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the missing link

for several weeks following my health scare, which now seems like a long, long, time ago, i was in the habit of riding from the croft to debbie's and back again, preferably with some velocipedinal company. just in case. in the present circumstances, there's no going back; while my colleague need only a sit a while to recover, if overdoing the velocity on the way, i was permanently concerned that, if i overdid it, there might be no going back at all. thankfully, so far that has proved not to be the case, and i have every confidence that the distances i have been covering are proving of great benefit to my cardiovascular system and any concerns i might have had in advance.

however, there's no real way of telling if i'm getting better if i simply stick to the tried and tested. at some point along the way, it was always going to be necessary to push the envelope, so to speak, even if only just a smidgeon.

i have mentioned to the point of boredom, that the sunday morning ride consists basically of two distinct loops, joined by a five kilometre stretch of road. several weekends past, i plucked up the courage to attempt the first loop, which, in jazz parlance, we have named the mulindry section. this was undertaken in the company of my son, a lad who has cycled so infrequently of late, that it turned out to be a far harder ride for him, than it was for yours truly. however, accomplish it we did, and just to prove it wasn't a fluke, i rode it again the following sunday, this time in the company of several members of the sunday peloton. one down, one to go.

perhaps foolishly, last weekend, i opted to ride the second loop around loch gorm, down foreland hill and onto debbie's for the necessary coffee, once again, in the company of at least a portion of the velo club peloton. i say foolishly because it transpired that that particular sunday featured some of the highest temperatures experienced this season, and i am reliably informed that exerting oneself in such temperatures is not recommended for those suffering from heart problems. however, riding slowly but surely, and choosing the largest of my twelve sprockets for any hill we encountered along the way, meant that i arrived at debbie's a tad later than usual, but completely intact and suffering no ill-effects.

so that's both loops successfully ridden, with a second attempt at the loch gorm loop completed today. meaning, of course, that the only thing remaining to be done, is join the two loops together into the original sunday ride, and hey presto, i'm effectively back where i started, or where i was five months ago. however, it seems quite possible that so doing might take a few more weekends yet. on 3 august we'll hold the annual ride of the falling rain, an event in which i intend to participate, but at a distance well short of the highlighted 100 miles.

earlier this past week, yet again in remarkably warm temperatures for the hebrides, i rode to finlaggan, the ancient seat of the lords of the isles, a 30km round trip, and yesterday i undertook a similar distance in lower temperatures, to port ellen sports to snap a few photos for next week's newspaper. there's little doubt that my average speed has dropped noticeably, but at present, that's really of no great concern; getting there and back with no twinges is the ultimate goal at present, a task that seems to have been comfortably achieved so far. and long may it continue.

so, all that remains to be done is completion of that missing link, but i wouldn't bank on it being anytime this month.

sunday 20 july 2025

back to the future

like probably everyone in the country who identifies as a cyclist, i have been watching the daily tussle for yellow on itv's final, free-to-air tour de france broadcast. it is a race which often defies the logic of cycle manufacture, by seating the sponsored riders on any amount of new tech that, purely by coincidence you understand, has been proved ready to air a few days in advance of those three weeks in july. but, it transpires, the bicycles afforded visma lease-a-bike, were raced in this year's dauphine, though so similar were they to last year's bicycles, nobody actually noticed. however, at the tour de france, every major cycling media outlet in existence has people trawling the team bus park for new stuff sat in an orderly row alongside, precisely where cervelo's new r5 was spotted.

as far as i'm aware, there is not a single world tour team to be found aboard anything other than carbon; materials such as titanium, aluminium and steel are generally recognised to have had their days in the sunlight, but while the black stuff reigns supreme, there's no-one investigating the continued possibilities of any of the metal alternatives. however, it occurs that, now that the vast majority of carbon is formed into monocoque structures, thre really ought to be a revision of the nomenclature used in the technical description of those particular bicycles. if i might refer to the metals cited earlier, bicycles constructed from those are definably a collection of individual tubes conjoined at the junctions, most notably by welding.

carbon isn't.

ernesto colnago, arguably the progenitor of the first commercially available carbon road bicycle (the c40), simply replicated the steel tubes of his master frameset, even down to the assos di fiori cross-section and joined them by means of carbon lugs. monocoques, however, consist of two identical sides of carbon layup created in precise molds, before being subsequently joined together. technically the top tube, down tube and seat tube are a part of the whole, and not actually tubes at all, at least not in the manner expected of metal frames. and while manufacturers will offer umpteen reasons for today's flattened shapes, i harbour a long-held suspicion that these exist because they can, rather than the fact that they're demonstrably faster than round tubes. is it not indicative that boeing, airbus, et al, still produce tube-like passenger planes, when rectangular cross sections would surely be more logical?

