only a matter of days past, i read a brief interview on the rouleur website with former professional rider, brian holm, now the owner of 12:16 clothing, the name of which derives from his 1982 10km time-trial record, one that still stands today. there's no doubting holm's palmares, including membership of the telekom team that placed bjarne riis on the tour de france podium in 1996, as well as becoming manager of the danish national team. it's a palmares that may arguably have been diminished by his subsequent admission of having used epo while with the telekom team, but there's no doubting his tenacity and ability.
however, the main point of the above mentioned interview, was holm's contention that, even in winter, "tights are for ballet dancers" (despite a monochrome image of the man aboard his s-works road bike wearing bibtights), and that his clothing brand stocks nothing offering coverage below the knee. it took only a cursory look at the 12:16 website to note that, in fact, there are a pair of bibtights on offer, described as 'the perfect choice for early winter and early spring.' to be quite honest, i'd have been very surprised had bibtights been omitted from the 12:16 range, for cycle clothing, fashionable or otherwise (and mr holm does seem to hold a flag for fashion) is but one part of the service industry. if your customer base finds itself at odds with your 'hardman' stance, it would seem foolish to ignore potential sales purely on principle. i do believe david millar's chapter three clothing began with a similar attitude.
however, mr holm's contention originates from the professional peloton, where life is a tad different from the sunday morning bike ride. it was notable during sunday's world cyclocross championship race, that, while the newly crowned 2021 champion, mathieu van der poel, rode in full-length leg warmers, silver medallist, wout van aert, rode wearing bibshorts. yet, according to commentator, anthony mccrossan, the temperature was pretty close to zero, and part of the course saw the riders skirting the edge of the north sea. 'cross races take a mere one hour to complete, during which the riders put out enough power to light a small town. and in order to guarantee a place on the podium, there's no stopping every now and again just to check how close are your riding companions.
our sunday morning ride around the principality took place in a fairly steadily indicated ambient temperature of around one degree celcius. however, the thermometer built into my garmin takes no account of windchill which, by independent accounts and the continual icy slap on the face, hovered around minus four degrees. assuming all goes to plan, professional riders scarcely have to take account of tractors or motor cars requiring occasional or frequent stops in nearby passing places. and while messrs. van der poel and van aert circulated with average speeds of 24kph, thats a velocity only achieved by us while descending foreland hill into the teeth of a 50kph easterly headwind. compare that with an alleged headwind in oostende of 18kph, one which we'd scarcely acknowledge as a headwind in the first place.
though i would tend to respect anyone who manages to carve out a career as a professional cyclist in the first place, no matter how successful, i think it's just a shade unfortunate that subsequent remarks, such as that of brian holm, effectively demean the necessity of mere mortals to wear warm winter clothing. only on saturday past did i experience a problem with one of my pedals, trouble that required a lengthy stop to resolve. had i been stood on uiskentuie strand, in sub-zero temperatures, wearing bibshorts and short-sleeve jersey with no team car in sight, i'd have been writing this through the mists of hypothermia.
commendable though it is to look up to our world tour heroes, ride bicycles as near identical to their team-issue machinery, and attempt to emulate their training methodology, just remember that few of us get paid to do so, and most are expected back in the office on monday morning in the rudest of health.
which is why everyone sells winter bibtights, and none of us are ballerinas.
monday 01 february 2021
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................the chain is one of the hardest working parts of the bicycle, slammed up and down the block, switched from wee ring to big ring and back again, quite often with an unfortunate degree of haste. with more and more sprockets appearing on the rear wheel, and a concomitant decrease in thickness, the chain has lost a lot of weight over the past few decades, meaning all those sharper angles and gear changes have to be achieved by less and less physical material. and arguably the introduction of electronica has only exacerbated the problems, whereby the ability to programme means certain changes are actuated automatically, without recourse to a rider's sensibility.
