Cycle and Jam

Cycle and Jam. Random musings about cycling and jam.

[cycleandjam-blog]

What’s so amazing about the Velopark?

A question I often asked my husband. I would see his Strava activity showing a stint in the Velopark and I just didn’t get it. Why would you cycle around and around on some pretend road? Why not just cycle on the, er, actual roads? Surely it’s more fun to cycle on something that feels more real, and that has a purpose?

Well it turns out that there is genuinely something pretty amazing about the Velopark, which is situated in East London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The problem with the real roads is that they have annoying things that can get in the way of some serious cycling, or even for just normal cycling they can take the fun out of it. Like, for example, traffic lights. And people. And cars. And lorries. And uneven road surfaces, or worse massive potholes. And lots of gutters. Did I mention glass? Or nails?

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to let these things put me off cycling on the road, and there are many solutions to avoiding these ‘problems’ of road cycling. But if you want to try out some serious cycling alongside your normal ‘purposeful’ cycling, or your fun leisurely cycling, then go to the Velopark.

My husband kept saying to me, try it out, I think you’ll love it. So I went one Friday morning with him to do just that.

As you go into the Velopark you have to hang your bike up on a rail by the seat while you get your ticket. I was torn between mild amusement that my bike was just suspended in mid air like that, and a sense of amateur discomfort as to whether my bike would pass this initiation test and be allowed in. As it happened they handed me a ticket so I guess I (or my bike) passed.

As I entered the Velopark road circuit itself there was a sign saying which direction to cycle in. If the whole point is speed and not worrying so much about navigating around other road users, then it’s quite crucial I guess that everyone cycles in the same direction. My husband said that this direction changes regularly. Many of the Velopark users have no idea why. Perhaps it’s because of wind direction. Or perhaps they like to just keep everyone on their toes.

We got on our bikes and I had my first go on the road circuit. We had the place to ourselves so I didn't feel intimidated by loads of other pro- cyclists whizzing past me. Weekdays day time are a good time to go if you can as it is generally quieter.

I've cycled on the bridge in Olympic park that goes above the Velopark road circuit many a time, and sometimes seen hoards of lycra clad male cyclists speeding down the hills on their super fast road bikes. Fortunately they were not there today.

I started cycling and realised I wasn’t having to worry about whether a car was going to overtake me, or whether I would hit a traffic light just when I had got into a high gear and a decent speed. I reached the first hill after just a few dozen metres, as there are quite a few hills in the road circuit. They’re all small hills as the circuit itself is only a mile long. So even if you’re not seasoned at hills you should be able to manage them. The key thing is to know that’s what you’re going to face and be willing to give it a try. If you don’t like hills at all, the road circuit is probably not for you. There are uphills followed by downhills followed by uphills. And a few stretches of flat in between.

You can ride down a descent, pick up a lot of speed and then use that speed to get you up the following hill. You feel the wind in your hair, or in my case hijab, and the adrenaline rush is quite something. There are different loops you can do to add even more variety. I'm no expert at hills but the road circuit was a chance to gain some experience of how to tackle them which will help me on the led rides I go on.

My husband went round a few times with me and then I told him he could go off and cycle for a bit. Many people come here just to cycle at crazy speeds, or to get in a certain distance, and well he’s one of those. It felt like a real workout to me, and I realised it’s a bit like going to the gym.

A ticket for Pay and Ride in the Velopark road circuit is at the time of writing £5. They also hire out bikes for £12 and even cleated shoes. The Velopark has a café, which we didn’t try as we like the Unity Kitchen café in Timber Lodge just a little further down in Olympic Park.

The Velopark have some great sessions to encourage people to come along, such as their twice weekly #ThisGirlCan women only sessions on Wednesdays and Sundays, and a monthly Bikes and Bakes session where you get to cycle and eat cake (but maybe not at the same time). I'm not ready to go on my own to the Velopark yet, but I have found a possible buddy to go with if my husband is not around to tag along, and finding a friend to go with is a good idea if you find the idea of trying it out daunting.

The Velopark also has other facilities, including mountain bike trails, a BMX track, VeloStudio sessions and indoor track taster sessions. There are kids sessions where they can get a taste of different cycling disciplines.

The whole point of the Velopark it seems, is precisely that it’s not the actual roads, and it’s really quite amazing.

[cycleandjam-blog]

Locking up your bike

I was at home with a friend who was visiting with her 12 year old son. He wanted to visit Mobeens, a local take away renowned for, amongst other things, their kebab rolls. It's about 12 minutes walk from my house or a 5 minute bike ride or scoot and he wanted to borrow our adult scooter. So I suggested that my friend borrow my bike to keep up. She said she hates cycling to places because she doesn't like locking up her bike outside. Cycling around for a leisurely ride? No problem. Cycling on road? She is fine with that. Cycling to the shops, and leaving your bike outside? No quite ready for that yet.

