Notes : Daniel Ridings


September 19, 2013

Lindome-Odense by bike

Filed under: Bicycles,Randonneuring — at 6:08 pm

All year I have wanted to cycle to Odense, but it was difficult to fit it in. The round trip is a bit more than 540 km. Almost every weekend since the middle of April has seen brevets. The randonneur season started then. It was difficult to imagine riding 540 km in the middle of the week, having one day, Friday, as a rest day and then getting up early on Saturday to ride a long brevet. The further along in the season, the longer the brevets were. It was just hard to fit in.

The last brevet was in the latter part of August. It was a quiet 200km brevet so I was rested well enough by Tuesday when I would leave for Odense.

Half of the fun is planning the trip. I had never ridden through that part of Denmark, Dyreland, and from Aarhus to Odense, I was only superficially familiar with the route that the sportative Aarhus – Köpenhamn took. It was a bit longish and I wanted a more direct route.

Basecamp

I planned my route with Garmin’s Basecamp. I used Openfietsmap, a cycling map from The Netherlands. I also had Velomap from Velomap.org. Velomap is good, but it has problems across country borders. Openfietsmap, the section called N2, has all of Scandinavia in one map. It is not updated very often, in fact I cannot see that it has ever been updated, but I would be staying on well-known roads (I thought) so it was current enough.

Playing with the trip from Grenå to Odense was the fun part. The basic way points would be Grenå, Aarhus, Horsens, Vejle, Middelfart and then Odense. Aarhus is Denmark’s second largest city, so I paid particular attention to getting from the north to the south side. There is really not much to worry about. Being a university town, bike paths and signs are well-placed.

Lindome – Varberg

The route to Varberg is more or less just a straight line down to the ferry terminal. The only thing I had to take into consideration was timing. The ferry leaves at 08:50 and latest check-in is 30 minutes before, 08:20. That was not a problem I figured it would take 2.5 hours, normally (28 km/h average) and I just added some time to account for things like a flat tire or headwind. It didn’t really matter if I pushed myself harder than I normally would on a long trip because I would have 4 hours to rest up on the ferry over to Varberg.

Grenå – Odense

My first concern was avoiding the motorways between Grenå and Aarhus. Grenåvej, route 15, turns into a motorway at one point between the two places. On other stretches, it is the only useful route. So I wanted to leave route 15, going west, at Tåstrup and take the older Grenåvej, which runs parallel with the motorway a little south. It takes you through Bjødstrup, Rønde, changes names to Århusvej, Ugelbølle, Rødskov, and then into Aarhus, after crossing route 15 a couple of times, from the north.

It was a good enough way. But when I came back, it was dark and with trucks going the same direction as me, headed for the same ferry, I decided to look for a route more to the north, on smaller roads, the next time.

I chose to get out of Aarhus on route 433. There are basically two other alternatives, to the south, through Odder or to the north, through Skanderborg. Both looked like they would be slightly longer and route 433 looked like a straight shot, a straight shot for me and all the people getting off work and leaving Aarhus. There are places where it turns into a four lane highway with a division in the middle, much like a motorway. At one point I actually asked someone if cycling was even allowed on the road. It was. It just turns into four lanes around a couple of towns.

What I now know, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out, is that when you are travelling south and see a bicycle sign for “Horsens”, take it. It will turn up around Tranbjerg. The same travelling north. A sign for Århus will turn up around Solbjerg. Take it. The one around Solbjerg will take you off through town, but just go with the flow.

The road between Tranbjerg and Solbjerg runs parallel with 433 but there is much less traffic and the traffic that is there is not the kind that is impatiently rushing home after work.

Once I left Solbjerg, cycling from Århus towards Horsens, the traffic became less frantic. But the first time I made the trip it sure did seem like quite a hike between Århus and Horsens; between Grenå and Århus too, for that matter.

The actual tracks got broken up. I didn’t stop the timer in Varberg, a battery went dead half-way across Dyrsland, things like that. They are still kind of interesting to see.

This is the first stretch, the first time. Lindome-Varberg:

Then from Grenå to Odense:

This could get long … I’ll break it up and stop here for now.

 

June 16, 2011

Bike ride to Oslo

Filed under: Bicycles — at 12:02 pm

I am working in Oslo this week and took the opportunity to ride my bike. I guess we do things like that when we’re old and in the way.

The first leg was from home, Lindome, to Halden in Norway.

I took the route through Tjörn and Orust. I had considered staying on the mainland, but didn’t feel like finding my way through Uddevalla. I wanted to make it all the way to Halden in one stretch (~215 km).

Tjörn bridge

In order to get to Halden you can choose a route with a lot of hills, up and down for about 20 km on route 22, or you can take a round-about with one big hill (more or less, Norway is never flat). I chose to get the hills out of the way and took the round-about (sign for Kornsjø). At the top, I was met with this nice view.

