The Pootle Thread
 

Tinypic deleted the pics, alas, but please, pootle away and share the results.

Thanks for sharing your images of the countryside. "Pootling" is one of my favorite things to do.

Pootling - Didn't Credence Clearwater do a song about that? Looks like a nice way to while away an afternoon when the weather gods are smiling. Something must be done about all those old buildings, walls, and such cluttering up the place though.

Has the Range Rover outpaced the Volvo as the weapon of choice for the "sorry,didn't see you mate" set?

Thanks for the tour, the humor and the inspiration. Your posts are always fun to read and good for a chuckle or two.

It seems obvious to me that I could use more pootling in my life. Living in Silicon Valley doesn't actually encourage such silliness, but perhaps it is time to take a firm stand for meandering, moseying, perambulating, sauntering, rambling, traipsing, gallivanting, gadding about and, yes, even pootling. If it were to catch on here, someone invariably would refer to it as PootLing 2.0

Oooh, I have a pootle I could add next week. It's a favourite ride down to the coast that I do on average a couple of times each week. I'll take my camera, though to avoid offending Fatboy, I'll leave it in the handlebar bag if I decide that skinny dipping is in order! I'll also add that your posts bring a new and welcome flavour of humour to this forum Snafu - I appreciate them!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sammyboy (Post 6881615)

I'll also add that your posts bring a new and welcome flavour of humour to this forum Snafu - I appreciate them!

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+1


When the likes of The Goons, Monty Python, The Goodies and ohers hail from there, the rest of you Poms have got to be a bit....:twitchy:

Nice report!!! I feel like I went pootle with you.

We need more of these stories...

Oh, I do have one! Here's my pootle story from Oregon.

My family (wife, son & me) went for a long weekend up to Oregon last weekend. I brought my Downtube Mini with me hoping to steal in a ride or two. Well, I managed to get two rides in - one of 35 miles and the other for 25 miles. This was along the Bear Creek trail between Ashland and Medford. Very bucolic and flat.

Here are some pictures of the Mini on the pootle:
Start of the trail. Maybe it's me, but these horses were not interested in me or my bike :)
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...iniOregon1.jpg
Miniature horse. Lowrider, just like my Mini:
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...iniOregon5.jpg
The Mini taking a break along Bear Creek.
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...iniOregon2.jpg
Saw this remant of an old tractor. It's had a harder life than my Mini, that's for sure:
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...iniOregon4.jpg

We took a side trip to Crater Lake. This was the view we found :love:. It's a lake formed after a volcanic eruption and filled up with snowmelt and rain over the centuries. I would have love to ride around the rim of the volcano and breathed in all the sights. It's 33 miles and 3800 ft of climb, but all at 7000+ ft elevation. However, the roads were still not open due to the snow. I'll have to come back and do the ride...
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...iniOregon3.jpg

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...noramasm-1.jpg

Sesame-- amazing photos! The mini horse was especially squee-worthy. So cute!

I go out of the house around 5:30 in the evening and washed my sedate blue coaster brake 3 speed and my Brg color Boardwalk 6 .I then took the boardwalk 5 blocks southeast and crossed a busy street.Then pootled over to the local discount grocery for strawberries, raisins ,soymilk and chocolate.Then a short walk to the thrift shop to look for interesting watches( no luck ,or great luck since nothing caught my fancy and I spent nothing?)I then bicycled back to a Taco bell for 3 burritos then around back of the mall for a quiet meal under a crabapple tree.( 3 burritos a grapefruit and chocolate soymilk) I next went home to drop off the raisins and strawberrries then out again on my 3 speed and east about a mile to visit with freinds .I then pootled my way home arriving at 9:17.

Meh... It ain't a real pootle report without pics :D

Here is a picture of Pootle.

I love this new pootle thread and hope I can add to it sometime soon.
Love your whimsy (again) Snafu - esp the caption on the clever tricks the pretty horse played for gripshift dinner...
Though now I can't get the theme to the Flumps out of my head...

I say! Very well done, Snafu21, old bean!!!

S.C. - I think that old tractor is your Downtube's grandfather.