Don't worry, I said, here's a lock, it'll be fine. She wasn't convinced. But, she said, if you write a piece about how to lock your bike, then I might do it next time..

So, here you go.

Kryptonite, the maker of locks named after the substance that weakened Superman has some great advice on this topic. They must figure they make locks so strong that even Superman can't break into them. They actually use the name Kryptonite under a licence agreement with DC Comics that dates back to 1983. Kryptonite have a really helpful video in which I learned two invaluable principles to locking up your bike.

1. Lock up your bike in order of value. So, main frame first, then back wheel then front wheel. What this means is if you can only lock one part of the bike for whatever reason, lock the main frame. If you can fit another part of your bike on, choose the back wheel as well. Then add in the front wheel if you can, with with an additional lock or cable. Basically this rule of thumb is based on the fact that if a thief can't take your whole bike, they may still try to take a part of it. Here is what this might look like, here I have locked up the main frame and back wheel.

In this video, my friend has locked up all three main parts of the bike using two locks.

2. Get as much bike into the lock as you can. This means don't leave the lock able to move too much. If it is less movable, bike thieves will find it harder to move a bit of the lock away from the bike to break it. Here is what this might look like.

Here I've wound the long chain lock around the bike and bike rack twice to reduce the amount of movement of the lock, so a thief can't pull a chunk of the lock away to break it. The chain lock doesn't fit into the spokes of my daughter's small 16in bike so I've locked the main frame up as the most valuable part.

Generally a D lock (also known as a U lock in some countries) is recommended over a cable lock. However I really like a decent chain lock as I find it easier to lock up the bike without having to get the angle and position of the bike against the bike stand just right. Having said this, I use mostly D locks as I just can't justify buying a whole load of new locks to replace our perfectly usable D locks. We have about 4 D locks in the family, as we have 4 bikes and a trailer. So I'm not going out to replace them all, but my personal preference if I was buying again would be to only get chain locks.

Think about whether you want a combination lock or one with keys. If you lose your key you're a bit stuck. You can register your lock with the big brands so that they send you a replacement if you lost it, but it's clearly a bit of hassle. However my chain locks both need keys so I have had to just get used to bringing it along with me.

Make sure you are locking up an enclosed part of the frame. So don't choose to lock up you bike with the seat post for example. You can remove a seat post very easily, and so that's an open ticket to a bike thief. You can choose the top cross bar of the bike, or the triangular part of the frame that holds the back wheels (there must be a technical term for this but I don't know it!).

Don't use a thin cable lock. They are so easily cut into, you may as well leave the bike unlocked. Well maybe not, but it's not too far off doing that. When setting a budget for buying a bike, include in that an allowance for a decent lock. I heard Dublin Cycling Campaign say you should spend about 10% of the value of your bike on the lock. Which sounds like sensible advice as there really is no point spending a hundred quid or more on a bike and then locking it up with a flimsy lock.

If you have quick release wheels, then try to take the front wheel with you. It's so easy to remove so it's easy to steal, and has value in itself even if a thief can't take your whole bike. If the front wheel is missing the bike as a whole is less attractive to a bike thief as they are looking for a quick sell.

This last pic is me on a shopping trip to the supermarket, with my front wheel in the trolley. Which makes for some interesting conversations as you walk around, which is all good as it gets people talking about cycling!

If you are locking up more than one bike and there is only one space on the bike racks, you can try to lock one of your bikes to the rack and the other bike to your bike.

Use two locks if you can, for added security. Even better is if these two locks are two different types. Thieves then needs to have two different tools with them to cut into your bike, which they are less likely to have. An example of this is in the pic below, and also the video above.

Sadly bike theft is on the rise and their methods are getting more sophisticated, for example with the use of sprays to weaken locks before cutting into them. The key to locking up your bike, if you can pardon the pun, is to provide a deterrent to the would-be thief. You won't be able to stop them just with your lock, as nothing is unbreakable. But you can lock your bike in such a way that the moveable parts such as wheels are harder to get to, and so that stealing your bike seems like too much hassle for the chancer passing by wanting a quick buck.

Lock your bike in a place that is well lit, visible and busy, and ideally with CCTV. Choose a large bike rack if possible rather than the smaller ones that only allow you to lock a wheel into them. Or you can choose something that is a immovable such as a lamppost or railings, if you have permission to do so with the latter. I don't like the Plant Lock racks that have sprung up in some places, as the guy from the cycling department in the council warned me that these deteriorate over time, so much so that the U frame that you lock your bike onto can can be easily pulled out in older ones. I saw one recently and tried this- I was genuinely shocked at how easily I could just lift the U frame out. If I can go back I will get a picture of it and update this post!

If you are unfortunate enough to have your bike stolen, try looking in Bikeshd, they bring together all bikes for sale second hand online in one place.

And you can always try putting out a message to the bike thief, you may just scare them enough to return it, as this lady did!

You can also register your bike with the national Bike Register (I haven't got round to doing this yet but have been told it's an easy process).