you may also have noticed that britain's roads have scarcely become smoother in recent times, conceivably meaning those links are getting bounced up and down with greater frequency, all the while being coated with the modern-day equivalent of belgian toothpaste. none of this is likely to improve the wellbeing of the average bicycle chain, yet few amongst us seem particularly bothered enough to replace it with the frequency such conditions demand.
i have made great play of my ocd that requires regular cleaning of the chain before i head out into the wide grey yonder. i fear this probably arises from watching too many stages of the tour de france, where every member of the peloton seems blessed with an impossibly shiny chain, probably the only aspect of the professional millieu in which i can share. and, until recently, i was in the habit of replacing my chain every three months. i know many think the latter to be excessive attention to detail, and though at one time i might have vehemently disagreed, an upgrade to twelve-speed campagnolo and the somewhat onerous price of their super record chains, has had me reconsider slightly.
thus, in order to retain a degree of fiscal solvency, i agreed with myself to reduce the period of change to a financially, yet still mechanically sound, four months. disappointingly, i seem to have ignored my own resolution, and left the chain change just a few weeks (months?) too long. for finally, yesterday morning, i removed the existing chain, disassembled the twelve-speed cassette for a thorough cleaning, and fitted a new, shiny chain, utilising my once state-of-the-art campagnolo chain tool, purchased at a somewhat eye-watering price. i cannot repeat, in a family publication, my response on learning that the new, thirteen-speed ekar groupset requires a new chain tool. i may remain at twelve-speeds for a while longer.
though all the foregoing was carried out in freezing january temperatures, the process went as smoothly as you'd hope, and a matter of minutes later, i was rolling towards islay international airport at the start of my saturday perambulations. and here's where disappointment intervened. it seems a tad obvious to point out that, as the chain wears, so do the sprockets, wear that tends to affect the most used gears more than the others, and potentially accelerated by the aforementioned belgian toothpaste. after changing the chain too late, it would seem, i experienced slight, but definite skipping in two particular gears.
a campagnolo chorus, twelve-speed cassette retails at around £160, while the super-record version has a recommended retail price of £316 (though thankfully, usually sold at lower cost). that's a lot of money to pay for personal ineptitude. however, as luck would have it, i own two twelve-speed cassettes, preferring my chorus version with a 32 large sprocket (my super-record edition stops at 30). these cassettes are built with two groups of three rivetted sprockets, and six loose sprockets.
on the super-record version, the smaller of the two rivetted sets consists of 17-19-21, while the chorus version is 17-19-22, and it was this set of sprockets that exhibited the skipping. so i replaced the three chorus sprockets with those from the super-record set, meaning a jump from 21 to 25 on this amalgamated cassette. i'm sure campagnolo would advise against this, but such is the engineering quality of vicenza's product, that, when riding, the four tooth gap is almost imperceptible, either up or down. and, according to a brief test-ride in the afternoon, all is now well with the world.
however, the moral of this story is not that campagnolo's manufacturing is every bit as good as we knew it to be, but that you really ought not to leave changing the chain longer than planned for at the start. a new chain is expensive enough at more than £50, without having to factor in a new cassette too. granted, at some point in time, the cassette will need replaced, but the less often that has to happen the better. the moral is, therefore, look after your chain, and if you ride several thousand kilometres each year in less than clement weather conditions, replace it at least three times a year.
you're welcome.
sunday 31 january 2021
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................there my have been an absence of bicycles and riders heading south to australasia to participate in the usual opening race series of the season, but nonetheless, we are on the cusp of a new cycle racing season and at the reputed end of a highly entertaining cyclocross season. already there have been high profile cancellations such as the tour de langkawi, the saudi tour and the tour of oman, though the uae tour is still expected to continue at the end of february. there have also been a few european cancellations including the tour of murcia and the ronde van drenthe.
