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  • Thames Vitality

    Thames Vitality

    Here’s another interesting boat that I’ve noticed moored outside my flat a few times. It’s the Thames Vitality, one of two oxygenation barges built for Thames Water by McTay Marine.

    The Thames’s oxygen levels can plummet after heavy rain when storm pipes overflow and these boats are used to replenish oxygen levels in the river. This process helps to prevent many fish deaths but the long term solution is to replace the old Victorian system with one that doesn’t allow sewage to drain into the river.

  • MTB 102

    MTB 102

    Living on The River I see lots of interesting boats pass my window but today was the first warship. It must have been on it’s way to Henley on Thames for the Traditional Boat Festival this weekend. Motor torpedo boat MTB 102 is a pretty little boat with an interesting history.

    MTB 102 was launched in 1937 and was the fastest vessel in the Royal Navy with a top speed of 48 knots. From 1939-40 she was stationed in the English Channel and took part in the evacuation of Dunkirk. When Rear Admiral Wake-Walker’s destroyer, HMS Keith, was disabled by a Stuka he transferred to MTB 102 and for the last two nights of Operation Dynamo MTB 102 became the smallest vessel ever to serve as a flagship for the Royal Navy. There was no Rear Admiral’s flag onboard so they made one from a dishcloth and red paint. She was the third to last vessel to leave Dunkirk.

    In 1944 she carried Winston Churchill and General Eisenhower to review the fleet for Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy.

    In 1976 she was used in the (awesome) film The Eagle Has Landed.

    You can read more about her at the MTB 102 Trust website.

  • 2013 Track Days

    Given the arrival of Jr in August my track time was rather limited this year but I still managed to do another level of CSS and a couple of lovely sunny days at Snetterton; one of my new favourite tracks.

    The year started with CSS level 3 in the snow at Silverstone. God it was cold, but CSS is always great.

    Then the 675.cc track day at Snetterton at the beginning of May.
    AJP_5611

    And quickly back to Snetterton for another go at the end of May.

    I also finally managed to get my GoPro on track. Here’s a video from the 675.cc track day:

  • Things I can see from my window

    It’s nice not living in a basement anymore. Living on the river means we get quite a good angle of view. Here’s some stuff I can see.

    Lots Road Power Station

    Not the four-stack one down the river but the two-chimney version that used to power the London Underground. In fact, Lots Road used to have four chimneys too  but by the late 70’s it had been reduced to two. Built in 1905, twenty-four years before Battersea Power Station, it was claimed to be the largest power station ever built with a capacity of 50,000 kW.

    lots-road-power-station-1936

    Stamford Bridge

    Just peeking over the tops of the buildings is the home ground of Chelsea Football Club. Opened in 1877 it was first used for athletics until Chelsea took over in 1905.

    Stamford_Bridge_-_West_Stand

    Empress State Building

    Built in 1961, this building is occupied by the Metropolitan Police Service. A building called the Empress Hall used to stand on the site. It has a private revolving bar at the top and in the evening it catches the setting sunlight on one of its three curved sides beautifully.

    esb

    Queen’s Tower

    The 87 m tall Queen’s Tower is in the campus of Imperial College London at South Kensington. It is the sole remaining part of the Imperial Institute. When the Imperial Institute was demolished, Victorian architecture was not fashionable and the tower was only saved by a campaign led by John Betjeman. The tower houses ten bells donated in 1892 by Mrs Elizabeth M. Millar of Melbourne, Australia.

    450px-Queen's_Tower

    The Imperial Crown

    Designed by Aston Webb, after winning a competition in 1891 to extend the museum, the tower above the main entrance to the Victoria and Albert Museum has an open crown topped by a statue of Fame. Webb wanted to “mark the character as a great national building.”

    Natural History Museum

    I love the architecture of this building by Alfred Waterhouse and I can just see the two towers that frame the entrance.

    800px-Natural_History_Museum_London_Jan_2006

    Crosby Hall

    This is a strange building. According to Wikipedia: Part of the building’s architectural features are from the Great Hall, which is the only surviving part of the mansion of Crosby Hall, Bishopsgate which was built in 1466 by the wool merchant John Crosby. Crosby rented it to Richard Duke of Gloucester who used it as his London home. It was used as the setting for a scene in William Shakespeare’s Richard III. In the reign of Henry VIII it belonged to Antonio Bonvisi.

    Following a fire in 1672 only the Great Hall and Parlour wing of the mansion survived, it then became a Presbyterian Meeting House and then a warehouse with an inserted floor.

    In 1910 it was threatened with demolition and then moved brick by brick to its present site and the rest of the building by Walter Godfrey constructed around it. The move was paid for by the Bank of India who had purchased the Bishopsgate site to build offices. Godfrey also added the north wing in 1925-6 as a women’s university hall of residence.

    crosby

    Battersea Bridge

    Not as flashy as Albert or Chelsea Bridge, Battersea Bridge used to be the last wooden bridge over the River Thames until the old bridge was demolished in 1885 and replaced by the current one designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette. Despite it being the narrowest road bridge over the Thames, trams used to run over it until 1950 and due to it being on a bend in the river it is a hazard to navigation being subject to numerous collisions in its history.

    Battersea_bridge_1

    Winter Wonderland

    Being Christmas, I can also see the Giant Observation Wheel and the Power Tower in Hyde Park.