cars and buses aren't round.

it's eminently possible that much of this could be laid at the door of aluminium. leaving aside the substantial energy required to refine aluminium from bauxite, while the resultant metal is undeniably lighter than steel, it features considerably less tensile strength. the simplest means of adding this strength without drastically increasing the weight, is to increase the diameter. if ever you wondered why those cannondale frames of yesteryear consisted of 'drainpipe' downtubes, i've just answered the question for you. however, in the bicycle world, it often seems that beauty is in the eye of the non-discriminating beholder. i have handled many a child's full-suspension bicycle sporting large, oversized tubes, despite being fashioned from plain gauge steel tubing, a feeble and inordinately heavy attempt to provide a verisimilitude of top level aluminium bicycles.

as the aluminium characterisation hit home, several steel bike manufacturers/builders opted to use larger cross section steel tubing for purely aesthetic reasons. surely a skinny-tubed steel bike could scarcely hold its own with a top grade cannondale? actually, it probably could.

this predilection for oversized tubing initially crept into early carbon frames, despite being probably unnecessary. carbon fibre has a tensile strength well in excess of that possessed by steel, making it essentially unnecessary to retain the increased diameters of aluminium. but given that carbon was the principal follower of aluminium in the cycle construction stakes, it appears several builders simply followed ernesto's example, and replicated the aluminium tubes. but that doesn't assuage my contention that carbon monocoque frames do not consist of tubes, though i admit i have yet to come up with a viable alternative description.

however, if we take a look at cervelo's new r5, as provided to jonas, wout, sep and matteo, it appears that the tubes might actually be reducing in diameter (yet another difficult concept to grasp; can the word diameter be reasonably employed when describing a form that is neither round nor square?). however, if i can use the adjective skinny to describe the more slender parts of cervelo's latest, is it possible that this presages a return to the less hefty days of steel tubing, as seen prior to the early 1990s? i have made the point on previous occasions, that the cycle industry is as much a fashion victim as many other day-to-day aspects of contemporary life, but it also exhibits similar traits as seen in flocks of sheep.

there are few bicycles in the pro peloton that do not sport seatstays that join the seat-tube (see how difficult it is?) well below the joint with the top tube, even if the latter is sloping. try as i might, i have been unable to find any satisfactory engineering reason for this state of affairs. it appears that (and feel free to correct me), that somewhere along the line, one manufacturer thought it a wizard wheeze to lower the stays, and everyone else followed suit, not to be left behind.

with only a few more years of evolution, copying and adherence to fashionable tropes, it seems more than possible that the start line of a tour de france in the next decade, will feature bicycles every bit as svelte as those ridden by eddy. but probably without the chrome trim and exposed brake cables.

saturday 19 july 2025

depth of feeling

a few years past, i asked specialized bicycles if i might borrow an aluminium-framed allez, purely on the basis that their favoured son, peter sagan, had ridden just such a frame during the cirterium race forming part of the tour down under. of course, sagan's bicycle featured a far higher grade groupset than the stock allez, but that hardly explained why the three time world champion had opted to ride probably the cheapest frame produced by the american firm, when he could surely have chosen any one of a number of high-spec carbon frames, and probably in any colour his heart desired?

obviously, my own skills on the bicycle were unlikely to come anywhere near those demonstrated by the slovakian rider, but in the likelihood that his choice might perceivably influence sales in the succeeding weeks and months, a review on the post surely couldn't do any harm? happily, specialized uk were well-disposed towards acceding to my request, so i pushed my luck a tad further and asked if i might also be favoured with a set of roval, 64mm carbon wheels, the purchase price of which exceeded the entire cost of the allez by more than £100. tail wagging the dog, so to speak.

arriving with a pair of specialized tubeless tyres, i recall a three-day slog to encourage the rear tyre to seal properly, a task that did little to encourage my faith in the relatively new-fangled tyre technology. that remained the case even after the seal became complete, evidence for which was provided by the fact that it remained in that state only for one day at a time. i delighted in riding the allez in its virgin state, but addition of the roval carbon wheels brought a hitherto (almost) unforeseen problem. while riding north along the avenvogie road towards mulindry, we exited tree cover on the right hand side, into a brief clearing opposite the woodchip byre. the southerly wind that persisted caught that large chunk of carbon rotating 'neath the handlebars and pushed me to the opposite side of the road, almost taking out one of my sunday morning compatriots in the process.

the worst part was that it appeared there was little i could have done to stay on track.

