Bath by BATH

Saturday, 26th November 2011 is another among many days called "epic" by the homo sapiens sapiens, in the life time of this robot soul.
(recommended sonic ambience: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD-4BY96GJw )

I woke up late in the morning and cycled 15 miles to Bath and about 13 back into Bristol, leaving without a morning bath, brushing of teeth, milk or breakfast. A procrastinated dream come true - by sheer spirit of positivity of the moment and divinely injected excitement of the brain in what has come to be the longest bike ride that I have ever undertaken and successfully completed in my life to this point.

So I sat up on bed at 10am of this Saturday morning and skype'd the mother to freshen up with her 'early morning', "disciplinary" abuses. And when I cut the call fifteen minutes later, I was unsure of how exactly I was going to use a nice sunny looking day. So I thought, I'd ride back to the suspension bridge and go to the fort area this time and write about the Clifton down. But I really wanted more excitement than going to a familiar place - and so it occurred that I must perhaps google Bath just for arguments. And I was naturally drawn to the website of the Cycle Path to Bath from Bristol - which has been in existence since the 70s, having heard about cycling to Bath from my Sensei.
Now Bath is quite close to Bristol - upto fifteen miles away or less, depending upon the route taken.
The website showed the path to begin at the City Centre while it went past places near my residence, which lies on the outskirts of Bristol. So while I tried locating the path on a provided map, I thought it may be easier to use GoogleMaps - which I did and jotted down the Motorway directions to Bath thinking, "we'll figure out the cyclepath SomeWhere"....
And so this empty speculative consciousness shaped itself into an image of me reaching Bath by cycling past images of trees, grass, hills, downs and a stream running by (ofcourse with a railway track to one side, being the "Railway" Path)......while I still pondered over my 'need to' freshen up, bathe and perform morning chores by force of virtue or religious redundancy.
But then ignited the spontaneous yet familiar spark of idea of impulse driven thrill by the will of Loki.
With a blacktooth grin (literally) I said aloud to myself, "Who needs a bath when one's going to BATH, ha?"
However, the immediate next feeling was the squeeking of three little mice which I hadn't eaten the last night from the upper part of my stomach with another two trying hard to come out of there from the lower portion.
So I forced myself to the bathroom and put on my sweater after having sterilised myself of every last germ that I could visualise - while simultaneously shoving my fluorescent cycle jacket into my backpack (which I was carrying without a specific handy thought in mind). And thus, I hit the road.

And so I was at the Motorway before I knew it, cycling an extreme corner. Now I knew well that it is illegal to cycle on a motorway, however I was unsure of reactions and implementation in actuality and wavered that it might be worth testing waters - so when I was challenged by the flow of speedy traffic when it came to the entrance to the M32 (towards London), I decided to continue pedalling along my straight path till I encountered an alternative. Foolish as this was, having cycled 35 minutes to here I carried on. While I was beginning to grow tired of another of many supposed long"est" and 'endless' pointless straight paths of my life, a "Pandu log ka gaadi" came to my rescue. Rescue I say ! Yet my first reaction when I saw them drive past me from nearby, flash tail lights and pull over just ahead of my tread (Yes, I had the unconscious common-sense to be walking at this point anticipating intervention - don't ask, God speaks to me sometimes.) was to think "shit, ab to mother sister ho gaya. Do these guys drink tea too?".
But hmmm, they saved me from walking that seemingly never-ending stretch of motorway which had no crossing for the "next Three Miles"! is what they told me and added that "you'd be better off walking your way back mate......WITHOUT TRYING TO RIDE YOUR BIKE! (wink +daddy's watching type smile)" - and they said I had to walk my ay back till a certain place where from I could supposedly find myself on the proper cycle-path. And so I treaded along my way back for more than mile which took me about a half of the hour while m mind was semi engaged in keeping my body and bicycle from being run-over while my mind was still majorly keeping me motivated by paying attention to the brilliant Satch-impersonation in 'Black magic' playing into my ears. (My phone mostly serves as my time-teller, alarm clock and music player - I have seldom used it for other purposes.....so I also knew that it was for over 30 minutes that my legs were walking.)

