Katie Archibald – World Champion!

In her first Worlds, the Scot wins Gold as part of GB Team Pursuit squad. The future looks incredible for this young lady, the most talented rider from Scotland since Hoy & Obree. We’ll see her in the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, no team pursuit there, but will be representing & hopefully winning medals for Scotland at her home Games.

If the programme allows it we’ll see her competing in the Commonwealth Games 3000m individual pursuit, the 10km Scratch Race & 25km Points Race.

Video of Team Pursuit Final.

Video | Posted on February 28, 2014 by | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Womens Team Pursuit Chat

Chris Newton talks about the World Championships & Katie Archibald, “a long way to go with Katie”. Lots more to come from the Scot. They ride tomorrow (Thursday 27th Feb).

Video | Posted on February 26, 2014 by | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Wiggo Comes to Glasgow, again…

Posted on February 25, 2014 by
Wiggins

Brad in the Team Sky ‘Death Star’ bus.

A source close to Team Sky has provided some startling information regarding the motivation behind newly bearded Bradley Wiggins decision which was announced today, that he is taking part in the Commonwealth Games time trial in Glasgow. It transpires that the choice may have been heavily influenced by some new-found friends he encountered during his ‘winter of discontent’ after his 2012 Tour de France victory.

Brad allegedly fell asleep on a train after a particularly wild night out in Manchester, then woke up in Glasgow Central station several hours later. Not wanting to waste the trip, the Olympic hero decided to explore the local culture as an accidental tourist & happened upon Glasgow Cross, where the patrons of the long-established Tollbooth bar welcomed him in with open arms. There he entertained the locals for two whole days with his tails of conquering France & the finer points of cultivating facial hair, the latter of which was a speciality of many of the regulars. During this time many stories were told of the amazing opportunities that exist for bearded gentlemen that simply did not exist for the sideburned Sir, his mind was made up & a full beard was planned for Glasgow 2014. Not only would this provide some additional warmth for the Scottish summer (marginal gains), but he would also win the hearts & minds of an otherwise potentially hostile public, not partial to a shaven legged Englishman, wearing a St Georges cross skinsuit in Glasgow City Centre, just a few weeks prior to the referendum on Scottish Independence. With the finest ginger beard seen on the face of any professional cyclist the world had ever seen, he could woo the Scottish crowds & this time sit on the Commonwealth throne (rather than the Olympic one) as his rivals recorded their times on the leaderboard. The scene was set for a relatively relaxed 2013 race programme, followed by winter 2013/2014 spent cultivating the secret weapon, the fastest ginger whiskers in history, designed to create adoration from the Scottish public. Then a full assault for the Glasgow 2014 Time Trial title as his primary objective. As it’s transpired, this is exactly what is happening.

A source close to somebody who watches ‘The One Show” has confirmed that Hugh Porter will not be the BBC commentator during the Commonwealth cycling events, but instead they will be using Brad’s close friend & doppelgänger Frankie Boyle, also a big fan of the monarchy. Unknown to most, Frankie is also a keen cyclist & has an in-depth knowledge of the finer points of aero helmets & race pacing, it should provide much better coverage that Hugh’s constant “full of riding” commentary we see in every event. The post race interview with Brad & Frankie is scheduled to be broadcast after 9pm for some undisclosed reason, so Frankie’s wife Susan Boyle will be interviewing riders during the daytime & providing post race soundbites.

In a recent poll of attitudes towards Bradley Wiggins from a wide demographic of Scottish cycling fans, it showed a very large swing towards “Good Guy”, in a stark contrast to a pre-beard poll which showed the majority chose the other option. The strategy appears to have worked well & I urge all spectators to cheer on Bradley when you see him on the course. He’s certainly made a huge effort & deserves our support.

If you’d like to meet Brad after the time trial on 31st July, it’s almost certain you’ll find him in his favourite Glasgow bar, seeking advice on his next career goal.

Posted in Commonwealth Games, Time Trialling | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Throw-Away Bike Culture?