You should keep a record of your bike frame number (found on the bottom of the bike frame, near the seat post), make, model and colour. Keep a photo of yourself with your bike. This will allow you to prove the bike belongs to you should it be stolen and then recovered.

[cycleandjam-blog]

Berries and bikes ride

Having started a blog on my dual hobbies of cycling and jam, I suppose I was the natural choice of Ride Leader for this year's Berries and Bikes ride with Hornbeam JoyRiders. The inaugural Berries and Bikes ride last year was a massive hit with our riders so we knew it would be popular. That ride was a two day event, with the ride on a Sunday followed by a cooking session in the Hornbeam kitchen in Walthamstow on Monday, where people made elderberry syrup and blackberry jam.

This year we sadly couldn't get the wonderfully talented Kim from the Hornbeam in to do the kitchen session. Nevertheless it was a near certainty that a morning of berry picking by bike would still draw in the crowds. As it happened, the tickets all went within about an hour!

Leading up to the ride there were a few, what shall we call them, hiccups? Yes, hiccups. Lots of emails back and forth to sort out the right number of kids bikes in Jubilee Park after the council informed me that they were moving most of the bikes that I needed for a summer cycling course. I had to transport a couple of extra bikes myself between locations a few days before, and my plan of taking them via a borrowed cargo bike was scuppered (that's another story!) so i ended up wheeling two kids bikes, one in each hand, a couple of kilometres to Jubilee Park.

Light rain was forecast for the day, which would mean a wet ride as well as wet berries. On the day itself, I arrived at Jubilee Park and it was still dry. There was still hope that the weather would hold out- and, apart from a little drizzle at the end, it did.

We allocated bikes to everyone- there were enough bikes, yay!- and set off. We headed to the Waterworks Centre to the first spot for berries. They looked great.

Everyone had fun picking the blackberries, and of course tasting some along the way :) There were also loads of elderberries, (I haven't got any pics of those). We stopped for a while, then moved on to another spot further down the Waterworks Centre, and picked some more. It was a nice spot to settle down for a few snacks that people had brought along as well. It was so beautiful and you wouldn't really believe you were still in East London!!

We finished off with a longer ride going round the rest of the Waterworks Centre and then onto Leyton Marshes passing by the riding school. On the way back we had a minor fall and a puncture to deal with. Everyone rallied round to help, and we got both riders back on their bikes as quickly as possible.

On my recce ride a few days before to check out good spots for berries, I picked a nice selection of blackberries and elderberries, and combined them with apples from my garden to make jam. The recipe is below.

Blackberry and apple jam

Ingredients

Blackberries

Apples

Sugar

Water

Method

Place a saucer in the freezer. Start sterilising your jars if needed.

Wash the blackberries and make sure there are no stalks or leaves etc. Weigh them, and then add to a heavy bottomed steel pan. Add some water and simmer on a low heat.

Weigh enough apples to give you the same weight of blackberries you have, once peeled and cored. So 1kg blackberries would need 1kg apples, but use a couple extra to account for the loss in weight after prepping the apples. Peel and core your apples, then chop.

Optional: Once the blackberries have softened, remove half from the pan and pass through a sieve to remove seeds, then put the blackberries back in the pan. This is optional, you can leave the seeds in, or you can remove all the seeds, depending on your preference.

Add the apples and simmer until softened. You may need to add more water. You can use a potato masher to help mash down the fruits.

Once softened, add the sugar. You should technically add the same total weight of fruits as sugar. So if you had 1kg total fruit, you'd add 1kg sugar. However I always try to add about 75% weight to lower the sugars slightly. You don't want to go below this though if you want a long lasting preserve. Let the sugar dissolve then increase heat to rolling boil (this is when the jam is boiling over on a really rapid boil).

Test for the set after about five minutes. There are several methods to do this, the freezer plate method is easiest I find. Put a drop of jam on your frozen plate and wait a minute. Then push it forward with your finger- if you get a crinkle, it's set. You can search online for pictures or videos of what this looks like. If not set, continue boiling a few minutes at a time and keep checking for set.

Once set, leave for about five minutes then remove the scum from the surface and put into your sterilized jars.

[cycleandjam-blog]

Essential jam making equipment

Here is a list of the things you need to start making jam. I have a list of the bare essentials, and a list of a few other things you could buy if you were making jam more regularly. 

The basics

These are all things you will most likely have at home.

A heavy based pan

You need a pan with a heavy, solid, base to ensure the jam heats up evenly. A large one such as a decent sized pasta pan, or a pressure cooker pan, should do the job. Larger ones are generally better because they help the evaporation process of some of the liquid in the fruit that is so important to letting the pectin get to work.

Tip- if you are using a pan that is used for other cooking, sometimes the pan can retain some strong smells. If you feel the pan smells of other food, just boil up a couple of cups of water with a cinnamon stick, some cloves or some cardamom pods, for about half an hour. Your house will smell amazing, but most importantly, so will your pan!

