Moments in Time

Down to a single storage box with suspension files, easy to store and move if need be. End result of a lot of document scanning (stored in Evernote) and a lot of shredding of other material.

Now easy to find manuals is they are needed and everything available in one place. All legal documents retained but digital copies also stored in Evernote should the worst happen.

Recommended, much better for one's state of mind than a load of clutter.

Here are a couple of examples of why I find the provision of local cycle tracks to be inconvenient and unattractive to use.

On the map below there are three marked points, A, B and C. The most direct route is a gently sloping road which has a good surface and this route runs from A to B. Section A to C is a potholed track which does not have a proper surface at all, section B to C is a very steep hill on a narrow lane.

Arriving by bike at either point B or point A the marked "cycle route" is shown to be along route B->C->A or A->C->B depending upon your direction of approach.

No doubt someone thinks this is "safer" - I think it's just directing cyclists along a far longer route, all of which is either very steep or completely unsurfaced and terribly potholed.

If I wish to use the cycle route between Hipsburn and Warkworth when cycling from Alnwick I will arrive at point A on this map. If I ride along the road from point A to point D I will almost certainly be abused by or hooted at by motorists who will normally yell something like "get off the ****ing road" or "use the ****ing cycle track".

The problem is that to join the cycle track I have to cycle from A to B, B to C and then C to D where it then follows the line of the A1068, there is no cycle track between A and D.

Am I being ungrateful in thinking that having to ride along three sides of a square, including going down a hill and then back up it, isn't a very attractive proposition?

This page will be used to provide readers with an ongoing review of the VOLT e-Bikes that my wife and I have taken delivery of. Initially I will produce an overview and first impressions and then over time and as the mileage increases I will look at specific areas of the e-Bikes and how they are fitting into and contributing to our daily lives. I plan to include in this review some short videos and of course photographs as appropriate.

After a great deal of research the bikes we decided to purchase were the VOLT™ Infinity and the Infinity LS, we took delivery of the bikes on 27th July 2017.

For ease of access the most recent entries will be added at the top of the review so to go back in time simply scroll down.

17th August 2017

About time I added another little update to this review, the VOLT™ Infinity e-Bike continues to roll along without problems and I've been giving some thought to batteries which might be of interest.

It is stated that the supplied battery is good for 1000 full charge cycles, a full charge cycle is charging from zero to 100% of capacity, NOT an individual charging event. If one charge cycle is 100% you could call that 100 "charge units" and that should mean the battery is good for 100,000 charge units. Based on my experience so far I am finding that 10% of the battery charge, or 10 charge units gets me 10 miles. I use a bit more charge if it's very hilly or windy so let's say as a worst case 10 miles takes a rider 20 charge units.

What would this mean in terms of theoretical battery life in total mileage? Well, 100,000 charge units at 2 charge units per mile should in theory allow the battery to power the bike for 50,000 miles. If one were to ride 20 miles a day every day you would cover 7,300 miles a year. At that level of use the battery would theoretically last almost seven years!

Now that's all very well in theory but based on this I reckon these batteries should be good for maybe 5 years which at a current replacement cost of £400 makes the battery "running" cost around £80 a year, the equivalent of maybe a tank of diesel. Pretty darned good.

Today I passed the 300 mile mark and covered 47.4 miles in what was pretty hilly terrain and also with panniers fitted. As you can see this took the battery level down to 40% remaining so I consumed 60% of the available capacity on this ride. Referring to the above this gave me an efficiency score of 1.26% of battery per mile ridden, well in line with my very conservative estimate of 2 units per mile.

With 40% of the battery remaining and at 1.24 charge units per mile this gave me a theoretical remaining range of 32 miles which would have given me an overall range in this terrain and with this setup of 47.4 + 32 = 79.4 miles, well above the suggested range.

Sensibly or not today I set my current speed record on this bike recording 39.9mph (64.2kph) on one of the descents, must have been the panniers!

Good to see that there are now plenty of notices out warning people of the impending arrival of the Tour of Britain cycling race to Northumberland. Depending on the weather I might venture out to see it pass through if I can decide upon a good vantage point, there are plenty to choose from!

VOLT™ Infinity e-Bike ready for the Tour of Britain

So all in all another good day out and the bike continues to perform well. I really must make arrangements to get the spring loaded chain tensioners fitted at some point though the factory fitted version seems to be working fine at the moment, always best to keep things up to date.

One thing I haven't mentioned is a small point in terms of security. I think if you are leaving one of these bikes parked at all it's worth sliding off the Shimano Steps cycling computer and taking it with you. If this isn't fitted I understand that the assistance side of the bike doesn't work properly so that would certainly slow someone's escape if nothing else!

Happy Days!

To see a few photos from today's outing follow this link.

To see a gallery of photos relating to our VOLT™ e-Bikes follow this link.

Odometer Reading: 300 miles.

10th August 2017

Finally a decent day for Lorena and I to set out on the VOLT™ e-Bikes again, this summer here in Northumberland really has been pretty terrible for the most part. Just planning a 25-30 mile roll around the lanes and taking in one of our usual coffee and cake stops. Annoyingly I forgot to pack a couple of carrots for a donkey I've become friendly with so he or she will have to wait until my next visit.

As I've mentioned before a pair of these bikes are just ideal if two riders have different levels of fitness and I'm finding that if I ride along and just stay below 16mph I know that the assistance on Lorena's bike will always be available and we stay together very nicely. As is often now the case when we stop anywhere people are interested in and want to chat about the bikes, there does seem to be a very real surge in interest in bikes like these, it's a shame though that the general infrastructure is so poor for cyclists in general.

It really was one of those very unusual perfect Summer's days today and riding along on the VOLT™ Infinity was just a pleasure, I was almost tempted to set off into the field below but decided to resist it and stick to the road though I'm sure the bike would have been fine. I suppose if I now have any concerns about this bike at all it's going to be around how I am going to take to riding a bike without assistance, this is just such a pleasant way to get around.

