State of play

On occasions all too rare I get to leave my svelte black trousered desk jockey life in the office and, in a whirlwind of flying lycra and Coolmax, turn myself into SuperBex: the hardened cyclist, train passenger and enthusastic geographer. So when the question was asked whether one of us ought to attend a three-day exhibition in Birmingham, I volunteered. The first step was to look at the map and find out where I was headed. Strictly speaking, it wasn't really in Birmingham at all but on the periphery, squeezed in alongside an airport, a motorway, a dual carriageway and a railway. Immediately my thoughts turned to the logistics of getting there and back again. I certainly wasn't going to drive, and I wasn't going to fly because my environmental conscience wouldn't let me for so frivolous a distance. And at any rate, the closure of an ash-filled UK airspace was yet to happen. Taking a bus, even from home to Waverley, would undoubtedly leave me distinctly green and unwell, so bike + train was the happy solution. More mapping took place as I measured various routes from New Street Station out to the National Exhibition Centre, and I felt that a nice eight mile bike ride could open each day nicely. Of course, that depended on where I was to stay; I could keep it simple and look for a hostel, or a bed-and-breakfast perhaps, or I could leave it to the travel agent and end up invariably in a nondescript, functional travel inn somewhere.

Anyone can catch a train from A to B, even me. Of greater organisational prominence was taking my bike onboard unfamilar trains and, at the destination, knowing where to park it. The trains to Birmingham as I was already aware were Virgin Voyagers and Pendolinos, which have a cupboard with little hooks to hang your bike vertically, instead of a handy driving van trailer with tandem and recumbent-friendly bike racks. But for sheer convenience I decided I'd use my folding bike in case I needed to take it inside somewhere.

Given its location I supposed that it would have a lot of amenities for visitors, but the NEC website only told half the story, falling over itself to tell me how much car parking was available, the range of bus stops and coach rides, the ease of access from Birmingham International railway station and Birmingham International airport, the proximity of hotels ... and nothing whatsoever about cycling or walking. And yet the website for the exhibition itself asked everyone to travel by the most environmentally sound method that was practical. Not to be outdone, I e-mailed the conferencey people at the NEC to find out about cycle parking availability and, wonder of wonders, they had some! That is to say, a grand total of nine bike spaces compared with 26 thousand spaces for cars, and with the rack located in one of the car parks somewhere. Can you see where this is going wrong?

Having gone to town with paper maps, internet maps and both aerial views and bird's eye views I knew where I was going and when. I was to be staying in a hotel within walking distance of the event which wouldn't involve crossing any big roads but did involve walking through an industrial estate. I decided I'd leave my bike in my room, except for the last day when I would need to get straight onto the train afterwards; I would have to check out that morning too, so I could either look for the mythical bike rack or take my bike inside the hall with me. I needed to decide on my luggage, too. The bike doesn't have a carrier rack, which meant using my messenger bag and handlebar bag, a combination that saw me down to the York Cycle Show and the National Railway Museum two years ago. With my nice leather boots taking up most of my bag, and conference paperwork being most of the weight, I pedalled down to Waverley and jumped onto a SuperVoyager, hung up my bike (noting that all of the webbing tie-down straps were missing from the cycle bay), met my friend, went to Wolverhampton, jumped onto a different SuperVoyager and arrived at Birmingham.

Finding the hotel was the easy bit: the signs showed the route I'd already worked out on paper. After a bit of a rest, my friend and I wandered around the NEC, finding the big hall for the exhibition being still set up but not finding anywhere to buy food. In fact, the place looked unsettlingly closed for business. We walked full circle around the place and headed across to the railway station, but could only find a Subway. To be fair, the food at the branches of Subway in America when I was riding across NY was quite good. But eating at a bunch of pressed aluminium patio chairs, wood and Formica tables, in a station concourse wasn't quite what I was looking for. Surely the airport would have somewhere to eat, we thought, since there could be lots of travellers there. We boarded the little SkyRail elevated train that's now a disappointingly conventional steel rope-hauled, rubber-tyred system compared with its hi-tech predecessor that, in 1984, was the world's first mass transit Maglev train. Of course, the airport was shut too, so we took a train into the city for our meal.

Thus was born the new slogan for prospective tourists:

"Visit Birmingham NEC, there's f**k all there!"

Day One of the exhibition the next day went without a hitch although my feet were tired by the end, and it was rounded out by another trip into the city for food that evening, during which time I took in the sights of Birmingham's marvellous Town Hall, looking for all the world like Edinburgh's National Monument on Calton Hill, but actually finished, and the Selfridges Building, which is one of the most superbly unlikely and out-of-keeping places I've ever seen, like a blob covered in drawing pins.

For Day Two of the exhibition I wafted out of my hotel after breakfast, determined to find the bike parking. What I discovered first was that my lovely assymetric black skirt was a little too floaty to successfully combine cycling and wind with modesty. Fortunately the perimeter road was quiet, and after a brief inspection of the southern entrance to the NEC to make sure that every expense had been spared on cycle infrastructure, I caught up with Car Park E. It was obvious to anyone who knew where to look. I could tell by all the motorbikes parked in front of it, and the absence of any bicycles.



