Join me on a quick ride to the shops along the Rochdale Canal. I’ll share some thoughts on the UK govt. considering legalising 500W e-bikes and people not controlling their dogs in mixed use spaces.
So it’s time for another little ride out on my radic band it has been absolutely pissing it down like it has almost not stopped raining pretty much since July of last year we’ve had I it 10 or 11 storms nonstop rain it’s just been absolutely dire so you really have to
Take absolutely every little brief dry spell breaking the rain to get outside get some fresh air in my case jump on the bike and go for a little ride today I just need to pop into town and grab a few bits and pieces for the evening from the supermarket um going a slightly
Different route to the one I showed you in my previous video this time I’m just going to be riding up on the top path on the Rd Canal it’s quite nice I hate this bridge there we go so always good to be through that cuz it’s quite so wet I’m
Hoping there aren’t going to be too many dog walkers out so hopefully this will be a nice quick ride it’s kind of crazy right it’s literally only the 1st of March and there’s already leaves appearing on all the hoorn along here you can see the weeping willow to the right is again
Greening up it’s crazy how early spring has come this year but it’s just been such a mild winter I’ve had like a couple of little cold snaps and apart from that it’s just been wet rain rain rain absolutely hate it so while we’re on the Move um I was
Quite interested actually I saw this article on the guardian today uh talking about the government considering allowing 500 watt ebikes and throttles in the UK uh finally perhaps a small small benefit of leaving the EU is we can diverge from the EU laws which state you can’t have pedal assistance above 15
Half mph you can’t have more than 250 watts of uh maximum sustained power uh and for whatever reason can’t have a throttle that propels you more than 5 km an hour because I don’t know reasons apparently they used to be legal for 2016 and if you’ve got like a 2016
Or earlier bike throttle on it no problem you buy one now it’s illegal absolutely mad bing bing thank you very much so yeah I’m really hopeful that we might get 500 watt Motors on ebikes uh the article on the guardian actually was incredibly negative about them put a
Very negative spin on it um very much of the view that people in ebikes are just going to go around mowing down children and killing people or something ridiculous uh because they’ve got 250 wats more power um I say to those sort of people try riding up a hill try riding up a
Hill over 200 50 W ebike rear hub no crazy expensive mid drive you try doing that on like a 3040 kilo ebike and 250 watts and then when you get to the top tell me if you still think 500 watts should be illegal now I have to speed up a little
Bit here because I’m a good boy and I will be dismounting to go on this little brief bit of pavement to reconnect to the other side of the topa and back on our way there’s a nice slope now down to the top paath but prom is a
Little bit of a blind corner so you got be a bit careful down here and there is someone to dodge I’m really surprised actually how much water there was on the toe path they resurfaced it a few years ago and greatly improved it it used to just be
You know mud and it would get very boggy during the winter but they kind of put a nice surface on it but it’s it’s really surprisingly wet because it has rained today but it’s not been like like you know absolutely torrential but there’s a lot of Puddles
Around but 4-in fat tires nice nobly tires there’s one thing they’re good for it’s sticking to like gravel and dirt that’ll give you a nice safe fast ride on this kind of surface without too much complaint I want to say I don’t often cycle down this bit of the toe paath
Just cuz it’s a bit of faf having to Dismount and S of cross the road back up there plus you got all these little tiny narrow Bridges have to ring your bell a lot I really hope there’s not someone with headphones just you know on the other
Side about to smack into you thankfully hasn’t happened yet but it is always kind of the back of my mind this little slope we’re coming up to is really brutal there’s a couple of like sort of little drain channels in it and again get a bike with suspension
Ebikes with suspension really don’t make sense the fat tires do not compensate for not having suspension it’s quite bone jarring I have to stand on the pedals to go up or down that so if you saw my previous video when I was complaining about going up that steep cobby Road full of potholes
That is basically on my left now this time we are sticking to toath oh some ducks there that’s cute I always enjoy that view into hon even if it a bit blown out on my cheap camera right not too much further to go really quite lucky in that the little Co-op
Supermarket in headon Bridge Is Right on the end edge of the canal so it’s dead easy you can completely avoid the road if you want to going up to it uh I mean you have to cross into the road very briefly just to go into the car park but
Apart from that you can pretty much do it all completely traffic free which is Ace ah dogs off leads on the toe path this it’s going to become a theme of this video as you will see later so I have zero problem with people walking their dogs on toe path it’s
Totally cool but please especially if they’re a bit skittish around bikes and stuff keep them on the soding lead I don’t want to hurt your dog I don’t want your dog to hurt me feel like we can come to a compromise here in that compromise promises you keeping your dog on a
Lead I hate cobbles in fact this whole little stretch is kind of big slippery flag stones and cobbles it is a pain and it’s always busy this little stretch for whatever reason rest of the topar can be deserted that there will always be people walking this little tiny stretch between that
Bridge should we just come over and kind of up where the coop is I suppose sort of makes sense but I never really see people coming off at the next Bridge they just seem to spawn on this little stretch of path and just walk back and forth so many puddles
The surface is really rough here as well it’s quite but holy it’sit jarring and then bottles and cobbles my favorite combo this is only brief onto the road and then we basically just swing down into what is always a bit of a Dodge game of dods in the co-op car
Part cuz there is always people doing all sorts of dodgy Maneuvers in here pulling in going out spinning around there’s normally a couple of great big honking white geese you got to dodge yep so I’ll do my shopping and we will pick back up on the way
Home shopping is purchased and going to go back a slightly different way uh just to avoid that really busy stretch of toe path going to cycle up the hill a little bit and then go down palace House Road this does involve quite a steep Ascent is the only downside which as I