I'll try this
 

Excess energy has been spent here. Only regulars are present due to the cold air. Now for a nice Sunday ride in Helsinki – Daigoro is waiting.
http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/m...n/swimming.jpg

Watching women play football for awhile. Boring – they are just training.
http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/m...n/football.jpg

Now to the harbour. Ships are everywhere, new ones, old ones, ships being built. And tourists.
http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/m...anen/ships.jpg

Having a cup of tea. Heavy wind blew away my teabag. A kind customer stopped its fly before I made myself look ridiculous chasing it. I call this place Torx – it reminds me of the Torx screw.
http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/m...ranen/torx.jpg

Let’s check the tyre pressure and have a little snack at the gas station. 95E gas price seems to be 1.559€ for a litre. Equals to 9.14$ for a US gallon, and 5.59£ for an English gallon.
http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/m...anen/neste.jpg

Ride along a channel. They say that architects succeeded well while creating this residential area. I like it. I once kayaked along this channel when there were none of these buildings – how time flies.
http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/m...ruoholahti.jpg

Only one newly washed carpet. It’s quite therapeutic and fun to wash carpets at the seaside when the whether is warm. Some tourists have pitied us for this manual labour. But even washing dishes manually can be ok – it depends on your attitude.
It’s summer but still quite cold. An old saying: Finnish summer is short and only a little snowy.
Now I’m really hungry.
http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/m...nen/carpet.jpg

snafu21, I must have been in Oxfordshireville at the same time as you - I witnessed the flyby. Had hoped to go on the origami foldingsoc ride from Bicester with my Dad - him on my old DT, me on the HH7 - but he was not too well so we played crazy golf instead. Love the pix, and maybe oneday we folderisti will fly the lanes of Oxon in formation ourselves....

Maranen - great pix - always wanted to see Helslinki by bike..

" Heavy wind blew away my teabag."

Pootling can be dangerous. Did you wear your helmet?

I notice that the Extreme Pootlers have fitted kickstands to their bikes. I just bought one for the Hammerhead for £2.75 from Tesco.


Gringo-gus - yuz, not been too well myself, so a pleasure to get out and inflict myself upon the indigents. The black aircraft were returning from Trooping the Colour Flypast in London. It looked better on the TV on the 6pm News though.


Where will the pootle thread take us next? London? New York? Paris? Virgin, Nevada?

<hops about, excitedly>

How about Ohio? I want to Pootle, too!

This is the most recent, but hopefully not the last, poodle by a Sears Tote/Cycle, codename: Wikey.

No, the codename is only in effect for covert ops. For pootling, we use his nickname, which, for simplicity's sake, is also Wikey.

It was a pleasant day, the sun was shining. At least I think it was. Hard to be sure with all the clouds. It was warm enough that no sweater was required, which is why we forgot the sweater at first and had to return to our starting point to retrieve it. This eventually proved to be our undoing.

We took a gentle pootle across town, at first traveling along the Olentangy River which flows through town and itches if you're foolish enough to get in it.

We came upon a nice little shelter on the bike path.

http://www.loominess.name/media/IMG_1173.JPG

Neat. This wasn't there when I was in school in Columbus.

http://www.loominess.name/media/IMG_1171.JPG

http://www.loominess.name/media/IMG_1175.JPG

It seems like a clever idea, but of dubious use on such a cloudy day. Plus Wikey's tires appeared to be plenty full. Possibly, if future events are any indication, Wikey was overful already. So a quick photo op and we were on our way.

http://www.loominess.name/media/IMG_1176.JPG

A little farther down the way we found The Great Blue Heron.

http://www.loominess.name/media/IMG_1177.JPG

I don't know what's so great about it. It's legs don't even bend the right way.

And further on down the path we happened upon a football game. My old Alma Matter, The Ohio State University appeared to be playing ... Ohio State University. It was nice school when I went there, but now it seems that no one will play with it.

http://www.loominess.name/media/IMG_1178.JPG

http://www.loominess.name/media/IMG_1181.JPG

http://www.loominess.name/media/IMG_1182.JPG
I used to live in this building. They don't let people live there anymore. I hope it wasn't something I did. Like taking the vent grating out of my dorm room wall so that I could sneak into the Stadium proper. Surely they didn't care (know) about that.

They spared no expense making me feel right at home. I don't even know how they found out I was coming. I felt obligated to stay for a song, even though I was really just cutting across campus to get some donuts.

http://www.loominess.name/media/IMG_1186.JPG

Band placated and donuts acquired, our pootle took a slightly more serious turn. Now I was leading Wikey into uncharted territory, along bike paths I had never seen before. But with my newly acquired map, I found the bike path, and we headed on towards the magical land of Bexley. Magical because it gets its own, special name, even though it's totally in the middle of Columbus. I wonder if I can just put a sign up at the entrance of my apartment building that says, "You are now entering Robtopia." and get my own zip code?