Posted on February 23, 2014 by

Hope

Only ten or fifteen years ago, cycling was very much a minority sport in the UK. Nowadays, after the success of the GB Olympic Team, Chris Boardman, Graeme Obree, Chris Hoy & Victoria Pendleton on the track, then Mark Cavendish & Bradley Wiggins ‘winning stuff’ at the Tour de France, the British sports fan now has an understanding of what our sport entails, it’s etched into their consciousness. This has led to the popularisation of cycling as a hobby, which coincided with a general rise in interest in ‘sporting achievement’ & fitness throughout the population, like running a marathon, completing a triathlon, or taking part in a sportive. The sport of cycling is now grease-packed full of middle-aged men with disposable income, some who have moved from participation to competition. We still don’t have the big base of competitive junior riders, although youth competition is flourishing mostly in racing, there still seems to be no increase in the number of kids ‘playing’ on bikes.

Side Effects

Along with all this success, the cycling market is now targeting the area with that large disposable income, crudely referred to in some press articles as MAMILs (Middle Aged Men In Lycra). This has perhaps led to the reduction in other areas of the bike industry, where the ‘throw-away culture’ doesn’t fit. Frame building, repair & painting, wheel building & repair, and your local bike shop, which I’ve covered before.

Wheel building in your local area has been dramatically affected by the rise of factory built wheels, which has reduced the hand-built market significantly. Most local bike shops now have displays with factory built wheels, with the wheel jig hidden away in the back shop. Wheels have become a throw-away item, we used to buy nice hubs & keep them running for years, replacing the rim when that one wore out. The huge developments that have been made in component technology have also had an effect on this, by the time your rim has worn out a new groupset advance has been introduced. In my cycling time we’ve gone from racing on 6 speed blocks (down tube friction levers, you had to ‘find’ your gear), to 11 speed cassettes & press button gearing. All these changes make a difference to the hubs spacing & dimensions, one is called ‘dish’, simply put, the space that’s required to fit these extra gears requires an ever steeper ‘dish’ on the gear side spokes. It could be argued that the standard spoked wheel these days is weaker than the standard wheel of the lesser gear times, just down to the ‘dish’ factor.
Fixing wheels used to be a simple matter, now it’s more complicated, fewer people are able to provide the service & the spokes are different, some factory wheels require special spokes, other ‘direct pull’ spokes need to be threaded at both ends & be a very particular length. Some shops can provide these items, some can cut & re-thread spokes, but when your factory wheel breaks, you’ll probably buy another one & the old one will go in the bin. Wheels have become a throw-away item.

Frames are now in much the same way ‘throw-away’ , although the craftsmen who formerly built you a made to measure steel frame were much harder to find locally than wheelbuilders. I’ve also gone into this subject previously too in some detail in You’ve Been Framed & Strong, Light, Cheap, pick two. Frame repairs are also seldom requested these days, aluminium & carbon frames are much harder to fix than steel frames. Steel usually consists of a standard tubeset, the repairer knows exactly the thickness of what you’re working with before they start, which makes it much easier to alter, plus you were normally working with solder rather than welds. This makes aluminium frames something most people will avoid working with, you could end up finding a very thin wall thickness & blow a hole in it while attempting a weld. Carbon isn’t really something you want to work in your local bike shop either. This makes both carbon & alumium ideal for the industry to adopt as a throw-away item, if it breaks you just buy another, a big difference to the very recent past.

Frame respraying was also incredibly common, but now quite rare. When you look into the cost of resprays it becomes all too obvious why, we can now buy an off the peg frame for the same price. So if your paintwork is in a mess, it’s more likely you’ll buy a new frame than send it away for a new paint job.

Choice

I’m certainly not a traditionalist, I also have a healthy disregard for nostalgia that holds us back, what I’m not a fan of is the current ‘throw-away culture’. We’re losing vital cycling services due to the markets focus on one demographic, our small local businesses suffer & can’t compete with the economy of scale of big-business buying power. They’ve managed to switch the market in things like wheels to ‘factory’, from ‘hand-built’, which has forced the cyclist to purchase the same products as everybody else, we now look the same & ride identical or very similar kit, is this a good thing, does it actually remove choice without us realising, have we become commercial slaves? The UCI have even got on this bandwagon by ‘approving’ with their infamous sticker system factory built wheels for competition use. Everything is turned against small business due to market demand, the custom wheel built in your local shop, the hand-built frame constructed by a craftsman, even the old local fella who used to fix & sew up your punctured tubs, it’s all disappearing.

