thewashingmachinepost




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the boring bit

cycle to work day

yesterday saw one more cycle to work day, ostensibly encouraging the great and the good to leave the car in the driveway and forsake public transport in favour of getting to and from work by bicycle. it will come as little surprise to learn that the vast majority of the british population paid no heed whatsoever. i could almost guarantee that, had i the time to knock on every door on islay, including of those with whom i go cycling every weekend, nobody would have been aware of this unmissable opportunity to cycle.

i like to consider myself as reasonably well informed as to velocipedinal matters, but it was only the chance receipt of an e-mail on wednesday that alerted me to the impending arrival of thursday's cycle to work day, despite my having contacted the organisers (cyclescheme) following the last two cycle to work days to ask that they keep me updated, i have received not a cheep. and though the cycing universe hardly revolves around thewashingmachinepost, you would have imagined that a specific request for information from a blog that specialises in cycling would have suited their promotional purposes most admirably.

quite how this one day per year is supposed to transform the future of cycling in britain is quite beyond my comprehension, all the more so because i have seen no pre-publicity for the event anywhere. it's a tad late to be informed of a cycle to work day on the day itself, particularly if already at work. if i could get a quick show of hands, how many of you either knew it was taking place, or actively participated?

i thought not.

though the evidence may be apocryphal, it is reckoned that any practice ought best be repeated across a period of at least 21 days to have it become habit. that would be the reason, i assume, why the likes of oregon state features a cycle to work month. if in the habit of driving or taking the bus to work, riding a bike for one day is bound to require some sort of pre-planning, such as perhaps the logistics of carrying paperwork, a change of clothing, or a packed lunch, as well as making arrangements for the secure storage of said bicycle on arrival at work.

the more intrepid amongst you may well take such matters in your stride, but then, we're hardly the folks for which the event was designed. as i understand it, cycle to work day harbours the intention to persuade leisure or non-cyclists to adopt the bicycle as an alternative means of transport. are they really likely to endure the faff involved for a single day? and even assuming the event achieves its avowed purpose, how many will have simply returned to the car or bus today, having ticked the one-day box?

i know that, as a famous member of the cycling media, i should appear more supportive, penning hundreds of allegedly well-chosen words in support of cycle to work day, badgering the agnostics into adopting the way of the saddle (even if only for one day). but i'm unable to do so because i honestly think it's a waste of time. even though cyclescheme tweeted during yesterday's event, that the subject was trending at number three on twitter. that, i think, might be more to do with the fact that cyclists seem to be particularly drawn to that corner of social media, perhaps skewing matters to a certain degree.

i would dearly like to have more people riding bicycles as a means of transport, particularly if it succeeded in reducing the number of cars on even islay's roads and lessening the frequent parking problems to be seen around the village. but i really don't think that asking folks to adopt a bicycle stance on one day out of 365 is the answer. could we not have a cycle to work week or month, whereby the act of riding to and from work for several days at a time would encourage a habit to form? i know of several colleagues who did precisely that, becoming accustomed to the benefits promulgated by the act of cycling and simply carrying on into the future.

i've tried the active part of the equation, and yes, you're right, i've also tried the passive method over a number of years, hoping that someone with a bit of clout in the right places, might read my monologues and have a light-bulb switch on above their heads. but i'm more or less resigned to the usual result: the majority will never hear of the existence of cycle to work day, and those that do will largely ignore it. and i'll still be viewed as eternally boring because i moaned about the situation for yet another year.

you're welcome.

cycle to work day uk

friday 5 august 2022

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tail wagging the dog

specilialized buys rutland cycles

cycle retail has come a long way since i was a kid. in fact i very much doubt anyone referred to it as cycle retail in those days, consisting as it did of individual bike shops in individual towns and cities across the nation. as i recall, the only nationwide cycle retailer would have been halfords, and they were rarely considered as first choice for performance cycles. that said, the phrase, 'performance cycles' is what we'd have called ten-speed racers.

around once a year, i return to the town in which i grew up, to visit my mother. mr benzie's cycle shop in kyle street is long gone, a collection of huts backed by a large shed in which he stored new deliveries and a surprisingly large collection of cycles either due for repair, or awaiting collection. the two showrooms, to which they were affectionately referred, were effectively conjoined wooden huts, one of which featured a sales counter, the other a display of cycles ready for sale.

mr benzie's sales technique also left a great deal to be desired. when i asked about the availability of a ten-speed racer of my very own, in preference to the raleigh twenty with which i had been saddled (pun unintended), he advised against such a purchase due, he said, to the unreliability of derailleur gears. if only i'd known then what i know now. i subsequently discovered it was due to his not having any models of that style in stock.

nowadays, the sole bike shop in the town remains fiercely independent, but with a veritable plethora of ten-speed racers in the showroom window, all with either bianchi or merida emblazoned on the down tubes. and they all sport a great deal more than ten gears. in the next town, into which my original home town has effectively merged, only one of the original two cycle shops remain, and the branch of halfords has also, i believe, disappeared along with many other retail outlets.