in my career as a famous member of the cycling media, i have ridden many wheelsets featuring deep carbon rims, predominantly to learn if the promised wind-tunnel lateral testing performed as designed in real-life, hebridean conditions, where perpetual strong winds were a velocipedinist's natural birthright. given the experience outlined above, i was inclined to harbour my suspicions over the marketing department's hyperbole. these were, by far, the deepest rimmed wheels i had ridden; previous incumbents had tested my resolve in similar manner, but never to the degree experienced with the rovals. on my return home, i removed the wheels and reinstated the stock wheels with their considerably shallower, aluminium rims.

purely in the interests of extending my lifespan, you understand.

i have previously asked the question as to why cyclocross riders have uniformally adopted deep-carbon rimmed wheels, when the style of racing scarcely reaches the velocities for which such wheels were designed. however, in road-racing, this style of wheel is almost ubiquitous, where the 50kph at which these rotating components are regularly tested, is an easily achieved average by the bulk of the peloton. it's a speed that few of us amateur riders will ever see, unless rolling down the high road towards springbank, with a galeforce tailwind, surely calling into serious question the justification for spending such large sums of money on wheels that are unlikely to demonstrate any notable benefit to you and i. aside from aesthetics, the only reasoning i can fathom is the opportunity for the manufacturers to write their white logos a tad larger than on the standard fare.

that might be tadej's fault.

however, not content with dictating the width of the professional peloton's handelbars without apparent rider, mechanic or manufacturer consultation, cycling's allegedly inept rule-makers in aigle, announced that, from 1 january 2026, the professional peloton cannot roll on anything deeper than 65mm. both rules are being introduced in the interest of rider safety, and while i probably possess less than a tenth the ability of the average professional, i would tend to agree. as has frequently been pointed out, while the pros ride on whatever they are provided, the money to pay for their freebies comes from our very own hard-earned, despite no verfication of our own bike-handling abilities. in my experience, and i mean no disrespect to you all, few of us possess the abilities demanded by such deep-rimmed wheels.

it's for similar reasons that porsche demand that customers who wish to purchase their more rarified models possess suitable experience with at least the 911 turbo.

however there are converse circumstances surrounding this state of affairs. first off, wheel manufacturer swiss-side have written to the uci, objecting that this new rule outlaws their rigorously tested 68mm wheelset released earlier this month. they claim that the characteristics of the aforementioned wheels outperform competing products of a mere 50/60mm. but if we can bear in mind the need for rider safety, it may be pertinent to highlight that dt swiss have advised customers to refrain from using sets of their (admittedly less deep) carbon road wheels due to concerns over 'spontaneous delamination' of the rims.

though not necessarily the sort of thing that acolytes of the professional milieu may wish to hear, i have not harboured a single regret over my choice to have condor cycles build me a custom pair of wheels, marrying campagnolo record hubs with mavic open-pro aluminium rims, via 32 stainless spokes built three-cross with brass nipples. utterly reliable, completely unaffected by the wind, and more than likely to outlast yours truly. at a mere £400 per pair, including carriage, i feel a distinct and smug superiority over those who spend thousands on potentially outlawed wheelsets that, by-and-large, are way too good for most of us.

friday 18 july 2025

why?

like many of you, i own and ride a bicycle because i want to, because i enjoy it and because it keeps me fit (recent health scare notwithstanding). the fact that cycling is also 'good for the planet' certainly has a bearing on matters, but i can't say that was my principal aim when first i opted to cycle rather than drive. the latter is based far more on the fact that i'm not a very good driver; believe me, i and the driving public on islay are far better off knowing that i ride a bicycle. i cannot actually recall the last time i drove a car, but it was certainly during a past islay jazz festival, when, at one time, i was in the habit of hiring a car to move my drumset from home to venue and back again.

and to a certain extent, we've been here before.

well over five years ago, when argyll & bute's member of parliament was not the useless object currently holding the post, the uk government offered a grant to those wishing to purchase a new electric car, for proffered environmental reasons, though in truth i believe it had far more to do with assisting car manufacturers achieve the government's imposed sales requirements, which they were struggling to achieve. so, if we're conversing about environmental issues, other than walking, which particular mode of transport has proved itself time and time again, to be emission free?

with that in mind, i wrote to the mp in question, asking why, if this was truly a government intiative principally concerned with lowering the uk's environmental deficit, why were they not offering a pro-rata sum of money to assist individuals to purchase an acoustic bicycle, augmented with a few pounds less if directed towards an e-bike. taking my letter and his responsibilities seriously, he enquired of the chancellor of the exchequer, who apparently replied that this was a matter devolved to holyrood, though interestingly, not that electric car grant. so, my mp re-directed his question to edinburgh, which offered the answer that they had provided local councils with appropriate funding to facilitate cycling and walking across each region. he then spoke to the council, asking on what they had spent this money, resulting in a list of existing projects, either completed or underway.