Before we knew it we had arrived at Craster Harbour on the North East coast which is a lovely spot. The main car park is a little way from the harbour but no such problems for us as we are able to ride straight up to the harbour, and of course also avoid the usual robbery generally known as "parking charges". Indeed, this is one of the hidden and less often mentioned benefits of e-Biking or cycling in general as some parking charges are amazing these days.

Craster Memorial Harbour - Constructed In Memory Of: Capt John Charles Pulleine Craster

After our break in the sun we continued, passing through Embleton, the garden at the Dunstanburgh Castle Hotel look very inviting but sadly time was short so we pressed on towards home.

Once again our VOLT™ e-Bikes performed well and we have no complaints, knowing what we know today we would have no hesitation in buying the bikes again or recommending them to others.

Arrived home with just over 26 miles on the clock and we had been riding for exactly two hours, perfect.

To see a few photos from today's outing follow this link.

To see a gallery of photos relating to our VOLT™ e-Bikes follow this link.

Odometer Reading: 190 miles.

7th August 2017

Both the Infinity and the Infinity LS VOLT™ e-Bikes were out on the road today. Lorena and I took a nice little circular route via the coast taking in coffee and cakes at Eleanor's Byre. Always nice to drop in there and as always there was time for a chat with the folks there, a very pleasant way to pass 30-40 minutes before heading on our way, lots of lovely trinkets on sale.

The bikes continue to perform well, we covered about 18-19 miles today and this is the first time Lorena and I have ever really been able to ride together on solo bikes rather than our tandem, they really are a great way for two riders who have different levels of strength and fitness to ride together which opens up a lot of opportunities.

As I've mentioned before I would have no hesitation in putting panniers on both these bikes and going for a short tour stopping overnight at B&Bs. It would be easy to carry enough clothing and a single charger for such a trip but I think camping would be too much as fitting front panniers to a suspension front fork would I reckon be a non-starter. I've not investigated the possibility of fitting a bar bag to the front and if this were possible I think that would be a really good addition, I might look into that.

Something I want to mention in today's note is the charging process. I have noticed that the charger gets quite warm to the touch when the charge has been on for a while, this surprised me a bit as the charging current is really very low. I decided to quantify this so that I would be able to establish whether this is normal so I checked the temperature of the casing with an accurate IR surface thermometer.

So there you have it, the casing surface temperature near the power light was 54.3 degrees centigrade, I will make enquiries about this as of all the devices I regularly charge this is the warmest and I want to establish whether this is normal, watch this space.

Excellent, I received the following reply from VOLT BIKES via Facebook which confirms that all is well on the charging temperature. Here is the reply: "Hi Quentin, your current reading is safe and normal. The temperature while charging can range from 40-70 °C. Best practice is to place the charger a hard, cool surface like a stone floor for example."

To see a few photos from today's outing follow this link.

Odometer Reading: 164 miles.

6th August 2017

The weather and other things have conspired against me for the last few days but in spite of threatening skies I decided to head for the lanes again today and the VOLT™ e-Bike continues to perform well. Headed out to the small coastal village of Craster (of kipper fame) then to Embleton, Newton-by-the-Sea and on to Bamburgh which was where the bad weather approaching above hit me and I had to take refuge in a bus shelter.

Still occasionally I am finding that the Shimano Alfine Hub Gear does not always engage perfectly which is a bit annoying as it is unpredictable. I decided at about the half way point to try the electronic "Adjust" option on the control menu and tried it on both a +1 and later a -1 setting but neither change seemed to make any difference as far as I could tell. This isn't a massive problem but it's just not quite "right" so I'm going to keep it under observation for a spell. I think say 500 miles should be enough to decide whether it's going to settle in as it starts to wear a little or whether it's worth having it investigated whilst under warranty.

Newton-by-the-Sea - Coffee Stop

As you can see I've now fitted the Shimano clipless pedals which are miles better than the pedals supplied with the bike. I was particularly glad of them when it started to rain as my feet feel much more safe and secure now that I'm not in danger of my feet slipping off the pedals in the wet. Of course you have to be used to clipping in and out of the pedals to use these but that's soon picked up and I feel that these are a whole lot safer.

By the time I was back home I'd covered another 43 miles at an average speed of around 15mph which I'm perfectly happy with. It would be dead easy to use this bike for a short tour lightly loaded and to cover 50-70 miles a day without having to worry about running out of power, today's ride took me around 2hrs and 50 minutes.

The battery was not fully charged when I set off and by the time I returned home the charge level was down at 48% so still enough charge for probably another 40 miles without worrying about running the battery flat. Once on charge the battery was full again in a little over two hours. The meter I use told me that the energy put into the battery to return it to 100% was 0.24 kW-hr which would have cost the princely sum of around three pence. I'm just amazed by how low the recharge costs are, it's almost like using free energy!

I guess if the battery was recharged from almost empty up to 100% that would take about 0.5 kW-hr of energy which would cost about 6 pence. If you take at face value that the battery is good for 1000 full charges that would mean that over it's lifetime the TOTAL charging cost would be £60, now that's impressive.

Out of interest I just popped the battery specifications into an online calculator to check the storage capacity against my charging figures, here is the result.

Looks like my estimate based on the readings I've been getting when charging is pretty close. So a full charge of 0.432 kW-hr would cost about 5.1 PENCE!

To see a few photos from today's outing follow this link.

Odometer Reading: 145 miles.

4th August 2017

My trusty steed is still performing well. As you can see the VOLT™ e-Bike is just as home on the supermarket run as out on the open roads and cycle tracks. The load limit on the rear rack is 20kg which is plenty and riding home with the shopping you don't even notice the added weight. The additional high security chain which can be integrally locked to the ABUS frame lock is ideal for these quick park-ups outside a shop.

