Ah, now I remember London actually has Summer.

(continued from vol.1)
HYDE PARK (MARBLE ARCH)

Many people were having nice time in Hyde Park and the whether was just nice for cycling there. This was the main objective of the day — not just for fun, but to take photographs for a Japanese online info-mag, which my sister contributes. This week’s article was 3-pages on “casual cycling in London feat. A-bike”. Yap. she’s another A-bike owner. hahaha

My sister bought her A-bike on the same day as me, but the day was the first time I actually saw hers. Her A-bike looked different from mine. It wasn’t because mine is modified. It was the way the rear brake cable was treated. (see pic below) Since when A-bike manufacturer started to built their bike in this way? Am I lucky to witness this mis-assembled A-bike or what? mmm… anyway my sis is happy with it, so never mind.

(right) A guy interestingly mistook our A-bikes as one bike, which takes two people at a time. This shot was taken in Kensington Gardens.

Folders in Hyde Park: The mature couple on Bromptons were very cool, and I was really happy to see Stridas for the first time in London!

To Be Continued…

Taking part in this A-bike Central blog encourages me to document my A-bike life, then I realised it’s very hard to summarize a day event of A-bike… so much happenings in one day!! Yeah, last Sunday was another long day for me and my A-bike.

Anyway, in the morning, I arranged a meeting with my sister at Speaker’s corner in Hyde Park. According to Journey planner at transport for London website, my flat to Speaker’s corner (Marble Arch) takes 40 mins by conventional bicycle. This means about an hour and 20 mins by A-bike.

Since I had to go through an unfamiliar route, I gave 2 hours for myself to get there.

In the end, it took only an hour (not too bad, eh?), so I detoured around London. The first stop was Big Ben and House of Common.

(Good news. From now on, some images can be enlarged by clicking them)

WESTMINSTER / BIG BEN


A bit of the eye, the cab, the clock and the bike — All the goodness of London in one picture. (Don’t mention the bus. It’s evil.) Oops. I kept my light on the handlebar.

I was sitting in the square island in front of Big Ben along with the famous squatters for couple of minutes to take the photo, and some motorists stopped by and asked me… you know what. A-bike seemed to be more eye-catching than Big Ben for some people there.

BUCKINGHAM PALACE

To be honest, I don’t visit this place really… unless ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) hosting some good shows. I have no idea whether having no car around the palace is usual on Sunday or not, but it was pretty relaxing to ride without a fear of traffic.

HYDE PARK CORNER (WELLINGTON ARCH) and
MARBLE ARCH (SPEAKER’S CORNER)

From the palace to Hyde Park via Wellington Arch was easy. I heard some passer-by giggling about my A-bike though.

Even I spent a lot of time riding slowly and wondering around, I was still early, so I let my A-bike (not myself) to listen to some speech there till my sister showed up.

To Be Continued….

Until a few days ago, the communal staircase of my shared house was filled up with a lot of bicycles — at least 4 of them.
There wasn’t any space left for another, so this became one of the reasons I chose A-bike.

Today, I see only one neglected vintage bike sitting there.

Where are other bikes gone?

A piece of paper on the wall answers to the question.

“Hi, someone helped themselves to my bike last night!!
Did anyone hear or see anything?!”

Sadly, it’s a common story in London — a stranger comes into a house and nick things — but this is still quite disturbing.
I hope the stolen bike and the thief to be found…

I’m just glad I have A-bike and it enables me to keep the bike in my tiny flat without any fuss.

Now the staircase has free parking space, but I guess I’ll stick to A-bike.

My A-bike loved London Marathon.

TOWER HILL / TOWER BRIDGE

My work for London Marathon for last couple of days gave me a good excuse to ride my A-bike all over London. I didn’t really have free time to appreciate the view, but I certainly did enjoy riding my bike a lot under nice sunny weather.

22nd April was the day for the race and whole London went crazy… after all, London marathon is the biggest race in the world — 40,000 runners, 500,000 spectators! Even you are not London residence, it’s not too difficult to imagine that both pavement and main road packed under such occasion. I can guarantee you. it was, really.

Once again, A-bike came handy. I could just choose to take the street runs parallel to the main road without any time loss, and when I had to passed among the crowd, rolling half-folded A-bike served well.

This is only a part of the half a million.

Probably many people find benefit of small wheel bicycle in the day like this, so I saw many folding bikes.
I failed to find another A-bike though… it’s still a minority!! Argh!!

ALDGATE EAST

In the evening of the marathon day, me and my friends felt eating Vietnamese at Old St. but went for curry at Brick Lane instead, thanks to London’s slow traffic recovery.

My A-bike got a lot of attention from the marathon crowd as expected, but who could have guessed what happened to my A-bike at the London’s curry heaven.

Today’s hero.

As some of you may know, Brick Lane has a big Sylheti Bangladeshi community, and people there is quite friendly to others. When I was unfolding my A-bike to enter a curry restaurant, a gentleman asked me about Sinclair A-bike, so I started to explain to him. Then he began calling people around there! Within a second, me and my A-bike were surrounded by passersby and barkers from restaurants nearby.Some of them (including the gentleman) were very keen to find out about A-bike and asked me to write down the URL of Mayhem UK Ltd and Selfridges, so I did make memos for them.

