Halfords B98 ebike on Telford & Wrekin Cycle Routes.
I love our routes, but some of them need a little care and attention.
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Morning folks. What a sunrise this was. Yes, I haven’t seen a more beautiful sunrise for a long time. It was absolutely gorgeous. I’ve been itching to get out on the bike in the morning for some time and I thought I’d take full advantage of the dry weather we had and uh yeah, but it rained in the night. So, yeah, it was actually a good test out for the bike actually. the first time I’ve taken the bike out on damp tracks and obviously there was a lot of leaves and beach nuts and commuters out and about morning. But yeah, to be perfectly honest, I was really impressed with the bike and it was thoroughly enjoyed myself going out. Although I had hoped that the uh cycle path around Talford at this time in the morning uh would be clear, but obviously commuters have got to commute. Of course they have. But I wasn’t expecting so many dog walkers. Doors opening. Doors closing [Music] [Music] bridge. Dor opening dankun. Obviously, when you’re in the vicinity of train stations, you have to say dankun and not thank you. Otherwise, you might get caught by the custapo. Now, you’re probably aware that I live in Telford and Telford’s pretty good for cycle paths. We’ve got miles of the boogers. They go all over. Uh but sadly, uh and although our council’s a good council, I I do I do rate our council. They’ve been all right for our area. Um the cycle paths are in a bit of a need of updating. We have some beautiful new lovely ones, but as you can see with here, a lot of the old ones with this curb in the middle. And the problem is with this curb, and I understand why it’s there. It’s there to keep cyclists on one side and pedestrians on the other. But the fact of the matter is, no one actually observes the cycle lane anymore. As in like I don’t know if it’s set in stone and you you know, I’m I’m a stickler for rules and stuff, but I don’t know if it’s set in stone whether you’re supposed to stay on one side or the other. But I’ve noticed that dog walkers don’t, joggers don’t, pedestrians don’t. Everyone just goes wherever they want and you end up having to slal them in and out of people, which is fine by me because I, like I said, I go pretty slow. I go mobility scooter speed because at the end of the day, I don’t want to bump into anyone or hurt a dog or anything else. But it does get slightly annoying when you’re going places and you have to constantly be aware of like dogs and kids and and people with the extendable lead that all of a sudden the dog launches out in front of you and you’ve basically got a massive trip wire across the cycle path. And I cycle on cycle paths a lot more now because obviously I don’t want to cycle on the roads because they’re pretty dangerous. Obviously this road is very quiet because it’s going through the Prizley University campus. Uh a little shortcut through to the shops. uh not too far away from me. But the main roads around Talford, they’re they’re pretty lethal to be fair. And as you’ve seen from my other video where the guy threatens to run me over, I’m not quite sure I want to go on the roads anymore. But the cycle paths aren’t particularly easy either at the moment, which is a little bit disappointing. Look, and I know it’s that time of year where you got leaves and beach nuts and things falling on the floor, and the councils can’t do a fat lot about that. That’s fine. They can go out, you know, once a month or whatever and sweep them up. That’s cool. But there’s also a lot of other issues like I said that curb the pots on the cycle path overhanging trees and yeah so to be honest and also signs missing. I noticed uh I noticed uh on this cycle ride that the cycle path changes from left to right to right to left a few times but whether the signs haven’t been put up or whether they’ve been taken down. So you don’t really know what side of the path you’re supposed to be on. Uh, and also I noticed that like they like to do things by not here so much, but further down they put lamposts in the middle of the cycle path. Well, on the edge of the cycle path, which naturally makes the cycle path more narrow, uh, and then it that kind of makes you need to veer off to the to the left or the right uh, depending on if you’re going up or down the hill obviously, and then you have to deal with these silly curbs again. It’s it’s just a bit bizarre. And you know, it’s one of those where everyone’s got to get along and everyone’s got to use these facilities, but I do feel like the council needs to have a look in some areas because especially the ones going through Donington, they’re pretty rough and pretty ropey to be fair. So, as you can see here, the images say I should be on the left, but the left obviously I’m going to have to deal with the leaves, the beach nuts, and the overhanging trees. And this is the bit where I’m talking about where the obviously the lamp posts are actually in the cycle path. And you can see the cracks and the puddles and stuff. So, I naturally want to go over to the left anyway, but then, as you can see, no one actually walks like where they’re supposed to anyway. So, you end up just doing this thing where you have to slow down and then sl them in between people, which is cool. I don’t mind that so much. What what what does scare me sometimes is when you you’re going through these areas and there’s a dog and it’s off the lead because you don’t know whether it’s going to go left or right. And look at the state of these paths. Now, this is the curb. So, at this point, I’m