It still surprises me a bit that the sophisticated electronics of this bike don't allow you to immobilise the bike by making it impossible to turn on. The fact is that even without a key the bike can simply be turned on and powered up by pressing the On/Off button, surely an additional security opportunity missed?

31 July 2017

Forecast not too bad today but always the risk of showers and again very windy. Had to get to a destination 20+ miles away so decided to take some more exercise and make use of the VOLT™ Infinity e-Bike. One of the major advantages of the e-Bike technology is that because it allows you to ride with slightly less effort (if you choose to) your range for day-to-day journeys is much greater as long as you have the time and like being out in the fresh air. The major advantage is that you have the capacity to carry stuff around to your destination which opens up many more possibilities. I decided to take the scenic route to my destination so today's trip finally came to just under fifty miles, the scenery in some parts was great.

Heading Towards Alnmouth

Because of the location of the battery for jaunts like this I've attached a one litre Sigg water bottle to the top of the rear rack. The bottle is enclosed in a neoprene cover, I use it for camping, which means that the luggage strap holds it perfectly well though the main advantage of the cover is that it keeps drinks cool for ages, anyway it seems to work well enough for this purpose, here is a better view taken later.

1 Litre Sigg Bottle in Neoprene Cover

As many folks will be aware the cycling infrastructure, if it can be called that, in the UK is absolutely rubbish. As I approached Alnmouth a signpost directed me down a track I would not normally have used as it really was pretty grim. However, as I'm trying the VOLT™ Infinity out as a robust bike I decided to follow the track and see where it took me, as you can see the surface is just terrible, and yes, this is marked as an official cycle route.

I'm pleased to report that the front SunTour suspension fork coped perfectly well with this surface and the suspension seat post did a good job of smoothing things out a bit without feeling bouncy. Of course this was never going to be a smooth ride but the main thing was that the bike coped with it easily, with panniers mounted though not fully loaded.

When I arrived at my destination I had covered 26.9 miles and the battery was showing that there was 78% of it's capacity remaining which I thought was good. I've found that for me at least, with the assist setting on the ECO setting and in 5th gear, I'm rolling along at around 15mph and at that speed there is still a little assistance from the motor but very little if any is required on the flat. I've noticed that the motor cuts off at 16mph so slightly above the 15.5mph I was expecting but this must be within spec and it works very well.

Based on my observations so far it seems to me that as a rule of thumb I am using about 10% of the battery capacity for every 10 miles that I cover. Based on this, as I'm currently using the bike, I am confident that the battery would be sufficient to last 80-100 miles which really is very good, better than I had expected.

At my destination I completed the jobs I'd travelled there for and set off home later in the afternoon. By the time I got home again I had covered 48.1 miles. To test the accuracy of the odometer I also carried a Garmin GPS device which I know to be accurate from previous tests. When I arrived at my destination the Garmin had recorded 47.2 miles so a difference of just under a mile over 50 miles. For the purposes I want this bike for that is accurate enough, it must be possible for this to be properly calibrated but as far as I am aware this is not something the end user can do.

In any event the distance recorded will vary with different tyres, tyre pressures, rider weight, luggage load etc. so it's not really worth worrying about, it's a guide. At the end of this 48.1 miles of riding the battery meter was showing a healthy 58% in reserve lending more weight to my theory that I could get up to 100 miles on a single charge, here is the evidence.

This evening I plugged the battery into the charger and it was fully charged after 1.5hrs, 0.2kW-hr of energy was put into the battery. As previously, making the calculation based on 1kW-hr costing around 12p, that means that it cost me about 2.4p to recharge the battery, that was the electricity cost of my electrical helping hand for almost 50 miles of riding. Now I could have ridden the same distance on a road bike and not spent my 2.4p but the point is that I arrived home not having beaten myself into the ground and having been able to haul the stuff I needed for this trip with me as well as work hard at my destination. For me at least, even as a relatively keen cyclist, the e-Bike has it's place and frankly I'm staggered just how low the energy cost is.

In the latter part of my return journey there were a couple of occasions where following a gear shift the selected gear did not seem to have perfectly engaged but reshifting corrected this straight away. I suspect this may well be an initial "running in" adjustment that may be required but I will keep an eye on it and see how it progresses, I am confident that this is not a serious fault.

Well, it looks as if the next time I'm out I will complete my first 100 miles, I'm impressed so far. It's worth mentioning that riding an e-Bike if you are already a fit cyclist you will not get less fit, you will stay fit. The e-Bike allows to to work as hard as you want and helps you accordingly based on how hard you work and how much help you "tell" it you want. I think the e-Bike is an excellent way of cycling at a slightly lower intensity than one might be tempted to do otherwise whilst still being able to cart stuff around with you and enjoy all the health benefits of cycling.

I can already easily see why this e-Bike would actually make me use a bike for many journeys that I would otherwise have used the car for, you just have to adjust your thinking in terms of longer journey times but for journeys below say 10 miles using one of these bikes is a no-brainer, you can completely ignore the charging costs. To put those costs into perspective the 2.4p energy cost of my 48.1 mile bike ride is about the cost of boiling 2 litres of water in a kettle.

II think there are probably many families where getting rid of a second car and getting one of these VOLT™ e-Bikes instead would make extremely good financial and health sense.

To see a few photos from today's outing follow this link.

Odometer Reading: 98 miles.

29 July 2017

Out around the local lanes again this afternoon heading towards Bamburgh and the coast. Once again I enjoyed riding this bike as it does feel very robust and even though the tyres are large heavy affairs when compared with the 23-25mm road bike tyres I am used to they do perform well on the very poor roads and roll surprisingly well on a decent flat road surface.

