at the beginning of last week, i spoke on the phone to a former colleague, who now lives somewhere in southern englandshire. i'm afraid my lack of geographical awareness prevents me from being more specific than that. however, she informed me that one of her sons had been playing, shirtless, in the back garden as they enjoyed temperatures of between 18 and 20 degrees. true to their usual southern-centric mindset, the radio and tv weather forecasts consistently refer to the prognostication that this mild spell is likey to last throughout the coming week.
i'm inclined to phrase my riposte in the vernacular, to wit: "come over here and say that."
2019 has yet to reach the third month of the year, three months that those of us in the atlantic ocean (at least), would still regard as being the throes of winter. we're still having ferries either cancelled or diverted between ports, due to the direction of the galeforce winds that form a perennial background to our daily ministrations. on the plus side, we probably gain far greater mileage from winter garb than does the southern and eastern part of the united kingdom. on yesterday's sunday morning ride my garmin was happy to report that the ambient temperature hovered around eight degrees, with galeforce windchill lowering that closer to five.
yet, always keen to demonstrate how big and tough and strong we are on the outer edge, one of the fellows in the peloton arrived for the grand départ clad in a pair of bibshorts and sporting bare legs. while i admired his tenacity, i had accessorised my own pair of velobici rené thermal bibs with a pair of merino kneewarmers. as an individual from an older generation, i figure there is no shame in keeping those boney knees covered at least until easter (weather permitting).
suspicious as i usually am about all manner of things cycling, from electronic gearchanging to hydraulic disc-brakes, i have been happy to eat humble-pie when it comes to assessing the effectiveness of thermal bibshorts. originally, such an animal seemed every bit as effective as the proverbial 'chocolate fireguard'. it may seem to be stating the obvious to point out that any pair of bibshorts from any manufacturer you care to mention, stretch only as far as just above the knee. unless of course, you're sean yates.
so, even if those bibs feature a cosy lining of one sort of another, those knees, shins and calf muscles are still completely exposed to the vicissitudes of what i believe we have agreed to refer to as 'winter'. if you're of a similar mind to yours truly, that might seem somewhat of a pointless exercise. except, oddly enough, it isn't.
excluding those merino kneewarmers, for which i remain quite thankful, velobici's rené, all season bibshorts, proudly made in england (the same country allegedly experiencing an insubordinate level of mild weather) are the bee's knees as far as i'm concerned. despite a biting wind that had us shivering whenever we stopped to allow for gruppo compatto, my nether regions and chris hoy replica thighs remained fortified by cosy lycra.
and though scarcely designed to augment those thermal properties, it's comfortingly pleasant to see the two velobici logos embroidered, rather than applied by means of dye-sublimation. it's a quality feature on a quality garment.
the bib section consists of flat straps and flatlock stitching, obviating any tendency to exert untoward pressure on the shoulders. the front section has been ideally considered to allow for a comfort break, devoid of any accompanying gymnastics so to do. this always seems a factor that ought to be given priority at the design stage, but to be honest, that's not always the case. the brightly coloured 'bioceramic 7 hour pad', constructed, according to velobici, using 'foam carving technology' avoids placing any foam at the sides which are regarded as surplus to requirements.
however, i'm happy to leave the extensive descriptions and technological flim-flam to velobici; none of this is really of major concern when sitting on and cycling in bibshorts as comfortable as these. i've said it on many previous occasions: the best compliment that can be paid to any pair of bibshorts, is that you completely forget that they are there (modesty permitting). the rené all season bibs are just such a pair. i can guarantee that i'll still be wearing these shorts when scotland achieves temperatures currently apparent down south.
probably for a couple of days in mid-august.
(velobici's rené all season bibshorts are available only in black with gold embroidered logos. they can be bought in sizes ranging from xs to xxl at a retail price of £180.)
velobici rené all season bibshorts
monday 25 february 2019
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................some of you may remember the fracas that accompanied our welcoming in of the new century some nineteen years ago, one that occupied many an information technology department for more than just a few moments. often referred to as the y2k bug, it principally concerned those operating mocrosoft windows computers, while those of us on apple macs sat smugly in the corner. only we didn't really.
all businesses with six employees or more, were allegedly required to carry out an audit of their software, to ensure it was y2k compliant, resulting in many answers and queries based entirely on guesswork. the potential problem revolved around the possibility that windows/dos based computers might not recognise the change from 1999 to the year 2000, with fears that they might reset themselves either to zero, or the date at which the software was conceived. all manner of horror stories were portrayed, from wiping out everyone's bank balances, to shutting down nuclear reactors and affecting satellite communications.