A wooden spoon

This is for stirring the jam. If you have one reserved for baking, use this rather than one used for curries or strong flavoured savory dishes.

A side plate

This is for testing the set of the jam. Any China or similar plate will do, just pop it in the freezer when you start your jamming session. NB other setting test methods are available, so this is not completely essential but it is in my opinion the easiest way.

A glass jar

This is for putting your lovely jam in. You can use plastic tubs but it won't last as long. If you want to keep the jam for any length of time you need a glass jar which you sterilize at the start of the jam making session. Reusing jars is totally fine, and in fact makes the planet happy 😊 Just check that the lids are really clean and if any doubt buy new lids from eBay or elsewhere.

Buying kit

Here's a few things you might want to buy to make jam if you want to, but are by no means essential.

A maslin pan

This is a heavy bottomed steel pan that is wider at the top than at the bottom. It makes evaporation quicker so your jam sets quicker. It also means you have a pan just reserved for jam making so no worries about any smells or cross contamination of allergens if giving or selling your jam.

A really long wooden spoon

This makes stirring the jam easier and avoids risk of splashes of hot jam hitting you when the jam is on a rolling boil.

A jam funnel

This is the red funnel in the pic. If you only bought one bit of extra kit I would say get this. It makes filling your jars with jam so much easier.

A jam thermometer

This sits on the side of your pan to check the temperature. If the temperature is 105°C (some people say a degree or so below is fine) then you should have a set. A jam thermometer should have this marked on it so it's different to other cooking thermometers. I don't really get on with my jam thermometer so I prefer to test with other methods, but I still use the thermometer to see that I am potting the jam whilst still really hot. Jam should be potted whilst still hot to avoid growth of bacteria, which grows most in the region of 8°-60°C. If you leave the jam for ten minutes or so to allow fruit pieces to disperse throughout the jam it is even more important to check the temperature when potting it up.

A fine mesh sieve

This is for getting rid of seeds in jams such as raspberry jam, if you prefer to. You cook the fruit then run through the sieve before continuing with your recipe. I've never done this before as I like seeds, but I bought this sieve so that I could try out making seedless jam, or just removing some of the seeds as you do get a lot of seeds if you leave the jam as is (with raspberry jam anyway, I haven't tried making other seeded jams).

[cycleandjam-blog]

Out with the old, in with the new

I had a busy day planned with two big appointments scheduled, and a few bits in between. I was cycling to the first, a dentist appointment I had needed for six weeks, and was running slightly early. Waiting at some temporary traffic lights on Temple Mills Lane, they turned green and I started to pedal. There was a loud chink. It didn’t sound good. A couple walking past let out a ‘ooh’ as if to say what I was thinking- that it didn’t sound good.

I got off the bike and got it to the side of the road. The rear derailleur had completely fallen off. It was not a pretty sight. 

After 5 minutes of trying to fix it, I gave up. 

I tried to walk it to the dentists instead but the derailleur was knocking against the spokes. Eventually it got stuck and the wheel wouldn’t turn anymore. I dragged the bike to the bike stands in the park (which was the opposite direction of where I needed to go), locked it up and then ran to the dentist. I had been set to be 7 or 8 minutes early but after all that had happened I got there 17 minutes late and they refused to see me. 

I realised the next day that they didn’t really understand what had happened. Nor did many others when I relayed the story. I took to explaining it like this. It’s like you are driving your car and your car breaks down and gets written off. Within 24 hours I had, with help, arranged my ‘courtesy car’, which was a borrowed bike. But I needed a new bike. So all in all it was pretty serious for someone who uses their bike a lot.

Some may be reading this thinking, couldn’t the derailleur be repaired? Well, yes it could, and we probably will. It has now fallen into the domain of ‘husband’s bike project’.. 

Husband’s bike project

The derailleur was kind of the last straw after a series of faults. I had had a love hate relationship with this bike. I had had many, many, good times. But the bike itself had on a fair number of occasions also given me a hard time. It was time for it to be put into retirement- or, possibly, semi retirement.

Now fortunately my husband had been looking up new bikes anyway as we had realised I needed to get a new one soon, so he wanted to get me one for our ten year wedding anniversary :) We had an appointment with Evans booked already and had ordered in a couple of models to look at. We just had no idea that necessity would strike sooner than we expected..

The service at Evans was really impressive. I should start this by saying that Evans have not sponsored this post in any way! I was just really happy with their service and I want to share that experience! 

I had to pay a £50 deposit to order a bike in, and this would be refundable or deducted from any bike purchase.  They built the bikes we had ordered ready for me to view. I sat on them in the shop and they adjusted the saddle height and checked the sizing. Then we were allowed to take the bikes for a test ride after some ID checks. They made an exception and allowed us to take both bikes out at the same time. This was great as I could really compare the two.

