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Andrea and I went out for a walk around 9 p.m. The snow was still lightly falling.

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Don’t let winter hold you back.

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A cracked Airnamal frame. The old fork and parts were swapped to a new frame.

Cracked Airnamal frame. View at Picasa Cracked Airnamal frame.

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New frame fitted with original parts. View at Picasa New frame fitted with original parts.

A brand new custom Mercian came in; it was not assemble properly. The chain was too short and the customer (who was not the person that assembled the bike) jammed the drive train when they shifted to the largest chain ring and largest rear cog. The person that assembled the bike also gave poor attention to cable routing and fender mounting.

As it came in our shop, notice the angle of the rear derialleur cage.

Brand new custom Mercian was not assembled properly. The chain is completely jammed. View at Picasa Brand new custom Mercian was not assembled properly. The chain is completely jammed.

Brake cables do not exit the bar wrap at the same place.

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Fender is not centered over the wheel.

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Here is the same gear combination after I fitted a new chain at the proper length.

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A Shimano Nexus 8-speed hub was in for a service. Here the hub internals have been removed and cleaned. Time for an oil bath!

Nexus 8 speed internals. Cleaned and dried. Time for a lubricant bath. View at Picasa Nexus 8 speed internals. Cleaned and dried. Time for a lubricant bath.

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This customer lost the key to their frame lock (with the lock engaged). The lock had to be cut off with a grinder. Go Go Gadget PPE!

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Our first outing together was a day trip to the nearby coastal town of Whitby, directly east of York. Despite being only about 60 miles away, it took over two hours to get there (compared to Durham, over 75 miles, takes less than an hour). For our journey there we went half way by bus, and the rest of the way via the North Yorkshire Moors Railway steam train.

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Yorkshire Moors National Park lies between York and Whitby, and the steam train meandered through the very heart of the park, giving us fantastic views of the rolling countryside.

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The town of Whitby did not disappoint. While the town is famous for several things, including Captain Cook and Dracula, we were there mostly to see the ruins of Whitby Abbey. But hunger called, so I first tackled some super fine fish and chips while Jim and Wanda battled the seas on a short coastal tour.

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View at Picasa Fish and chips. This time, it was an entire fish!

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With my belly full, I was ready to ascend the 199 steps to Whitby Abbey.

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While a monastery was started on this site in AD 657 (first ruled by Hilda of Whitby), the remaining ruins are from a Benedictine abbey founded by the Normans around 1220. The abbey is situated high on cliff with majestic views of the north sea and the town of Whitby. The abbey was abandoned in 1540 during the dissolution of monastaries, and its slow structural collapse was accelerated by German bombardment in WWI.

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After returning home from Whitby, we rested up in York for a few days and then headed off on a long weekend trip along the Northumberland coast. Northumberland is the northern most county in England, bordering Scotland to the north and, to the east, 100 miles of AONB coast along the North Sea.

Our first stop was Alnwick (pronounced Aunick), a small market town five miles inland from the North Sea. The town is famous for its castle, home of the Duke of Northumberland. While the castle’s first buildings were erected around 1096 to defend against Scottish invasion, its current form is the result of numerous architectural and functional changes. Harry Potter fans may recognize the interior grounds of the castle, which were featured frequently in the first Harry Potter film.

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View at Picasa	View at Picasa Alnwick Castle	View at Picasa Harry Potter had his first broom flying lesson on this very grass.
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The most famous Alnwick castle scene from the Harry Potter film is when Harry attends his first class on broom flying. Here some Potter fans are getting a broom flying lesson in the very same spot where the scene was filmed.

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We were just finishing our tour of the castle when Andrea narrowly escaped a vicious, hungry dragon!

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After a nice dinner out and a good night’s rest, it was on to Berwick!

Berwick Upon Tweed (prounounced Berick) is the northernmost town in England, situated just over 2 miles south of the Scottish border along the North Sea coast and the estuary of River Tweed. In its heyday it was a strategic and succesful port for trading and commerce. It was also the epicenter of English-Scottish medieval border wars, and changed hands between the two sides more than 13 times between 1174 and 1482 . Today Berwick is a quaint, peaceful, market town, ideally situated for day trips to Holy Island (our next destination).