Looking towards the Northumberland Coast

It's worth me mentioning that I'm used to riding road bikes fairly quickly and my average speeds on the e-Bike are slower than I am used to and this is something that regular cyclists may find hard to fathom. This is because my average ride speed on a road bike is always well above the 15.5mph maximum limit that e-Bikes are limited to in terms of when the motor assistance cuts out and above that speed it's all human power that keep you rolling. This means that on the e-Bike when I reach my "normal" riding speed of >15.5mph I am now riding an unassisted bike weighing 20kg plus luggage which is not built for speed but for enjoyment, hence my lower average speeds.

This is not a problem because for me because this e-Bike is primarily for convenience, comfort and enjoyment and I also wanted the ability to carry luggage comfortably on day rides from our motorhome, without having to work excessively hard whilst purely sightseeing. On a road bike you are generally limited to what you can push into your pockets, with this bike I can pack whatever I want, extra food, drinks, spare clothes, small stove, shopping, camera equipment, telephone, even a laptop if I wanted to - without being concerned about having to flog myself on the hills if I don't want to, help is only ever a button push away.

A word about the luggage I'm using:

These are Ortlieb panniers which clip perfectly onto the fitted rack and are very easy to remove, we normally use them on the front of our tandem. They are therefore smaller than the usual rear pannier but I find them perfect on this bike for what I want to use them for, they are the Ortlieb Front-rollers and they are 100% waterproof, they work perfectly with this bike and I've been using them for local shopping trips.

I found the fitted pedals very slippery in the wet and I am going to change then for a single sided clipless pedal by Shimano so that I can clip in if I want to but also use a flat pedal if I want to, say when in a town where there is lots of stopping and starting. The pedals I am going to fit are the Shimano A530 with SM-SH51 MTB cleats and I ride in a pair of Shimano MT3 touring shoes which allow me to clip in to the pedals but also I can walk around easily in them, the shoes are also incredibly light. For the summer I may at some point invest in a pair of Shimano SD5 sandals which would be great for warm weather but they also allow you to ride clipped in to the pedals.

No problems at all today with the bike, it was very windy and I have to confess that it's lovely to have that helping hand when you just want to take things that little bit easier, when I get back on my road bike I'm going to miss that gentle push! The motor when running makes a smooth whirring noise which I don't find at all intrusive.

So how is the battery power going so far and what kind of range will I get? In a word, great! I have now covered 50 miles since the battery was charged and I'm finding that my habit is to ride when on the flat without any assistance as the bike rolls well and I just don't need it. When into a headwind or a slight uphill you do really feel the 20kg weight of the bike and I then switch into ECO mode and I find that is generally perfectly adequate for the speeds I want to travel at. If I hit a steep section of road I have used NORMAL to avoid having the motor straining and it's excellent, I have never used the HIGH setting at all.

As you can see below riding as I do, with panniers and with a rider weight of around 80kg, I have now covered 50 miles and there is still 44% of the charge remaining in the battery. Based on this I am confident that I could cover well over 70 miles on a single charge and on flat roads with little wind I think I could get up to between 80 and 100 miles. As per the manual I wish to avoid running the battery right down if I don't need to so this evening I put it on charge to see how long it took to return to a full charge after reaching this 44% level of discharge and after riding 50 miles.

Here is what I found when I recharged the battery. The battery capacity was at 44% when I started charging and the charging current showing on a plug-in meter I have was 0.75A. It took just under 2 hours (1hr 57 minutes) to return the charge to 100% and my meter indicated that 0.24 kWh of energy had been supplied to the battery. If we use a UK average figure of 12p per kWh of electricity that tells me that the approximate cost of my electrical helping hand for 50 miles of riding has been around 3p, I call that a pretty good deal. To only have to charge the battery for 2 hours after 50 miles of riding really is better than I had expected.

Anything I really don't like about this VOLT™ e-Bike yet? No. If I was a drinker I might even be tempted to pop in here to celebrate 😃

To see a few photos from today's outing follow this link.

Odometer Reading: 50 miles.

28 July 2017

Out around the lanes today, both the Infinity 2018 and the Infinity LS in use and this was the first time my wife had used her bike. The roads around here are pretty poor and in the early part of our ride we were caught in a heavy shower which caused us no problems at all.The large robust Schwalbe Marathon tyres were reassuring and made light work of the roads and the front suspension worked well.

We both found the bikes comfortable and everything worked exactly as we felt it should. The motors are smooth and powerful and electronic Di2 shifting coupled with the Shimano Alfine hub gear really is an excellent combination. As with any bike, and as per the manual it is far better to select the appropriate gear before starting an incline rather than shifting under heavy load and a lower gear also avoids the electric motor straining on a steep incline in a high gear. This is all common sense, is in the manual and is no different to what one should be doing when riding any geared bike, electric or otherwise.

There are a number of steep little segments on the route we took today and these bikes just made them a breeze. On the subject of breezes it was also windy with gusts of up to 20mph, again these bikes made short work of them, avoiding windy days when going out for a bike ride is a thing of the past.

We made our way to a nice little cafe near the coast called Eleanor’s Byre (cake and coffee of course) and chatted to a couple we met, all made for a very pleasant interlude. Here are the bikes parked outside, the integrated wheel locks provide peace of mind even when somewhere where theft would be very unlikely.

A most satisfactory first "proper" ride. First thing this morning I also went out to the local supermarket on my bike and put the shopping in the panniers I’d fitted, great way to avoid using the car, just no problem at all. Including the run to the shops and this ride out I covered around 25 miles and at the moment the battery stands at around 75%. This suggests that for me, using the assistance as I am, I would comfortably be able to cover 60-70 miles on a full charge. As a rider I’m reasonably fit but I weigh around 80kg so if these figures prove to be accurate I will be very happy with that kind of range for this e-Bike, it will suit our needs perfectly.

To see a few photos from today’s outing follow this link.

Odometer Reading: 25 miles.

27 July 2017

Successful trip down to CJ Performance Cycles Ltd to have the few minor issues I previously mentioned sorted out which took no time at all and after a short test ride I was soon on my way. The method we have chosen to use to transport our bikes is to use an Altera Strada tow-ball mounted e-Bike carrier which works really well.