I rode both a couple of times. We were allowed to take them out for half an hour and go on local roads. It was really great to test the bikes out as I had a chance to get a feel for how they felt to ride. I could see how the gears felt and the brakes, and whether the frame size was a good match. I knew straight away I wanted the Specialised Sirrus . As soon as I sat on it it felt right, whereas the other Trek bike I was looking at just didn’t feel as right. I would always recommend someone to try out a bike if you can before buying now, as they just felt so different. This is more difficult with online shopping, but buying a bike is a big investment you want to get right.

With Evans, they offer a post-six weeks free service and also a Right Bike guarantee. If you don’t like the bike you’ve bought, after 30 days you can swap it. You can’t get a refund, but at least it’s peace of mind that you’re not stuck with a bike you don’t like. After a week of riding this bike, my left arm is really, really, hurting. I’ve been reading up on the possible causes and am going to make some adjustments to the handlebar to see if that helps. But it’s great to know that if I just don’t get on with this bike (which I’m hoping isn’t the case because apart from my left arm, I’m loving it) I can swap it for a different one.

To avoid it being too much of a change, my husband fitted some of the bits from my old bike on this one, such as my old saddle and the quick release seat post. And naturally, one of the first bits to go on was the trailer hitch.

I named the bike (whose model name is Sirrus) Sirius Purple. Naturally I’m hoping Sirius Purple will not, like my Silver bike and like my bike’s namesake, suffer a similar fate of early and untimely death... Last year I read all seven Harry Potter books for the first time in the space of six months. Once I knew I was getting a Sirrus, I couldn’t really call it anything else.. 

[cycleandjam-blog]

A guide to choosing a child bike trailer

This post is a guide through the kinds of things you might want to think about or look for when searching for the right bike trailer for you. I am not going to do a comparison of different trailers on the market- I don’t have enough experience of different brands to be able to do that! I own a Chariot double Trailer and a Weeride Classic single trailer. We used to have a Halfords trailer which we gave to a family member, and a Weehoo Igo Two which I sold on ebay. Despite having experience of these, there are so many other brands that I would not be able to begin to talk about which brand is best for you. If you want more information on specific brands after reading this post, you could start by looking at Two Wheeling Tots, an American website with lots of reviews of child bike kit. Naturally they don’t have everything that’s available on the market on there, but it’s a pretty good place to start.

Here we talk about the choice between a single/double trailer, whether price matters, and the types of features to look for in purchasing a bike trailer.

Single or double?

The first most obvious question is do you want to use it for one child or two. There is a bigger demand for double trailers out there, they allow you most obviously to carry two children, but can also be used if you have a lot of cargo or for touring.

Having bought a single trailer at the start of this year, though, I feel the need to sing their praises! They have a few benefits you might not think about at first:

·       You can get through tighter spaces with them while out and about, such as through bollards on cycle paths

·       When using the trailer as a stroller, should you choose to, you are more likely to be able to get the trailer through the front door or shop doors.

·       The trailer will take up less space when you store it.

·       Whilst commuting you take up less space on the road which on some busy roads can make you feel safer.

So whilst many would say get a double trailer to give you the option of carrying two children, depending on how you use it (or how many children you have!) there are good reasons why a single trailer is worth considering. A single trailer doesn’t necessarily limit you to carrying only one child as most trailers attach to your bike with a hitch on the wheel and so you should be able to also use a child bike seat for an additional younger child. Having done this a few times though I would say it can feel unbalanced if you are carrying older children (I tried it with a 6 year old in the trailer and a 3 year old in the bike seat and I didn’t feel totally comfortable).

I think after reading all this, most people will still want a double trailer to have the option of carrying two children. I would probably make the same choice and to be fair, we are not ready to give up our double trailer just yet. It is still useful for family rides rather than our daily commuting. But for my daily school run the single trailer fits the bill perfectly, for all the reasons above.

How much to spend, and does it really matter?

You’ll get what you pay for, but is it really worth paying more for a trailer when you can pick one up from Halfords or Aldi for around £100? If you will use the trailer a lot for long rides or even for touring then the higher end trailers are more robust and more comfortable with padded seating for example. Having said that if you don’t plan to use it that often, then the budget options will definitely be a more sensible choice.

It sounds obvious but do check ebay, gumtree and Facebook buy/sell groups. If you are not necessarily looking for a particular brand, there are usually a good selection of trailers available, and often in very good/hardly used condition. You could get more for your money this way. We picked up our Chariot double trailer (now known as Thule) for a third of the RRP on ebay. The Weeride single trailer I bought on ebay as a ‘second’ (it was a customer return but was basically new bar a few scratches) at a good discount.

Also bear in mind when setting your budget that you should be able to sell the trailer on once you’re done with it.

Features to look for

There are a few key features that you may wish to consider:

·       How much internal space is there? Is there enough leg room, enough room for two children to be comfy in a double trailer, and is there enough headroom as well- if you use helmets in the trailer you want to make sure there is enough room for them. A decent amount of internal space also means you can sometimes use it to carry cargo, as in the picture below where the trailer carried  picnic stuff for about 20 people on a Cycle Sisters ride! (Don’t worry there is no child hiding under all that stuff, my daughter was at preschool and the helmet was just there as I needed it for the pick up after!)