the truth is, nobody actually knew until it happened. and, in the finest tradtion of the goon show, when midnight passed at the turn of the century, suddenly, nothing happened. as far as i know, all the world's computers simply rolled the date forward to january 1 2000 and carried on regardless.
though hardly as potentially destructive as the portent of incompatible computer software, a similar forecast of doom and destruction now casts its shadow across the world of human transportation. this has its roots in the development of driverless cars, a subject that was rarely out of the news but a year ago and now seems to have been relegated to the corner of the room. however, in the words of robin hood "nothing is ever forgotten."
dutch-based audit company 'klynveld, peat, marwick, goerdeler' more commonly referred to as 'kpmg', aside from everything else they appear to do for a living, prepare an annual report entitled the autonomous vehicles readiness index', categorising the order in which countries appear ready to accept the driverless car into their society. one would hasten to accuse them of prejudice or favouritism, but this recently published report names holland as the country most eager and willing to succumb to the inevitable march of the autonomous vehicle.
however, they have been quick to point out that this purported readiness might be undermined by the enormous number of cyclists frequenting that country's transport infrastructure. this provides a potential, but foreseeable problem in that cyclists tend to be a smidgeon more random in their movements than would be a motor car adhering to the directions of a computer programme. though the rise and rise of artificial intelligence could likely assist the basic software to learn about its surroundings, it would be silly to deny that zeros and ones tend to be potentially limited by their logical 'thought' processes. and i'd hate to think that the ai portion of its brain would only learn after the vehicle had knocked down a few cyclists or pedestrians.
it has already been suggested that bicycles may be required to carry a small transmitter to aid driverless cars in identifying their existence, speed and constitution, thus helping to avoid any physical confrontations. the suggestions, however, have not stopped there, with renewed calls to segregate the two modes of transport by means of a separate cycle infrastructure. the cost implications of so doing, scarcely bear thinking about, simply to allow a portion of society to travel without their hands on the steering wheel.
ruminating over the possibilities, foibles and potential dangers has already filled many a column centimetre, just as i've done here. kpmg however isn't currently concerned with cyclists; its ministrations are purely directed at the evolution of the driverless car, possibly meaning that cyclists and pedestrians will only be considered once the cars are safely tucked up in their new bed. no change there, then.
but just like the hoo-ha surrounding y2k, nobody will really know how good or bad the situation might be until it comes to pass. and if we're lucky, by that time, climate change might have rendered the motor car, driverless or otherwise, extinct.
sunday 24 february 2019
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................if i'm in danger of giving the impression that i watch nothing else on television other than 'the big bang theory', then i'm probably doing ok. with respect to the current discussion about to unfold, there's an episode in which 'penny' decodes to start her own business making 'penny blossoms', small, artificial flowers that could be worn in a decorative manner. on discovering that there may be a hitherto untapped male market, leonard, raj, howard and sheldon consider options that might make these 'blossoms' more attractive to blokes. their proffered solution was to 'add bluetooth, because everyone loves bluetooth.'
those for whom 'the big bang theory' remains a mystery, or who have yet to watch an episode, it seems pertinent to point out that it is intended as a comedy show. humour is the principal object of the scripts.
however, comedy is a feature mostly to be found conspicuous by its absence in the road-cycling world, for which reason, i truthfully know not. i do recall penning an article many, many years ago, despondently acknowledging that those intent on inhabiting the offroad world seemed to be of a less serious disposition, than their counterparts with three rear pockets on the jersey. i had fervently hoped that circumstances might have ameliorated during the ensuing years, but if anything, the world of the roadie has become more indentured to seriousness, courtesy of strava, aerodynamics, indoor training et al. this level of earnestness, it appears, stretches even to a facet of which i'd scarcely have thought.
silca, who are being cast as the villains of this piece, when discussing their latest, portable track pump, the viaggio, on their website, recount a tale of two individuals who participated in the cape epic bike ride in south africa. according to the story, not only did our two hapless heroes not realise that their own home track pumps were both uncalibrated to differing degrees, but that the pump purchased on arrival in africa was once again uncalibrated.
apparently those home pumps displayed 24psi as 28psi and 25psi respectively, while the purchased version showed 24 as 21. this meant that at the start of the event's first stage, both were "...running well over (the) desired pressure...", eventually resulting in a dented rim, having ultimately deflated the tyres to a greater than desired degree. though i may be placing my head in the lion's mouth, i have rarely been quite so specific when inflating my own tyres, even when scooting around on the 'cross bike. i tend to use the gauge on my own track pump as a guide, rather than a pin-sharp reading. i appreciate that professional mechanics are less likely to take such a laissez-faire attitude, but if 24psi was displayed by 1psi greater, i hardly think that would be cause for a steward's enquiry.