And I managed to trace my way back and across the road onto a path with a bicycle sign and arrow shaped board reading "Bath" big and loud. And I followed the guidance and pedalled straight on. I pedalled into a path along the footpath which ran parallel to the Motorway and then into little mildly isolated runs with grass on either side but flowing with the hilly nature of this side of England and across little bridges running accross the motorway which were shared by pedestrians and then into an isolated looking path. What was clear after having pedalled a distance was that this sure was "a" cycle path, but was it 'The' cycle path? The reason for doubt was only fair as it has been a while since that road sign.

And thus I embarked on the cycle path, got to Bath and back and purified my soul by a 'bath' in a sense of fulfillment.

It is a good little city of Roman heritage. Called "Bath Spa" - as that is the legacy that the romans left behind -a healing mineral Bath Spa.

As for my experience and opinions along the path; short of words to keep it anything less than a small book - I think you should do it.............while I'm happy to go along so you dont end up on the motorway like I did
 ;-) .

My entry into A proper cyclepath which would join up with THE proper cycle path

                                                      The mark of the ginger bread man !!!

Abstract art along the path

                                                    The path from Mangotsfield

                                          Warmley - the station which became a "tapri".

                                          Do you like apples?

                                          This beautiful country of apple trees !

                                                         Old school heavy metal

                                                                           Sweet?

                                          This one appeared in an episode of Naruto.

                                                             Do you see an alligator?

                                I thought this guy was a doodhwala bhaiya for the first few moments

                                                                      "Still life"

                                    This is the end of the path which birdges me into proper Bath.

                                     "Alone in the dark, where the demons are torturing me"

                                                      
                                       The actual start of the path at the City Centre is where I returned to.

Because I didnt get a decent one of me along the ride I got one back in my kitchen smelling like the spirit of the path yet without a bath. 

Zooropias of life

(recommended sonic ambience: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHi_2pkNZWI&NR=1 )

Saturday, 12th of November. When a friend did not turn up to a guitar jam at my residence (first for me in a long time) as he was entrapped in the realm of 'Friday Night Sleep' (sorry thats the best I'm feeling at this moment with respect to coming up with a noteworthy common name for this 'realm' which each individual creates on a Friday night.); I decided that I must do the 'rope walk' at the Bristol Zoo which I had wanted to do since my first visit to there. I didn't however because for one, this region still had a lot of bees and wasps flying around and I didnt want these stinged threats buzzing fear into me while I was trying to keep both my feet on a tight rope which is secured at ends at 25 feet above the ground.

I parked my bicycle at the stand outside, flashed my membership card at the entrance for a scan....and then I went straight for the gold. Saying 'hi' to my new animal friends was for another day - it did however cross my mind to pay respects to my Gujarati friend who works here and reckoned I'd do it on my way out. I bought the ticket for this 'adventure' which is an extra for everyone and as I got buckled up to commence whilst receiving instructions - I drew courage from the little lady who was a third my size and perhaps a fourth my age. She had a broad confident smile across her face and I gathered from her conversation with the person who offered instructions and tips that she had done this before.
So I thought to myself, if this little girl can do it: so can I. With this thought in mind I followed her up the ascension bridge (after she had crossed it ofcourse; as I didnt want my CG inbalances to foil her enthusiasm). However, in this case monkey-see, monkey do seemed like a good starting approach.

The ascension bridge is of 'ramp up' style made of ropes running along its length and laterally across, secured at ends made up of a wooden 'tree trunk' frame. The ropes network within the frame form squares which are a foot a side. So this ascent involves stepping upon the sides of the squares without letting the legs slip through the squares. Simple as it looked, the actual climb had me breathing slow and say stuff like "chakra kontrol" to myself (Naruto is inspiring). And when I did, I thought back of a time more than half my life-years ago when I was learning to be a boy scout in school. A time when a simple rope bridge was constructed across two trees during a scout camp - comprising only of one inch-line to support both of my feet onto and another one which was over head for hand gripped support and the line for the feet was only 5 feet above ground. I was afraid of doing it back then but was forced to and thus attempted without determination which resulted in a fear of falling getting to me while I was a third of the way through. I questioned the possibility of lasting it for the remaining 2/3rd-s of the way. This resulted in my loss of momentary mental balance and it did not lag out in being translated to the physical world. I fell. Had mud all over a side of my uniform. I had hurt my bum and everybody laughed as I walked away. I didn't want to do it a second time when I was ordered to and had to compensate for lack of obedience with a load of back-breaker sit-ups.