·       How much storage space does it have? Never underestimate how much space you will need for kids paraphernalia. Never. Ever.

·       Are there internal pockets? Useful for kids drinks, snacks, toys etc

·       How wide is the trailer? You may wish to measure your front door width and compare to the trailer widths so you can figure out if you need to fold the trailer before bringing it in the house/garden, or whether the kids can stay in until you fold it up inside (note that some manufacturers don’t list this information on their websites, but you could contact them directly, contact a retailer, or look up a seller on ebay selling a preloved one of the trailer you’re looking at and ask them to measure for you!)

·       Does the trailer come with a stroller kit or do you need to buy this separately? A stroller kit is extremely useful for once you have arrived at your destination. It’s basically an additional set of front wheels and a handlebar, which you use to switch the trailer into a stroller that can be wheeled around. Great for shopping, café stops, and sleeping children! Some trailers come with the stroller kit (eg Weeride, Aldi, Thule), others you have to purchase separately (eg Burley, Halfords).

·       Does the trailer have a jogging accessory (if you are into that!)? This is similar to a stroller kit but is usually a bigger wheel to enable jogging rather than plain walking.

·       How easily does the trailer fold up? You tube videos with reviews can help to figure this out before you buy.

·       Do you want to switch bikes that you attach the trailer to? For example you and your partner may both wish to use the trailer at different times. We lock up the trailer at preschool if one of us is doing drop off and the other picking up so an extra hitch is useful. If you want to do something like this, look at how much does a second hitch cost would cost. Shop around- we found a generic hitch on Amazon for our Weeride which was half the price of the Weeride one.

 Some of the information listed here is not available on manufacturers websites, but you can look online for reviews for different trailers- Amazon reviews and Youtube reviews are great as well as searching online for particular brands to see if any bloggers have reviews. There are other factors you may want to think about too, but these are the ones that were most important to me when searching for a trailer. Let us know if you found this useful, or how your search for a trailer went in the comments below!

[cycleandjam-blog]

...and Jam

This came up on my Facebook newsfeed this week:

This is the story of my first foray into jam making.

The story starts exactly seven years ago, with a mum of one and a breadmaker. Why a breadmaker? That’s a good question. The breadmaker introduced me to jam making; but that very question, ‘why a breadmaker?’, was something I came in time to ask myself as well.

The breadmaker was about five years old, it lived happily on the kitchen surface, happy that it wasn’t one of the many breadmakers long forgotten about and pushed to the back of cupboard never to see the light of day (there were, sadly, other appliances that had suffered that fate, but the breadmaker wasn’t one of them). 

The breadmaker was bought because a sister and a good friend both had one and their bread was amazing. So I got a basic one, and started making my own bread. The bread was nice but never quite the same yummy bread my sister and friend made (this was solved by getting a Panasonic breadmaker a few years later, the King of Breadmakers). One day whilst just looking over the different programmes on the breadmaker, I spotted one that said jam. Curious, I decided to give it a try.

I got all the ingredients and set to work. It was a small batch of raspberry and apple jam, so there wasn’t much prep needed. It was a strange sight seeing the fruit bubble away. I couldn’t help but wonder whether my bread pan would ever see the light of day again, with all that sugar being boiled to death inside of it. But there was no going back, so I had to go on. Sadly, I don’t have many pictures to show you how my journey went from some humble whole fruit in a plastic bag to lovely, thick unctuous jam in a glass jar. I guess I had no idea that years later I’d be writing a blog about it.

I had a plate in the freezer to test for a set. I now know there are a few different methods to test for a set, but back then I only knew of the plate test and I still use it. Once I was sure I had a set (or at least I thought I was sure, as I had never done it before to be really sure!), I filled the jars I had sterilised and waited for it to cool down. 

The final result, spread on my toast for breakfast, was really something special. Home made jam on home made toasted bread became a regular start to my day, something to take a few minutes out for and treat myself with before I launched myself into my hectic busy days running around after my young son. And both began from the same place, the breadmaker sitting on my kitchen surface.

The breadmaker also had a cake setting, which had always seemed strange. Here the breadmaker is basically just acting like an oven as you still need to mix everything before you put it in the breadmaker. So why not just use a normal oven I had always thought? I came to the realisation that the breadmaker with the jam setting was also a bit limiting, as you could only use a maximum of 600g of fruit. With jam on the hob you could use a kilo or even more of fruit. So I tried making jam on my cooker in a standard heavy based pan, putting my breadmaker to one side, at least when it came to jam making. 

As I was making more, I had a little spare to give away to family and a handful of friends. I soon discovered that people really liked my jam. They started to ask when I’d be making some more, or whether I’d made any recently. So I started to make extra to give as gifts. I didn’t make jam that often but I loved doing it when I did, and so it seemed did others, including the judging panel in a jam competition six years later. 

