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the other braveheart

lion rampant cycle clothing

for whatever reason, biemme clothing have introduced a range of lion rampant cycle clothing which appears to have expanded from a straightforward short sleeve jersey to a long sleeve, an air bloc jacket and a gilet all to help you prove that you are a scottish cyclist. if indeed you are.

and cycle specialists pearson seem to be the most ostentatious supplier of this clothing through their advertisements in the comic. according to their website, they sold out of the first batch of short sleeves, so there's obviously a contingent of scots on bikes who wish that fact to be known to passers by. i'm sure i saw at least a couple of these at the braveheart ride in october.

perhaps it's the increase in the number of cyclo-sportives around the world that has created the demand, since last time i looked, biemme were not based anywhere north of the border. but stranger is the observation that there doesn't appear to be the same range of kit for other nations that make up the united kingdom.

if you're scottish and proud of it, prices start at £39.99 for the short sleeve, but you can save £25 and buy the whole kit and kaboodle for £149.99 from pearsons.

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look, he's doing it again, again

post war heroes

i know i've reviewed cycling's golden age from velopress and made many a mention of it on the post, and there will be extracts on an upcoming washingmachinepodcast (oh, no). so why am i mentioning it yet again?

well, while it should be available from 'all good booksellers', and the uk distributors, cordee.co.uk, mick and andy at prendas are now stocking it too. we are happy cyclists.

browse there now

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stay at home with chris

chris carmichael training

when reviewing the 'workouts in a binder' book, i managed to point out that sitting on a turbo trainer for any length of time is somewhat of an anathema for me. i would honestly rather go out and get blown halfway across the island than use one of those things. however, i realise that some cyclists either do enjoy it, or pretend they do, in order to be at peak fitness for the coming season.

happily, i don't actually have a coming season, other than training like a madman for london-paris, but for those of you who do, chris carmichael training systems have developed a smart way of grabbing just the training you need without ever leaving your ipod. log on to the cts website and purchase (for a remarkably reasonable $9.99 - £6.79) the turbo training regime that you need, want, fancy and it downloads through itunes. you can then either watch on the computer or upload to a video ipod for portability. and try before you buy - there's a neat wee flash video clip you can watch to see if it suits.

now isn't that clever?

and for those without a video ipod (me, me, me) you can 'do the tour-stay at home', effectively a series of podcasts relating to the tour stages. each podcast chooses a stage of the tour and tells you how to warm up and how to ride each stage. this can be done aboard the pre-discussed turbo, or out on the road. not quite sure how i'd manage the hilly stage from saint-jean-de-maurienne to morzine along the low road to port ellen (flat eight miles), but i'm sure a degree of creativity could be incorporated.

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on track for 2014

commonwealth games 2014

jez has just e-mailed me to enquire whether we will be expanding the panoply of velo club d'ardbeg events by adding a six-day track event along with the traditional gran fondo ardbeg? and why would we be so forward as to do so, and more to the point, where?

well, good old glasgow is bidding to host the commonwealth games in 2014 and proposing to include a state of the art indoor velodrome as part of the national indoor arena. all we have to do is get the track team on the bus to glasgow, and victory would be assured. and we've got about four years to train.

only hurdle we can see is on the 9th of november 2007 which is when glasgow finds out if its bid is successful. well - how can there be a better location than glasgow?

you can add your support at the official website here.

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more cobbles baby

paris_roubaix

we all have our favourite races, whether a three week stage race across an entire country, or a one hour plus one lap cyclo-cross romp. the post's favourite race in the entire history of the known universe is paris-roubaix, and just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any better - it did.

according to a press release of a month ago (took my eye off the ball there, did i not?), another 1400m of cobbles have been added to the 2007 route. situated between the towns of orchies and beuvry-la-foret, the chemin du moulin is currently made up of 800 metres in need of repair and another 600 metres of non tarmac road. the new section will be bounced across after 200km of the usual bone jarring that is the hell of the north (pretty darned near the end to put it in perspective). the cobbles will be put in place by 12 'young people' recruited by the local council.

paris-roubaix takes place on sunday 15th april 2007.