however, none of this is intended to cast a slight on the reassuringly expensive track pumps produced by silca. take my word for it, if i had the disposable income to accommodate such finely-crafted technology, there would be one currently sitting in thewashingmachinepost bikeshed. but it cannot be realistically advised that travelling with a regular-size track pump is the most practical of situations. recognising this as a downside of modern-day cycling and the comcomitant travel plans of many of its aficionados, silca have developed, over the last five years, the viaggio, a compact and bijou device capable of working with a disc wheel (?) and track pressures, as well as the lower numbers desired by wide mountain biking tyres.
in and of itself, this is hardly the most iniquitous of situations, but in order to bring my digressions to a logical conclusion, the cnc machined, aluminium viaggio features a bluetooth-enabled pressure gauge, accurate to within 1%. this is capable of transmitting the pressure data to silca's igauge smartphone app. which, for me at least, beggars the question "why?"
silca's viaggio portable track pump retails at $275.
saturday 23 february 2019
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................as i believe i may have mentioned on at least one previous occasion, i have become a spokesman/apologist for my people. it is a position i neither applied for, nor, if i'm perfectly honest, one that i feel entirely comfortable inhabiting.
a visitor to the office this afternoon, a gentleman of repute and one whom i have known for several years, plies his trade about the principality, driving the archetypal and ultimately ubiquitous, white van. it is of little relevance what it is he does when the van stops, but when we meet on the local highways and byways, he has been nothing but courteous, allowing plenty of shoogling room for an itinerant cyclist, while i have always attempted to return the favour by waving him through if the road appears clear ahead.
my reason for introducing him in this fashion, is to assure you of his credibility when it comes to any potential 'white van man/bicycle' interface. so, while the reason for his visit had nothing to do with either vans or bicycles, when he brought the subject into the conversation, i was left little recourse but to listen and attempt to answer in a satisfactory manner. for you will recall that i am the nominated spokesperson for my people.
to pile even more credibility onto his person, he was well aware of the advice to allow around one and a half metres of space between himself and cyclists when passing on a two-lane road. yet he opened the dialogue by asking what he was meant to do, if acceding to this advisory directive would be likely to put him in the ditch? admit it, just like i was, you are now intrigued?
it transpires that he had caught up with two holidaying cyclists on what we like to refer to as the 'low road', connecting the villages of port ellen and bowmore and passing islay international airport along the way. due to these two unknown velocipedinists riding two abreast and not particularly closely at that, he was loathe to attempt an overtaking manouevre, given that so doing at the prescribed distance, would be all but impossible. unwilling to endanger their lackadaisical perambulations, he sounded the horn and attempted to signal that they might courteously place themselves in single-file.
friendly to the last, they offered a well-known hand-signal by riposte, so he had no option but to overtake and leave as much room as was available. world renowned as tenacious individuals, the two cyclists subsequently came across his parked van in port ellen village, sought him out and proceeded to give him a piece of their mind(s).
much as i would dearly love to be self-righteous and vociferously side with my fellow (unknown) cyclists, in point of fact, i think they were very deeply in the wrong. the few two lane roadways across the island are wide enough to allow two articulated trucks to pass side by side, but there's barely a cigarette paper's width between them. under normal conditions, cyclists riding two abreast could be reckoned to occupy a similar width as a single, slow-moving, motor car, but often only if attempting to emulate the proximity displayed by a red arrows formation. should those cyclists, as in this case, be prone to wandering just a tad, though a motor vehicle can overtake, its rarely possible to do so without transgressing the '1.5 metre' rule.
in a comparable manner to those of us comprising the sunday morning peloton, holidaying cyclists are rarely under any great pressure to be somewhere at a given time. for all the time it would take for one cyclist to slip behind the other to allow for an overtaking vehicle, particularly in their own interests of safety, i'm afraid i fail to see the problem. additionally, as i have said more times than i can truly recall, and entirely pertinent in this situation, you may be on holiday but the tractor/white van/articulated truck behind you, most definitely isn't. so do the decent thing and get out the way where possible.
this advice goes double when riding on single track roads; there's no earthly chance that anything can overtake you on one of those, so please show courtesy to those we share the road with and pull into the side when safe to do so. the easter holidays, when the annual cycling influx commences, are still a couple of months away, but if you think it'll help, print this out and tape it to the top of your handlebar bag. let's be the bigger persons.
