MediumDave

There was a similar scene on the Halifax/ Chaucer Rd junction at Foxhill about 20 minutes ago. Dozens of cars & quads turning right into Chaucer Rd, going both sides of the island, wrong side of road etc. No police in evidence but traffic lights held apparently. A neighbour seemed to think it was for the M1 crash too but they might just have their wires crossed. If they've gone from Hollinsend to Foxhill driving like that it's a bloody miracle there wasn't another fatality!

Stuck for Christmas present ideas? You could do a lot worse than head down to the Kelham Island Christmas Market this Saturday & Sunday. Among the 130+ stalls is the 'Out Of Our Minds' collective, featuring work with a vintage/ steampunk twist by local artists Erica Madelin and Fuchsia Sirois. Their handmade creations range from beaten copper flowers to found-object pendants and teacup earrings, so there's something for every pocket. It's out on a limb at the end of the island, but definitely worth a visit! Find out more here: http://www.simt.co.uk/kelham-island-museum/whats-on/25th-victorian-christmas-market https://ericamadelin.wordpress.com/about/galleries/silversmithing/

Does anyone have any tips for the best place to get my bike frame resprayed? It's starting to look a bit sorry for itself after being powder-coated 5 years ago so it will need rust treatment/ passivating and sand/ bead-blasting as well. I was also looking at getting some track-ends (horizontal drop-outs) put in, so if there are any framebuilders who can do both that would be ideal! Thanks, __ Dave

Apparently it was a local name for the 'ginnels' between streets, taken from fairly mundane architect's description: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firth_Park_(ward)#Parson_Cross (scroll to the bottom) Shame there's no citation for it but there you go... By the way it is stretching a point to call it Parson Cross considering the even-numbered side of Halifax Road is actually in S6, and it is bordered only by Chaucer School's playing fields. It's as much Wadsley Bridge/ Foxhill really...

;-) Sounds like a type of Roman (or very early) paved road: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uqBfAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA84&lpg=PA84&dq=%22eight+foot+way%22&source=bl&ots=98QGo1TOMq&sig=N0CqQgTaxrmpIU6eArkS-Nk-RgI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwih0sCx2I3WAhUEG5oKHfGBBbEQ6AEIXzAN#v=onepage&q=%22eight%20foot%20way%22&f=false Maybe the old Halifax road was one of these 'eight-foot ways'? Makes you wonder what happened when two carriages met each other...

It's in S6 not S5! *popcorn*

I've seen plenty round Fox Hill/ Chaucer on a variety of off-road bikes/ mopeds etc. Judging by the ratio of ear-splitting racket to actual progress I would guess most of these were 50cc or not much more. Aside from the obvious lack of helmets/ reg plates (and hence insurance/ tax / social responsibility) I've never seen any of them commit any sort of crime against the person. Not saying it never happens mind... My guess is (and call me naive) that most of these are just kids getting a rush out of buzzing around in bandanas looking menacing, annoying people and dodging the police. I'm not excusing this but I don't think it's quite the threat people are making it out to be. If the police actually made a serious effort to crack down on this I think most of it would evaporate and the bored kids would just find some other way of sticking two fingers up to society. You'd probably end up just swapping one problem for another though...

Thanks, but we don't have a TV which is why I was specifically asking about pubs. Plus it seemed like a civilised thing to do, sit in a beer garden and watch other people do the hard work ;-)

Does anyone know which (if any) pubs in Sheffield might be showing Tour de France coverage? Either live or edited highlights? I'm aware there are plenty of 'sports' pubs/bars but these tend to focus on more mainstream sports, so rather than trying them all I was hoping for some inside info ;-) Thanks, __ Dave

That was my thinking - if the gradient is fairly constant it kind of works. On something like Jenkin it's a bit borderline - I can ride most of it in the same gear but I'm spinning out a bit at the bottom and top. To go back to your previous comment about Blake Street, it looks from this map like the steep part of Jenkin wasn't yet built on by then - the housing style seems to bear that out too, it's probably only late-40s. So maybe there's less 'folk memory' of a hill like Jenkin than there is of an older community like Walkley? http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sidebyside.cfm#zoom=16&lat=53.4139&lon=-1.4246&layers=10&right=BingHyb

Ha! Up to a point I suppose. I'm thinking of doing some cycling hill climb events, so getting this kind of detailed data is useful for getting the gearing right. Also, I think anecdotal stuff about walking up Conduit Rd as a student only gets you so far. I'm lucky enough to have the information and tools to hand, so why not use them?

