Maps for Irish Cycle Touring

With the days getting longer and the weather getting warmer I have begun to think about the 2012 bicycle touring season. I've only ever cycle toured in Ireland and will do so again this year. I always plan tours and try to avoid busy main roads and very hilly routes. In the old days I would plan with paper maps, but now I use the Internet.

Inis More on the OS Website

The main website for this is Ordinance Survey Ireland (OS), which has all essential mapping information for the whole island. On the homepage click on the link “Explore Maps Using Our Free Viewer”. Then zoom in on the map of Ireland until the scale is 1:100000. At this scale the map shows every back road and lane. I screen grab the maps I want, load them into a graphics editor, crop them and print them out on A4 sheets. These print outs are the maps I take with me on the road, an A4 sheet is very convenient to work with on a windy day.

Ordinance Survey produce a set of 1:50,000 scale maps, which are sold in many Irish shops and online. They are superb maps for planning a cycle tour, but they are printed on big sheets and are not convenient to use on the road. They are also expensive selling at euro 8.25 on the OS website and there are over 100 sheets to cover the whole island. On a long tour the price and the weight of a large collection of these maps make them unsuitable for cycling. The OS also sell a 1:250000 scale map which covers the island with four sheets. Again they are unwieldy to use on the road and they do not show the very small back roads.

Inis More on Mapmyride

The main problem with the online OS maps is that they do not show elevations so I overcome this shortcoming with the website Mapmyride. I plot my potential route on their website and click on the elevation button to get data on elevations and gradients. Mapmyride also gives the distance of the route plotted. You must register to use it.

Another website I use is Google maps with Street View. Occasionally there is no convenient option but to use a busy main road. When this is the case I use Google street view to see how wide the road is and if it has a hard shoulder.

The Dingle Tralee road on Google Street View

Cycling in an Oil Crisis

I was reminded of the 1973 Oil Crisis last week when I came across an online article about a sudden spike in the sale of hybrid bikes in the UK. Evans Cycles one of the biggest online bike sellers in the UK reported a 57% increase in the sales of hybrids, that coincided with the fuel panic. Now this could have been due to the unseasonable summer like weather experienced all over the British Isles, or it could have been caused by the fuel panic.

Cycling on the German Autobahn November 1973

I suspect the fuel panic was the cause as we had equally brilliant summer like weather here in Ireland but I can find no reference to a similar surge in bike sales. It reminded me of the 1973 Oil Crisis when my father who worked about four miles from home bought a bike and started cycling to work. I suppose I remember this so well because it was the first time I had ever seen him on a bike.

Buying a bike is a creative and practical way to respond to a fuel crisis. It does not add to the panic, it helps to ease the demand for fuel and it allows life to proceed normally. The problem is that in a fuel crisis many motorists do not act in a practical way, they often act in ways that add to the crisis. They hoard fuel, they sit in their cars wasting fuel as they queue at filling stations and they waste fuel driving around looking for fuel.

Cycling becomes much safer in a fuel crisis. There are less cars on the roads, all unnecessary car journeys stop and drivers are moving much slower to conserve fuel. The next Oil Crisis will create all kinds of a problems but as a cyclist I can say I look forward to the safer cycling conditions it will produce.

Queuing for fuel 1973

Touring Toolkit

One of the great advantages of bicycle travel over car travel is that all the working parts are exposed (with the exception of hub gears) and any roadside problem is easily diagnosed. A cyclist with a little mechanical knowledge and a few basic tools can fix most problems at the side of the road. A basic emergency toolkit will cover every breakdown apart from total failure of the frame or a wheel.

The basis of a lightweight toolkit is a good multitool. Mine (see photo) includes a set of spanners, allen keys and screwdrivers. Add a puncture repair kit and three tyre levers and you have the essential emergency toolkit.

A chain breaker will repair a broken chain and a spoke key can be used to take a bad buckle out of a wheel with a broken spoke. In both cases these roadside repairs maybe enough to get you home or to the nearest bikeshop,where proper repairs can be done.

Wire is invaluable for binding anything that breaks or is hanging loose. It can be used to bind loose part until you get home or to a bikeshop and do proper repairs. Duct tape will do the same job.

I always carry a spare tube, it’s easier to change a punctured tube at the side of the road and repair it at home. A fantastic modern innovation is the folding tyre, which can carried in a bag and will cover you against the danger of a tyre blowing out on the road.

All the essentials are available from Chain Reaction Cycles

Park Tool Rescue Tool MTB 3 €30.98

Puncture Repair Kit €2.47

Park Tool Compact Chain Tool €16.10

Spoke Key €4.94

Bicycle Documentary

The BBC made a great documentary about the history of the bike. It’s available on youtube.

Cycling Saved My Life

Eleven month ago at the age of 48 I gave up cigarettes and decided to get fit. I had smoked for 35 years and given up several times before (my longest stretch was 6 months), but I always went back. A friend who quit many years before advised me that I needed to put something in the place of cigarettes and acting on that advise I took up cycling.