however, cycling racing has persisted since the latter years of the 19th century, often despite adverse conditions, but admittedly rarely anything as serious as the current pandemic. but, where possible, cycle sport still exists: challenge mallorca and the volta agarve have been postponed until later in the year. cancellations, of course, are not confined solely to cycle racing; the june's glastonbury festival has already announced its cancellation, as has may's fèis Ìle/ islay whisky festival. thankfully, there are still stars in the firmament, with rapha announcing their series of prestige events, challenging small amateur teams to take on an unsupported and unmarshalled adventure across stunning terrain.
granted, it's not the world tour series, but arguably, in that case, more approachable for the rest of us. currently, rapha have planned a total of a dozen events beginning in niigata, japan in may, and ending in mallorca, spain, ten months from now. (rapha have prefaced this announcement that all events are subject to change, depending on covid-19 guidance and restrictions in force in each country at the time). if you happen to have a team of amateur riders capable of undertaking the event closest to you (the sole uk event, inexplicably not on islay, is slated to take place in the yorkshire dales in august) click the link at the end of this discussion to register your interest.
yet, all is not lost when it comes to enforcing social distancing in mass start events. organisers of the old man winter rally held in boulder county, colorado, have avoided associating with zwift's watopia by offering entrants a defined period of time in which to complete the course. competitor rankings will be defined via their uploaded gps files, meaning the event can now take place over nine days.
the parcours remains the same as in prevous years, and includes full support on weekends. entrants will require to specify on which days between 6 - 14 february they wish to compete, allowing the organisers to keep riders safely distanced. and, with the race split into two segments, racers have the option to complete both on a single day, or undertake them across separate days. the 2020 event was cancelled, but this innovation should ensure the event not only continues but potentially thrives. with positioning, in both senses of that word, being aided and abetted live results courtesy of ride with gps, this could become a viable reality alternative to virtual reality.
impressive, huh?
old man winter rally | rapha prestige 2021
saturday 30 january 2021
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................i may have covered some of the following in recent years, but, partly in the hope that you might have forgotten and partially because it would seem relevant to the main point of this discussion, i'm going to offer a reprise. in the mid-nineties, islay's community newspaper received a lottery grant to enable the purchase of upgraded information and print technology. at that particular point in recent history, the newspaper had been produced on a mac classic, to which was attached a 19" monochrome monitor, linked to an apple laser printer. the mac classic had no internal hard disk, requiring just such an external device plugged into the scsi (scuzzy) port.
having spent over twenty years accustomed to the quirks of the apple operating system, the staff were keen to continue with mac os, as opposed to the board of directors who had their financial sights set on microsoft windows computers. according to one director, who subsequently became the paper's editor, colleagues of his based at ibm in the usa, had told him that apple would be 'out of business' by year's end. it would have been hard to deny that apple was not in the rudest of economic health, but allegedly unlikely to go bust anytime soo.
heck, even microsoft invested in the company.
the fact that the paper still features large format imac computers on several of the office desks, is undoubtedly tactile testament to the fact that the company failed to fall off a cliff those twenty-five years ago. in fact, on thursday of this past week, apple computer announced their highest earnings of all time, a figure in excess of $111 billion. i doubt i'm the only chap regretting not having bought at least a few shares in cupertino all those years ago. had that been the case, there would likely have been a lot more bicycles in the bikeshed at present.
though apple came into existence several years prior to the paper's lottery success, buying shares in the mid-nineties would have been almost the same as getting in on the ground floor, when the two steves were still soldering printed circuit boards in a garage.
i am not, however, in any way, conversant with he stock market; i constantly read the financial pages of my daily newspaper, devoid of all comprehension, but fascinated by their seeming lack of relevance to daily life. however, even i can see that prudent choice of stocks and shares can result in financial security, even if only investing in a company because you kinda like what it is they do, or the colour of the corporate logo. that said, yesterday's inbox elicited information that might be worth investigating further, concerning as it does a bicycle component firm.
