People who know things?

[liv]

So, practical advice sought:

A] Does anyone have any experience of making voice recordings? Podfics or reading poetry aloud to share digitally, that kind of thing? It doesn't need to be professional level or even close, but it needs to be good enough quality that the words can be heard relatively clearly. Ideally I don't want to buy a lot of equipment or spend hours doing audio processing, but I'm not sure what the minimum set-up is to achieve this. I mean, my computer has a reasonable basic mic which is good enough for things like voice calls. And I know a lot of my students use their smartphones to record tutorials and so on, and apparently that's good enough to be a revision aid. So I imagine this should be possible without major investment, but I don't know where to start.

Software recommendations especially appreciated! My desktop is Windows and my phone is Android, and my netbook is going to be Linux eventually but that's a topic for another day.

B] I'm in the process of buying a bike. I've talked to Colin at University Cycles, and he's super helpful and has offered to lend us a couple of bikes at the weekend so I can try them out. What should I be looking out for when I try the bikes? What questions should I be asking? Also, what equipment do I need? I'm thinking lights obviously, panniers, and a lock, presumably a D-lock. Anything else?

I don't expect to become a serious cyclist any time soon. I'm intending to use the bike just to potter about Cambridge, so if I can go slightly faster and with slightly less effort than walking, that's about all I'm after. One of the suggestions Colin made was a Dutch bike, which he said was solidly built and easy to maintain; definitely those features are more important to me than speed or being fantastically light or suitability for difficult off-road trails. I'm approximately convinced by the argument that cycle helmets aren't a good trade-off.

I'm not quite sure how best to judge the price point for a new bike. I would rather buy a second-hand, good quality bike than a cheap rubbish new one, but I'm not sure how much of a premium there actually is on new bikes; I suspect most people feel like me. And I'm certainly willing to pay a bit more upfront for a bike that is easy and pleasant for me to use. But equally, if it does happen that the bike becomes my major means of transport or I get excited about long distance rides, I can always sell my starter bike and buy something more specialist; I don't want to buy a very fancy vehicle off the bat though.

I'm probably not going to be a very self-sufficient sort of bike owner; I'll most likely take the bike to the shop for anything more complicated than a puncture. I do appreciate that there's no such thing as a magic, entropy-violating machine that keeps going forever with no effort, I just don't want to make bike maintenance my major hobby.

I know there was something else too, but it's gone out of my mind. Anyway, please express opinions!

Comments

[naath]

Oh, and apparently we're having anecdote central on the sodding helmet debate so I'll add mine - I am *queen* of falling off my bike (multiple times most years). I don't even need the provocation of "pedestrian stepped out almost on top of me", I can fall off just trying to stop in the regular way... (I have done this stone sober) although "evading speeding bus" was the most dramatic unplanned dismount. I have fallen over running (my own feet hate me), down stairs, off punts, and whilst walking (OK, that was drunk, in stupid shoes). I have sprained ankles and grazed knees and ruined the elbow of my leather jacket. Were I less blessed in the bone-density department I would likely (as at least two friends have done) broken my wrist, arm, ankle or even hip...

I have *never* fallen on my head. Not even the time I rode my bike *up a wall* (I was a small child and stupid) or the time I tried to do a wheely on a speed hump and flipped the bike. I honestly don't understand how people are falling and hitting their heads in low speed falling off incidents (when hit by a car at 30mph and one has rather less time to think) and mostly conclude that either helmet-wearing destroys one's sense of how one's body is positioned and moving in the world or that I am unusually good at falling (practice helps?).

[damerell]

Well, I bang mine from time to time - I had quite a good prang 3 weeks ago, concussion, leaking claret from the forehead. But... no permanent consequences, I and I reckon the odds are good that if I were a foam hat wearer I'd have smashed said foam hat and now be proclaiming how it "saved my life".

The most egregious case of this I know is Simon Brooke, who crashed into granite boulders on a twisty descent at 46mph, breaking his neck (thankfully making a full recovery) but suffering no head injury at all. He would be proclaiming his helmet saved his life... except he was wearing a cotton cycling cap.

[liv]

I'm sorry about letting the sodding helmet debate happen again here. I didn't mean to, but I didn't shut it down fast enough, and of the couple of hundred people who read my journal there are a bunch of shouty anti-helmet activists and a bunch of people who had never seen the assumption challenged that helmets are vital safety equipement, so.

If I were going purely by anecdotes, there seems to be a huge range in people's experience. I mean, I know quite a lot of people who have "helmet saved my life" stories, but beyond that, I know people who have been cycling regularly for decades and never fallen off at all, and people who get in lots of accidents, and then you come along and say you fall all the time but never hit your head. I am starting to feel that maybe brushing up my falling skills (did judo when I was 12-ish, but it's been a long time) would do a better job of protecting me than wearing a helmet!