Friday 1 January 2010

Happy New Year

After a very pleasant evening with the neighbours and an awesome racket from fireworks into the early hours, we wake up today in a new year.

We got up late, and took our dog, Harry, for a walk. As normal, we did this by bike. Harry's a regular on the blog, having been featured going for a ride in the countryside and riding in his dog trailer. Now we're back on the same dog walking path as I covered earlier in the year.

However, it's a bit colder today. It just about crept up to freezing point before going down again later. It didn't snow today, but it should do so again tomorrow, and the temperature is predicted as being down to -9 C ( 15 F ) on Sunday - just in time for the children to cycle back to school on Monday.

This path is a bit slippery, but it's not a bike path so it can be so.

Next to a frozen ditch. Today Harry didn't go for a swim.


And over one of the bridges on our walk.

Now we're back on a bike path. You can see the difference it makes for it to have been gritted and swept regularly. The gentleman in the photo is walking his dogs using an electric buggy. One of the great things about having an extensive network of cycle paths is that they a resource accessible to all.

Another shot of the same cycle path as it turns into a bicycle road which goes directly to the city centre.

And here we're about to cross a bridge which was visible on another video from earlier in the year.

And along the cycle path by the side of the now frozen canal which provides the first part of my route to work.

We returned home to watch and listen to the wonderful broadcast of the New Year's Day concert from Vienna, including of course the Blue Danube waltz, as used by Mike Rubbo in his film of bikes in Amsterdam in the summer.

Anyway, it's time that I wished all my readers a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous new year.

7 comments:

Dave Telling said...

Happy New Year to you (from Paisley) and thanks for the insight into a fantastic cycling network :-)

Mark W. said...

Happy New Year to you too David.

Great to see you still have snow! And even better to see what the cycle paths look like. Assen is doing a great job there. As you will know this is something local authorities have to organise and they don't all do it this well.

But here, just 200km south of you, it is not necessary anymore: we have been clear of snow for a week now.

James D. Schwartz said...

Happy New Year David!

We haven't seen snow on the ground yet here in Toronto, but it's snowing right now and the grass is almost covered. Hopefully we will see more people cycling through the winter this year, and more next year.

Thanks for showing the rest of the world that snow doesn't have to be a barrier to utility cycling.

Jim Robb said...

Happy New Year from Virginia USA.
We had an unusual Snow storm a couple of weeks ago which slowed down this southern town of Richmond.

Love your Blog!

Slow Factory said...

I am curious about the actual composition of the stuff they use to keep the ice at bay... do you know?

Steven Vance said...

I love how your bike lanes are plowed and gritted (first time I've heard that word). The ones in Chicago aren't, but as long as the motorists move their cars from key streets (like they're supposed to), it's usually okay.

I referenced a previous article you wrote about people in wheelchairs on my own blog.

Frits B said...

@GreenIdeaFactory: Essentially it's just NaCl, unrefined kitchen salt. Very bad for the environment, so nowadays it's premixed with brine and sprayed very thinly. Very effective but only after you have removed the actual snow.