When I had first decided that I wanted to do this adventure called "Zooropia", I had made my decision based upon how awesome "must it be to do that?". But as I was ascending, I was starting to remember that feeling from that day as a boy scout. But my gaze upon the kid who was about to complete the first level after ascent had me forget it......temporarily. And I embarked upon the first level which was a V-rope bridge. The "V" is formed by a single line to step upon and a line on either side for support at about the height of my (very afraid) waist. But the ego wouldn't have me give up. I had dropped 6 quid on this.....and the children behind me were watching, waiting for me to finish the level so they could embark. I therefore placed my fear alongside my desire to fulfill this in the hands of a super-power which resides within me and stepped forth. When I looked below, I saw people walk under me. But I brought my eyes back to the rope and finished this first level with a sigh of relief when I stepped upon a hard wooden platform with a pole in the middle which I clung to for mental support when I saw the next level. It was almost what I failed on in my boy scouting days. The difference: this one was 25 feet above ground, I had an anchor (which wasnt happy to bet on from this kind of height) and there were punching style bags reading "anchor" attached to the rope above. I never used these bags after I tried holding on to the first one, nearly lost my balance and got to where I came face to face with fear. The mental comfort of a rope-walk only five feet above the ground with mud which could only ruin my clothes, a ground which could mildly hurt the 'AAS-an', a boy scout-troop which could only have every single member laugh his 'AAS-an' off and a forfeit in the form of a few sit-ups was suddenly replaced by horrifying mental images of landing seat down on fence-stakes below being anally impaled as the Sage Mandavya (the sharp end making its way out through the mouth), the water below with ducks swimming and an imaginary adder lurking nearby, falling into the big bushes below containing an imaginary nest of wasps and lastly - falling over a little child from the height before breaking some bone(s).
The more my mind slipped, the more the rope shook. And so I just HAD TO do it. I had to. I looked into my watch. It read half two. So I looked into it and whispered, "GIANT ROBOT, COME ON."
...........I WISH. But there wasn't anything nearly as exciting as a dino-sized alien mutant monster attacking Bristol zoo happening. So I decided to save that for another day and focused on the excitement I felt about wanting to do the Zooropia before I embarked on it......and the satisfaction (and ego-boost) that I must feel after successfully completing it. and kept moving forth with an unconscious sense of balance. I was on the next platform before I knew it and I found myself hugging the pole on which it was rested like it were my mom and I were three. The next level had no 'punching-bag anchors' either. But by now, my philosophical side had activated (while the body continued to balance and tread forth carefully).
I asked myself, "Is this a fair manner to live?" A rhetorical answer returned from the inner light, "What d'you reckon you'd feel when you've finished this? Will it be in line with the positive vision you saw in your mind before you embarked upon this adventure?". Thus, realizing this vision was atleast in part in my hands (and body balance!). It is true that I did not have control over the anchor or the effect of fatigue upon the loaded ropes and device-bridges......nor did I have control over mother nature who was kind enough not to send a rogue bee, wasp or stingy/bitey fly at that time to torment me with the evil buzz-around and throw me off-balance! It is also natural to over-perceive failure modes in constructions such as these when you're a structures engineer for a living.
Despite all of the above, I knew that only as much as was in my control; was in my control. Therefore the fairest appoach was to ignore and turn a blind eye (or 'duffer brain') to all of the rest which were not.
Know what? I completed it and got the feeling which I wished to have! It worked for me, Again.
(But it was only a part, as the Grace of God is really what keeps the undesirable out of experience's reach. The "God" entity must therefore be with where positivity is nurtured. But this is another debate.)

 (that is the easiest bit which is at the end of the trail. Too bad it is all that was within reach of staff with my phillistine mobile phone camera)

 (Thats right. It ends with an Indiana Jones style rope slide - the most fun part of the whole experience!)

 (Thats just me looking imbecile after touching ground)

(That is my new Gujarati friend - well, I wannabe his friend atleast!)