but the model with which most of us have grown up is that of cycle retail, whether independent or part of a larger chain, such as evans cycles, featuring showroom floors replete with a wide range of cycles: road, mountain, gravel, commuting, leisure and folding. these are mostly augmented with rails and shelves of accessories such as water bottles, garmins, helmets; you get the gist. it's the way it has been for years and possibly the way in which we all thought it would continue to exist: manufacturers make bikes, cycle shops sell them. a symbiotic relationship.

except that's beginning to change, turning the world of 'cycle retail' on its head. as you'd probably expect, the trend started across the pond, with trek bicycles buying up specific cycle stores across the nation. pon, dutch parent group of santa cruz and cervelo, joined the party soon after, swallowing twelve branches of mike's bikes. not suprisingly, specialized weren't far behind. and it's a trend now seemingly becoming entrenched in the uk, with peter sagan's bike sponsor having already acquired infinity cycles, a move, in retrospect, foretold by the appearance of specialized concept stores in the last decade.

now the american cycling company has purchased all twelve stores belonging to rutland cycles.

to a certain extent, there's essentially little wrong with this state of affairs. though statistics show a continuing increase in the numbers turning to cycling, in part due to rapidly increasing fuel prices, bicycle manufacturers such as specialized, giant and trek are particularly wealthy, and such corporate purchases ought to ensure the continuation of those businesses well into the future. on the other hand, however, it's highly unlikely that specialized will stock trek bicycles and vice versa. and should the situation continue to its logical conclusion, whither the smaller, ostensibly independent brands?

granted, pinarello are owned by louis vuitton moet hennessey (lvmh), while colnago are now the property of saudi investors, doubtless with sufficient financial muscle to buy their own chain of cycle stores, but is this really the best option for the customer, now sitting, unconsulted, at the bottom of the food chain? if the cycle retail in your town suddenly becomes only a repository for specialized bikes, wouldn't that constitute a substantial reduction of purchasing options?

the usual process of purchase is that that manufacturer sells to the wholesaler, the retailer buys from the wholesaler and the customer purchases from the retailer, each adding a percentage profit at each stage. by fielding their own chain of stores, the likes of trek and specialized have effectively cut out two of those stages, so will this result in cheaper bicycles at point of purchase? in truth, i seriously doubt it; there will still be independent stores that sell specialized and trek bicycles, cycle retail that neither company would particularly wish to alienate. (it's notable that specialized's online sales offers no discount over the shop-bought models.)

where once we thought the future of the independent bicycle retailer was in doubt due to a scarcity of cash, it now looks as if it may now be about to suffer a similar fate due to an excess of same.

thursday 4 august 2022

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market garden

bsa airborne folding bike

several years past, a co-operation between bruichladdich distillery and cyclinguk brought a group of e-bikes to the island as part of their big bike revival. aside from the e-bikes, which formed the main part of the exercise, we offered tips and tricks on maintaining your bicycle, along with the opportunity for islanders to have their own bikes fettled by a trained mechanic. as you'd perhaps expect in what might reasonably be described as cycling agnostic islay, there were few takers, though a reasonable number did pop in to try out the electric bikes, several subsequently purchasing one of their own.

however, on arrival at the distillery courtyard, my so-called colleagues invited me to try and lift the folding e-bike on display. suspecting a cunning ploy, i readied myself for a bicycle that would possibly be a tad lighter than its heft might suggest. on making the attempt, i suddenly altered my suspicions to consider the possibility that they had somehow affixed the bicycle to the ground. despite using more effort than you'd like to think was necessary to lift a folding bicycle, i could barely move it.

bsa airborne folding bike

up till that point, i had been under the obvious misapprehension that one of the features of any folding bike, was that of portability. other than space-saving, what else would be the purpose of having the bike fold in the middle? surely such a means of transport allowed the owner to roll easily to the bus stop or railway station and dismount, before folding the bicycle in advance of boarding either bus or train? in truth, there seemed very little chance of any potential owner of this particular machine lifting the bike high enough to clear the step of bus or train.

and should a third string to its bow be potential space saving for those living in flats or maisonettes, i fear that several months in the gym, building upper body strength, would be necessary before the bicycle could be carried anywhere near the first landing.

but space saving may have been one of the original reasons for creating a folding bicycle. not one that resembles the likes of a brompton, but a regular steel roadster, featuring 27" wheels. from images taken during the second world war, folding bikes were originally denoted as 'airborne' models, made by the likes of bsa. these would be folded and held by the paratrooper in front, secured by a suspension line to the wheels. airborne troops would jump from aircraft into european war zones, parachute to their target, unflold the bicycle and make haste to their intended target.

