I’m still trying to build fitness my and stamina in preparation for sportives, more cycling holidays in Europe and eventually cycling to India. So each week I’m trying to increase my range by about 10 miles and more hills. Last Friday I did 60 miles from Berwick-upon Tweed to Edinburgh, so I wanted a 70-mile route starting around an hour’s train journey from Edinburgh. The plan is to maroon myself somewhere new one day each week so I must cycle back home.

The pong and tedious road

So I hit on cycling from Dundee via Perth to Edinburgh.

As long-term readers and friends will know, I don’t like Dundee. It’s the one place I’ve had actual rocks hurled at me. There are are at least two good things to come out of it – a former flat mate who was (and presumably still is) brilliant and the DC Thomson stable of comics. When I lived in St Andrews, I used to visit the Hilltown area to buy 20kg sacks of basmati rice so I could live far cheaper than if buying at normal supermarket prices. So I suppose it isn’t fair to use terms like the Kingsway Colditz, Stalag Luft Menzieshill or Gulag Blackness.

The Edinburgh-Dundee train didn’t require hanging Lev Davidovitch Bikestein by his wheels, but was too short to fit a full-size bike without turning the front wheel and thus preventing more than one bike fitting into the dedicated bike-space. I’m still mystified why UK trains just aren’t bike-friendly in so many ways. However, this train did offer something special – it got me to Dundee just in time to encounter an old friend who I’ve not seen for far, far too long. (Pause to remember lots of good times and look forward to many more!) He’s a DJ and record-producer – some music is here. So we chatted for a while – good-natured banter about my healthy lifestyle, his travels to play clubs aroudn the world, respective families and so on. I’m really looking forward to meeting up again with him, his wife (who partially inspired my aim of cycling to India).

Lev and I then set off – we had to walk a while to find a way onto Riverside Drive. There’s a cyclepath along the waterfront, past Dundee airport and on to Invergowrie. After that, path or cycle-lane runs along the side of the A90 to Longforgan. Thereafter, we got a bit lost (we’d missed the official cycle-route turnoff at Invergowrie) and hugged the side of the A90 to Inchture, cursing lorries that passed too close. At Inchture, the cycle-lane disappeared so after a long wait for a gap in traffic, we crossed at a plebestrian crossing only to find that the route led back onto the A90 – but by now there was a road-side path. We imagined the shared-use signs were visible and set off again, taking advantage of lorry-slipstream and consequent brown-underpant feelings.

As far as I can tell from cyclemeter, Lev and I did the 23 miles to Perth in about 90 minutes. That’s over 15mph, which is probably due to hail and wind pushing us on:

All Leved up and miles to roll!

Until yesterday (Friday 24 April), I’d done no distance-cycling at all this year. That’s zero, nil, nada, zip, SFA. And yet this year I’ll be doing 75 miles of hills in Tour o’ the Borders, then Elly and I hope to have a holiday cycle-touring somewhere in Scotland. Next year we hope to spend several months touring Europe on our iron steeds: maybe the North Sea Cycle Route, maybe the Iron Curtain Trail, maybe a return to the Czech Republic and catching up with the ‘mad Moravians’. Also, for the past month I’ve been feeling weak and lethargic, and unable to keep up with the fast cadences during spinning sessions. So I really need to get my act together.

The long and busy road
Fortunately, over the next two months, I’m helping teach cycling skills at a primary school in Portobello. This has given me an impetus to spend the next few Fridays away from my desk and on the road. So yesterday Lev Davidovitch Bikestein and I took a train to Berwick-on-Tweed, intending to find a cycle-route back to Edinburgh. The train, a CrossCountry service to Penzance, had 3 spaces in which bikes are to be hung by their front wheels. This was hard – Lev is heavy, the wheel-hooks are high and my arms are still weak from past frozen shoulder episodes. There’s hardly room for two bikes with wide handlebars such as Lev and Fidel (Elly’s bike).

Anyway, we arrived safely at Berwick-on-Tweed. We didn’t find National Cycle Network route (NCN) 76 (not that we looked very hard) but we did find the A1 advertising 56 miles to Edinburgh and no signs banning bikes. So that’s what we did. I enjoyed the dual carriageway sections – most infernal combustion engines gave us wide berths, and there were what acted as cycle-lanes along most of these sections. There was also an actual cycle-path for a couple of miles passing Torness power station. That’s excellently ironic – you can get irradiated healthily! It took us 2 hours and 10 minutes to get to Dunbar, so an average speed of 13·6 mph over 29·5 miles. There was quite a lot of headwind but I’m still less than happy with averaging less than 15mph. Here’s the cyclemeter map.

jPhone didn’t record this section, from Dunbar to Haddington. But estimating that we stopped at Dunbar for about 10 minutes and at Haddington for about 20 minutes suggests that we took an hour to do 11 miles. I know there was a lot of headwind and that towards Haddington my knees had run out of push. No pain, just no inclination to do anything more than potter along. My nether regions told a different story – some friction of the unmentionables, grumbling from the groinal side of my left hip and quite loud complaints from my starfish. So next time I’ll need chamois cream with novocaine.