Friday the 21st (Bicycle series part 2)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUGuEy2cMGQ (recommended sonic ambience)

So it was a Friday afternoon and one which came with excitement as most of my (un-planned) weekends. Excitement as in an infantile rush to go home with the prospect of being able to watch cartoons, lie around under the covers, drink juice and play.......ok it was a bit different for me on this particular weekend: I wanted to pick myself a brand new bicycle taking advantage of the company's 'cycle scheme'  - for which this selection window is due to expire on the 31st of October 2011. Thus a bit of a pressurized feeling to a lazy me.
So as decided, (against the generally falling average temperatures at this time of the year) I decided to cycle it up to the City Centre: where at I remember having seen a few cycle shops during the bus journeys into there. And so I found myself pedalling away into the A38 motorway (after a brief failed stop to buy milk) unsure of whether I was taking the best route into city. Yes, I still use a neanderthal phone with no GPS or Googlemaps. But its got music. So I played Summer Song to receive some comforting warmth out of Satch's decades old, recorded guitar work - and warmth came : with comforting familiarity when I came upon the junction with the turn into Muller road - near The Wellington (pub). Then I thought I probably should have video-ed this from the start.
                     While holding up my poor resolution phone camera with my right hand (video mode on), I did small scale 'ups', 'downs', 'overs' and 'arounds' as demanded by the local topography of each inch of passing land and the random patterns of pedestrians paths which however continued to stick to the pavement (and cycle path); resembling worker ants carrying foodgrains back to the storage chambers in their ant-hills in a formation. The air was cold yet refreshing. The further I pedalled, the lesser I felt the adversity of wind-chill.
I came to observe that the fall in temperature as a result of the initial effect of the wind-chill prompted my legs to pedal faster as an involuntary corrective action. The exertion as a result brought about internal heat generation......and thus the homoeostatic adaptation (is that what it is called?). Such a marvel of Engineering the human body is.
 - Athiests!!! - I hope that my logic encourages you to atleast believe in Aliens ! (if you already don't) -

Since its been days now since I'd written the portion above, I shall skip straight to the point that I was in the city centre now - at Stokes Croft in 30 minutes  from the when i took off from the roundabout at Filton - Yes, slow I was if you know the road that I'm talking about. But hey, dreamy moments with deep breaths of appreciation (of everything in sight) are only an explorer's privilege.
I was a few buildings further down the road to 'The Croft' - the legendary pub which has also served as music venue to many-a-well-known underground metal band and local rock bands. The shop which was visible to me from my side of the road provoked a reflex attempt to tuen and crosss over to the other side but my mind was changed by the sight of a fast Toyota Celica which whizzed past to my right hand side with a sudden horn. It would have been a near miss if I were a couple of feet to my right. So I just decided to stick to the rules and went on to the pavement and pressed the button (signal) and waited for the man to go green - pulling hard at my excitement which wanted to madly leap over the zebra crossing.
And I pulled into the shop with my bicycle, to hopefully test ride the bicycle which had been set up for me since my visit to here on the weekend before. As I was talking to the store manager/owner of the shop about leaving my bicycle at the shop while taking theie 'could-be-mine' hopeful out for a spin - I thought to myself, "What again are we looking for in a bicycle for us?".

Zoning out:
My current bicycle has a heavy frame and fat mountain-bike tyres. The tyres are mountain bike sized (600ish mm half-way across). It has 7 speeds that are driven by 3 speeds (driving gears) i.e. 21 speed options by derailleur gears and old school pad (V) brakes. Gripping on the handlebar is parallel to the prime line of the handlebar with not too far an offset and such that the gripping action is perpendicular to the frame of the bicycle.

