that sells for about £20. I bought mine on ebay from a man in Hong Kong. They're made as you may have guessed in China, by whom I don't no, it gives no indication on the box or on for what passes as the instructions. The camera requires the application of quite a lot of gaffer tape to stop it 'leaking' light, but the effect this very low-tech plastic construction is an image that could have been taken some time during the early 1960's.

Discovering the Holga made me realise that there can be a huge group of people involved in a common experience or activity that the majority of us know nothing about. I had assumed the world was moving with me united into a digital future, where the only people still using film where eccentric, probably aged, amateurs and those that didn't know any better. But the Holga isn't alone in it's plasticy existence there are all sorts of cameras out there some cheap, some expensive, and a lot of people using them.

The very best thing about a camera that uses, comparatively expensive, 120 size film with only 12 exposures on a roll is it makes you stop, look, and think about the photo you're about to take. No umpteen gigabyte memory card here taking several hundred images that can be deleted later at the push of a button. Each one of these images takes up its own 6 x 6cm square of film, with no option to delete, and there's something quite comforting about that.

There are more of my Holga pictures here, don't expect any masterpieces though.