The bikes are held very securely and the rack tilts to allow access to the back of the vehicle even with the bikes loaded. The reason I selected this carrier was because of it’s good load-carrying capacity and because of the extra space between the bikes which means that there is no contact between the bikes when both are loaded and no need to turn the bars. The rack can be removed and popped in the back of the vehicle in a few seconds for added security.

26 July 2017

Pouring with rain today so my bike won't be going anywhere on it's bike rack but will be going back to the shop tomorrow if the weather is Ok. On the positive side I've been contacted by Volt™ HQ this morning and I've found the after sales service and communication I've received so far to be excellent, I have no doubt that these initial niggles will be resolved quickly. I was advised by VOLT™ that once available a spring loaded chain tensioner for the Alfine hub would be fitted to replace the existing manually adjusted tensioner, they can't really say fairer than that. Wy wife's Volt™ LS seems to be working perfectly!

This afternoon I decided to take a close look at the frame locks that are fitted to these bicycles, on the face of it both bikes are fitted with ABUS frame locks, one might think they would be the same but this is not the case. The Infinity is fitted with the ABUS Pro Tectic 4960 lock and the Infinity LS is fitted with the ABUS Pro Shield 5850.

Checking the specifications of these locks they are similar but there are subtle differences. The most important difference is the security rating of the two locks, the 4960 has a security rating of 7 and the 5850 has a security rating of 9! So the more expensive Infinity model appears to have a frame lock fitted which has a lower security rating that the less expensive Infinity LS, as far as I can see both locks would fit either bike, price-wise the 4960 is, unsurprisingly, less expensive.

25 July 2017

Collected the e-Bikes today from CJ Performance Cycles Ltd and popped them onto the bike carrier bought for the purpose with no problems, the folks in the shop in Cramlington were very helpful and all went well on the journey home. Unloaded once home and spent quite a bit of time inspecting the bikes, reading through the manuals and generally familiarising myself with them. Everything seemed pretty straightforward and I will go into things in more detail in future updates.

One thing that really did surprise me was a crucial, but unknown to me, difference between the Infinity and the Infinity LS. I knew that the LS was 8sp and the Infinity was 11sp and my understanding was that apart from that they were identical in terms of specification, same CPU, motor, hub etc. However, it transpires that the 8sp Infinity LS has an automatic shifting option but the more expensive 11sp Infinity does not have this feature. Scrolling through the menus on the Infinity the option to adjust the automatic shifting is present but evidently disabled in the 11sp version as once this option is selected nothing can actually be changed. In the manual it mentions that auto shifting is available in the 8sp version but buyer beware, not on the 11sp.

Time to take the bike for a road test and sadly this was disappointing. My first impression is that this will be a nice bike to ride but as soon as I started to push some power onto the pedals it became apparent that there was something rubbing towards the rear end. I did not notice this when I span the wheels in the shop but since then I have inflated the tyres to my preferred pressure which is higher than the pressure they were supplied at. I knew that various electrics were routed within the rear mudguard so decided that I should stop and investigate rather than risk any damage, I was homeward bound, after less than 5 minutes.

Close inspection revealed that the rear tyre is making contact with a cable clip installed inside the rear mudguard, I think the cable supplies the rear light. You can see the round clip securing mount on the left and inside just see the 2 metal bits of the clip itself which hold the cable. My initial impression is that the general mudguard clearance at this point is very small and that the clip/cable reduces it to virtually zero, as it stands at the moment it is zero, hence the rubbing.

I'm not sure whether this is going to be a simple adjustment, I suspect not, as it looks to me as if the tyre size is too large for the available clearance, once clips and wiring are added and I could imagine this very small tolerance being a real problem when riding on wet and dirty roads where you tend to pick up leaves etc, it's hard to see how things would remain clear for long. The tyres are Schwalbe Marathon GreenGuard 700x38C "e-Bike Ready". These tyres are available in the following sizes to my knowledge, 700x38c, 700x35c, 700x32c, 700x28c, 700x25c so the tyre fitted to this bike is the widest in the range. My gut feeling is that a narrower tyre would resolve this problem and provide a much better working clearance, as far as I know all the available sizes are specified as "e-Bike Ready" for up to 50kph e-Bikes.

Riding the bike I also noticed that the front mudguard is sitting at an odd angle and is pointing off to one side, a small matter but a detail which is not as it should be. To test the lights I took the bike out in the dark later in the evening, another small irritation discovered. The front lamp was not correctly aligned so I gently angled it little further downwards, no big deal I didn't think. All seemed fine until I applied the front brake. the front suspension fork compressed slightly as expected but what was not expected was that as a result the front light ended up pointing skywards, ideal for aircraft, not so good for being seen by cars. Tried realigning it but the same immediately happened again.

I'm afraid it's back to the shop, it's a shame it's so far away, hopefully just minor teething troubles. I guess I will know more when I get out for a decent length ride.

Today’s plan was to visit the National railway Museum in York, visited it many many years ago and have been meaning to make another visit for a good while. Up and about in good time and then our host Ron again very kindly dropped us off at the Grimston Bar Park & Ride which worked out really well. Didn’t realise until we got there that there are designated spaces for motorhomes to park in (free), according to Ron York is the best place in the country in terms of provision for motorhome drivers!

The service into York runs every ten minutes which is great, two return tickets came to £5.80p and given the potential hassle that this avoided this seems to me to be a great option, certainly the service was well used. just goes to show that if public transport is reasonably priced and reliable people will use it.

Soon arrived in York (Piccadilly) and was immediately surprised by the degree of pedestrianisation there now is in comparison with when I was last here. Makes for a very pleasant experience and the place was really busy, there looked to be some sort of university graduation ceremonies going on, nice atmosphere all round.

