Long tail

Last night I got back from the capital and we decided to go out to eat. It rained quite a bit, which is unheard of here in July, but atleast that brought the temperature down. The streets were dry when we came out at the end of the meal. My friend from London who came down with me walked back rather than climbing on the back. Very first refusal.... never mind.


This morning I popped down to the post office to pick up a parcel that had come while I was gone. Got some funny looks going through town. Its a roofrack for the car that came from ebay, and didn't move at all on the 1 mile trip.



This is the storage arrangement, the Yuba hardly takes up any space here in the corner.

This stops the beast falling over and crushing wife and kids etc when they open the outhouse door. Still very pleased with the Yuba, had a technical though today, the crank bolts work free now after about 10 miles, so I will have to put some "locktight" on the bolt threads to stop them unscrewing when I cycle.

Summer heat

Done quite a bit of urban riding with kids on back, and trips to the beach with the round beach tent that you can see in the photo. So much better than the car. People still come up and oogle at the bike when it is parked up. Building work on the new house is taking up alot of time too, but we are aiming to take the Yuba on holidays with us. I ordered a roofrack for the car so we may haul it with us on the roof... An old friend is coming to stay next week too, so some Yuba antics will be on order too.

Pizza and a flick

"Home" by Yann Artus Bertrand was on tonight so we phoned for pizza and I hopped on the Yuba to go and pick them up. Zero carbon pizza, well almost...
I arrived back and was in time for the start of the film, which to be honest I found a little flowery and poetic in language, but worth watching and very hard hitting with it's message, with fantastic images of the planet and how we are destroying it. Can't really argue with the man.


I was handed a political flyer from a major party on the way out and the environment is really a secondary after thought for all of them, something trendy to keep the youngsters happy without actually doing anything of course. It will be intresting to see the European election results this weekend to see if mentalities are changing as people tend to vote outside of the box to push big ideas (if they have any...) rather than for local representation of a certain flavour. As Europe is aging and the older people on these shores seem (IMO) obsessed with insecurity, immigration and the money in their pockets, I have my doubts. I hope the rest of my fellow Europeans don't follow the Dutch example.
I will keep on pedaling my Yuba... and getting funny looks.

Ladies too

An action shot proving that ladies can haul long distance on the Yuba too. I was asked to swop bikes "just to try" (at last) on the 15 km ride to the beach this weekend. I ended up riding my wife's bike which was too small, hurt my knees and is surprisingly nasty.

We chained the bikes to a flag pole by the beach (flying the italian flag ?!?) and had fun building sandcastles for hours before the sun went in and we had a cool ride back. Managed a stop on a village square for icecream and watched the locals watching the Rugby on the TV in the Café. Probably more entertaining than the match.

Could become a regular stop on route to the beach...

Mini Yuba

All this Yuba Mundo time has obviously marked some little minds... they ganged up on us and we had to take their little vintage bike with us to the farmer's market .


Which turned out to be pretty good as they are easier to spot as one very slow entity rather than several fast moving bodies traveling in different directions, disapearing into the crowd.


Wow somebody at town hall remembered the cyclists out there.. well done ! It is great to have somewhere to park up.

Post office

Seth turned 3 recently and as our new house hasn't been maintained for 40 years with blocked drains, toilets, sinks, cracked plaster, peeling paint, peeling wallpaper, damp, dirt, and silent door bell... we didn't hear the postman come to deliver what I guess to be his present. A "I came to deliver but you were not in" slip was left in the new letterbox (the old one was bust) while I was busy renovating. Another slip was left to let me know that a replacement part for my wallpaper stripper had come from Germany over the bank holiday too. Armed with my two slips I set off to the central Post Office in town to pick up the goodies. I must remember to fix the doorbell...
Again I sped past lines of people stuck in their cars and was in the centre in minutes. Having been a car muppet for years I am conditioned to believe that cars are faster. The message is sinking in. What is great about a bike is that you can just stop when you want and there is no parking hassle, on the way back I managed a coffee on a lovely square that took my fancy and had a chat with the café server who asked me about the Yuba Mundo, then I cut my way through the immobile traffic and was home in minutes. Impossible in a car.

Wind and butterflies

There is a farm on the other side of town where you can take the kids and they can see animals in real life, play with dwarf goats, feed hens, get pulled around by horse and cart etc.


So we made our way across town and hooked up with the cylepath that heads out on the other side. We got to the farm only to find that it had closed down and they were selling all the animals... to say that the kids were gutted would be an understatement. Sign of the times ? Financial fall out hitting our little corner of the world ? We hadn't planned on this but as lunch was fast approaching we hit the cyclepath and carried on out of town. The idea was to go right to the end following the route of the old railway line that they had converted into the path that winds across the fields. 20 kms there and 20 km back.


The wind picked up, the sun went in, the path turned into the wind and it was murder for about 5 km before we stopped to drink some water and the kids played picking daisies. We made it to the end, in time to see them packing up the morning market, had a great meal of paella and some wine on a little square trying not to notice the kids jumping around like springs.


To be less antisocial we then headed for the park and slides so the monsters could bounce around in a dedicated space, hoping that the wind would drop thinking of the ride back, but of course it really picked up.


But the great thing about a headwind is that it becomes a tailwind on the way back and the sun came out ! The yuba with two kids on the back caught the wind nicely and in places I didn't even have to pedal... like a sail boat, stopped once for water and biscuits, and watched as a series of at least a dozen bikes made by Giant went by. All different vintages, shapes and sizes. Strange.


We must have been three time faster getting back, were mobbed by hundreds of orange butterflies, managed another parkstop and had fun making our way through town post Rugby match. The traffic was stuck, we just sped through, it was great. Could really feel the ride in my legs this evening, the wind was not fun on the way out.