Norway

I stayed at the former military base, now a bed and breakfast. I didn’t feel like leaving my bike outside for the night, so I took it into the room with me.

Kasernen in Halden

From Halden I continued on the next day to Oslo.

June 10, 2011

Spring snaps

I have been reasonably productive, but I have not been adding things here. My photos go up in relevant contexts now-a-days instead of just a context of “me”.

The last couple of weeks are characterized by spring lighting.

Front yard

The light late at night, these were taken around 21:30, is something that has always fascinated me. It is fleeting … that could be it.

Front yard

The week before I was in Lund for a conference in lexicography (Nordisk Förening för Lexikografi).

Lund 1

Lund 2

They were all taken with an older Rolleiflex MX (no baffles in the light chamber, Opton-Tessar).

February 26, 2011

Working at home

Filed under: 400TMY,Photography,Rolleiflex MX,Tessar — at 9:36 pm

I’ve worked at home all week. I’ve been away so much since the end of December that I really don’t even want to leave the house if I don’t have to, and I don’t. I haven’t even been bringing in the mail.

Now and then I turn around and look behind me …

Behind my desk

The window has offered some entertainment as the light comes back.

Window 1

Window 2

Window 3

Next week looks like more of the same …

February 21, 2011

Kongensgate, Trondheim

Filed under: Photography,Rolleiflex 3.5E,Xenotar — at 11:43 am

A chance encounter on Kongensgate in Trondheim. He came cussing and harassing me (and everyone else, for that matter). Didn’t like Swedes. I switched over to English and harassed him back. Turned out he liked my hat. We talked. He wanted his picture taken, as long as it didn’t come into the newspaper.

Hats in Trondheim

Courtex

Filed under: Malawi,Photography,Rolleiflex MX,Tessar — at 11:39 am

Courtex. He would have preferred the shot with his jacket on, but it turned out blurred. Slow shutter speed (1/10 wide-open).

Courtex at work

December 21, 2010

Winter travel

Filed under: Uncategorized — at 6:25 pm

I work in Oslo a few times a year. It may sound strange, but I try to ride my bike now-a-days. It is 360 km one way. I do not do it in one day, though I do have plans for that in 2011.

This last time I took the train. It has been below zero for weeks now and there is just too much snow to cycle in. But as always, you never know what will happen in the winter.

This time, a construction worker pulled down the power line for the train. We were about 10 km out of the next station with a road about 3 or 4 km ahead, but we could not go that way, because of the power line. So we sat … for hours. There was nowhere to go behind us, only forest and forest. It happened at the worst possible place from our point of view.

The ventilation stopped working, the train’s batteries started to drain. The lights went out, the heat was gone.

Finally the military came and cleared a way through the woods so we could get to a road.

Leaving the train

Then down the tracks …

Down the tracks

And into the woods …

Into the woods

The whole exercise felt a little comical. I had decided to take a suit with me for a Christmas party later on in the week. I was not wearing it, but I was dragging it along, trekking through the woods in shoes that were not meant for the day’s events.

December 20, 2010

Ewa at the table

Filed under: Uncategorized — at 1:55 pm

Ewa at the table

I haven’t been taking as much film as I would like. Instead, I’m trying to see if the Panasonic GF1 will work as a decent replacement for a small 35mm camera.

I don’t usually convert from color to b/w. I did this time because I took the photo, and measured the light, in the same way I would have with an iso 400 black and white film.

September 29, 2010

Parking ticket

Filed under: Uncategorized — at 7:48 pm

I liked this one, got it from a friend:


Working people frequently ask retired people what they do to make their days interesting. Well, for example, the other day my wife and I went into town and went into a shop. We were only in there for about 5 minutes. When we came out, there was a cop writing out a parking ticket. We went up to him and said, “Come on man, how about giving a senior citizen a break?”

He ignored us and continued writing the ticket. I called him a Nazi turd. He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn tires. So my wife called him a sh..-head. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he started writing a third ticket. This went on for about 20 minutes. The more we abused him, the more tickets he wrote… Personally, we didn’t care. We came into town by bus and saw the car had a sarah palin sticker… We try to have a little fun each day now that we’re retired… It’s important at our age.

August 25, 2010

Re-boot

Filed under: Elmar 90/4,Fomapan 400,IIIg,Photography — at 7:56 am

I’ve had trouble liking my photography since about a year back. I did a wedding. I did it for money. I lost the spark.

One way I’ve had success in the past, when I’ve been in a rut, is to fool myself into taking pictures. I tell myself I’m not really doing anything important, I’m just testing. Just testing a camera, a lens, a film, a developer. Just testing. Just testing things I’ve used for years and years and just using routines I’ve always had, but I’m just testing.

Ewa

Just testing a IIIg, 90/4 Elmar, Fomapan 400 and D76. Most important, I was testing to see if I could make Ewa smile.

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