Surveying the scene, it all becomes perfectly obvious. The rack is a simple set of nine wheelbenders, attached to the ground or the adjacent wooden fence by methods unknown. Bicycles, as one knows, are relatively fragile to the onslaughts of hacksaws and bolt cutters and thus relatively stealable, or at the least, damageable. Unlike a motorbike whose weight is a signifcant factor to a single person with dishonest intentions, a bicycle is rarely so heavy it cannot be lifted. A bicycle's wheels are designed to carry the weight of a rider and a bit of luggage, and to be lightweight but strong in the direction of expected forces. A wheelbender rack merely encourages other forces to dominate with predictable results. A motorcyclist has equally far to walk to the NEC entrance as would a cyclist, so distance is not the main problem: I already mentioned weight and ease of theft. A bicycle must therefore live closer to oneself, or at least be secured either through a fit for purpose rack or in a place that is covered by CCTV and in reach of security. The ideal bike rack should encompass all three factors. I measured the rack as being 360 metres' walk from the nearest entrance, and over 1km from my hotel using the shortest route through the buildings. When I'm in a hurry for my train, I don't have time to run that far to get to my little insignificant toy and ride it back.

But a folding bike has by definition one advantage over a cumbersome, so I wheeled myself straight inside and handed a compact package of tubes and wheels to a very bored looking cloakroom attendant whose sole raison d'être appeared to be her mobile phone. I opted to spend the day wearing my bike shoes and several times other conference-goers remarked on my sensible footwear and my undoubted wealth of experience of conference-going. Sensible, yes, but not quite as stylin' as I'd been.

There was one moment however when my footwear choice was ideal, as I paused at one of the information stands. Their draw was one of the new Boardman bikes set up on a turbo trainer, which was in turn hooked up to a wattmeter and a computer. The objective was to cycle as far as possible up a predefined gradient profile, with the resistance (and thus pedalling effort) accordingly controlled by the computer which measured one's overall power output and distance covered in 40 seconds. In proper Top Gear tradition, there was a leaderboard too, all shiny steel with white strips of magnetic rubber listing those who'd set their times already.

 'Roll up! Roll up! Try your pedalling prowess on our patent velocipedometer!' cried the cheerful man at the stand, or at least, that's what I imagined he wanted to be calling out. 'Miss, are you going to have a go?' he asked me as I watched two people taking their turns at maximum effort.
 '255 watts!' he exclaimed as the girl slowed her pedalling to a stop and climbed off the bike.
 'That's hard!' she breathed. 'I couldn't do that for 40 miles.' Her partner in crime took the bull by the horns for a seemingly all-out sprint.
 'Woah, you're nearly taking off!' cried the cheerful man as he put his weight on the turbo to hold it down. '328 watts!' he exclaimed a minute later as the man recovered from his exertions.
 'Is that all? That's rubbish!' he replied wearily. He was obviously looking at the top score, which was over 1000 watts.
 'You're still here, are you sure you won't have a go? See the board, we've not had many women on the bike.'
I clenched my quads and calves quietly as if to warm up without being noticed. 'Yeah, I ought to have a go, really.'

I thought back to the Arthur's Seat Challenge and my 2km, 279W output, I looked at the leaderboard and hoped I'd match some of the men in the high 200s. With the seat adjusted I climbed on, cinched up the toestraps and spun the pedals a little. I'd never been on a turbo before. It felt pretty easy though and I thought I might have a chance after all, so I knocked it into a moderate gear and readied myself.

 'Are you ready? Three ... two ... one ... go!' I hauled on the pedals and took off. Get the cadence up, change up a gear, another gear, shift onto the bar ends for more power, grab another two gears, keep the cadence, grrrrr.
He started calling out the power output. '400 watts!' '500 watts!' Hey, I might just do this. '600 watts! Go for it!'

By half a minute I was going at it hammer and tongs and my thighs felt the resistance ramping up quickly. I stood up on the pedals to rock the bike but realised my mistake immediately and found myself in too high a gear, and slowing down by the 40 second mark.
 'Nearly there! Three ... two ... one ... Finished!'
Bloody hell, I thought to myself, my throat'll feel that later. 'Our survey said?' I breathed out loud.
 'Wow, 522 watts Becky! Puts you in ... fifth place!'
Hah, that'll show them. Another two women were hovering there as I passed by the stand again late in the day, and by now I was the star whose score was met with incredulity. One managed a very respectable 350-odd watts while wearing wholly inappropriate footwear (and my fleece top tied around her middle for modesty) and the other in the low 200s. 'Do you cycle a lot?' they asked me.

I'm sure that smugness is an unappealing trait but I was still enjoying my fifteen minutes of fame even as I changed out of my conference clothes and back into my travelling clothes, and catching my connection into Birmingham New Street. Only the train's cycle compartment, securely locked to the public, dampened my spirits for a moment as I stowed myself in the carriage vestibule. That is one manoeuvre that Victoria the V2, all eight feet of her, would never manage! Onto another SuperVoyager and I hooked up my bike again for a couple of hours, and then a small regional train took me back to Waverley.

So to anyone thinking of cycling to the NEC, my advice is to take your folding bike, take your motorbike or better still, take the train and a pair of trainers!