Recycling by bike?

As a lot of you know, I live in Aylesbury, a designated "cycle town".
Things are slowly getting sorted out to make more and more things possible by bike.

But what about recycling?
A rider can obviously cycle to the bottle banks that are pretty common in the corner of supermarket carparks, and we have a fortnightly "mixed" recycling collection from our houses in the "blue bin".

But what about the bigger stuff, or the odd stuff?

There is a recycling centre on the edge of town (the Rabans Lane site), and another just out of town, on the other side (the Aston Clinton site).

Can I go there on a bicycle to do my recycling?
First place to look is the council website, as they own the sites.
And, indeed, there is much helpful advice available there.

But there is nothing on bikes!

So today I went to the Raban's Lane recycling centre and asked the staff.
Apparently folks arriving on foot need a (free) permit from Bucks County Council - indeed this is hinted at, but not explicitly spelled out on the pdf download the council have on their website.
According to the recycling centre staff a few folks DO already visit on foot, and DO have the (free) permits.

But what of bikes?

The helpful staff said that a cyclist, with or without a trailer, would be treated like a pedestrian, and would need a (free) permit,
The good news is that cyclist are actually allowed at all, as I have heard some distressing reports from other parts of the country that only motor vehicles are allowed into their local recycling centres, with apparently no exeptions or exemptions.

How much does a bike cost?

How much does a bike cost?
There is a price that it is sold at, but is that the real cost to the buyer?

A lot of it is about priorities as well as wealth.
Anyone who has a mortgage or a loan and thinks themselves as having money to spare is merely choosing one thing over another, rather than spending "spare" money.
(same goes for buying motor vehicles and holidays when you also have a loan or mortgage!).
Some would suggest increasing benefits to be had up to about £1000 ($1600, 1200 Euro), then rapidly reducing benefits beyond
Indeed, one would expect the planners of the cycle-to-work scheme (a tax-subsidized scheme in the UK to assist commuters to buy bikes) have reached a similar conclusion, given that the scheme is capped at the same £1000.

However, is not the real test of a bike's "value" the opportunity cost?
What else could have been bought/paid?
How much in health/fitness/mental health benefits will be generated?
("satisfaction"/"happiness" I have included in mental health, as a severe lack of either often results in a decline in income)
How much money will be saved by not using other transport methods?
Will the bike save time, and how much is that time worth?
etc. etc.

I actually have the finance for just about any bike - but buying one would not change the way I ride much, and the "true" money cost would have to factor in the extra interest payments I would be paying my mortgage as a result!
A cargo bike would be nice (like the Pashley Mailstar I borrowed last summer), but as they are still being withdrawn from service and "consolidated" near me, it is quite likely I can borrow another next summer - so it seems pointless to buy a similar bike at the moment.

A trailer project will be where I am going next spring - taking garden stuff down to the recycling centre is a job for which we currently have no realistic alternative than a motor vehicle - and I want to change that. Since we live in a town with fairly decent cycling infrastructure, it seems a waste not to use it more!

How can I justify spending money on building a trailer rather than buying a new bike?
Well, the trailer is going to be quite cheap to build - I already have 4 twenty-inch wheels and an assortment of tyres (two from my old folder, and two from a worn-out freebie bike I was given that I stripped for parts).
A bit of wood is not that pricey.
Imagination is free :-)
And it will allow us to offset another cost - that of using a motor vehicle to go to the recycling centre.
So it really won't cost that much.

On the mental health side, I am as much a "wage slave" as the next man, and feel as drained by the corporate horse-manure as the anyone else, and a modestly priced construction product, when completed, will certainly makes me feel good, and using it will make be feel even better.

So next time you read that advert for the latest/greatest bike, just think about what it will really cost, beyond just the "sticker" price, and how much extra benefit (if any) all that money will buy.

Commuter issues: staff bike parking

We popped up to IKEA in Milton Keynes yesterday, and we were suitably impressed with the locked compound there for bicycles owned by the staff (workers/colleagues/whatever).
 

The covered, locked, "staff" bike compound at IKEA Milton Keynes. Creme de la Creme of bike parking!

Not every employer is thoughful enough to install a covered. locked, bike compound for the staff!
 

The three-quarters covered bike rack where I work. Although not "caged" they are not in a "public" area, and general site security has been improved in the last few months. Most of the rain is kept off, but a wet saddle is typical in heavy rain.
Yep, that's my bike on the right, with the pannier.

The uncovered, but "caged" bike racks in the centre of town for the staff that work for the county administration
(Buckinghamshire County Council). Note that three former car parking spaces now provide space for nine+ bicycles - and even in the pic shown there are seven. A few council staff also park in a secure secret underground carpark (obvoiusly covered!) that hardly anyone knows even exists. OK, so I've been down there a few dozen times, but I can't tell you where it is, or it wouldn't be a secret!

Yardwork and hardwork.

Not much cycling to report from me recently :-(
Across the Summer, while I was enjoying myself riding, the jobs at home were backing up (isn't that always the way!), and we are due to refinance our home loan just after Christmas.
So I'm still cycling to work every day, but not much else.