About a 15 minute walk to the National Railway Museum and we were soon in amongst the exhibits. Sent a very enjoyable 3 hours in there taking photos and generally enjoying the experience, it has definitely improved a lot since my last visit and it was well worth returning.

What were our highlights? Both really enjoyed the world record breaking steam engine "Mallard" which was just big, blue and very beautiful, a real slice of history there. We enjoyed the exhibit covering "Hospital Trains" which really brought home the horrors of war, we had no real idea of the tremendous role that the railways played during both wars. Great to see Stephenson’s Rocket (albeit a replica of the original) which was the true start of the railway. The engineering skill that went into designing and building all these trains is simply staggering, also fascinating to see the Royal Carriages and to compare what at the time was absolute luxury with the present day, in many ways we now live as well as the royals did.

Online photo album of our visit to The National Railway Museum available here.

Rounded off a nice day by walking down to York Minster (£10 to go in so didn’t bother, £20 seems a bit steep to get into a place of worship) and down The Shambles then back onto the Park & Ride bus. Collected by our pal Ron and we were soon back at the One Hundred Oaks campsite for tea by the lake and a relaxing time before heading back up north tomorrow. Been lucky with the weather as it’s been good again today, in the end you just have to go with it and take your chances and this time we won hands down on the weather front.

Sitting around the lake peering through the binoculars we saw again the small flock of visiting greylag geese, the oystercatcher and our friend the brown hare going about his business. Nice way to spend time this, never switched the TV on at all and haven’t missed it one little bit.

The Exide Gel leisure batteries I installed in the motorhome before we came away seem to be doing their job nicely with no more of the problems I had with the old batteries that I inherited from the previous owner which were swollen and knackered. All in all we have been very pleased with this vehicle and we hope it will serve us well for a good number of years.

Lovely morning to wake up to the view of the small lake, ideal weather for our visit to the Allied Air Forces Memorial & Yorkshire Air Museum. Ron, our host, had kindly agreed to drop us off at the museum which is just a couple of miles away from the Hundred Oaks Caravan Site in Elvington. He was ready bang on time and we were soon on our way in his Range Rover, how lucky we are! Ron’s a really nice bloke, very friendly, has obviously worked very hard all his life and is now reaping his well deserved rewards.

The air museum was excellent, lovely atmosphere and you could really get a feel for what it was like in these places during WW2 when Elvington was a very active heavy bomber base. The main reason I had wanted to visit this place was because I knew from previous research that it housed one of only two Handley Page Halifax heavy bombers, the other one being in Canada I believe.

My stepfather, Eric Dunton, had been in the RAF during WW2 and had been a rear gunner (Tail End Charlie) in a Halifax, quite how he survived I cannot really imagine. At that time the average life expectancy for a rear gunner was two weeks but somehow he did survive many missions over enemy territory, a miracle really.

Unfortunately as luck would have it the Air Gunner section of the museum was closed for renovations but several other exhibits showed me the things I really wanted to see. I was frankly shocked and quite emotional when I saw for real a rear gun turret from a heavy bomber. The conditions, the exposure and the sheer terror these men must have experienced really shook me. They were alone in the turret, surrounded really by just a glass bubble in freezing temperatures with four machine guns for company which were fed ammunition by belts further forward in the tail. I honestly cannot imagine how these men managed to do what they did, truly humbling.

The Halifax Heavy Bomber was everything I had hoped it would be. It was staggering to learn that on the production lines where they were built at the peak of production there was one plane PER HOUR coming off the production line, such was the attrition rate of planes and air crew. This rate of loss really puts modern day warfare into perspective, again I was shocked.

There were many fascinating aspects to the exhibits, we particularly enjoyed the control tower and seeing the living conditions of the air crew. It’s extraordinary to realise that these men might be being shot at and killed over enemy territory at one moment and then several hours later, if they had been lucky, they might be back in an English village in the village pub, mentally how do you live like that?

A really unexpected bonus towards the end of our visit was a wooden contraption in a corner of one of the huts, I thought I knew what it was and I was right. It was the original wooden "catapult" that Barnes Wallace had used for his tests with ball bearings in a water tank when he was inventing and designing the "bouncing bomb" used during the famous WW2 Dambusters raid. Just brilliant to see an artefact like that survive with all the history that it essentially created.

This place really has been well worth the visit, it was excellent. Ron picked us up and we were soon back at the site for a leisurely late afternoon and evening. Nice walk up into the village of Newton Upon Derwent. Made a few new discoveries about the motorhome, a couple of features I didn’t even know existed but all good!

Back in January we bought a very nice and very expensive kettle which we were delighted with. We bought the item from Lakeland where we often shop because they offer such excellent customer service.

Sadly the kettle developed a fault recently so we decided to return it and obtain a replacement under the Lakeland "no quibble" guarantee.

Today we took the item into the store where we were immediately offered a replacement or a refund, as we had expected. What we had not expected was to be told that the item was now significantly cheaper and we were not only given a replacement kettle but the price difference was fully refunded, which was a significant sum.

Now THAT is service and that is exactly why we keep buying items from Lakeland when we can.

Did a little experiment just out of interest and I was quite surprised at the findings. I use CompuTrainers quite a lot when I’m training and for these units to be accurate the calibration procedure needs to be followed meticulously. This is not an onerous procedure and if done properly the power data from these units is very consistent and accurate. A while back I produced a short video detailing the correct calibration procedure to follow, see below:

The main reasons for this calibration being necessary are that the temperatures of the tyre and resistance unit increase as they are used and therefore a proper system warmup is required before use and prior to calibration. I decided to measure the tyre temperatures before warming up, after warming up and after a short ride at around 200W just to see how much things really did change, here are the results:

Tyre temperature before warmup: 19.2 degrees centigrade.

Tyre temperature after warmup: 32.2 degrees centigrade.

Tyre temperature after 30 minutes at around 200W: 34.5 degrees centigrade.