After getting settled at our B&B, we took advantage of English Heritage Open Days and joined a free tour of the remains of Berwick Castle. There isn’t much left of the castle. When its use as a military outpost was no longer needed, the castle’s walls were slowly dismantled and the stones used for other structures in town. The castle’s great hall was demolished in 1847 during construction of Berwick’s train station. The most visable remaining ruins include a long, steeply stepped wall that ran from the castle’s high perch on the banks of River Tweed down to river docks below. The docks allowed troops and supplies to get straight to the castle, by-passing docks in the center of town.

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View at Picasa The remains of a wall from Berwick Castle that went from the castle down to the river.

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Our tour started near to where the castle docks would have been. Then we climbed up the river bank along a narrow path to the remains of one of the castle’s perimeter wall towers. From the tower we had fantastic views of the surrounding country side, River Tweed, and Royal Border Bridge, a nearly half mile long railway viaduct completed in 1850 that is still in use.

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After the tour we continued to explore Berwick’s downtown shops and medieval city walls.

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The next day, after an excellent traditional English breakfast, we took a bus from Berwick to Holy Island.

Holy Island, also known as Lindisfarne, is a small island just south of Berwick that can be reached via a causeway when the tide is low. Here we are heading across the causeway, with the island visible in the distance.

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The Irish monk St. Aidan (from Iona) founded a monastery on Holy Island in mid 7th century AD at the request of Northumbria’s King Oswald. The monastery went on to foster the spread of Christianity all over northern England. The monks fled the island in late 8th century because of Viking raids. Eventually the monks settled in Durham and constructed Durham Cathedral. In 1093 several monks from Durham returned to Holy Island and established a priory on the old site of the original monastery. Some ruins remain of that priory, and they offered an interesting contrast and connection to the cathedral we were already familiar with in Durham.

View at Picasa Lindisfarne Priory. These ruins are of the priory that was re-established by monks from Durham in the 11th cetury.

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Holy Island also has a castle (of course!). The castle was built in the mid 16th century, using stones from the then disbanded priory. It shares a similar history with other north England castles of defending against Scottish invasion, but the history of this particular castle took a turn in 1901 when it was purchased by Edward Hudson, owner of Country Life magazine. Hudson hired architect Edwin Lutyens to completely redesign the castle as a private residence in the then popular Arts and Crafts style. The castle continued as a private residence through several subsequent owners, each one buying the castle with all the furniture included. Touring the castle today, much of the furniture one sees is the same funiture that Hudson originally brought to the castle.

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I spotted some grey seals while looking out to sea from the terrace.

View at Picasa This outdoor area was added as a gun platform by Elizabeth 1 in 1570. Gun mount rotation tracksare visible on the left.

A garden has been re-planted near the castle using plant choices from the original garden planted in 1911.

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We walked out to the beach, where it’s apparently popular to create stone stowers.

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After touring the castle we had a few hours to burn, so we went on a three mile hike through the Lindisifarne Natural Nature Preserve, where over 300 different species of bird have been recorded. It was a great end to wonderful trip. Thanks to Wanda and Jim for visiting! It was great to “holiday” with you.

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I’ll write a more detailed post about the bike after I finish adding a few final touches to it. So far I’m very pleased with the fit and quality of the frame.

I was fortunate to have good weather during my ride–occasional sunshine, around 40°F. The area south west of York is mostly flat farmland with only occasional rolling hills, so the nice weather and easy riding (combined with several photo/snack stops) made for a leisurely outing.

There were no significant points of interest along the ride, though I did make my first stop at what was described on my map as an “unused airfield.”

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RAF Acaster Malbis airfield was created in early 1942 for WWII and first used by the Canadian Air Force to fly American P39 Airacobra fighter planes. At that time the runways were just grass strips, but by 1945 they had all been paved and 200-300 UK RAF personnel were stationed at the airfield. While the RAF was busy using the land as an airfield, farmers continued farming between the runways to meet the UK’s growing shortage of food.

After the war and through most of the 1950′s, the airfield was used as storage for bombs and ammunition. In 1963 it was decommissioned and became a private airfield for light aircraft. During this time through the mid 1980′s the airfield was often used to transport horses and jockey’s for races at the York Racecourse. The long runways also became a favorite spot for locals learning to drive a car.