think I’m supposed to be on the right hand side cuz the last the last sign I saw was the right hand side. And also, I can’t really go in the left because look at all look at all the litter, the leaf litter, the beach nuts, and everything else. The overhanging trees. Look at that cycle path there. I’ve got all of this litter. I’ve got the curb and I’ve got an overhanging tree. And then in a minute, I’m going to enter another cycle path. And there’s no signs. There’s literally no signs that tell me which side of the path I should be on because they’ve been removed. And and just to show you this is coming at the same cycle path from a different angle, everything removed. There’s no markings there that tell me. So if I was to come off the lane, as it were onto the cycle path, I don’t really know what sign I’m on. I imagine there used to be markings there, but they’ve been tarmaced over. And again, we have this curb. So I’ve obviously stuck to the right hand side. And also because on the left hand side up here, there’s an alleyway that cuts through. So this lady here, she’s I beeped I honked my horn twice and I had to She was walking from right to left. I had the curb and I had a mystery dog somewhere that was ding from left to right. Two blasts on the horn and nothing. Whereas this dog walker, I honked early. She pulled the dog back on the extendable lead and everything was grand. Now again, this this is this is not to name and shame people or anything like that. It’s just to show that I go at a really slow speed. I see cyclists going past me at, you know, proper 10, 15 mph speed and I go at a slow speed and even honking my horn. And I’ve got a really, you know, I’ve got a novelty horn. I really have. But even though people just don’t seem to to listen, to care, and I don’t want to run over a dog. I really don’t want to run over a dog. Uh, so what do you do? What do you do? No out for the evil. So, yes, after that bit of fun on the uh BMX track, I think I definitely need a BMX for that. Uh but I reckon with an EBMX, I could have a lot of fun. Anyway, as I was going back to say, I don’t want to run over dogs and stuff and I go at a slow speed. And I do have a novelty horn because I’m hoping that when I honk it, people will see, you know, realize that I’m not trying to be funny and trying to like move out the way cuz that’s not the person I am. I’m the sort of guy that just I want to honk my horn so you’re aware. A cyclist come up behind me the other day and he rung his little bell because obviously he was going faster than me and that’s cool. Um, but obviously I thought to myself if I get a loud horn or chances are I might honk it and someone punch me in the face. Uh, you know, because I don’t want to antagonize people. So I was thinking comedy clown horn, people are going to have a chuckle and then they realize I’m behind them. Um, but anyway, I think it works because you’ll see from a bit later on there’s a lovely lady with a little puppy and I give it a honk and and it’s all grand and so I think I’m winning with the horn. Uh, but uh hopefully I’m not annoying too many people. But look how this bike goes up this hill. Look at it. I’ve put this in I think speed three or four. H I’m gently pedaling the pedals and I climb that hill near trench back of the a lotments. No problem whatsoever. I’m sure some of you know it. It’s pretty steep hill. Uh here we go. Look just by the Talford rail terminal. I’ve never been in here before. And to be honest, I’m not quite sure whether you are supposed to go in here, but when I got down here, there’s a sign that says all visitors must report to reception. Well, I did. I went in front of reception. There was no one there. So, I turned around and come out. But I I like to have a bit of an adventure. And you might laugh at me and go, “Ross, it’s not an adventure that you just went to some freight terminal.” But I haven’t been there before, and I got to see some railway lines, and I thought it was really cool. And it’s oddly the back way into one of the military bases down there. So, I was surprised that you could get that close on an ebike. Um, maybe I’ll have a knock at the door for filming a military base. I don’t know. But no, I don’t think it’s that that serious. I mean, at the end of the day, there’d be guards, wasn’t wouldn’t there? If it was if it was that secret squirrel. But anyway, there we go, folks. You’ve seen somewhere new. Telford’s freight terminal. I think it cost about 15 million quid and it’s had about three trains come down it. But if you’re thinking about getting an ebike, especially if you have a disability, I can highly recommend it. But I would say to you, you’ve got to judge it for yourself. Um I know my limitations and I know what I can and can’t do and you should do the same. Do I think that an ebike is uh is is is perfect for everybody? No, I don’t. Uh could a lot of disabled people benefit from them? Yes. Yes, I definitely think they could. um because uh they are wonderful bits of kit. You just got to pick the right one for you. And the one I got from Halford, this B98, so far so good. Like I said, I think I’ll probably change the tires on it, but I do love this bike. I don’t want to scare him too much coming past. So, there you have it. That was a good interaction with the horn and a dog walker. So, I do think it’s fine. I think I’m going to have to start honking it louder and a bit sooner just to make people aware and also be understanding that I think people maybe at that time in the morning are in their own little bubble. But I suppose it was one of those things where it works both ways. It’s, you know, dog