Later, when I and friends came out the restaurant with satisfaction brought by great dishes there, a man came up to me. He was one of the people I gave notes earlier. He told me a fantastic news.

“You know, I already placed my order. the bike. It’s for my kid.”

I forgot to ask his name, but got his permission to put above photo here. He’s the one made my day.

On my way back to station, countless of people still asked me about A-bike…. Brick Lane seems to me a BIG potential market for A-bike. If you are an A-bike owner, go there with your bike. You’ll see it straight away.

Today, a couple of people said to me “it’s your company, yeah?”
I said “No.”

OLD STREET On that day, me, my girl and our Sinclair A-bikes got off the tube at Old St. Station to get some digital prints done. My travel card didn’t work on the exit, so I had to ask a station staff to open the gate for me. (*mind you, A-bike is small enough to get through the normal gate!) While my mind was occupied with wondering why the machine on the gate didn’t recognise the ticket, the station staff caught me with a surprise. “How did you find the bike?” My mind went blank and just replied, “Err… it’s slow, but quite okay.” What an awful answer that was! I should have told him how good A-bike is, and how much I love it right? Anyway, he told me he’s actually looking at A-bike to buy. It was new to me and made me really happy.

Is every Londoner shy to the “new” thingy?

SHAFTESBURY AVENUE
After we’ve done with a photo lab at Clerkenwell Rd., we cycled the road down towards central via Holborn. Our A-bikes provided comfortable smooth ride, and we got off our bike at the end of Shaftesbury Av. Over there, we had a conversation with a gentleman who’s wondering if A-bike meets his requirement — daily long distance ride.

I told him what’s good and bad about A-bike, and he expectedly concluded “probably not”, and I agreed with him.
I personally would love to do a long ride with my A-bike, and some A-bikers out there had done it already, but I suppose it’s not everybody’s cup of tea.

“…but I really like the idea of the bike!” He added though.

SOHO
I was rolling my A-bike in fully unfolded “A” shape, and my girlfriend’s A-bike in my backpack (Yes, she refused to carry hers…Argh!), walking through Soho. Then we got approached by a young lady at Brewer street.

“Can I ask you something about your bike?” “I met a guy with the bike on the tube the other day, and I’m really really intrigued by it. It’s so small!!”

Since the lady caught us when we were thinking to ride again, I took out the A-bike from my backpack and let her feel the weight of a normal A-bike (mine is no longer considered normal). It was funny to find a bit of disappointment on her face when she lift it up.

“erm… it’s a bit heavier than I thought…. but it still much lighter than other folding bikes, isn’t it?”

I said yes and explained to her how well A-bike fit into Londoner’s life style. She gave us the double-thumbs-up and said “Perfect!!”

However, she told me that she found A-bike in Selfridges is a little pricy (GBP170 according to her). I gave her some website addresses including Mayhem UK Ltd. to find a better offer. I hope she gets one soon and enjoy A-bike life.

CARNABY STREET
Riding our A-bikes on the quiet alleys of Soho to the café at Great Marlborough St. was absolute delight. Nothing beats Sinclair A-bike for this kind of short A-B journey, which we get a lot in London.

Later on, I was there explaining all about A-bike once again to a gentleman at Carnaby St.. I realised that I got much better doing that compared with earlier that morning, and made my girlfriend said to me “You talk a lot on A-bike, almost like a rep!”

Most of the people (including the gentleman at Carnaby) came up to us on that day were seriously considering to get A-bike. This proves how much Londoners seek portable booster for their mobility.

I’m not an A-bike rep, but I can say this. Although A-bike is not super cheap and its tiny wheels make you look like a bear on a tricycle when you ride it, A-bike works real great in London — needless to say it’s also the lightest, the smallest and the cheapest foldable-bike-in-a-bag. so,
C’mon Londoners! Get your A-bike now!

Before today, there have been just two situations where I have ridden my A-bike:

1. Alongside my three year-old daughter as she rides her pink electric tricycle to the park (the same trike that was the inspiration for me getting my Sinclair C5!). Her tricycle is VERY slow, so it is excellent slow-speed practice for me!
2. Riding quarter of a mile or so into Sale town centre to post letters or pick up some milk etc.

Today though, my wife (Ruth) took Lucy (said three year-old) on the back of her bicycle while I was on the A-bike. When I am on my mountain bike (or even the C5!), I spend a lot of time free-wheeling because Ruth struggles with Lucy’s weight on the back of her bike. Today though, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I could still stay behind her quite comfortably while riding the A-bike.

On the way back from Tesco, I was leading and I heard her say to Lucy, “Right, let’s zoom past Daddy!”

Red rag to a bull.

I pedalled as quickly as I could. I had to lean over the handlebars so much to stop the front wheel coming up that it reminded me of being on my CBR600RR!

I’m not sure what made the handling so twitchy at that speed though. It could have been:

1. Lucy shouting, “Look at my Daddy go!”
2. Ruth laughing hysterically and shouting, “Do you realise how ridiculous you look?!”
3. The pedals going round so quickly that my feet were flying off them
4. or the steering being so sensitive that I was all over the place!

I’m glad it was a relatively quiet road, but having said all that, it was great fun!

I just wish I’d been wearing my Garmin Forerunner GPS watch so that I’d known how quickly I was going