Now most of the runways have been torn up and the land returned to farm use. Buildings that do remain are slowly crumbling. It is an interesting reminder of that significant period in history, not really all that long ago.

Most of the rest of my ride was spent enjoying God’s own county under the back drop of a slowly setting sun.

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The Gillette Mach3 Razor

Back in the fall of 1999, a few months after my 18th birthday, I received in the mail a free, unsolicited package from Gillette. The package contained a brand new Mach3 razor and several shiny cartridge blades. This was a clear signal: I had finally reached the threshold of manhood and could now confidently step over it. For at that time, a year since Gillette had released the world’s first triple blade razor, nothing evoked manliness like a jet fighter pilot carving a smooth line around his wide, angular jaw with a Mach3 razor. Just call me Maverick.

King Camp Gillette; b. 1855, d. 1932

Thankfully, I wasn’t about to leave my friends behind in my flight to manhood, because all of them had received free Mach3 razors as well. And we were hardly the first generation of young Americans marching into manhood with the help of Gillette. Barely a decade after King Camp Gillette received a U.S. patent for his double edge, disposable blade safety razor, Gillette Safety Razor Company arranged for their safety razors and blades to be included in U.S. Armed Forces standard-issue gear distributed to soldiers in World War I. This resulted in distribution of around 3.5 million razors and 32 million blades by the end of the war. The era of Freebie Marketing had begun.

Fast forward to 1971 and Gillette unveils the Trac II, man’s first double edge cartridge razor. The key to the success of this model was not (surprisingly) the 100% increase in the number of blade edges smoothing one’s skin, but rather the proprietary cartridge connection of the blade to the handle. Now only Gillette blades would work with a Gillette razor, and Gillette could charge twice as much for the cartridge.

Razor blade warfare subsequently broke out between Gillette and its competitors (mostly just Schick). Rotating blades. Spring-loaded blades. Lubricating strips. It was all hands on deck. The marketing of razors became so intense that the October 11, 1975 debut episode of Saturday Night Live featured a parody razor commercial for “Triple Trac,” a triple blade razor.

“The first blade grabs at the whisker, tugging it away from your face to protect it from the second blade. Blade number two catches and digs into the stubble before it has the chance to snap back and injure you, pulling it farther out so that it is now ready for shearing. Triple-Trac’s third blade, a finely-honed bonded platinum instrument, cuts cleanly through the whisker at its base, leaving your face as smooth as a billiard ball. “

Ridiculous became reality in 1998, when Gillette started selling the Mach3 triple blade razor. The evolution of safety razor to double edge cartridge razor had taken over 70 years (Gillette was not actually the first safety razor), but advancing from two blades to three took only 27 years. And not to be out done, Schick upped the ante just five years later with four blades in the Schick Quattro.

SNL's Gillette Mach14

Advancement in razor parodies continued as well, with SNL’s Platinum Mach14, and MADtv’s Spishak Mach20. But it was The Onion that correctly predicted our current reality with their February 18, 2004 article “Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades.” In 2006, just 3 years after Schick’s Quattro, Gillette released the Fusion five blade razor.

And so I found myself lamenting the ridiculous state of men’s shaving products when I recently realized that the stash of cartridges I had brought with me to England from the U.S. was about to run out. I contemplated refueling during my recent visit back to the colonies, but this time, I had had enough. No more will I pay $16 for just four freaking cartridges. No more shall I continue to shell out for bottled shaving gel. I refuse to be enslaved to the corporate, capitalist shaving conspiracy that brainwashes men into thinking that just one more blade will make all the difference. King Camp Gillette was a Utopian Socialist for goodness sake!

It’s time to return to the conservative shaving values of my forefathers. It’s time to hoist a badger brush and wave a chromed safety razor in protest to the blade hawks suppressing my shaving freedom with institutionalized bladeism.

It’s time to #Occupy my bathroom…with my brand new blade of glory, a German engineered Merkur 34C HD razor.

Here’s to you, King.

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We had stumbled into Bar Convent, England’s oldest active convent. It began in 1686 as a Catholic boarding school for young women, with a free day-school added in 1699. Catholicism has had a tumultuous history in England, and the sisters living at Bar Convent during its early years faced much persecution. In the 1760s a local architect named Thomas Atkinson designed a new building for the convent that included a concealed domed chapel with eight exits and a priest hole to help worshipers hide or escape if local officials raided the property.