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look, he's doing it again

taliah lempert blind drawing

i know we've had a piece on taliah lempert's 'blind drawings' before, but while checking out her website, i came upon this one, and i thought it was great. so i'm imposing it upon you just for that reason.

no apologies, i'm afraid.

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java script

baum cycles

scroll down almost to the bottom of this page, and you will find a little piece that remains permanently affixed to the post entitled 'tell them we sent you' (don't scroll now, wait till i've finished). as you may have deduced from the title, those of us at the post and velo club d'ardbeg have listed three establishments worthy of your patronage should you ever be fortunate enough to visit our island. and it will come as little surprise that these recommendations are principally based on one thing - coffee. dave t likes his cappucino, while luxury for jez and myself is a double espresso.

and it turns out that cyclists are the same all across the world, even down under at baum cycles, victoria, australia. they hand-build an exquisite range of steel and titanium bicycles (with, take note, non integrated headsets) and then give them great names: ristretto, espresso and cappucino.

told you we were all the same. take a look at their cool monochrome website. baumcycles.com

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why does it take the tour riders so long?

london paris bike ride

if you've been fastidious in your viewing habits, you will hopefully have come across the short documentary on the london paris ride on cycling.tv's free to air channel. after receiving an e-mail alert from james at cycling.tv eariler in the month that the programme was being broadcast, and having got past the windows media player problems on intel macs (it's all bill gates' fault), i watched the whole thing twice, because.. well because it was great.

so, never one to let an inner tube stand still too long, i signed up to take part in the 2007 event, starting june 28th and finishing three days later in versailles. it seems that cycling.tv have a couple of teams in as well, and the eurosport pairing of sean kelly and david harmon is also taking part.

so many thanks to graeme freestone king (uk eddy merckx importer) for his assistance with my entry and for the possibility of being able to road test an eddy merckx bike from london to paris. that's something that doesn't happen too often.

since the daily distance is 200km and even the slowest folks run at 25kph, training has already started - the hebridean commute has taken on a new importance, and i will try to bore you with the details as often as possible.

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what's it for?

rapha pocket

if you've read jez' piece on the rapha gilet, you will have seen mention of his lack of understanding as to the purpose of the tiny pocket on said garment. and there's a similar but much trendier pocket on the rapha stowaway jacket which may also defy description.

well, wonder no more, we have found out just what they're for - debbie's coffee loyalty cards. yes, debbie macdougall, proprietrix of the mini-market in bruichladdich has introduced little cards to give a free coffee for every eight purchased. since this is our sunday coffee stop, we have welcomed this move with open pockets, because the cards fit just dinky doo. and better still, the stowaway keeps the card bone dry (i know, because i just tested it today).

don't you just love it when life's little mysteries are solved so easily?

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did we know about this?

ortlieb sling-it

well, know we didn't know about this, and more to the point we were unaware that september 22 was world car free day. and i think we might be in good company there. to quote from a worldcarfree press release:
On September 22, the world will catch a glimpse of an easier and more joyous way of life. All around the globe, streets will be closed to cars and opened to children's games, neighborhood parties, street theater and outdoor cafes, allowing people to see their cities the way they could be without cars. Dreams of healthier, cleaner and more sociable communities will be made tangible for a day, and plans for permanent changes to strengthen walking, cycling and public transport will be unveiled in hundreds of cities.

now i'm all for a world that has considerably lower dependency on automobiles - i know folks who drive a few hundred yards to collect the daily newspaper, instead of using a perfectly healthy pair of legs, but i'm not too sure that games and parties are necessarily the way we would want to see our towns and cities if the cars all disappeared.

and laudable though the whole plan may be, it's fairly unlikely that cars will disappear anytime soon, even if fuel costs are heading skywards. still, i dare say it all has to start somewhere, so take a click over to worldcarfree.net to see if it's the sort of thing that inflates your tyres.

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

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