So, I managed to find some mapping data, pulled it into a CAD program and plotted out spot heights for two of our candidates at 10m intervals. I won't put all the info on here(!) but I did find out the following: Blake Street is 185.2m long and rises 29m Average gradient 15.66% (1 in 6.4) Max gradient 18.47% (1 in 5.4) Min gradient 12.31% (1 in 8.1) Gradient exceeds 15% for 2/3 of its length, only really easing off right at the top, at the junction of Daniel Hill St. Jenkin Rd is 1042m long and rises 110m (from jcn with Meadowhall Rd). Average gradient 10.55% (1 in 9.5) Max gradient 30.2% (1 in 3.3) Min gradient 3.6% (1 in 27) This road really doesn't mess about. 60% of its length is steeper than 10%, nearly a fifth is steeper than 15% and that 50m ramp in the middle peaks at just over 30%. I'll try and do some others if anyone's interested, and maybe look at plotting out some height profiles. It may have to wait a while though! ---------- Post added 19-01-2017 at 17:20 ---------- Map nerdery continued: Hagg Hill is 277m long (to the junction of Bole Hill Rd) and rises 52m, for an average gradient of 18.8% (1 in 5.3) Maximum gradient is 28.42% (1 in 3.5) as it ramps up sharply towards the end Minimum gradient is 14.62% (1 in 6. about halfway up, just before it kicks you in the teeth again! The steep bit of Kent Road which I previously championed turns out to rise 10m in 50 (20%). It's impossible to know if it gets much steeper than this as there is insufficient data to fit a curve to. However the gradient looks pretty constant on Street View so I suspect it's 'close but no cigar', since Jenkin and Hagg Hill both peak either side of 30%. Method: I took the road centreline off some CAD maps I had and laid the 10m contour lines over the top. I then drew lines between the points where the centreline crossed the contour. This gave me a horizontal dimension (say 55m) between two points which I knew to be 10m apart vertically. I plotted this line out in CAD, raising each successive point up by 10m. I then applied a curve-fitting process to smooth out what would otherwise be just a series of straight lines and sudden gradient changes, which you don't see in reality. I then took height measurements every 10 metres *horizontally* to obtain 'localised' gradient information. For example the first few measurements for Blake St are 1.847m, 1.826m, 1.805m etc. Since these are measured over 10m you just multiply by (100/10) to get the percentage. Conclusions: Of these 3 hills, Jenkin is the longest and also has the steepest localised gradient, although Hagg Hill comes close. However Blake Street and Hagg Hill will possibly hit you harder if your bike lacks low gears since they're more consistently steep.

Those MapMyRun figures might be a bit suspect - Blake St is a solid 1 in 6 (16.6%), rising 30m in 180. You can count the contour lines on StreetMap or similar! I think Conduit is about 1 in 8 (12.5%) incidentally. Steep but not really in the running. Jenkin gets to about 1 in 3 for a short stretch (barely 50m) but most of it is 1:10 to 1:6, so this gets back to the old question, how short does a section have to be to be relevant? If the criterion is purely steepness then that short bit of Jenkin probably takes it, but Hagg Hill/ Stephen Hill is probably a harder climb on a bike though it is 'only' 1 in 6 at its steepest... Finally the BBC article was asking for the steepest street in *England* so there's no need to worry about that one in Harlech ;-)

1) Use of cycle paths is not mandatory unless the road itself is prohibited to cycles (eg the Parkway). Especially if the path is as woefully inadequate as the one on Penistone Rd! It was improved somewhat a year or so back but it is still rife with hazards which make it unsafe to navigate at more than 10mph. Why would I take the path at 10mph when I could use the road at 20+? 2) Filtering is not illegal whether you are a cyclist or motorcyclist, although it's somewhat inadvisable for the former unless traffic is at a near standstill. Here are the rules I follow: a) Stick to 15-20mph. You're in a confined space - any faster than this and you won't have time to react to hazards. b) Assume no-one can see you. That said, a daytime running light helps. Acknowledge drivers who move over for you, if it is safe to take your hand off the bars! c) Don't assume people will indicate their intentions. Look for signs like front wheels turning and unexplained gaps in traffic. Are they pausing to let an oncoming car turn right across you? d) Don't be stranded in no-man's land with cars doing 25-30 either side of you. It puts you in a lot of danger and you won't make friends holding up traffic while you 'negotiate' your way to the left. Observe the speed of the traffic around you and learn to recognise when traffic is 'opening up'; then find a gap, check over left shoulder, signal left and move over. e) If all of the above sounds like too much work then don't do it! I'm all for accepting some responsibility and not riding like an idiot but drivers need to appreciate why we do the things we do and not just try to wish us out of existence!

What he said. A hazard is a hazard, static or not, and we had enough to be dealing with before the tram turned up! One of the most crucial things about riding safely in traffic is the experience and ability to change your road positioning according to the conditions. Sometimes you need to move out into the middle of the lane, eg to turn right or to make yourself more visible to motorists at junctions. This adjustment of road position is something that needs to be done smoothly and continuously in response to the conditions. Tram tracks do a great job of dividing the road into three rigidly defined zones which the cyclist enters or leaves at their peril, making this positional adjustment more hazardous and certainly less natural. Here's a test; I'm at the lights at the junction of Rudyard Rd and Langsett. I want to proceed from A to D on this map (ie towards Middlewood Rd): https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=Langsett+Rd&daddr=Langsett+Rd+to:Langsett+Rd+to:53.402667,-1.501391&hl=en&sll=53.402441,-1.500831&sspn=0.000764,0.002059&geocode=FW3aLgMdOhvp_w%3BFfPaLgMdPhrp_w%3BFcXbLgMdchjp_w%3B&t=k&mra=mi&mrsp=3&sz=20&z=20 If I adopt the traditional, expected road position I have no choice but to cross the Malin Bridge tram tracks at an extremely acute angle. Paradoxically the safest thing for me to do is take the extreme right of the lane, get a shift on and clear the tram junction, leaving only two rails to cross at point C. This can then be done at a safe, steep angle *provided* there isn't an impatient car up my arse at this point, which is quite likely given the distance covered. And this only works if you are reasonably fit; if you're going to wobble across this junction at 10mph you'll be a danger to yourself and everyone else. So where is the safe route for the cyclist here? And don't say 'get off and push'; if I wanted to walk I wouldn't have brought my bike out in the first place!