chater lea began producing quality bicycle components in 1890, originally from a five-storey, purpose-built factory in london, before transferring produciton to new premises in herfordshire in 1928. responsible for both bicycle and motorcycle components, it ceased trading in 1987, before being resurrected thirty years later in 2017, with its all but indestructible grand tour pedal. this was followed last year with more than desirable double and single chainsets, manufactured in the true spirit of the original chater-lea. however, manufacturing in the uk, especially in small numbers, was never going to be a financially rewarding prospect, no matter the confirmed popularity of the two products released so far.
so, in order to progress and expand, bringing new, high quality components for our delectation, chater lea plan to " launch an equity crowdfunding campaign soon, wherein investors become owners of a portion of Chater-Lea", allowing cycling enthusiasts the world over, to get in on the ground floor. and it appears this is not necessarily the sort of investment that requires several zeros on the cheque as the price of admission. in fact, you can become a part of chater-lea for as little as £10.
to gauge the prospective level of support, the present owners have uploaded a brief survey in which you may be keen to participate, something you can do via the link printed below. wouldn't you just hate to look back on this day from thirty years in the future, when chater-lea components are fitted to every bicycle on the planet, and you decided to buy takeaway pizza instead?
friday 29 january 2021
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................prime minister, boris johnson's announcement that schools in england are unlikely to return until 8 march at the earliest, so far not equalled by any statement from holyrood, can't have brought much joy to embattled parents. though we've probably all railed against the extensive holidays 'enjoyed' by britain's teaching staff, many parents must now begin to think that perhaps they were a bit too quick to criticise, spending most of their weekdays attempting to emulate those previously maligned. though i no longer have kids of school age, i do have a work colleague who still has a daughter at primary and a couple of the kids under mrs washingmachinepost's care still attend primary and secondary. you can perhaps guess who is frequently asked to solve english and maths questions.
but parents have a singular disadvantage not necessarily applicable to teachers, in that, when the february holiday arrives, teachers can take a break from preparing and presenting daily lessons, along with all the concomitant administrative paraphernalia that goes with the territory. parents, on the other hand, are still at home with the same kids, children who are presumably becoming a bit fed up with remaining at home for much of the time. we're perhaps a touch better off in the islands, where it's not at all unusual to allow children to play outdoors without sign of adult supervision. i doubt that's a practicality in cities or urban areas of the country.
however, it would be somewhat insensitive to consider the kids in isolation. while they may well be on the outer edges of tee'd off; schoolwork appears to be a great deal more onerous when undertaken at home, than when sat in the classrooms they doubtless all moaned about when life resembled some form of normality, mum and dad could probably do with a break too. little in the way of research would seem to indicate that while one parent remains at home to take care of the children, the other, often male, still commutes to a place of work. any swapping of roles during the week, has doubtless been the subject of hours of negotiation, plaintive cries, and blunt disagreement. in some cases, one or both parents are also working from home, as per government recommendation, both maintaining that theirs is the more important of careers.
if you're a cyclist, and i believe that will apply to several, if not all of you, the desire to pedal in the great outdoors is likely a temptation that refuses to diminish, no matter how many fractions have been solved or sentences that have been parsed. i am led to believe that the palliative for such desires currently revolves arounf a zwift subscription and a turbo trainer in the spare room, the garage, or the bike shed. and therein lies the breakdown in verisimilitude. watopia may have occupied many a long hour of programmers' time and skill, but beyond the edge of the screen, that virtual world tends to break down, replaced with double glazing, wallpaper and ikea or oak furniture land tables and chairs. what you need is some form of inspiration that remains when the turbo is stationary in front of a blank screen.
and preferably something that your other half won't consider in the same light as posters on a teenager's bedroom wall.
that's where photographer, michael blann comes in. producer of one of the finest coffee table cycling books in the history of the genre, the 254 page mountains - epic cycling climbs (only four left in stock at the time of writing), he also offers large format prints of the images contained within the book, in small, medium and large, ranging in price from £245, to £525. and let's face it, with the option of taking a holiday this year reducing by the day, there must be a number of folk who have become slightly more cash-rich of late (just ask jeff bezos).