the more eagle-eyed amongst you will have already realised that the final answer had little or nothing to do with the original question. to wit: why was the uk government not offering prospective cyclists a suitable grant to purchase an emissions free mode of transport?

yet, here we are, at least five years later, and they're doing it all over again, and for the same reputed reason. according to a recent report in the guardian newspaper, "The government is seeking to boost domestic manufacturing of zero-emission vehicles."

does that remind you of anything in particular?

thursday 17 july 2025

you're a good sport charlie brown

as a student at art college, i was sufficiently reactionary to eschew the purchase of a daily newspaper, but perceptive enough to opt for a sunday broadsheet in the shape of the observer, a newspaper that was at one time, the adjunct of the guardian. citing the situation in this manner would hopefully lead you to believe that my tastes erred towards the highbrow, and i cannot deny that i'd prefer that you bear that in mind when i admit the real reason for my choice of sunday newspaper. at the bottom of the last page of the colour magazine each week, was a charlie brown cartoon. i do hope this fills you with admiration, because each week, i would cut out that cartoon and keep it in a brown envelope; that was nigh on fifty years ago, and it cheers me no end to admit that i still have that brown envelope stuffed full of charlie brown cartoons, all of which augment my collection of charlie brown books, occupying pride of place on the landing bookshelf.

lest you think of this as aberrant behaviour, i might point the accusatory finger at a friend of mine who attended univeersity while i was drawing pictures and colouring them in. at the end of second year, he moved out of private digs and into the university halls of residence, where he papered the walls and ceiling with precisely the same cartoons as i had carefully placed in the now salutory brown envelope.

both of us, and doubtless thousands of others, were drawn to charles schultz' cast of odd characters and a dog which slept atop his kennel, frequently visited by a bird named 'woodstock', and both of whom inhabited alternate identities as first world war aeronauts engaging in battle with the dreaded red baron. (this characterisation was released as a single by the royal guardsmen in 1966) one of my areas of interest while studying at college was that of animation, many years before the computer took on the role of interpolator. if required to denote even the key-frames in such a pursuit, it was necessary to ensure that facial expressions remained consistent throughout, no matter the angle at which each character was illustrated. charles schultz, to me at least, seemed to have solved this problem area, and in order to further investigate, i found myself copying facial expressions from peanuts cartoons for future reference.

these rudimentary copies were made in my personal sketchbook, something we were encouraged to maintain throughout our years at college, including anything and everything in which we found artistic interest. though perhaps a tad contradictory, during the end of year assessments, we were asked to submit those sketchbooks. you can perhaps comprehend my disappointment on returning to the studio, only to be met with several pages of these cartoon expressions torn from my (personal) sketchbook, pinned to the wall and accompanied by annotation suggesting i indulge in less of that sort of thing. apparently, the college powers that be harboured a different definition of the word personal than did i.

this one-time obsession with charlie brown and his cohorts has relaxed just a tad over the intervening years, though brought to the fore last christmas, when one of my work colleagues had the perspicacity and decency to present me with a red t-shirt featuring snoopy and woodstock riding a bicycle; probably the cartoon equivalent of the golden section. despite my enthusiasm for snoopy, woodstock, charlie brown, linus, peppermint patty et al, it hadn't occurred to me that they too might have velocipedinal aspirations of their own.

few of you will likely have heard of california born jazz pianist, vince guaraldi, but i'd be willing to bet that you've heard his music, particularly if you've watched peanuts cartoons on the tellybox or on dvd. from 1963, guaraldi composed the music for the first sixteen peanuts tv specials, plus one feature film and the signature theme entitled linus and lucy. guaraldi passed away in 1976 at the early age of 46 following a heart attack, but his music has stood the test of time, with several lost compositions having been subsequently discovered and released to great approbation from jazz and peanuts fans the world over.

were that not enough, on the 11th of this month, the very day i made my timpani debut with the cantilena orchestra (yes, really), lee mendelson film productions released you're a good sport, charlie brown, featuring 19 tracks that had not been played since 1975. should you be scratching your heads, wondering what the heck any of this has to do with cycling, it gives me great pleasure to inform you that tracks 16, 17, 18 and 19 bear the following titles: bicycles are beautiful, bicycle ballad, bicycle bounce, and bicycle wizard. though the album has more of a motocross theme, the tracks mentioned above are taken from bicycles are beautiful recorded on 2 april 1974 by vince guaraldi on keyboards, seward mccain on bass and glenn cronkhite on drums.