    IMG_0374

  • 2012 Track Days

    2012 was a pretty busy year for me!
    Started off with CSS Level 1 in March:

    css1

    Then the forum trackday at Cadwell on a chilly April day:

    cadwell-675.cc

    Back to Silverstone for a damp CSS Level 2 in May (still waiting for the weather to warm up):

    css2

    Then Brands GP with TripleJimmy:

    brandsgp

    Unfortunately this also involved a little off-track excursion. 🙁

    brandscrash

    No pics from Rockingham in July with buzz675 but Bedford in July I felt was my most successful day. Lovely and warm and also ran into Farebro doing his licence:

    bedford

    Back up to Cadwell in August (finally summer!):

    cadwell2

    And finished the season at Brands Indy:

    brands-indy

    Looking forward to finishing the CSS and another good year of track days in 2013!

  • Adelaide to Phillip Island (and back again)

    A few weeks ago I went back to Oz and hired a bike in Adelaide to ride across to Phillip Island for the MotoGP. Unfortunately, unless I wanted a cruiser, Adelaide literally had a choice of one half-decent bike so I loaded up the Kriegas and headed off on the Yamaha FZ600 with Mark on his Aprilia.

    We took the quick route across; heading straight down the Western Highway stopping off in Ararat for the night. It had been a while since I’d been that way. Man they build some long straight roads in Australia! I had also come down with some kind of man-flu so was feeling pretty rough and not in the best condition for a long distance ride. A lamington at Kaniva helped.

    Next day, instead of going through Melbourne we dropped down to Geelong and caught the ferry over to the Mornington Peninsula. While waiting for the ferry we chatted to a guy who had ridden his Blackbird from Western Australia!

    It was still another good couple of hours to the Island so it was getting late in the day when we arrived. The sky was also looking very threatening and we struggled with some epic winds but no rain so far!

    This was the first time I’d been to Phillip Island and I have to say what a fantastic track! Such a beautiful location by the sea and it looks like it would be awesome to ride. It’s definitely one of the great circuits of the world. We had seats at Lukey Heights and so could see most of the track and also had a lovely backdrop of Bass Straight.

    Unfortunately the weather was a bit rubbish. Bloody cold with the occasional shower most days but race day was alright. Stoner absolutely dominated the race and there was an Aussie on the podium for all three races so the home crowd was happy.

    On the way back we took the Great Ocean Road. All I can say is wow! This really was epic! I wished I had my Daytona. Without doubt it’s one of the great biking roads of the world. It starts off snaking around the mountains by the sea. Really twisty with dramatic views and you can’t think it can get any better. But then at Apollo Bay it heads off into the Great Otway National Park with fast sweeping bends shooting through the forest. My God it was amazing. GoPro footage to come!

    We stayed the night at Port Campbell which is near the 12 Apostles.

    The next day it was back onto boring South Australian roads and the long straight slog back home. We made sure to stop at the Big Lobster though.

    More pictures from the race here.

  • Westbound commute 1

    The public transport options for getting to work are so bad the pushbike is really the best option. I’m trying to find the best route.

    This wasn’t too bad although the traffic is pretty nasty in the Farringdon St/Fleet St/Strand area and the shortcut from Clerkenwell Rd to Farringdon Rd didn’t really work because of all the Crossrail construction work. I think next time I’ll cut out the Strand and go via Charing Cross Rd.

    • Distance: 6.38 mi
    • Duration: 38 mins
    • Avg speed: 9.90 mph

    [gpxpress src=http://blog.davidkeen.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Commute-west-1.gpx]

  • Endurance Racing

    This weekend is the Le Mans 24 Heures Moto. I went last year and it was an incredible experience. I really want to go again but I’m not sure I’m ready for that campsite again just yet. I have heard there are slightly less mental campsites than where we were but being Le Mans everything’s relative.

    I like this description from May 2012 Bike Magazine:

    Only the deranged or chemically numbed actually enjoy camping at a French 24-hour motorcycle race, but that’s no reason not to eagerly sign up for the experience.

    The Gauls have few rivals when it comes to organising a race-centric party. They think nothing of goading the Gendarmes to the point of distraction, then scarper when the paramilitary CRS goosestep on to the scene. If they’re not doing that they’re revving a brand new GSX-R1000 until its headers glow cherry red. This kind of idiocy is best viewed through beer goggles, but it’ll stay with you forever.

    Then there’s the racing. If you don’t camp you’ll be itching to leave by 10pm to get back to the B&B before it’s too late and you’ll miss what makes 24-hour racing special. Camp and you can sit, like a gargoyle with a swollen bladder and pink eyes, mesmerised by the glowing discs ’til sunrise. You’ll get a good 43 minutes shut-eye before a 1988 VFR750 with no silencer is ragged around your chosen field. But you have to experience it once.

    Here’s a few videos I took last time.

     

  • Coal Holes

    From the Wiki:

    A coal hole is a hatch in the pavement (sidewalk, in US usage) above an underground coal bunker. They are sometimes found outside houses that existed during the period when coal was widely used for domestic heating from the early 19th century to the middle 20th century. In Britain they became largely obsolete within the major cities of the UK when the Clean Air Act forced a move towards oil and gas for home heating.

    The coal hole allowed the easy delivery of coal, generally in sacks and often from horse drawn carts, to the house’s coal bunker. The location of the coal hole on the street minimised the distance the sacks needed to be carried and meant that dusty sacks and delivery men did not need to enter the house.

    I’ve lived in London for twelve years and never really noticed these small metal plates but now that I know what they are I see them everywhere.

  • MotoGP & BSB wallpaper

    Both MotoGP and British Superbikes kick off this weekend. So in celebration, here are a few wallpapers from pictures I took last year.