walkers need to remember that they’re on a cycle path and there might be people cycling and in just because it’s a cycle path doesn’t mean there can’t be dog walkers on it. It’s, you know, it’s a shared community space, isn’t it? And we’ve all got to get along. But I do wish the council would have a look at it because I think there’s ways that we could make them better. I mean, taking those silly curbs out for a start would definitely help the fact that cyclists could go around people a lot easier, especially as because obviously people and dog walkers don’t stay on a particular side. And again, that’s fine. I don’t want it to be a negative thing, but if the council sort out the curb thing, they start improving the cycle path, I think it’ll be better for everyone, especially if we put on some new signs. And, you know, maybe a bit of literature going out to say to people, you know, it’s a shared space. You know, everyone should respect it. Maybe maybe society needs that. You know, maybe more and more people should be told to respect shared community spaces. Maybe that’s just human nature. Maybe it’ll never happen. But no, I I I’m in chuff with this bike so far. And uh even though it’s a bit skinny at the moment because of these damn beach nuts. Uh and like I said, I will change the tires on it. Um I’ve enjoyed going out and adventuring. And I’ve seen some really cool things, including like a lot of graffiti, which I I love graffiti. Well, I love good graffiti. And in Telford, we do have some good graffiti. And I’m going to mention this again. I’ve now got a picture of this. Well, I’ve got a film of it, too, because the council no doubt will come and well, annoyingly paint over a lot of this. And yeah, some of it is is not great. But some of it is just it’s absolute quality. And every time I come through this underpass, this graffiti makes me smile and chuckle. And I think it’s really cool. And as an artist, I do think that we should have more communal spaces to allow people to do graffiti. And there’s nothing wrong with good graffiti in underpasses in my opinion. And we should embrace the creativity in Telford because yeah, we shouldn’t just go and paint over this stuff as has already happened in a couple of underpasses which is a bit sad really bit sad but hopefully that stays or at least it gets documented. Well, it’s documented now, isn’t it? It’s in my video. So, uh, whoever the artist was, I did look for a tag. I couldn’t see it. But I don’t know what you call these men or these women or these creatures. These little uh the little thumbs with faces, but yeah, they’re really cool and I like them, including the ghosty one at the end. Here we go. As well, we’ll end on another positive. So, uh, this gentleman here, he actually calls back to tell his fellow dog walkers that there’s a bike coming around the corner. And then as I get around the corner, you see that the dog walkers have pulled their dogs in. Now, I get it. you know, dog. These are dogs off the lead and these owners have obviously got recall on the dogs, which is awesome. You know, if you’ve got recoil on your dog, by all means, let your dog off the lead. Gets a little bit annoying when people don’t have recall on their dog and the dog, even though they’re standing there shouting at it, they’re calling it back and it doesn’t, still runs in front of your bike. But hey, it was a good interaction that I thought that was nice. That was a really considerate thing the guys do and kind of wish how it how it should be. I called in at the church yard on the way there because I noticed they’ve been doing some digging and uh well yeah they dig in churchy yards quite a lot don’t they I suppose but now it looked like they’ve been doing some foundation work and I found it really interesting because there’s an old like 12th century monastery ruins under the graveyard and so uh some of the stones there that they obviously dug out look like some really old masonry blocks and I I wondered if any archeological studies have been done on the stuff they’re digging out because it looked really cool and here you see another underpass where they’ve sadly removed some cool graffiti and I didn’t get chance to photograph that before they removed it and ah it’s a bit annoying, isn’t it? So yeah, on my adventures from now on, I’m going to start photographing as much cool graffiti as possible to just try and document it because there’s some really good stuff in Talford and it’s a shame when the council just go and lose it uh by essentially just painting over it. And my personal opinion, I think these horrible white and gray squares look far worse than the graffiti. I think it because everyone knows what they’re there for. They’re there to cover up the graffiti and everyone just goes, “Well, you’ve done a halfass job because rather than paint it all, you’ve just painted a stupid square.” And they don’t even use the same color paint. So, you end up with patches of light gray and white and this that and the other. And it’s an absolute mess, isn’t it? Just like some of the psychopaths. But again, I don’t want to knock the council too much cuz look at this beautiful cycle path that they’ve just put in near my house. And this is fantastic. And there’s no curbs and it’s lovely and smooth and it’s brilliant. I just wish the rest of them were like that. But no, fair play, Alfred. You’re getting there slowly. Just do me a favor and take these silly curbs out and make some of the cycle pass a bit smoother and put some of the signs back up and uh and we’ll be grand. So, till next time, folks. Take care. Speak soon.
1 Comment
Nice scenery around there.