friday 22 february 2019
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................i recall once positing that the minds behind adobe photoshop were quite possibly of alien origin. and such a remark was made only partially tongue in cheek. though i have no intention of demeaning or disparaging those responsible for writing the thousands of lines of code that have undoubtedly made this piece of pixel-wrangling software the industry standard, it hardly seems credible that they all consider themselves to also be bona-fide photographers, or even individuals with a specific interest in digital imaging.
yet, when time comes to remove or add someone or something to an existing image, the tools for doing so are eager and willing to make accomplishment of either task, a relatively simple procedure. and though the pace of development has noticeably slowed of late (almost inevitably, as the law of diminishing returns makes itself known), photoshop still has an ability to provide the user with tools or features that, up till a given point in time, they had no idea they needed or wanted.
i have ongoing work, spread across the year, that requires me to remove unwanted aspects of a regular series of images, all of which feature a related range of products. the end results need to be placed upon a white background, yet retain the minimal reflective shadows that 'keep it real', so to speak. after exploring a variety of inaccurate means of achieving the latter, i inadvertently discovered a simple and all but foolproof means of achieving this, a technique that i seriously doubt was uppermost in the mind of adobe's software engineers when they worked into the wee, small hours of the morning.
extending this to its logical conclusion, it is a marvellous thought that those myriad and possibly unrelated lines of code, have no earthly idea of what it is that they have achieved. in short, the software is merely manipulating a series of ones and zeros, without any visual stimulus, whatsoever. in fact, computer code hasn't a scooby what a photograph is in the first place, let alone a reflective shadow. but, judging by the continuation of my contract, the client is perfectly happy with the results.
in essence, this can be seen to be paralleled in the realm of bicycle design, irrespective of the genre under discussion.
in my recent review of specialized's aluminium-framed allez comp road bike, iwas moved to point out that i could see little in the way of rationale behind the positioning of the seatstays, two-thirds of the way up the seat tube. i'd be the first to admit that my engineering abilities extend no further than having played extensively with lego when i was younger. i don't even have a meccano background to which i might resort. so my quizzical looks at this design feature, were based on nothing more than 'that's not the way they used to do it'.
the so-called 'double-diamond' frame design originated at the end of the nineteenth century and, with only a few minor variations, has survived intact to the present. that structure was essentially found to be the most pragmatic means of joining several metal tubes, one that persisted even when ernesto colnago produced the c40 as the carbon equivalent of his steel master frameset. subsequent twists and turns have demonstrated that carbon fibre is a tad more easily manipulated than round metal tubes, offering the ability to place more of the material where required, and less, where fewer stresses and strains are to be found.
i have struggled through many a review of carbon bicycles due to the salient fact that few of the modern breed are actually comprised of 'tubes' per se. so while the hardships imposed upon a bicycle frame have changed little over the years, the basic structure has gone from round metal tubes to woven burnt plastic. and rather than relying on the expert eye and brazing/skills of the intrepid framebuilder, the majority of modern cycle manufacturers rely on both cad/cam and computational fluid dynamics software.
i think i can rely on your powers of association and deduction to see the (albeit tenuous) connection between my contention that photoshop doesn't know what a photo is and this second contention that cfd software knows equally as little about bicycles.
the insinuation is that, if we suppose that the world's carbon frame engineers/designers are asking similar questions of their non-sentient software, there's every likelihood that their answers will seem remarkably similar. i'm surely not the only one to have noted that those lowered seatstays feature on bicycles of remarkably dissimilar materials? as, indeed, does the existence of flattened, squarer-section 'tubing'.
but, if we're willing to accept the above postulation as not too far from the truth, the question remains as to the influence of both fashion and aesthetics on the final result. much as many of photoshop's filters, left to their own devices, will produce an unholy mess, i find it particularly unlikely that the aforementioned bicycle software, of its own volition, gives us such pleasing looking results. you only have to look at the majority of time-trial bikes to see how that worked out. meaning, by implication, that the lowered seatstays are more than likely the result of human intervention, as, quite probably, are those flat/tapered top tubes.
and it appears that the relentless march of those zeros and ones has hardly stopped at the frame. reliant as most of us are on bar-mounted gps units, the numbers on display have doubtless begun to shape, influence and 'design' those with one eye on their ever-changing digits. perhaps surprisingly, gps satellites don't actually care where you are and power meters have no real interest as to the dissimilarities between you and peter sagan. with garmin's recent purchase of holland's tackx indoor turbo trainers, it appears that 'the singularity' edges ever nearer. for now they and wahoo are vying for our future business, hoping that their endless lines of 'insolent' code will exert both indoor and outdoor influence.
thank goodness someone still has to turn those pedals. there's still art to be found there.
tuesday 19 february 2019
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................