The the fork trail angle is forward and not one that I would particularly want to comment on. And the frame itself is all steel alloy construction (including handlebars and fork).
Then what again could possibly have been affecting the bike's performance to me (i.e. the 'Killjoy factor') ?
Oh yeah, it had worn-out parts. It was still riding very well for what it was !!!
Answer - I want something which will be more suited to aid me in getting over my complex....developed when I watch other people 'whizz' past me while I fail to keep up when I want to. Which in turn gave rise to the feeling that the the bike's frame was perhaps a bit small for my limb lengths to obtain my wished-for mechanical efficiency - i.e. energy was out getting wasted and getting redundant as muscle strain. The load transfers were less than optimal - leading to wastage of applied forces which returned to my body as reactions at the various joints. (psssssst Real Answer - I want to take advantage of the 'cycle scheme'. ;) )
"Obvious solution": Get a bike with a suitably larger frame which may allow more accurate usage of bodily and external moment-arms i.e. in pedalling, has a fair gear system which yields reasonable options of gear ratios atleast as the current bike and is notably lighter in weight. Also, bigger tires = greater distance covered per pedal. Thus, a greater force per pedal but lesser number of over-all pedals. The force transferred is manageable by appropriate gear application. Shock absorbers result in trading a part of the work done by application of pedal force with a smoother feeling ride. The arms and the arse are the only counting reaction-return load-paths to the body in this case. (I was not looking for a planetary gear-box as I believe that it would decrease the fun obtainable from the simplicity of a bicycle. Even derailleurs I first thought were"hi-tech" having grown up riding gearless bicycles designed with one 'pot-shot' optimal gear-ratio depending upon the cycle's intent. One trick ponies - which made you work hard if you wanted to do more with them.) Straight forward. But still NOT that much. I will not take you through the gores of numbers and specs as you probably are only reading this either because of your interest in reading, my life or out of your own joblessness. If you however are interested in surgical details - I am sorry, but you cannot have my brain. Google is ready to play your friend.

Coming back:
So I went into the cycleshop.
A Land Rover c 1.9 had been set up for me by the guy at the shop as a result of my visit to there on the week before.

Excited as I was to see this slick and light looking push-machine, I couldnt hold myself back from picking it up one handed - shopping bag style. And know what? My trips to Sainsburys have given me "mendokusai-Ne" experiences when it came to carrying stuff. But this bike I couldve gladly carried home in a bus if only it were the size of a shopping bag. (Yes the shop did have folding bicycles but I am not even looking at them. I have no use for them.) So it really was light. So I put my bike in a corner and pushed the Land Rover out of the store in order to do a spin on a 'circuit' suggested to me by the shopkeeper based upon my needs, as I may have highlighted in a paragraph above.

So I would like to observe that the gearing on this bicycle is much the same as the one on my current "Claud Butler" one. The design model of the unit is different, although it is also made by Shimano. (Every derailleur gear unit that I have seen around here so far is a Shimano.) The wheels were slimmer, closer to a race-bike yet with studs. The were also of a noticeably greater radius (700 mm?). Every other spec looked like it fell into place. Ha, except for the bell. Not like I was expecting a bike to come with a bell. But this design was a one spring armature with no real 'mechanism' inside. Its too simplistic and lame. Also it hurt the thumb when I tried getting it to ring reasonably loud. You'd be better off tying a plate with a 'knocker' to the bike than trust this bell. So these were first observations. I had not yet forced the pedal.
.......And so I did! While I was feeling light and 'efficient' in terms of initial pedal power; my spontaneous thing to do was to apply the brakes - HARD like I had gotten used to with the 'Claud' -till I got them tightened on this same day. So, sensitive as they were set up - the sudden stop caused a good jolt. So I tried the other one. Pretty responsive. I obviously didnt see the point of disc brakes yet. And as I progressed on with the circuit, I came upon the - quite a steep - climb which was partially uneven ground too. As predicted, the bike nailed it quite well and I could tell by the level of ease as compared with the Claud - which would perhaps have left me half knackered.  So while I hit a patch of level ground after the climb, which was the far portion of the circuit, I decided that I would let go of an arm on the handlebar. The bike started wobbling. So yes - I generally do tend to scratch a lot - sometimes let an arm go and play air guitar too - old 'bad' habit that I am Not unhappy about! But it wobbled like nobodys business. Almost like it would even if a bird flapped by - NO - it felt like it would wobble if a Butterfly farted on it! It was that light......while I was still realizing that my bike was already on its way down when I again spontaneously hit the front brake, which now nearly caused me to 'fly away' over the handlebar. Quite dangerous to manage in a traffic-fitted scenario. But the gears were really efficient. So I returned the bike to the store and mounted my own ride home. And whilst lost in thought, I realised that I had unconsciously let go of both arms from the handlebar. Thus I came to realise how stable the Claud felt whilst I was riding it.