I was surprised just how much the temperature rose, I was also surprised how quickly it came back down again after the session, the tyre returned to around 20 degrees centigrade within 2-3 minutes.

The tyre Crr reduces by about 0.6% for every 1 degree centigrade rise in tyre temperature, it can be seen therefore that the tyre Crr will change by a very substantial figure with a temperature change of +15.5 degrees centigrade.

The moral of this story is that if you use one of these devices it is vital that the system is properly warmed up and that it is properly calibrated before each use, this will apply to any trainer where the trainer and it’s software are the power data sources, if there is a tyre-roller interface.

I guess taken to it’s logical extreme a rider wanting to have the fastest possible tyres should arrive at the start of a short TT as close to his or her start time as possible, with hot tyres, electric tyre warmers anyone? :-)

For months if not years now I have become increasingly horrified about the state of what used to be beautiful countryside as it slowly but surely becomes little more than a public rubbish dump. At one time to take a drive or bicycle ride in Northumberland was a real pleasure but now such trips are frequently spoiled or at least degraded by the almost constant presence of discarded litter.

This litter takes may forms but for the most part it is made up of plastic bottles, cans, glass bottles, fast food cartons, disposable coffee cups, cigarette packets and a surprisingly high number of empty tablet packages ranging from painkillers to anti-depressants. We can only wonder at what passes through the minds of those who toss this junk out of their vehicles rather than disposing of it properly, maybe they think it's clever, maybe they just don't think at all.

In order to give some sort of quantification to this litter sampling exercise I measured the length of the section of verge I collected the rubbish from, I did this using a wrist mounted GPS. I only collected litter from one side of the road because of time constraints and the distance was 0.23 miles, or pretty much exactly 400 yards. I took me just under four minutes to walk the length of the segment at my normal walking pace, this was NOT a long segment of road by any stretch of the imagination. Here is a link to a map which shows in red the exact stretch of road where this litter collection took place.

At the end of the collection period I had collected eight bags of rubbish, I was staggered, it was truly shocking. This means that with the road segment being 400 yards in length I was collecting TWO bags of rubbish from the verge per 100 metres! When I got home I took some short video clips of the bags and then emptied them out to properly illustrate the volume of rubbish that I had collected, the video is shown below.

Surely it cannot be right for us as a society to accept this sort of filth as "normal"? Surely if we are completely powerless to stop people depositing their rubbish in this way, which we seem to be, then at the very least something needs to be done to clear at least the worst of it up before the problem becomes simply too large to tackle, if it isn't already.

This whole experience left me very saddened as I realised that the problem was in fact far worse than I thought it was, I foolishly thought I might just need one bag to pick the area clean, there was just so much more there that I thought there was. It seems to me that it is only a matter of time before our once lovely countryside is completely ruined by the plagues of littering and fly-tipping. It's noteworthy that we never seem to see a scrap of litter in Downing Street on the TV or around the Palace of Westminster, for many reasons our elected representatives seem to occupy a completely different world.

I guess the best we can hope for now is for willing (daft) volunteers to keep doing what they can and for their local councils to at least help and support them. My job would have been made a lot easier and safer if I had the correct equipment for the job. I had to provide my own black bags and now I have the job of taking those full bags to the local tip, how ironic would it be if under the new charging regime at the tip I was told that I had to pay to dispose of them!

It will be interesting to see whether I hear back from anyone in local government, if I do I will post an update.

One month ago I decided to do a little experiment upon myself and give up the social media giant, Facebook, for a month to see if it made any difference to my life. That month is now complete and what follows is a short summary of my personal experience of largely abandoning social media and my plans for the future now that the experiment is over.

When I say I have not used Facebook at all, that is not entirely true. It is certainly true that I have not actually logged into the web version of Facebook and I have not used the mobile application at all, what I have done is allowed a couple of applications to update my Facebook status but that has been more out of laziness than anything else as I did not want to be bothered to disconnect everything before I'd make the final decision about how to move forward with all this.

When I initially stopped using Facebook, if I am honest, it did seem rather strange and I had this feeling of being disconnected from what was going on but this passed very quickly, probably within about 48 hours. Almost immediately I felt relieved and more relaxed, I was not really consciously aware of how intrusive all the notifications about other peoples activities had become and what a habit it had become to regularly check Facebook to see what was going on.

I have not yet logged into my account now that my one-month trial is up so I do not actually know what, if anything, I have missed but I do know that by simply looking at the mainstream news I have easily kept up-to-date with the important things that are going on in the world. What I do know is that if I have missed anything I don't know what it is and I also know that nothing has come tumbling down as a result of my not being permanently"connected" by Facebook.

I have definitely found that as a result of not using Facebook I have had more time to simply let my mind wander, to read, to think and also I have got around to writing quite a few things that I probably otherwise wouldn't have bothered getting around to. These things might seem quite small but they are important to me. Simultaneously I have definitely managed to keep a much more regular exercise regime going with all the benefits that that will surely bring both now and into the future. It is without doubt far better to spend time doing things yourself than checking applications to see what other people are doing!

One of the "problems" that I felt that the use of Facebook probably caused was that I felt that it had the potential to bring about considerable anxiety as it does generate the tendency to constantly compare what you yourself are doing with what other people are apparently doing. It is quite easy to forget that many of the postings of others are simply highly edited highlights and do not really reflect the reality of a lot of people's lives. I have found that not using Facebook has made it far easier to concentrate and focus on the things that matter to me without the distraction of what can in some cases appear to be others trying to impress. Based on some of the reading that I have done over the last month the use of social media can lead to quite profound personal dissatisfaction with one's own life and this is certainly something to be avoided.