if i can assume that indoor cycling space has become more prevalent than in previous times, the need or desire to festoon that space with cycling-related paraphernalia, must surely also be on the increase. the beautiful imagery produced by mr blann, framed and hung in your cycling 'office', would surely broker little in the way of argument. and, if you still have an office to which you commute, measuring its wall-area to maintain, literally, wall-to-wall cycling adornment, might not be such a bad idea.
just charge it to the expense account.
thursday 28 january 2021
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................quite some number of years past, i inexplicably won a palm pilot handheld computer in a competition i hadn't realised i'd entered, along with a plug-in modem. despite being the forerunner of wireless devices, the modem still required to be plugged into a phone wall socket, emitting those screeching noises some of us will probably always associate with the early days of the interwebs. the comical part, in retrospect, was the sad state of the internet in those halcyon days of yore, rendering ownership of a modem on a handheld device, just a tad redundant. still, it brought with it the notion that i was actually at the forefront of cutting edge technology. some folks just never learn.
however, one of the promoted business advantages of the palm pilot was an ability to interchange digital business cards via infrared communications (one of the shortcomings of which was the need for line-of-sight). apparently at all the major technological expos across the world, be-suited and lanyard decorated sales people were exchanging digital business cards like there was no tomorrow. and, despite having no comprehensible need for such an electronic card, nor anyone with whom to exchange, nonetheless, i created a digital business card all of my very own on the grey touch-screen device.
sadly, i discovered one of the other shortcomings of the palm pilot when i inserted the batteries the wrong way round. the non volatile memory cleared when the power disappeared, and i lost every stored piece of information, including the pointless business card.
sadly, despite aspirations towards joining the executive elite, i still find myself with no requirement for a business card of any description. but, just like the palm pilot, days, that hasn't prevented me from designing and printing just such an item. however, the somewhat esoteric wording does play fast and loose with the reality of my current position. for instance, given that the definition of the word senior allows for more than one interpretation, when i reached the grand old age of 55, i decided that the word would offer a more than accurate adjective to place in front of the word executive. and, based purely on the fact that i was an early adopter of twitter, following the words, senior executive, i added and social media consultant.
the majority, self-included, would surely accept that, while not entirely untruthful, though a little deceptive, there was a certain je ne sais quoi to such a business card. however, surely the casting vote was provided by former bruichladdich distillery director, mark reynier, who said that i should add, in parentheses, the words 'northern hemisphere'. this, he argued, would create the impression that i worked for a large multi-national, as opposed to a local newspaper, occupying two small offices and a print room in an hebridean village on an island off scotland's west coast. you can perhaps see the whimsical humour in possessing such a business card, one that wasn't strictly untrue no matter which way you looked at it.
i'd like to say that this was the first time i had engaged in business card whimsicality, but in fact, that's not strictly the case. in the early 1990s, when first i sought to attend cycle exhibitions in my guise as a not yet famous member of the cycling media, entry restrictions for trade day stipulated that access would be granted solely on production of a bona-fide business card. at the time, blogging had not yet been thought of; the internet was still owned by the american military. thus, i figured i had a better chance of being admitted if i proffered my alternate identity as a bike mechanic.
however, the self-important secretary of a local voluntary sector organisation had recently bestowed upon herself the title 'executive officer', to which my equally misleading riposte was to dispense with the word 'mechanic', and substitute the arguably more impressive 'technician'. given the nature of the job, it was little of a hop, skip and a jump to phrase this as 'bicycle maintenance technician' an apellation that i doubt anyone at the cycle expo found even remotely impressive.