Lev and I stopped at Haddington to get our directions and check for urgent emails – after all Friday is a working day for most of my colleagues. We then pushed on to Edinburgh, taking a 1 hour 39 minutes to do 18·4 miles, so an average speed of 11 mph. Some of the slowness can be blamed on long waits at traffic lights along Milton Road and Princess Street but I recall limping up hills on Willowbrae Road and past St Andrews House where the only impediment was me. Here’s the cyclemeter map.

So Lev and I reached Servants’ Quarters just after 6pm. We’d taken around 6 hours to do around 60 miles, but that included 90 minutes of stopped time, so had there been no stops we’d have averaged 13 mph. Because cycle-touring involves carrying luggage and Lev is definitely not a carbon-fibre speed-beast, I’m not aiming for roadie speeds, but I would like to average 15 mph even when laden, facing headwinds and doing hills. I am pleased that I didn’t have to give up, that my knees are not painful the day after and that overall I believe I could do this sort of trip several days in a row. The challenge is to get faster, and do more hills!

By the way, the luggage was 2 panniers containing a track-pump, a couple of books, spare gloves and other clothing to lend to the cycle-skills pupils, overtrousers, emergency jPhone and iPad, USB charger and a few cables and the other gubbins I usually carry. I like to think that this simulates the weight I’d be carrying when cycle-camping.

(With thanks to Hazel Hall for almost all of the words below.)

The Workforce Mapping Project survey is live at http://bit.ly/workforcemap

This is a call to workers in the library, archives, records, information, and knowledge management sector to contribute to a research project by completing a short survey. If you work in this sector, please read on to learn more about the project and how you can contribute to it.

In 2014 the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and the Archives and Records Association commissioned research to better understand, and monitor trends in, the UK library, archives, records, information, and knowledge management workforce. The findings of this work will help the two bodies to plan and develop their activities as related to a wide range of activities including membership advocacy with government and employers, policy development, and the provision of services.

Over the past few months I have been working on the Workforce Mapping Project at Edinburgh Napier University with colleagues from the Centre for Social Informatics and the Employment Research Institute. (For me, it’s been great to work with new colleagues and learn a little about their specialisms.)

Our analysis of Labour Force Survey data completed in Phase 1 of the project indicates that there could be as many as 270,000 in the UK library, archives, records, information, and knowledge management workforce. In Phase 2 we are collecting data directly from the workforce with this invitation to complete the Workforce Mapping Project survey at http://bit.ly/workforcemap.

The success of this project depends on a high survey return rate from members of the workforce. If you are based in the UK and work in library, archives, records, information, and/or knowledge management (whether in a paid or volunteer role), please could you complete the survey? The survey takes no more than 15 minutes to complete, and gives respondents the opportunity to enter a prize draw for £200 worth of vouchers.

We’d also be grateful if you could extend the reach of this invitation by passing the survey link (http://bit.ly/workforcemap) on to your colleagues and other contacts who work in the library, archives, records, information, and knowledge management sector – through social media (e.g. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+), by email, or in person. Many thanks!

The contract research survey is out and running. If you work in libraries, archives, records, or information- or knowledge management, please answer it. it won’t take long, and it will help CILIP and ARA work better for you.

Even though I spent only 30 minutes this morning on the second half of a piece of homework (the first half took over 2 hours), I received very complimentary feedback. (And thanks indeed to the teachers for providing feedback so quickly.)

Peter Cruickshank and I are now on the brink of being able to submit a paper to a conference – the submission deadline is Sunday. Even a week ago we didn’t think we had enough time to turn our draft into a finished article. I’m pretty sure that 90% of the work is Peter’s, as is all of the idea behind it.

We have also responded to an invitation to do more work around CC digital engagement. That we were invited makes us pretty confident that we will be commissioned to do this work.

Best of all, today an LA official told us that our work has had some genuine impact:

The move … was partly inspired by your … report

I’ve cut this right down to keep the official anonymous.

Professor Hazel Hall, Peter Cruickshank and I yesterday had a productive meeting about our research plans, focussing on recent funding applications. Peter and I have the following actual and potential work-streams. I also have other work activities, as shown below. Peter also has teaching and other duties which aren’t shown. Continue reading →