i believe my point has been well made.

wednesday 16 july 2025

days of future passed

when i was a tiny tot, prior to the lengthy period of time learning to ride a bicycle, i was the proud owner of a tricycle, featuring what resembled little more than a large breadbin between the two rear wheels, affording sufficient space for my teddy bears (obviously you couldn't leave them alone at home). at the outset, this extremely junior mode of transport was a smidgeon on the large side, entailing the fitting of removeable blocks on the pedals, so that tender little legs would not be overly troubled. i cannot recall if the trike was new, or not; i do recall scraped paintwork and a dinged breadbin, but that could easily have been me, my peer group or a combination of both.

at that point in my life (aged three to seven), the family lived on a gentle hill, allowing for plenty of downward freewheeling, followed by resistance training attempting to get back home. within an acceptable radius, i went everywhere on the trike, including, as i remember, several places i probably shouldn't have. but i wasn't alone in that; the aforementioned peer group was every bit as complicit, whether during endlessly sunny summer days (seen through rose-tinted glasses) and bitterly cold, snowy and frosty winters.

at the age of seven, i moved from scotland's east cost to that of the south-west, leaving behind that family heirloom of a trike, supplanted by a blue two-wheeler that i was initially unable to ride. borrowing a much smaller bicycle from a nearby friend, i was able to learn around my parents' large back garden, where falling off meant only grass stains, rather than skinned knees. after more than a year (i'm a slow learner) i eventually gained the wherewithal to ride that larger blue bicycle, at which point, freedom was mine. as long as i told my mum where i was going and promised to be back by teatime.

we currently live midst housing that features purportedly traffic-free paths, a state of affairs that was true when my kids played on their bicycles, but, like almost everywhere else, is no longer the case. pathways that were expressly constructed to allow traffic-free movement and play, are, more frequently than you'd like, occupied with parked cars. and when they're not parked, they're driven in and out of those pathways. even a remote island location like islay, is rapidly becoming like regions of america, where no-one walks anywhere, but travels stunningly short distances by car. for all the posturing by governments promising to change britain's travel infrasructure to benefit pedestrians and cyclists, there seem to be fewer and fewer kids scooting about hither and thither on bicycles of any size.

i mentioned only last week that the local golf club trumpeted they had recruited 29 junior members in the first six months of this year. despite the knowledge that even kids cannot golf to school or golf to their friends' houses. nor, indeed, can they swim to each others' houses or school (even those living on the other side of the loch). there are still one or two bowmore kids who cycle to school, but can only do so on the village pavements; mum and dad think the roads in a village of about 1,000 people are too dangerous. the sad fact is that they're probably right. and if bowmore's parents are right, that can only be multiplied by several magnitudes across mainland towns and cities.

i don't have statistics for scotland or the uk, but a recent article in america's theatlantic.com claimed that in the 1990s, an average of 20.5 million children between the ages of seven and 17 rode their bicycles six or more time per year. in 2023, that figure had diminished to 10.9 million. the reason? bigger, faster motor cars inhabiting towns and cities that are designed more around the motor car than they are around people. and it seems that those accommodated motorists are becoming less and less concerned about who or what they might disadvantage in the process of doing whatever it is they singularly wish to do.

last week, bowmore was visited by an oban company who specialise in painting lines on roads, clearly demonstrated by large, bright yellow lines and words delineating main street's two bus stops. on the following day, a motorist yet to learn to read, had parked a pickup and trailer in a space clearly marked bus stop. because of their selfishness, the bus was unable to access the bus stop, stationing itself on the road and blocking one lane of a two-lane road. to compound matters, the bus heading in the opposite direction was unable to stop in its designated bus stop, because so doing would have effectively blocked the entire street.

none of this explains why there are fewer and fewer kids on bicycles, but it is a symptom of the problem. not only was that pickup and trailer illegally parked in the bus stop, but there is literally no-one on the island to enforce the law that says it shouldn't happen. parking regulation is the preserve of the council, yet there is no enforcement staff on the island. allegedly, the police could intervene, citing obstruction, but in truth islay's police could best be described as less than pro-active. if parking and road violations are allowed to slip by, what chance have today's kids and their parents to feel safe on the roads? once again, it's a problem that is likely far more prevalent in mainland locations.

though i'd probably be amongst the first to cite mobile phones as the main reason behind the childhood obesity and mental health crises, it looks like it might not be alone in harbouring responsibility.

is this really the best society can do for today's children? all of islay's primary schools have either reached or targeted a gold, unicef rights respecting school award. pity it seems only to be theoretical.

tuesday 15 july 2025