however, move forward to the present day, and i read that, mirroring the upper reaches of the corporate world, london-based mobile cycle repair company, havebike, founded by a city of london lawyer, is offering 'golden hellos' of £500 to entice high-level bicycle technicians and mechanics to join the merry throng. according to founder, nick brown, recruits will 'have a great opportunity to work on a range of bikes, including high-end road bikes, mountain bikes and e-bikes, as well as being involved in servicing london's emergency services fleet'
i confess, i was unaware that the velocipedinal world was sufficiently devoid of quality bicycle maintenance technicians, that it would prove necessary to offer bonuses to attract them to a job in the first place. it only goes to show how out of touch you can become in the hebridean wilderness. no doubt those answering the recruitment drive, will soon be in need of their very own business cards, identifying them to the wealth of customers that awaits their expertise. but, despite my own playful way with words, and a notably carefree approach to their implications, i still harbour what i believe to be a question that the above information ought to have every self-respecting cyclist ask.
what's the difference between a bicycle mechanic and a bicycle technician?
wednesday 27 january 2021
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................assuming some basic skills in adobe photoshop, it's possible to join any cycle team in the world. the big problem, however, is convincing the team manager that his lack of any recollection concerning the contract signing, is but a momentary aberration on his part. just ask john herety, for many years ago, on rapha's announcement of their partnership with condor cycles in fielding a team in the domestic calendar, there was yours truly, stood in the background, apparently best of buddies with the downing brothers, clad in a team issue jersey.
the kind people at rapha's original kentish town, imperial works had sent the jersey for my (and your) delectation, and rather than illustrate the review with idiosyncratic images of myself occupying various island locations, i added myself (fairly convincingly, i believe) into an official team photo. when occupying the passenger seat in the rapha team car at glasgow's hosting of the british national road-race championships, mr herety claimed not to recall any such signing. which could explain the lack of a race programme or training schedule.
and then again, a couple of years past, photoshop was employed once again on the launch of rapha's sponsorship of ef procycling, this time brought on by a case of meteorological necessity. with the clothing firm now firmly ensconced in its more central version of imperial works, and having spread its wings at a more international level, the short-sleeve jersey and bibshorts that arrived in the mail, were thinner than the pages of my daily newspaper, a tad impractical in late january in the hebrides.
so, rather than subject myself to potential hypothermia, posing for the timer on my lumix camera in the chills of an islay winter, i opted to snap an image indoors before, once again, adding myself next to lachlan morton in an official team photo. you will doubtless think of me as a tad flighty, but, not content with signing with rapha condor and ef procycling, i managed to infiltrate the ranks of spain's movistar team, when their apparel was supplied by scotland's endura cycle clothing. once again, manager eusebio unzué apparently had no recollection.
however, it is perhaps apt that the movistar team has entered the conversation, as, first amongst the top world tour teams, it has decided to incorporate itself into the nascent world of e-racing, instigating a team challenge commencing 3 february to attract five male and five female riders who will constitute the 2021 e-team. and, of course, the competition will be held exclusively on zwift and presented by global cycling network. doubtless this will be the opportunity of a lifetime for the successful ten individuals, but i fear it signals the end of civilisation as we know it.
as the world-tour professional road teams begin to face the possibility of postponed races, and covid threats arise towards next weekend's world cyclocross championships, it seems that riding with a front wheel only, and the rear triangle strapped to a smart-trainer, is being trumpeted as the potential way forward. though i think it unlikely that any of those invited to participate will not have ridden in the 'real' world, as opposed to the pixelated realm of watopia, it is conceivable that movistar could amalgamate an e-team, none of whom has any experience of racing on actual roads. perhaps not this year, but i've read enough science-fiction not to discount such a happenstance in the (near) future.
assuming, however, that you are not one of the world's prominent e-riders, how does this impact upon you and me? granted, it's probably a darned sight easier to photoshop yourself into an animated scene from zwift, but that only really works on cycling blogs. however, in their spanish magnanimity, movistar will hold qualifying races in which anyone with the appropriate smart technology and a zwift account can participate. you can find out more about entering here, always assuming that's something that floats your kickr.
lest you think reality is about to evaporate into the ether (and i wouldn't bet against it), aside from a one-year contract, the successful e-team members will receive a canyon road bike and movistar team kit, qualified with 'in zwift and in real life', in parenthesis.
we're not in kansas any more, toto.
tuesday 26 january 2021
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