I have committed the ultimate blogging crime: bloggers are supposed to slavishly churn out blog entries every day (more than one article preferably), day in day out without fail.

Well, I just haven’t. And the other thing bloggers are not supposed to do is go on to make feeble excuses about why they haven’t written for ages. Mine is that I’ve been back in the UK on one of my very rare trips (3 times in 8 years) with the lovely Mrs. D. and frankly have had far too much on my plate what with racing around England. In a car I hasten to add.

But here are a few exciting notes from my trip, first some bike-related stuff, and also some things I have noticed that have changed somewhat:

- before I forget, Wiggle, the UK online bike shop have got an August deal on which means you get 20% off any purchase over 100 pounds, which I reckon is not bad at all and gave me a chance to stock up on bits that I have been wanting to buy but not really found in Serbia, at least not at normal prices. The upshot is that I finally own “proper” cycling shorts (the difference to my tender portions is noticeable, though my bum does look big in them) and have also - BA-DAAAA! - gone clipless! And I have the bruising on my left-hand side to prove it. More about that in the next few days.

Anyway, go and check out Wiggle before they finish the offer period at the end of August because I am pretty sure you can pick up a bargain or two.

- wow, there are far more people cycling around London these days! I am pretty sure there is less traffic than before - something to do with Ken’s congestion charge? - and you can actually see a great number of cyclists dashing around central London, many of them on those funny little fold-up bikes. I thought they gave up on those about twenty years ago, but these look kind of funky and space-age and probably are pretty practical for the train.

- had a little ride around the Chulmleigh area of Devon on a borrowed bike with the ubiquitous (and many times aforementioned in this blog) Rob MacCurrach, who with wife Trish very kindly put us up in the lovely farmhouse they live in whilst in the UK. This area is very beautiful, with its rolling hills and patchwork of fields, divided by huge hedges which really obscure your view! However I was struck by one difference between biking in the UK and Serbia, and that is the lack of freedom of movement in England. Basically most land is privately owned in England and off-limits to the public and so your cycling is limited to public roads and the odd footpath, all of which are marked in detail on Ordnance Survey maps. I couldn’t help comparing this with Serbia, where there are no accurate maps, and where there are vast tracts of land not owned by anyone in particular, and even where they are, you are free to walk or cycle across them. This is really what I have been getting at all along with this blog - that Serbia offers a really wild and free mountain-biking experience that you will be hard-pushed to get in many other countries

- related to and earlier point about traffic in London, the air is remarkably clean in the big UK cities - we could draw lung-fulls of air right in the middle of Oxford Street without needing a respirator immediately afterwards. Just try doing that in the centre of Belgrade or Novi Sad and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

- NO SMOKING IN PUBLIC BUILDINGS!! Wow! We can only dream of that in Serbia for the foreseeable future. Oh the pleasure of having a pint in the pub, or a meal in a restaurant, and not having to rush the meal to get away from the palls of smoke which fill such establishments in Serbia. Now it’s the smokers who have to go outside and do their thing, while we enjoy our meal at our leisure, instead of US having to leave as quickly as possible. Now THAT is fair.

- ate far too much stodgy food and really paid for it with my first sally out on the bike after my return. Time to get some serious cycling in and get rid of the worryingly paunch-like protuberance that seems to have fastened itself to my lower abdomen.

Well, that is just a few impressions from my trip to the UK, just to get the “blog rolling” again. Back soon, with a little more regularity hopefully, with the continuation of the GPS series that I began before the summer, an account of a ride along the Danube (completely ignoring the new Danube route I described in a recent article), my tales of going clipless (ouch ouch) and if I get round to it, a little review of a cycling book that had missed my attention, but which you have probably all read (oh, OK, it’s called French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France, a Bill Bryson-esque account of a bloke trying to trace the “steps” of the tour de France - comes recommended as a good laugh, if by some remote chance you haven’t read it) . See you soon.

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Posted on August 25th, 2007 by markowe
Filed under: About me, Biking - general, MTB Serbia (All)