Another concern that I had about the use of Facebook was that I had come to dislike the feeling that I was being constantly tracked by "the system". It was easy to get sucked into the habit of "checking in" when one arrived somewhere even though I knew perfectly well where I was. The other thing is who the hell cares where I am or what I am doing? It is arrogant to think that people do! Facebook generates a wholly bizarre desire to let people, many of whom you hardly know, know what you were doing and where you are and I had come to resent this. After a very short period of time I came to realise that I much prefer doing what I want where I want and I very quickly lost the desire to let anybody know about my activities, in the end I am doing things for me and not to trying to entertain or impress others.

One of the major things that I was delighted to be away from having abandoned Facebook was the apparently endless arguments and bickering about politics etc and all the nastiness that can go with it. I am a great believer in democracy and I believe that everyone is fully entitled to their views and to express them. What I intensely dislike is having other people's views forced upon me or presented in such a way that it is almost impossible to avoid them and leaving Facebook has been a considerable relief in terms of removing these irritations from my life.

At the back of my mind as a Facebook user it also became apparent to me that the Facebook community is by and large split into two sub-communities. One of those sub-communities is made up of active contributors who are posting their thoughts, photographs, comments, likes, dislikes, locations etc. etc. The second sub-community is made up of people who are not active contributors, this group keep themselves pretty much to themselves but at the same time absorb and digest all the information posted by those in the first community. After quite a bit of thought I eventually came to rather resent the fact that I seemed to be posting quite a bit of information about myself but in many cases this was not reciprocated and this led to a feeling of "why bother?".

So, that's a general summary of how my month has gone. It has without doubt been an entirely positive experience and I have absolutely no regrets about the decision I made to try a month without Facebook, I would recommend it to anybody. I have decided, based on my experiment, not to give up social media entirely but to take complete control of my use of social media and not to allow it to control me.

I have deleted the Facebook application from my mobile telephone and my iPad and this essentially means that my whereabouts can no longer be tracked, from here on my use of Facebook will be limited to the web interface only. My plan is to log in to my Facebook account perhaps once a week or once a fortnight and this will enable me to use the events and calendar systems where events that I'm interested in are being arranged solely using Facebook, This is a convenient feature that I would not wish to abandon. I may allow a couple of other applications I use to post to my Facebook news feed just to keep it alive but I do not plan to post regularly. I may post occasionally but I will definitely be far less "engaged" than I have been, I won't be checking in, liking, following or anything else.

I think the bottom line for me with Facebook is that I felt that it was becoming an increasingly toxic environment which was riddled with untruths and aggression and I felt that it was an environment that I didn't really belong in. I feel that I have taken back a chunk of my life, my mind and my privacy and in a world where these things are in short supply that has to be a good thing, for me. I believe the filtering of "news" feeds to ensure that we see "content" aligned with our own thoughts is probably dangerous and if I can avoid being controlled in this way I wish to do so for as long as I can.

Facebook, the social media giant, currently has approximately 1.79 BILLION active users worldwide and I’ve been one of them for a number of years now. I joined several years ago pretty much to see what it was all about along with many others and I slowly got drawn into it’s web.

Once I’d got the hang of how it all worked I managed to convince myself that it was "useful" and quite quickly it became the means by which I most frequently communicated with people. Publicly this took place in the usual way through reading and writing posts and privately Facebook Messenger became a quick and easy way to communicate with people.

Over time I found that I used the site more and more and generally enjoyed it but the point came where I found that I was using it every day and I started to find the stream of notifications to be irritating intrusions. The problem I initially found with Facebook was that as human beings we are naturally intensely curious animals and looking at what people were doing and reading what they were saying has a strangely addictive side to it, even though these were things that one would previously have been completely unaware of.

It soon became apparent to me that some of what I was seeing actually became a kind of competition in terms of what people were doing, buying, seeing or in some cases even eating - it all started to feel a bit uncomfortable. I then watched as it became a vehicle for people to expound all their political views and in some cases to vehemently disagree with the views of others, sometimes to the point of outright hostility and rudeness, I was having very serious thoughts about whether there was actually any value in this for me.

On top of the above I began to see more and more political and other annotated images which purported to portray facts/information/news when in fact frequently their contents were nothing more than fabrications or at best exaggerations of half truths, Facebook had become more than social media, it had almost become THE media and it was influencing people’s beliefs and opinions on very serious matters. On top of this I also became more aware of the targeted advertising which seemed to me to be more and more spookily related to things I had searched for, places I had been or things I had read.

One is left with a choice when one realises what is going on, to go with the flow or to change something. I decided that for a time at least and to see what difference it made to my life I would leave Facebook behind, completely. It has been about 10 days now since I logged into my Facebook account and the applications on my iPhone and iPad have remained logged out.

During those ten days many things have happened, not least the American People have elected Donald Trump as their next President. Even without Facebook I have remained informed about developments, primarily by the BBC News, and I do not feel that I have missed out on things that actually matter. What I have missed out on will be the inevitable bile spewed by both sides of the presidential debate who feel they have "lost" and indeed I’m happy to have missed out. I will also have missed out on a lot of news from people I "know" (virtually or actually) but the fact is that because I do not know what I have missed, have I really missed anything?

What I do know is that I no longer hear the regular pings of status update notifications, likes, messages etc. I also know that I no longer see what could be pretty hostile updates on all kinds of matters and these are all things which I can well live without. When I wake in the morning, during the day and in the evening I never think of "checking Facebook" to see what is going on and to be honest I find that my days are more peaceful because of it. I can live without it and I am confident that I will know soon enough when really important things happen through the likes of the BBC. I may know things a bit later than those 1.78 billion people but I can live with that.

I guess what I’ve learned so far is that I think Facebook can actually cause stress and irritation which many people can do without and that much of what we get from it is probably not that important to most people. I think something else I’ve realised is that social media is incredibly powerful these days, probably too powerful. I actually believe that without Mark Zuckerberg the next President of the United States would probably not have been Donald Trump.

I may return to Facebook at some point in the future but I know enough already to know that if I do it will be on maybe a "quick look weekly" basis with all notifications disabled. For the time being at least I am thoroughly enjoying not being "connected".