Optima City

I bought a city bike, an Optima City made by Falcon Cycles in the UK. It’s a heavy steel framed bike with a three speed Sturmey Archer hub gear. In the early days I took it out everyday for a run on a hilly five mile circuit. The run was paced, I pushed just until the point where I began to pant and then stayed just under that point. The first time round I done the circuit in exactly 33 minutes. But as the weeks went on the time dropped.

After six weeks I bought my Raleigh Oakland and my wife and daughter started to use the city bike for short local journeys. In the eleven months since I continued to cycle mainly on the Oakland, but I also bought a road bike and started to do a Sunday morning ride with a local cycling club.

Last Saturday I was giving the city bike a full service and was curious to know how fast I could complete the five mile circuit after 11 months of cycling and 11 months without cigarettes. Away I went and was back in 24 minutes and 40 seconds. Over 8 minutes faster than 11 months ago. This is a good measure of how 11 months of cycling and 11 months without cigarettes has improved my cardio vascular performance.

In 11 months cycling has transformed my life. I am no longer as dependent on the car as I once was. I am teaching myself to be bike mechanic. I have broken my addiction to cigarettes. Cycling has literally saved my life.

Optima City on Falcon Cycles Website

The Power of Bicycles (World Bicycle Relief)

Many years ago when reading the green classic “Small is Beautiful” by E.F. Schumacher, I came across the idea of intermediate technology. Schumacher was against the idea of transplanting advanced industrial technology into places like rural Africa and argued that they needed simple human powered technologies. Simple easy to maintain machines that allowed them to keep their traditional economic and social models but enhanced them by providing a huge increase in productivity.

I thought of Schumacher when I came across World Bicycle Relief (WBR) recently. Founded after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami WBR provides poor communities in Sri Lanka and Africa with bikes and train local mechanics to maintain them. This is a perfect example of Schumacher's idea in action, a simple rugged human powered machine producing a massive increase in productivity and a massive improvement in the quality of peoples lives.

In AIDS ravaged Zambia healthcare providers who assist AIDS sufferers have been provided with bikes. Instead of walking they now travel much faster and can see more patients each day.

The program gives bikes to rural students, some of whom spent many hours walking to and from school, and often arrived late. With a bike they get to school on time and their education improves.

Small farmers can carry more produce to market quicker on a bike, which boosts their income. Women who have to travel long distances to fetch water and firewood can do so much quicker with a bike. Young people have new career options as bike mechanics.

With bikes people save valuable time and energy, for every ten miles traveled on a bike three hours are saved. A person can carry five times more cargo on a bike than on foot. And they can cover the ground four times faster on a bike.

The bikes are Asian made Buffalo Bicycles. The're rugged machines, designed for the tough conditions of rural Africa and WBR is backing up the gift of a bike, by training mechanics and ensuring that spare parts are available.

WBR recently passed a major milestone, they have now distributed 100,000 bikes. For a donation of just over 100 euros (134 US dollars) they can send another bike to Africa. For only 189 euros (250 US dollars) they can train another mechanic. For small money we in the western world can put a bike in the hands of some of the poorest people on earth and really transform their lives for the better.

A video about how bikes are changing lives for the better in Africa

Visit the World Bicycle Relief website and make a donation

The Buffalo Bicycle

Power To The People

Super Universal Battery Charger

I’m amazed there are still non rechargeable batteries on sale. I converted to rechargeable batteries in the mid 1990s and have not bought the non rechargeable kind since. The reason is simple, rechargeable are vastly cheaper.

A top of the line non rechargeable AA battery like the Duracell Ultra Power, sells in Argos for €5.99 for a four pack. A top of the line rechargeable like the Energizer 2450 mAh Rechargeable AA selling in Argos for €17.49 for a four pack.

The rechargeable pack is almost three times more expensive but will recharge up to 1000 times. Buy the non rechargeable type 1000 times and the cost is €5990. An initial investment of €17.49 will eventually save €5972.51. There is of course the cost of electricity to charge batteries and the cost of a charger, but €5972.51 will buy a lot of electricity and €20 will buy a good charger.

A 12 volt DC charger like the Super Universal Battery Charger, about €20 in Maplins Electronics, will charge batteries from a PV solar panel. I’ve used two ICP 15 watt solar panels with the Maplins charger to charge batteries.

The charger is used a lot in our house. There are radios, cameras, game controllers, several battery powered audio amplifiers, guitar preamps, stomp boxes (for guitars) and many flashlights and bike lights, all of which use AA, AAA or 9 volt batteries. Without exception there are all powered with rechargeable batteries.

Right now there are about 80 rechargeable batteries in our house. There are 54 in appliances and about 26 spares. If I were buying non rechargeable batteries it would cost a fortune.

According the the University of Cambridge website more than 15 billion batteries are used by households every year. The website Battery University estimate the global battery market is worth about 50 billions US dollars per annum, about 5.5 billion of this is rechargeable.

Non rechargeable batteries typically take 50 times more energy to make than they will produce. This is a very poor use of resources.

Duracell Ultra Power AA Batteries - 4 Pack

Energizer 2450 mAh Rechargeable AA Batteries

Super Universal Battery Charger

ICP Battery Saver Pro 15 Watt

University of Cambridge article on batteries

Battery University

Energizer 2450 mAh Rechargeable AA

The Roland Street Cube a battery powered guitar amp