the post

book reviews

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

are you covered?

an article in the guardian apparently based on information from the cyclists touring club indicates that less than two percent of us who regularly ride bicycles have third party insurance. despite this being the absolute minimum requirement for car owners, insurance is not mandatory for cyclists, and at the risk of incurring the wrath of a large proportion of the ninety eight percent, i figure it probably should be.

i'm sure we're all very careful when out and about on our bicycles, whether in the rarefied atmosphere of a hebridean island, or the teeming centre of the city. but consider worst case scenario, that we cause an accident, ride into a pedestrian or ride into a car. chances are the other party will hold us responsible, and they may well be right to do so. i have no great desire to be landed with a lawsuit for a couple of million, nor do i wish to be facing several months in hospital and unable to earn the pennies that will keep me in colnagos till my dotage

not being a particularly organised person, i have to say that i think that i do have the appropriate insurance, but i'm not sure. but i am sure that i'm going to contact my insuring type people tomorrow and find out. and i reckon you probably should too, unless you started reading this article with a smug 'i have truckloads of insurance thank you very much'.

i have no particular recommendations as to an appropriate insurance company because i'd like to remain neutral thank you very much, though it does seem worth mentioning that this kind of insurance comes as a freebie if you join the aforementioned ctc or british cycling.

don't say i didn't warn you.

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

couldn't possibly name that tune

i confess to being in the very early stages of this, but it's something that sort of crept in by the back door. having reviewed the pantani dvd from bromley video and currently reviewing the eddy merckx story, i've noticed just how crap some of the incidental music is. (i thought this was supposed to be a cycling website?) on checking some of my older cycling videos, i find that the same applies to those as well.

having done a limited amount of video work in past years, i can identify with the problems of trying to find decent, royalty free incidental music in order to keep within budget, but why does it have to be so appalling? if any of you have seen roam, by the collective, you'll know that soundtracks don't have to be this way.

however, since cobbles baby currently long awaited from prendas has been delayed for ages because of copyright problems with a piece of music on the soundtrack, maybe we should be prepared to listen to bland so that we get the dvds on time. i know mick (prendas) will agree. update to the latter

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

ernesto's heritage

an old colnago

just to prove that the post really has an obsession with colnagos and not just with carbon fibre moulded to look like one. this particular machine appeared at the bruichladdich islay triathlon at the weekend, though i never managed to catch up with the owner.

most obvious difference between old and new was the 'all-in-one' paintjob, an obvious lack of the word 'colnago' in comparison to modern day machines and the fact that ernesto's signature appears at the front right of the top tube. nowadays it's at the rear on the left. this one was kitted out with shimano, but you can't have everything, and i didn't pick up the courage to pick up the bike and find out how light was light a few years back.

surprisingly no chrome either - good move in a scottish climate.

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

now that's a proper bike

dutch bike

when i started fixing bikes ages and ages and ages ago, i received a bike for repair that was completely different to anything i'd ever seen before. a dutchman who owns a farm on the island brought us in what lots of folk referred to as a'proper bike'.

i'd been asked quite often about such bikes and, since i dealt with giant at the time and they showed similar velocipedes in their european catalogues, i asked the question if i could purchase a couple. it will not surprise you to learn that the answer was not in the affirmative (cap'n). giant were (and possibly still are) based in amsterdam for the european market, and brought such bikes in for the european (dutch) market. they claimed that there was no market for such a bike in the uk which i could never really understand. how could they tell that there was no market for a bike that you couldn't buy here anyway?

azorbike

anyway, seems we may not have been the only folks that thought there was a market for these machines (and i'd have to say that, while 'test riding' the repair of the dutchman's bike we had in for repair, that riding one of these is great fun). both dutchbike and dutch-bikes - not to be confused with each other as far as i can see - provide the prospective customer with machines such as those seen in the pics.

sure, my little piece of italian carbon fibre heaven weighs about 7.5kg as opposed to around 21.5kg for one of these beauties, but you can buy a whole heavy bike for less than a third of the cost of a colnago frame (just to place it all in perspective) and not everyone is on a high carbon fibre diet. and secretly, if you promise not to tell anyone, i'd rather like to ride one of these again.

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

stoplight

gerry's brake light

just at the prototype stage at the moment, but longtime friend of the post, gerry bracken, has finally been granted a patent for his bicycle brake light. this simple but ingenious device works using a hinged battery that switches on a set of (very bright) leds whenever the bike is stopped. there's no need to connect the device to the cycle brakes, and it works off a couple of triple a batteries

gerry's looking for someone who might be interested in putting this device into production, so if that might be you, e-mail me and i'll put you in touch.

neat device

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

this website is named after graeme obree's championship winning 'old faithful' built using bits from a defunct washing machine

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

as always, if you have any comments on this nonsense, please feel free to e-mail and thanks for reading.

this column appears, as regular as clockwork on this website every two weeks. (ok so i lied) sometimes there are bits added in between times, but it all adds to the excitement.

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................