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Today, in addition to serving as a worship space for the convent’s community, Bar Convent includes a guest house, event center, museum, art gallery and a wonderful little cafe.

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A view from outside shows how Atkinson used a traditional Georgian facade to hide the domed chapel.

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Wait. Did you see that? Does that building look at all familiar to you?

Well it didn’t to us–not then at least. But a few weeks later while Andrea was looking up our address online she noticed a Wikipedia article that includes a picture of our building. The article is  on architect Thomas Atkinson, and we are living in his house!

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Atkinson built his home in York around 1780, barely a year or so after completing the front facade at Bar Convent. Other famous works of his include Bishopthorpe Palace (front facade), home to he Archbishops of York, and Sutton Park. The similarity between our building and Sutton Park is especially strong.

Unfortunately, little more is known about Thomas Atkinson. Our building was converted to six flats in the 1980s. Occasionally architecture tours stop in front of our house to examine the preserved Georgian exterior. It is fun to imagine all the different people and experiences that have come and gone from this place since Thomas Atkinson first called it home.

As a last bit of fun. Here’s a map of modern-day York (it’s a poster I bought) showing all the remaining buildings and structures built prior to 1837 (the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign). Our house is there, though there’s no caption for it. Find it.

(hint: you’ll probably need to view it here and use the zoom option. start at the Minster and go right)

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However, the call I received the next day from Cycle Heaven owner Andy Shrimpton revealed that there was much more behind his interest in hiring a new mechanic than I had originally perceived. Andy revealed his plan to open a second shop at the York rail station that would specialize in selling folding bikes, and he wanted me to be one of three full-time staff at the new shop. Good thing I rode to my interview on a Brompton!

About a month ago, after lots of planning, negotiations with railway executives, securing loans, receiving permission from various planning and conservation groups (the station is very old!), and several weeks of construction, the new shop finally opened.

Most of the final trim and fitting work was done by me, Andy and the other two full-time staff: Anne and Rich.

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I spent days cutting and drilling aluminum (or aluminium!) trim.

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Eventually stock started arriving.

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And finally we were ready for our first customer!

View at Picasa Our first customer!

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Since then we’ve been finishing up small details like arranging tools in the workshop, and polishing off our various procedures for things like bike rentals and stock transfers. To celebrate the opening of the new shop there have also been several press releases, news articles and even a visit from MP and transport minister Norman Baker.

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The latest article about the new shop is featured in a free local magazine called Local Link. You can browse the online version of the magazine below. The article starts on page 24.

With the economic climate in the UK similar to that in the States, I feel very fortunate to have found a small business (in a shrinking industry, e.g. independent bicycle dealers) that is expanding to a niche market in which I am interested. To have all this and be located in an extraordinary city that is within commuting distance for Andrea’s studies in Durham feels nearly like winning the lottery. I love my job.

Anyone interested in buying a folding bike?

We finally decided back in mid-May that it was warm enough to attempt our first S24O. Our destination was Castle Howard, the home built for the 3rd Earl of Carlisle in the early 18th century. Here we are ready to go.

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While only about 15 miles north of York (which is very flat), it was far enough away for some mighty big hills to appear.

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The castle (think Baroque mansion, not medieval fortress) is simply fantastic. It completely embodies the most extravagant, stereotypical, English mansion one could imagine. The pictures don’t even do it justice.

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View at Picasa The Turquoise Room

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Two weeks later we went on a much more boring S24O to a farm south of York. The trip included such highlights as super strong headwinds the entire way there, and rain the entire way back. We’re looking forward to next camping trip this weekend when we head by train to the village of Hebden Bridge.

We did not attend the wedding.
We did not receive an invitation to attend the wedding.
We did not watch the wedding.
We were not excited about the wedding and really, not that many people here were either.
Yes, it was a national holiday, but no, I did not have the day off work. While many of you were losing sleep to stare at a screen in the wee hours of the morning, I was cleaning pulley-wheel bushings on a rear derailleur.