And that’s it really (for now at least). That’s the story of how this mum (now of three) started making jam.

[cycleandjam-blog]

Cycling in Islamic Dress: Insider Tricks Part 2

This post follows on from the previous one about cycling gear which covered choosing a hijab and how to wear it, and choosing a jilbab.

How to adjust your jilbab while wearing

Choose your clothing under your jilbab carefully

To stop your jilbab from getting stuck in the chain you have a few choices. All involve you lifting your jilbab up a bit in some way, so you need to make sure that whatever you are wearing underneath your jilbab is something you are happy for people to see. You might normally be able to get away with leopard print pyjamas under your jilbab, but if you want them kept a hidden secret don’t wear them under your jilbab when you’re going to ride a bike! Similarly, if you wear something more fitted under your jilbab but don’t want people seeing that for modesty, then opt for something looser when cycling. I have two pairs of loose trousers for cycling, one is bootcut and one is straight cut. They are loose enough to cover my legs when my jilbab is raised slightly, and I attach slap round cycle bands at my ankles to stop the trouser legs at the bottom getting caught in the chain (see pic below).

Slap round cycle bands

Keeping the jilbab away from the chain

You could simply wear a jilbab that is a few inches shorter than you normally would, which naturally lifts it up a bit.

If you wear a normal length jilbab you will need to pull it up slightly away from the chain. Some sisters, before they get on their bike, lift the jilbab up a few inches and tuck it in at their waist, either into their trousers under the jilbab, or they use a belt over their jilbab and then tuck the jilbab slightly into this at their waist. It produces a ‘tucked in shirt’ look and keeps the jilbab up away from the chain.

Alternatively you can mount your bike frame and then just before you sit down you can lift up the jilbab slightly and tuck it in under your bottom as you sit down. This is my personal preferred method as I can then wear a normal jilbab and when I am commuting I simply get off my bike without having to rearrange my clothing too much. However for social rides, longer rides, or if you don’t plan to cycle a huge amount the other methods listed here work really well.

Keeping the jilbab from flying up

You will also want to stop the jilbab from flying up too much, which can happen in the wind.

If you are riding at a gentle pace and are comfortable lifting one hand off the handlebar then often this can be dealt with by just quickly grabbing the jilbab that has flown up and shoving it back down! However this can sometimes be difficult, and there are a few different options that keep the jilbab in place to stop it flying up.

You could use safety pins, attaching the jilbab to your trousers underneath somewhere between the knees and mid calf.

You could also use cycle clips (the horseshoe shaped kind, not the slap round bands), which are designed for trousers but work well for this purpose as well. Experiment with finding the right place that works for you, but it will be somewhere around the mid calf.

Cycle clips

How I use cycle clips

Another idea is to sew toggle buttons onto your jilbab and your trousers and then attach them together. I haven’t tried this out yet and it involves spending a bit of time (but not much!) with a needle and thread! I have actually ordered the toggle buttons and plan to test this out soon.

At the moment the cycle clips are my favourite option, and they have the added advantage of being easy to remove when you need to (eg to go to the toilet during a café stop!), and can then be reattached super quick! Just be aware that you may need to readjust them while riding as occasionally they do come loose.

If you opt for a method to attach your jilbab to your trousers underneath, you need to do so in a way which doesn’t restrict your movement so you can move your legs apart enough to pedal. I attach my bike clips by putting my legs astride, like as if I was trying to do the splits but failing very badly (!!) It looks very unlady like but only momentarily! This gives me the maximum width of fabric between my legs to allow me to pedal. Once you have attached trousers/jilbab, make sure you feel safe to ride- it is worth experimenting with what works for you and feels comfortable.

What to do if your jilbab does get stuck in the chain

Hopefully if you follow the suggestions here you will not get stuck! I have been cycling for many years and very, very, rarely do I get my jilbab stuck. But that is not to say it will never happen..

If you do get your jilbab stuck, a quick pedal backwards can often get the fabric which has got caught back out again.

If this doesn’t work you may need to stop and give a bigger tug at the fabric.

Try to stop as soon as you can to sort it out, as if you pedal forwards the fabric can get even more stuck.

In the process of trying to release the stuck fabric you may end up with bike oil on your jilbab which will stain, and there may be a few tears, in both senses of the word- another reason why I suggest you don’t cycle in your favourite or most expensive jilbab! You may want to reserve a jilbab or two just for cycling. You can always pack a smarter jilbab in your bag for when you get to your end destination- I learnt the hard way to do this!

[cycleandjam-blog]

Cycling in Islamic dress: Insider Tricks, part 1

This article has tips for safer comfortable cycling in Islamic dress. However please remember that ultimately you are responsible for ensuring your own clothing choices are safe.