Famished, I stopped at Vince's - the pizza take-away: with first hand feel of one more trait which I would prefer that a bicycle possess in order to be considered by me for ownership. (Yes I got bored of overly emoting this so I decided to get to the point and stop. Sadistic pleasure will be miiine, ha !!! )

Cycling thoughts

Winding back 24 years, I remember well my first bicycle and the excitement which I felt when I got rid of the support wheels (attached to the real wheel) and graduated to two-wheel balanced riding like the grown-ups - and all the 'showed-off' pride which came from my having been the first among those my age-group in the building society to have done so. Growing up further, I got gifted a more 'grown-up' bike by my parents as a result of good academic performance at primary school and I would cycle out into the road and explore around the area which I lived in, occasionally race with three other fellows or restrict to a patch to practice the "cool" moves which often involved riding hands-free (cellphones weren't around at Bombay back then), the wheelies etc. It was at this point in time that I found my best friend in my bicycle when I was still only starting to learn to play cricket and hated the fact that older kids didn't let me bowl. So while they sat talking about bollywood stars and films (yuck) when it got a bit dark and they weren't up for 'hide-and-seek', superhero-supervillain scenario dramatizations or 'chor-police' I discovered the feeling of freedom associated with cycling all by myself. It took me into a mode of self-reflective meditation and introspection.
Thoughts, feelings, emotions, hopes and dreams had to be cycled everyday with the negative sides poured out into the road as kinetic energy transferred into the cycle's frame through the pedals from my feet and then into the road while positivity would be inhaled with breaths of the draft which I felt up against the surface of my face when I cut into it throughout the ride. If I didn't feel the draft strong enough, I would pedal harder till I did feel the continued minimum 'comfort-pressure' pressed up on my face. That feeling was even workable to temporarily cheat the uncomfortable humidity at Bombay back then when pollution was nothing to speak of in comparison with the present when it tends to kill all good spirit of cycling.
And then I grew up to a full-sized bicycle years later when the aforementioned "friend" was stolen. Me and the new bike had a good friendship going after then with me having attained quite good control of Captain Planet's favourite vehicle and 'she' had started complying with more and more of what I asked of her while I loved her well by regular maintainance in return. (I wasn't quite the active grease-monkey back then, thanks to parental pressures due to the evils of high-school examination rat-race culture having reached an annoying peak at the point in time - so I just took her to the mechanic, who anyway did a better job than I would've done given his ample supply of choice spare-parts and tools.) Then I turned 18, moved states for degree college and stopped cycling - and physical exercise!

Present day, Bristol: Bike city.
I inherited a bicycle owned by the previous tenant the very day I moved into this accomodation two months ago. While I did express a half-hearted gratitude to the owner of the bicycle - my procrastination got the better of me and degenerated into indifference till the first day of work: when I realized that although my residence was "quite close" to work - a feasible bus route was lacking from this location alone while daily bus commuting in this country can well make one feel a hole in the pocket given a penny-wise (I've been pound-foolish) conscience like my own. So work is 1.2 miles away, involves uphill walks and can take upto 30 mins (24 on googlemaps!) and irritations; depending on the general early morning mood on a day. So I woke early on Day 2 and with a spontaneous gush of God-given drive grabbed the nearest rag and started wiping the dust off this silver avenger which still stands at the entrance to the back-yard and is supported against my window. I found a little pump - a kind I'd never used before - fixed it and got pumping. And WoW. What design! It was all inflated in a minute, despite having felt dead flat when I was still struggling with fixing the pump to the mouth of the air-valve. It then struck me that the bike must have internally thicker tyres with pneumatic tubes of very low diameter. After a mild struggle with fitting the bike though the split door on the way out, a fully suited-up me popped on the reflective jacket, the helmet which came along and my sunglasses. And I hopped on whilst realizing that I must be looking quite comedic to the passer-by......but the hell with it. Also, it didn't matter when I came to notice the gears along with realisation of the fact that I had never ridden a geared bike before. However, I was excited at having decided for myself that I was going to enjoy my return to the bicycle today and Nothing was going to take that away from me!
So I called upon The Force and pedalled on with that wonderful feeling returning again. Only way better this time...!!! But I will write about this lovely city and its bicycle-friendly culture soon enough in another post as I must now go to bed in order to recharge for another lovely bicycle filled week.........