I have a minor job for a large company (FTSE 100 aka "blue chip"), and there has been a lot of work recently, and since I get paid for overtime hours, I have been piling up a bit of money for the future.
As some of you will know, houses in the South-East of England are frighteningly expensive, and we still have a home loan for about £100K (about $160K, 120K Euros), for a modest two-bedroom house. When we bought it just over nine years ago (our first house!) we agreed a price of more than a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS! Very cheap compared to London standards, but then again, we live about 40 miles from the centre of London! But it's a nice place to live: "Quality of life in Aylesbury Vale ranks as one of the highest in the country. And if you ask the people who live and work here what’s great about the area, they’re likely to mention the balance it offers between town and country, its sense of community, schools and low crime rate."Anyway, it is certainly NOT a big house with a big garden - it is a late-1980's "rabbit hutch" with "cardboard" walls and a "compact" rear garden,
Those of you familiar with the advert that ran of British TV featuring Fry and Laurie, where a flat is described as "compact and bijoux" will know what I am taking about :-)
It is a nice little house, but like all houses, things need a bit of work now and then.

Our (small!) rear garden had an area of wooden decking, and it was rotten in places, and too far gone to make a repair economic, so we ripped it out, with the plan of replacing it.
For a pair of amateurs like me and Anna, even ripping out the old decking was a major job in itself!
While some parts were so rotten, they fell apart when kicked, other parts were pretty solid (and heavy!).

Then there was the actual rebuilding job.
The owner of the house two before us has built the decking himself and had made a couple of fundamental errors, including screwing it to the conservatory wall ABOVE THE DAMP-PROOF COURSE.
So we vowed to "do it right".
What did we (me and Anna) know about construction?
Not much!
So a lot of research went on before we even started.
We decided to use concrete pillars to mount the deck on to avoid screwing it to the consevatory wall.
But neither of us had ever worked with concrete before.

the main foundations and wooded structure for our decking

So more research, then finally, just give it a go, and see how it turns out!

Anyway, the whole project has been going on like that -
slowly!

But we are getting there, and although our work has been painfully slow, we are getting pretty good results.
We have also managed to fund the entire project from my overtime at work, so we have taken no debt on at all to pay for it, so that's got to be good.

That's the main part of the job done - just the edges and the flower bed to sort out!

Just think of all that sawing etc. as "cross-training" :-)

On the refinancing front, we think we have that sorted out as well.
We were expecting the usual long (as in 90 minutes) financial interview from the bank, and me having to collate and bring sheaves of payslips etc, with me.
Lo and behold, the bank seems to have introduced a "quick and easy" refinancing option for existing customers who just want a straight refinance (no changes, no increases etc. etc.).
Just a quick internet form, click a button, and they send out a paper contract to sign and return.
Done that, and now I am just awaiting final confirmation.
Seems a bit brief for a loan of $160,000 !!!
So I checked with their helpline number, and was told that they were not altering their risk, instead they are essentially just altering the details of my existing loan.
Hey, ho.
The long and the short of it is that the new deal will save me about £3000 ($4800) in interest payments over the next two years.

A bit of financial planning is always handy. The blue line is the amount remaining if we had kept our original 2005 mortgage to term.
By the Autumn of 2012, we had got slightly in front of schedule, and the red line is the predicted amount remaining from our re-financing of that period. The mortgage term is longer, which is why the line is flatter, but the payments are also smaller, which allowed us to get to ...
Our most recent re-financing deal, which is the green line. The gap above the start of the green line and the red line above it is a measure of how much we have overpaid in the last two years.
We have a number of small financial investments maturing in the next five years, or so, too, and that gives us the purple line, which is hopefully what we will achieve.
When dealing with banks and loans, one might say that "a penny saved is tuppence less in interest!"

So what has all that got to do with bikes?
Well, "all that" is why I have not been doing much mileage recently and not spending much time on cycling forums ("communities").

Don't worry though, I haven't "gone off" cycling!
And some of that money we will be saving on the home loan finance package will be used for a substantial upgrade to Mermaid next Summer!

A New Section of Cycle Route

The new Western Link Road links the A41 and the A413 on the North-West of Aylesbury, in South-Easy England.
A wide dual use (cycle and pedestrian) pathway was built adjacent to the road as part of the project, and both the pathway
and the road opened at the same time. With a 2.2 km stretch with NO SIDE TURNINGS OR JUNCTIONS (!!!) this has become instantly popular with Strava Athletes, some of whom appear to have sneaked in to the construction site, as they have posted results BEFORE the route was officially opened!

The new route joins the Berryfield housing area with
the Buckingham Park / Weedon Hill housing area.

The new route gives a MUCH safer pedestrian and cycle route for the
children living in the Buckingham Park area to get to school (their school,
a nice newly-built one, is in the Berryfields area)

A nice new bridge crossing the lower river/flood plain area between Berryfields and Buckingham Park.

 As well as the cycle infrastructure provided by the road itself, it also seems to have lowered the amount pf peak hours traffic in the central area of the town by a bit as well, which is an additional bonus for cyclists and pedestrians. However, the roads at the end where the new link road comes out on the A413 (i.e. Weedon Road, Douglas Road and Oakfield Road) have become more busy as the traffic that has diverted North from the town centre rejoins the existing road network to continue their journeys,