bsa airborne folding bike

given the state of velocipedinal cutting-edge during world war two, i'm sure i need not underline the fact that these were not lightweight machines, particularly in light of the robustness required on such missions. it also goes without saying that these machines were single-speeds.

yet, aboard examples of such wartime bikes, two volunteers for the taxi charity, chris willmott and seb philp are soon to head off on a two-day challenge to raise £10,000 for the military veterans charity, attempting to replicate the route taken by 1st airborne division during the 1944 'operation market garden'. on 2 september, they'll ride 115km from bridge no.9 on the bocholt-herentals canal on the belgian border, via arnhem to the netherlands town of oosterbeek. use of the airborne folding bikes will make the cycle ride as authentic as possible.

as if that were insufficiently impressive, the following day, the two volunteers will walk 40km along a route taking in key locations of 'operation market garden'.

having recently discovered that promised funding directed to the taxi charity was no longer happening, messrs willmott and philp decided to take matters into their own tyre tracks and raise the £10,000. this will go towards a hoped-for total of £45,000 to help the charity fund future commemoration trips to the nertherlands and normandy.

it would obviously help convince the world of the efficacy of the bicycle and the generosity of its adherents if you'd spare a few pounds towards their efforts. you can do so here

photos: oldbike.wordpress.com

wednesday 3 august 2022

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lord of the rings

campagnolo chorus chainset

as we have been informed almost to the point of boredom, we are in the midst of a 'cost of living crisis', the reasons for which are an amalgam of international events and the uk government's dogged insistence that brexit had to be done. even those with only a minimal grasp of international economics and politics would surely have seen that the ending of near sixty years of european trading was bound to have repercussions, many of which were likely to be of the negative variety.

only a matter of days following the signing of the brexit agreement, first campagnolo, then ritchey cycles ceased the despatch of online items to the uk, and any other european purchases or despatches suddenly required extra paper-work and surcharges. buying items from europe now incurred similar costs to purchases made from north america. so life in the uk has suffered the double-whammy of rising costs at every turn.

allegedly, the uk government's inflation target had been pegged at around 3%, but as i write it hovers over 9.4% with reports suggesting that it may actually be as high as 14%. that in itself has made life more expensive than at the tail end of last year. add to the above the damaging rise in energy costs, the conflict in ukraine, and surely only the very richest of cyclists can afford to carry on as before, upgrading or renewing bicycles and componentry with gusto. for the rest of us, it has become a case of weighing up each eventuality on its own merits.

for instance, though replacing tyres or chain may be seen as a necessity, opting to upgrade a rear derailleur while the current one is perfectly serviceable might be something that could wait till a later date. then again, if current prices are on an inexorable rise, perhaps spending the money today would make a deal of good sense.

personally, i have had a hankering for a new pair of handbuilt wheels, but constructed using specific components such as campagnolo hubs and mavic rims. despite the low spoke counts featured on the majority of factory builds, my luddite preferences have a hankering for 32 spokes built three-cross. and though the cost of the specification i have in mind is hardly exorbitant, i'm now having second thoughts in the light of necessary mechanical necessities.

for instance, i need to replace my campagnolo twelve-speed chain which, fortunately enough, i already have in my possession. however, having replaced the twelve-speed cassette at the last chain replacement, i suspect that the inner chainring on my record chainset might be due for a change.

the cycle industry has a well-deserved reputation for incompatibility from which campagnolo are most certainly not exempt. though campagnolo super record, record and chorus are all at twelve-speed, only the former two are actually compatible with each other. so while chorus cassettes are a tad less expensive than their record counterparts, the 34 tooth version is not compatible with either record rear derailleur.

however, having fitted a chorus twelve-speed, 11-32 cassette, i figured i'd save a few more pennies with the purchase of a chorus 36t inner chainring. those of you well-versed in all matters vicenza will doubtless have seen the but..., heading in our direction. thankfully, i checked with graeme freestone king, campag's uk service chief regarding any potential imcompatibilities, and i'm rather glad i did.

it transpires that campagnolo, in the process of uprating chorus to twelve speed, opted to outfit that particular groupset with a sub-compact capable crankset. in order to do so, they changed the bolt circle diameter to allow a 32/48 ring combination. as graeme pointed out, there is no 53/39 combination available for chorus. thus record and super-record feature a 112mm bcd for the inner ring and 145mm for the outer ring. chorus, on the other hand, sports a 96mm inner bcd and 123mm outer.

it almost seems as if vicenza has a designated incompatibility department, where employees are hired to ensure that nothing designed for one groupset ever has a chance of working with another. to the best of my knowledge, shimano's 105, ultegra, and dura-ace chainrings are all compatible with each other, and none feature bolt circle diameters that would even suggest you try them with campagnolo.

so while chorus chainrings can be acquired for around £65, those for record and super-record seem to be the wrong side of £100. maybe there's no cost of living crisis in italy.

it almost makes you yearn for the days of ten-speed racing bikes.

tuesday 2 august 2022

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