Our April ride was designated (unofficially) as a 'Birdy Special' - as always, everyone was welcome, but we were particularly hoping for a good turn out of Birdys, and to get a few photographs of a large group of Birdys. We had thought that we would probably fall just short of double figures, but in the event the turnout exceeded all expectations. No less than 28 people came to the start, at the Tearooms in Meriden as usual, and 25 took part in the ride, and 12 of those were on Birdys. As there were 23 bikes in all (one tandem and one folder fitted with a child seat), over half the bikes were Birdys - 9 Reds, 2 Blues and an Elox.
Two of the Birdy Reds were the latest models, with the modified
front forks, narrower front hub, new black mudguards and improved
front mudguard fixing. It's good to see a company making
continuous improvements to their products as is happening with
Birdys - each change may relatively small, but the overall result
is that the current models are much improved over the earliest
ones.
Photograph: Irene Batchelor with her and husband Trevor's
new Birdys
Talking
of continuous improvement, the interest was not limited to Birdys,
as we also had one of the first 6-speed Bromptons on the ride -
the first ones had reached dealers only two days before. The
implementation of the changer to switch from a 13 to a 15 tooth
rear sprocket is very neat, and the changer on the left of the
bars cunningly includes a bell as well. There will be a full
report on the 6-speed on the Folding Society web site within a few
days.
The ride out to Kingsbury Water Park itself was quite uneventful. The weather was
reasonably bright if quite cool, and almost no wind - a great
relief after the unpleasantly blustery conditions last month.
Although the cloud built up more than expected later in the day,
conditions were still very pleasant for cycling. We took the most
direct route to and from Kingsbury, which is considerably flatter
than the alternative lanes, and although there is some traffic on
this route, it is not too bad, and although we were a larger group
than usual, we were generally well treated by passing motor
traffic, which gave us plenty of space and waited for safe places
to overtake, without being aggressive. Of course we did our best
to minimise and inconvenience to others, riding in smaller groups
and keeping well to the left.
Photograph: Our (almost) complete group photograph at Kingsbury
...
Photograph: ... and the Birdys and owners