The path was long, winding, and pleasant, but not especially picturesque. Perhaps if I had stopped to take more pictures, I would have noticed that my sweater was working its way loose from Wikey's grip. I did notice eventually that it was gone. Wikey and I debated. We seemed close to end of our trip, and we could not remember where we last had the sweater. Maybe we should just let it go. But then I reminded Wikey that the sweater had my imaginary name embroidered on it, that it was given to me by my wife, and that my wife had not been pleased when I left the hat embroidered with my imaginary name at the hotel, or when I left the replacement hat at my aunt and uncle's house, nor would she be pleased if I had told her the tale of how I eventually retrieved that hat only to leave it at a coffee shop in Durham. For her sake I spared her this knowledge, and for all of our sakes, Wikey and I turned around headed halfway back to the donut shop, where we found the sweater. But then things took a bad turn. Wikey met with an accident, or perhaps he balked at having to travel the same stretch of bike path for the third time in a couple of hours. All I know is that as we rolled down the bike path (again) into a nice little park, Wikey's rear tire let out a shout that loudly proclaimed, "Your patch kit is no match for this!"

So our pootle was cut short. It became more of an amble. It would have become a bus ride, but, when that plan occurred to me, I found that Wikey had also shed my map, and the only route I knew involved staying on the bike path. A long walk later, we reached our destination, and Wikey had to stay outside, where cars parked in front of him, and so he didn't get photographed.

http://www.loominess.name/media/IMG_1188.JPG

Wikey has since been in recovery. A simple tube-ectomy became a complete tire-ectomy. And rather than repeat the whole ordeal later, it was decided to go whole hog and get a rim-ectomy at the same time. Alas, Wikey's hub (blood type 28h) rejected the new rim (blood type 36h), so we patiently wait for a compatible donor hub to arrive and for Wikey to pootle once more.

Pootle - 1. Sweater - Nil. Oh! Wait!

You got it back, in exchange for a flat tyre?


Excellent. What the hell is a solar powered bikepath shelter? Does it pump tyres up or sumptin?

Yes, the sweater was retrieved, but the tire was destroyed in the process. I knew the tire was old and wouldn't last too much longer, but that was Wikey's 2nd or 3rd "real" trip (not just making sure he was running) since I got him and and put him back in riding condition.

And, yes, I hit the 10 photo limit in my last post, and I didn't realize that photo I cut was the one explaining the function of the shelter (which, as you said, is to serve as a pump):

http://www.loominess.name/media/IMG_1174.JPG

It seems like a good idea, but I would be afraid to try it, especially on a cloudy day, unless I had a back up pump or no other options. Just the act of trying to use a non-functional pump will leave my tire in worse shape, so I'd be tempted to soldier on to the next filling station.

hello global pootlers!

today i received my very first folding bike, an orange downtube IXFS! :love:

so i went on a mini-pootle in downtown bedford (the one in englandville)!

here it is by the lake (ok, it's more a pond really):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ntube/park.jpg

playing hide and seek behind a tree:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ntube/tree.jpg

admittedly it wasn't a very exciting game, since i was the only one playing, and knew where i'd put the bike. :rolleyes:

some glamour photography outside my flat:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...be/outside.jpg

and finally, after a hard(ish) ride, i put it to bed in its new home - a cupboard in my flat:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...e/cupboard.jpg

i shall endeavour to do rather more impressive pootling to more far-flung corners of bedfordshireville at a later date, but i hope you like these 'first day' piccies. :thumb:

The more I see of those Downchoobs in their natural habitat, the more I'm tempted to get one. In orange. It drives me nuts. Could you kindly post your full address, dates and times of when you're going to be out, and the code for the intruder alarm?


It's lovely to see peeps getting out on their bikes and posting pix of their bits of the world . Excellent. Thanks, everyone.

Front tyre looks flat in the cupboard. Tyred after the hard day?

It's almost enough to make me wish mine was orange. Maybe I need another? Anyway Sue, don't steal his, I can sell you a brand-spanking new one for a very reasonable price, if you follow the link in my sig. It'll make you think the Hammerhead was expensive......

You wanton hussy. We need to see you pootle round Sarf'ampton on one, to give us a further idea of how these desirable machines fare when put to extreme pootling use. :-)

For instance, how many buns can they carry?