The outrageous obsession with the royal wedding is mostly an American phenomenon. Many people in the UK see the royal family as an obscure tax burden, and now that we too are helping fund their fairytale lifestyle it’s easy to see why. Britain’s monarchy is the most expensive in Europe, costing its citizens around 40 million pounds per year (around 65 million dollars). While the total cost factors out to a small amount per person, it’s not too hard to think of better ways that money could be spent.

That said, there were some signs today that a few locals were interested in the wedding. I saw a large banner hanging from a house with a picture of William and Kate as I was running along the river before work. Around the banner were many streamers and below the banner several women were preparing tables for a party. Later at work, there was a noticeable lack of customers during the wedding. Andrea also noticed that St. Michael le Belfrey, a big Anglican church nearby, was advertising a wedding party at the church with a large screen tv and free tea and cake.

If there were lots of local people really excited about the wedding, it was certainly easy not to notice. But then again, most of my conversations about the wedding were with a bunch of male bicycle mechanics…probably not not a group of people whose interest in any wedding (let alone a royal one) is every really that high.

I’ve tried to explain to my colleagues the many exciting things they should know about the state of Indiana, like corn and soybeans and the Indianapolis 500, but they’re still stuck on this image of Indiana that has nothing to do with the state. Perhaps a presentation on the fascinating history of Indiana’s use of daylight savings time would peak their interest.

But no, my colleagues at Cycle Heaven only care about two things. The first, of course, is bicycles. This particular topic has been easy for me to embrace. I also love bicycles. The second thing they care about is tea. We drink copious amounts of tea, the preparation of which can be an extremely particular process.

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And no fluffy herbal tea. Only the hardy local brew.

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Usually tea making duties rotate, but I try my hardest to avoid getting picked. I’ve already been chastised for making myself a cup of tea and drinking it with the tea bag still in the mug. I can’t imagine the lashing I’d get if I served someone tea that was supposed to be gold brown, but was instead strong like bear!

Despite the intensity surrounding its consumption, I’ve quickly grown to appreciate the rhythmic replenishing of my tea mug. It’s a regular reminder to take a quick break from work and show some appreciation to the colleague that served me. Hopefully my tea making skills will soon be as sophisticated as theirs.

“What really is a wiener anyway? Don’t you eat wieners in America?”

“Does tush mean the same thing as bum?”

These interactions happened to me at work recently and reminded me how language is a such funny thing. There’s so much cultural identity connected to these silly little sounds we make with our mouths. And I’ve never been more aware of this peculiar phenomenon since moving to a country where I supposedly speak the same language as the locals. While I’ve never had a significant experience immersed in a non-English speaking country, I would place a bet that living in this environment is at times just as challenging. I can’t play the ignorant foreigner that doesn’t speak English. I’m supposed to understand everything that is spoken.

The most difficult moments are quick conversations in areas with lots of background noise, phone conversations, and any conversation with someone who has a strong Geordie accent.

What’s a Geordie accent? Let’s start with a short Geordie lesson:

When I try to do Geordie impression, it usually comes out like combination of the Swedish Chef

and Groundskeeper Willie.

Here’s some more Geordie, though it’s spoken slower and is easier to understand than much of the Geordie I often hear.

It is true that the Geordie accent is more prevalent closer to Newcastle, but many of the accent’s characteristics can be found with the general north east population of England. Andrea and I have noticed that we’re more likely to better understand a local person in York than we were in Durham or Newcastle.

In addition to the challenge of understanding accents, I’m often confused with the many different words used in English-English vs. American English, and with the different pronunciation of similar words, and with the seemingly endless amount of stuff that simply doesn’t exist in the UK or vice versa. It’s amazing how often I find myself in these situations.

For example, today I worked on a bike for someone whose last name is Honeybun. I had to explain the humor in this to my colleagues who new nothing of Honeybuns or Little Debbie. And the other day after mentioning s’mores and getting room full of blank stares, I tried to explain this–apparently American–delicacy but couldn’t get past graham crackers without having to describe those as well.