As a cyclist who wears a hijab (headscarf) and jilbab (full length dress) I am often asked about how exactly it is possible to ride a bike with the clothing I wear. To be fair as a Muslim woman I am quite used to answering questions about my clothing, so it’s no wonder then that as soon as I step onto a bike I would only get more questions…Here are just a few examples of the questions I get:

Some people are simply amazed that it is possible to ride a bike in a jilbab!

Some are very (very!) concerned about my clothing getting caught (we’ll come onto this in Part 2)

Sometimes I hear a ‘mashaAllah!’ or an ‘awesome!’ from people as I’m riding past!

Some people want to know how it’s done so that they as women in Islamic dress can give cycling a go themselves

Here I will unveil a few tips that have worked for me and others. I hope to show you that it is possible to combine a jilbab with cycling, as long as you make some sensible clothing choices and adapt how you wear your jilbab. To add to my own experience, I have consulted with the lovely ladies at Cycle Sisters, a mostly Muslim women cycling club in Walthamstow for whom I am also one of the Ride Leaders. This helped me expand my repertoire of ideas, and what follows is a list of the key things you need to think about. I have also listed plenty of ideas to address those issues so that you can pick and choose according to what works for you. 

Hopefully then you won’t end up like this guy. He does look like he’s enjoying the ride. But I’m not sure he has any idea what he’s doing.

Niqab

Whilst researching this article I didn’t get any feedback on how to cycle with a niqab, and I don’t wear niqab myself so I don’t have my own experience to draw upon. I think the basic concept of the hijab section below- to avoid it flying up and in your way- would apply. You could try safety pins or tucking it into your hijab underneath. I have no idea if these suggestions would work though, and I would love to hear from you if you have any tips specifically for cycling safely in niqab that I could share with others.

Fly away hijabs (headscarves)

The hijab is fairly simple to manage on a bike if you follow a few simple rules of thumb.

Choosing the right hijab and how to wear it safely

If you are wearing a helmet, choose a hijab that is thin enough to wear under a helmet whilst still covering you. Going to a shop to get a helmet properly fitted rather than buying online is the best way to ensure a comfortable and safe fit and can ensure you get a good fit over the kind of hijab you normally wear.

Tie up your hair under your hijab low rather than high so that you can put the helmet on (this also applies if you wear your headscarf in a turban style- again ensure you tie it low).

You need to make sure that the hijab doesn’t fly up behind you or in front of you. Something to hold it down will help.

In the winter this is much easier as most likely you will be wearing a coat, which would go over your hijab.

In the summer if you are not wearing a coat or jacket, a rucksack can do the same job.

If it is really hot I use a gym bag instead of a rucksack so basically a bag that is just small enough to serve its purpose to keep my hijab in place but won’t be too hot. You can also get sports rucksacks with a layer of breathable fabric on the back which is designed to avoid overheating.

If it is boiling, some well placed pins could be used to avoid any additional layers.

Jilbabs

There are a few factors to consider for wearing a jilbab while cycling. Here I will give tips on choosing the right jilbab (fabric, and shape), and in my next post I will talk about how to adjust the jilbab while wearing.

Choosing the right jilbab

You want a jilbab that is lightweight to avoid overheating and you want one that is non stretchy. A stretchy fabric can be very tricky to deal with if it gets stuck in the chain.

As you will be well aware as a jilbab wearer, you have an extra layer so you need to adjust your other layers to ensure you’re not too hot/too cold, and this is even more important when cycling. A nice thin cotton or polyester mix fabric should work well to make your jilbab breathable. You can pick up this kind of fabric from any good fabric shop. I did investigate technical sports fabrics from Pennine Outdoor, a UK online fabric store which sells materials for you to make your own technical clothing/equipment- but I found all the samples I requested to be similar to something I could pick up in the fabric shops and market stalls along Walthamstow High Street! So I would suggest heading to your local good fabric shop but if you don’t have one you could explore online fabric stores (which should all send you samples before you order fabric for free/a small fee).

Shape wise you want one that is not too fitted but not too loose. Too fitted and you won’t be able to move your legs and pedal comfortably, too loose or flowy and you run the risk of excess fabric getting stuck in the chain. It’s difficult to explain the best possible balance between the two, but to give you a rough idea, I’m a size 12 and my jilbab is 34.5 inches wide at the bottom. So long as you ensure the jilbab isn’t at either extreme of the spectrum, with a bit of trial and error you’ll find something you’re comfortable with and that works for you.

This is lovely but too loose for cycling!

If you have a jilbab that has slits or is a jacket style (like some traditional burqas) these can work as long as the slits or the opening are not too big, or again you can end up with too much fabric. I made one cycling jilbab with a slit in the middle both at the front and back. The slit was about a foot long and that worked well- if it was much bigger the jilbab fabric would gather at the sides and drape down and run the risk of getting stuck.

Finally, this is not the time to get out your best jilbab reserved for weddings or Eid etc! Depending on the type of cycling you do, it can be a messy business sometimes and you should be prepared for your clothing to possibly get a little muddy, with maybe even a little chain grease to boot.