Fantasy Christmas List

Oooh, so, it's nearly Christmas. I've been hopelessly disorganised regarding presents this year, but they should be sorted by the time I meet my frieds for Christmas drinkies this evening...I hope!

There are some amazing products out there for the happy cycling girlie about town, so I've been idly putting together a fantasy list of items I'd like to find in my stocking on the 25th.


1. Cyclechic's Amazing Handmade Cycling Cape


Just how beautiful is this? I'm going for a fitting for one tomorrow, actually :-) See the London Cycle Chic Blog for details.


2. Chrome bullet light with peak



Gorgeous front light! This would look amazing on my purple Moulton. £19.99 from Ridelow.


3. Fabulous patterned helmet by Sawako Furuno



I seriously covet that dark red one. Or the beige one. Ahhh! £60 from Bobbin Bicycles.


4. Red Morgan Messenger Bag by Mulberry



I adore Mulberry's traditional styling (although they're moving towards the "IT-Bag-fancy-pants-trendy-for-one-season-only" school of design quite alarmingly). This messenger is just perfect; simple and elegant and made in beautiful thick leather. Shame it's so mega expensive. Availabe for a credit-crunching £440 quid from Mulberry.


5. Sigg aluminium water bottles





These water bottles are fab, they're extremely light and they look great. I already have a plain red one, but I love the thought of getting a patterned one to go with each of my bikes....£10-15 each from Sigg.


6. Handmade bike basket liners








I always thought that plastic-coated wire baskets look dead ugly (apart from white baskets on Raleigh 20s; those look kind of cool). However, these liners could completely transform a boring wire basket into something quite fab! And you could get a collection of them too, so you could change them to suit your mood! No, I'm not utterly obsessed or anything...."Cherries Galore" and "Sweet Tooth" basket liners $20-$22 by LuckyFindDesigns, basket liner with bow $18 by Carollines, Etsy.com.

Pimp-able Raleigh

I appear to have acquired another bike :-) A friend of mine bought this pre-loved Raleigh Traveller for forty quid with the intention of learning to ride on it. However, it's a girl's bike and as such it's not really inspiring him, so he's passed it on to me.








I'm thinking of maybe getting the frame resprayed, and then pimping it up with lowrider accessories. It's a nice solid bike and is in really good working order, despite its worn and rusty bits. I do love the colour, but I think it needs a new lease of life....and I fancy a project! So, if there are any readers out there - what colour should I go for? I'm currently thinking cream, or bright pillarbox red, or deep midnight blue.

Cycling around the Norfolk Broads

This week N. and myself have been lucky enough to spend a couple of days in Norfolk, cycling around the Broads. N's mum lives there, so we did a house-swap - she stayed in our London flat and looked after our neurotic cat, whilst we visited her home in Hickling Heath.



I love hills and I'm used to the rolling countryside of Shropshire, and had always assumed that Norfolk would be flat and featureless, so it was nice to learn that this isn't at all true. Yes, it's flat, but it's amazing countryside - so unlike anywhere else I've ever been. The marshy ground means that wild plants and grasses grow here that you don't see elsewhere, and the flat landscape simply makes more of a feature of the churches, windmills and lighthouses that can be seen for miles around. I love how much England varies from region to region.



So, with me on my Bobbin Playbike, and N. on his Raleigh Superbe, we did a bit of exploring. On Tuesday we cycled to the seaside at Sea Palling; it was very pretty, but the wind was so strong it caused the sand to blow along the shore like smoke. We stopped to look inside any churches we passed along the way - I'm not religious, but I love churches for their history and architecture - and discovered a tomb that's covered with Civil War graffiti (1640s) in the church of St Mary in Hickling.



On Wednesday we decided to simply wander wherever we felt like, and ended up on the coast again in Happisburgh. On the ten-mile ride back to the railway station on Thursday we stopped off at the church of Beeston St Lawrence, which is one of the intriguing Saxon round-tower churches that are only found in East Anglia.





We did some geocaching on the ride back to the railway station - this is one of my fave hobbies; it's a bit geeky I know, but it's a great way to explore the countryside. There was a cache very close to this traditional red phonebox.



I'm afraid that I didn't look very cycle chic at all this week though as I was bundled up to the nines in layers and layers of fleeces and waterproofs!!! :-)

Bobbin Playbike

I finally got my Playbike from Bobbin Bicycles on 24th October, and I totally *heart* it :-)

Here I am cycling around in Victoria Park, Hackney. I was very pleased to have taken delivery of the bike whilst the weather was still quite nice. Vicky Park is a fab place to cycle, as its nice and big and there's lots to see (model boating lakes, rose gardens, a deer enclosure etc) and it's one of the few parks in London where cycling is actually allowed!



Obviously I'm a massive fan of the wonderful London Cyclechic Blog, and I now know there's no better feeling than whizzing about on a gorgeous bike whilst dressed to suit. The flowery dress I'm wearing here was a summer buy from Mango, and I love how perfect it looks amongst the autumn leaves too :-)

Autumn cycling......

Autumn in Victoria Park, Hackney. A wonderful place to cycle!

More Moulton pics

This is my "Little Purple Biek" aka my purple Moulton. The dress was bought especially to go with it...this is how obsessed I am getting! My back looks a bit strange because I can't bend it (it's all fused up with metal rods), but that's never going to put me off riding these babies :-)



Gorgeous colour isn't it! It's the most popular shade that the Midi came in. I actually prefer the (much rarer) green, but this purple Midi is a beauty.




And here's my mum modelling the green Midi. I think her natty red trousers and duffel coat look cute with it, they tone with the retro tartan box carrier on the back :-)

Bikes are addictive

Once I was confident riding my Moulton I decided that I really ought to get a bigger wheeled bike. One of my neighbours left her red Bobbin Playbike in our hallway one day, and I was smitten. Bobbin specialise in Dutch style bikes, which typically allow the rider to sit upright in a very elegant manner :-) I set my heart on a pale blue Playbike, but had to be patient as Bobbin were moving to their new shop.

In the meantime I ended up buying a second Moulton Midi, this time in gorgeous purple. I spend a lot of time in Shropshire as I go to hospital there, and I thought it would be nice to have a bike so I could cycle round all the pretty country lanes :-) Here are the matching pair!




I do love these little bikes. I could easily buy more in different colours!