Here’s a short cheat sheet of important word differences to know:
vacuum cleaner = hoover
pants = trousers
underwear = pants
sidewalk = pavement
hi = hiya (like the sound you make when karate chopping someone, but with the emphasis on the hi instead of the ya)
french fries = chips
chips = crisps
z = zed
booger = bogie
cookies = biscuits
wrench = spanner
1st floor = ground floor
2nd floor = 1st floor
stove = hob
broiler = grill
grill = barbecue
faucet = tap
lunch = dinner
train station = rail station
to rent (not an apartment) = to hire
to rent (an apartment) = to let (this becomes funny when you see lots of “To let” signs and your mind automatically fills the space between “to” and “let” with an “i” and all of a sudden there are toilets everywhere)
restroom = toilet or loo (the latter being funny because for the longest time I thought this was some perplexing English adoption of the French word “lieu”, which means “location” or “place” like the phrase “in lieu of”)
butt = bum
zucchini = courgette
eggplant = aubergine
fenders (as on a bicycle) = mudguards
horrible or awful = rubbish!
broken or worn out = knackered
really great or cool = mint

Two important filler words to know are “proper” and “that.” “Proper” is used to accentuate the characteristic of something. So you might say, “Your bike is proper mint!” (which a group of young boys said to me once as they admired my Brompton) or “Your pedal is proper knackered!” The word “that” is often used as a filler word at the end of a sentence. So, keeping with the bike theme, while admiring a bike you might say, “That’s proper mint, that!”

Now practice all these words and phrases with your new Geordie accent and you’ll be fully prepared for a visit to northern England!

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Andrea and I stayed behind and packed all the remaining items into two large backpacks and a suitcase. With everything loaded up (including two Bromptons!) we walked from our apartment to the train station.

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Goodbye Durham!

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We must have been quite the sight on the train with all of our luggage. We kept getting plenty of weird looks once we arrived in York and walked from the train to the letting agency to collect the keys to our new apartment.

Our friends soon showed up with the rest of our belongings and after a quick bit of unloading, we went out for a fantastic lunch at wonderful restaurant called Melton’s Too. I randomly stumbled in to Melton’s on my first visit to York, and I’ve now been back three times. Highly recommended!

Our first several days in York were filled with settling in (once again) to a new city, new apartment and a new job. But this time was much easier than when we first arrived in Durham, primarily because we now live very very close to all the places we visit on a regular basis.

To say we love our new apartment would be an understatement. It is such a vast change from our apartment in Durham and it really feels much more like a home. We have plenty of comfortable seating (including a couch long enough for napping!), much nicer bed, a tile floored bathroom with tub and shower (no more water pooling under linoleum!), and wonderful high ceilings with nice trim.

We now use our camping chairs more appropriately.

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To say we love York would also be an understatement. It is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen. We’re surrounded by beautifully restored wooden beam buildings from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, and more cafes, restaurants, chocolate and fudge shops, and quaint little stores (from shoes to pens to buttons to medieval armor) than you could ever imagine. About five doors down our street an entrance to Barnitts, the largest locally owned hardware/gardening/kitchen/bathroom/furniture store I’ve ever seen. We’ve been lost in that store for hours. Just around the corner from our home is a quilt museum and a contemporary art and glass museum. It’s a five minute walk to York’s free art gallery or the Castle Museum or the Yorkshire Museum (all free), and a few minutes further is the largest rail museum in the world (also free). And looming over all of this is the largest cathedral in the country. Two rivers flow through town and there are nice parks and bicycle paths that line the river north and south of the city.

And there are bicycles everywhere!

We’re nearly overwhelmed by it all.

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That’s the short of it. And while it took slightly longer for all of that to come to pass than it took for you to read about it, we’re still in a bit of shock over how quickly our lives have once again been disrupted from routine. However, this jolt of change, like our move to England, is entirely welcome and one for which we are incredibly grateful.

On Monday I’ll begin working as a bicycle mechanic for Cycle Heaven, a full-service bicycle shop with a mission to convert the world to cycling. Located just outside York’s city center, Cycle Heaven focuses on bicycles and accessories for daily transportation, while also serving those who pursue cycling for sport and leisure.

What does that really mean? It means that you’ll find lots of bikes with upright riding positions, fenders (mud guards), racks, chain cases, internally geared hubs (as opposed to derailleurs) and drum brakes; a plethora of bags, baskets and panniers; folding bikes, electric bikes, touring bikes, and a few mountain bikes and road racing bikes.

This approach is different from most mainstream shops and for me might be described as, well, a match made in Heaven! OK…a bit cliché, but from a theological perspective, Andrea at least is a big fan.

More to come in future posts about York and our new home.