Mentioned earlier it’s not masses of fun on a 250 wat eike um it’s fine we can do this up up up there’s a narrow bridge coming up so there are some traffic lights hopefully we won’t have to wait too long oh they’re red are we going to get
Lucky thinking about it yes green baby come on let’s whee and gasp up here at 5 miles hour oh it’s so steep I think the thing is about hills on videos is they never look as steep as they they are in reality but that’s easily somewhere between like 15 and 20%
Grade it’s pretty tiring at least it’s quite a short one that is the main benefit cuz Hills that just go on and on are really not fun on this bike but once you’re at the top it’s nice and smooth and then you get a gradual downhill quite a nice view out actually
Over the valley in a little bit uh and then it becomes quite steep downhill with a uh having to do quite a sharp corner at the bottom so I have to slow down quite a bit then but it’s nice while it lasts not too much traffic around which
Is good cuz I am riding around Rush Hour on a Friday so main road is very busy so I’m staying well away from that well these little side roads not too bad mostly sometimes you just catch them at the wrong time and you get those of people arriving home at the same time
But today I get lucky see just the RO just kind of drops away repl the brake pads on my um on my red just about a week ago and makes a hell of a difference they don’t squeal anymore turns out when I take them off they hadn’t even even worn that much
Even after like about 600 mil they barely had worn any of the material away but they were totally glazed which I think is why they squealed so bad and the stopping power become iffy um so it was High Times to replac them but and I felt like an idiot because it
Wasn’t really till after I ordered some new ones that I realized okay this whole glazing problem is a thing of like organic brake pads which is I didn’t know this the first bike I’ve ever had which has had disc brakes on it used to little rubber caliber things that
Squeeze the wheel you know there’s not that much to go wrong there but yeah so apparently I want like a scented semi metallic jobby next time Liv them then hey if you haven’t replaced the brake pads on your red then that’s what you want get some nice scented semi
Metallic boys it probably wear on your rotors a bit harder but you know if you get more stopping power and your braks are probably going to squeal after a bit anyway if they’re anything like mine cuz you’re going to get you know contaminants invariably get on the uh on
The brake pads when you’re riding in well these sort of conditions where everything’s like wet and muddy and things are flying everywhere under the side of my bike is going to be horrendous after this ride squeak up past these people river is looking pretty full so if you don’t know anything about
This area we actually we’re quite prone to really quite severe flooding in this area thankfully we haven’t had any since 2020 now there is usually on like a four or 5e cycle that we do get some quite severe flooding in the valley um there was really severe flooding in uh 2015
And the government did like a lot of work widening the river Channel and building up the flood defenses and stuff and they’ve not really been properly tested apart from 2020 but to be fair they weren’t they weren’t finished then and there were big holes in them and unsurprisingly all the flood water found
Those big holes and still flooded the uh the towns and Villages along here a bit but hopefully now oh man it’s so wet along here it’s very unpleasant um hopefully now we’ll be a little bit more resilient next next time we get like a really prolonged period of wet rain and
I mean more prolonged than we’ve had now um and we get some very high Rivers normally like to actually zip along here but it’s just so wet I kind of don’t want to take any chances as it is just wet and muddy in places and I don’t want to risk the bike
Just sliding out under me cuz that’s happened before it’s not fun don’t recommend it oh bit not on this particular patch of Road just cuz is rush hour I’m not going to go back up cuine I just don’t have to deal with the a646 basically cuz it is
Chalker and people are like it’s Friday people are eager to get home they’re not going to get cly slack to a cyclist stuck on a bike that can’t go more than about 16 M hour push so I I’m just you know staying well clear quick Dash across the road and
Back onto the lovely toath now normally I think I probably would have said this is it for this video thanks for watching but there’s something I want you guys to see that’s going to happen a little bit later on and I kind of alluded to uh dog owners and their responsibilities
And mixed you spaces earlier and we’re going to see why that’s an important thing just a little bit there’s a very slight downhill grade on this bit of the top path so you can zip along quite quickly which I do enjoy especially when it’s quiet plus water on one side wall on the
Other you know no one’s going to like randomly step out that you can’t see so that is always a bonus they do have to start watching out for geese at this time of year cuz they’re nesting they’re screwing and there’ll be lots of little goslings sooner or later so do have to
Watch out for them I absolutely love this little drop here whenever I look at like um my stats on my little Garmin it’s always like you did 20 M an hour there it’s like yep it felt like it a very very short little stint of 20
M hour before you grind to a halt to go under this flooded Bridge one of the houses on there just on the right if you go back a little bit Freeze Frame always has these beautiful kind of crochet things in our Windows absolutely gorgeous I assume it’s her
Could be a guy I don’t know um really pretty if ever you’re walking along the uh Toe Path at the edge of mym roid do look out for it it is really nice and it s changes pretty much every few weeks to be honest with you they keep themselves
Busy so I’m coming up can’t to dodgy moment there’s a person with a dog oh look that dog’s chasing straight towards me so I need to stop and that dog is now stopped and is barking at me and the lady apologized refus say oh I can’t walk fast I’ve got a sore leg
That’s fine lady please you can’t control your dog should be on a lead it’s dangerous you know I don’t want to hurt your dog I don’t want to get hurt by your dog don’t want to scare your dog keep it on a lead in a mixed use
Place how just if it’s if it’s going to run it’s got muddy pors it’s probably going to jump up on some kid and scare him just keep it on a lead it’s basic responsibility of owning a dog anyway rant over thank you again for watching uh have an amazing weekend or
Whatever time of week it is have a great time and