So why not buy your next pair of wheels from your experienced local bike shop? Chat about the number of spokes a rider like you requires, what you’re using it for, how you ride. Choose your hubs, choose a rim & take advice on what spoking pattern is best for you. I’m quite sure it will give you a better understanding & appreciation of what’s involved, along with the security that these wheels can be fixed locally in a very short period of time. Maybe these are the ones that get the most abuse, winter or training wheels, which nowadays may be the wise option for a hand-built wheelset. Choosing a set of wheels from scratch helps you analyse exactly what you are as a cyclist. It may show you’re a ‘bling’ merchant, you may need many more or less spokes than a rider of similar weight (a lesson to change you’re riding habits perhaps). Remember that factory wheels are built for everybody, which means they are designed for the larger gentleman, if you’re not that rotund individual, maybe you can benefit from something else?

Some manufacturers don’t operate in this manner, recently I’ve had experience with Hope products, where they carry all spares, even for each component in their lights. In my opinion this may work out cheaper in the end, a relatively expensive product but one which can be repaired & seems good quality. The same goes for my extensive cycle computer graveyard in a box in the bike-cave, which required no more gravestones once I purchased a Garmin unit, which works & was repaired once by Garmin in a matter of days.

The Gist Of It

Take the experts advice. But remember that all ‘advice’ is a form of nostalgia, based on what worked well & what failed for the person or business dishing out that advice, then it’s passed onto & applied to yourself. I’d much rather trust the person providing that advice if I saw them on a regular basis & they had a better idea of what I need, rather than advice from marketers in a corporate boardroom deciding what you’re riding next year. This kind of informed & personal advice is good nostalgia, don’t throw it away.

Posted in Bike culture, Technical | Leave a comment

Being Batman

Posted on February 22, 2014 by
Modified Creative Commons Licence photo by Dale Beckett http://www.flickr.com/photos/84800532@N02/

Creative Commons Licence photo by Dale Beckett @ flickr

Batman requires his secret cave in order to be a super hero, it contains all his specialist vehicles & provides the means he requires to progress his fight against crime, without it he would be nothing. Most cyclists require their ‘man cave’, or ‘bike shed’, which serves a similar purpose for the pursuit of their hobby/obsession. The subtle difference is that ‘The Bike Shed’ is very real for us, we all try to make it the best home for our bikes that we can. How & where bikes are stored often has a huge influence on how we cycle & how much tinkering we can do, this important aspect it’s often forgotten & is virtually unmentioned in most training literature. It’s one of the most important aspects to consider to fully enjoy your hobby/obsession, here are your options….

Reality

The desirable image we all have in our minds is of something like the Garmin Service Course or another similar unobtainable ideal, which is as close to the ‘Bat-Cave’ as anybody can get. In this fantastical world, bikes are stored & repaired in harmony, everything easily accessible & ready to ride instantly. This utopia also includes a training suite with a turbo & rollers, a full sound & video system and the largest cooling fan you could ever imagine.

The reality is always quite different, it’s impossible to devote half your house to bicycles, in most cases we’re squeezed into a small space & the turbo is cast into the most unsuitable space, or even the cupboard under the stairs. We live in a world where our obsession has to fit itself into an ever compressing space over time, with some occasional & sudden expansions at key moments in our lives, a world away from the pro riders team support.

1. Outdoor Storage

This is really the base of the ladder, if you’ve got nowhere else, you’ll have to keep your pride & joy outdoors. At worst this would be chained up out in the street, at best a makeshift storage area in a back garden. We’ve probably all been here at one point in our lives, whether as a student or in temporary accommodation. Our bike has had to suffer the indignity of the weather without the company of a rider, bikes get very lonely outdoors without the scent of coffee & cake while their rider recharges.

We can usually find some place inside for storage, so hopefully if you’re in the situation, it’s only temporary & you can move on to one of the other more desirable options below. This is very far away from a Bat-Cave.

2. The In-House Storage

If you live on your own or with other cyclists, your bikes will be living in your hallway, kitchen or living room, whether or not that’s the initial plan, it will evolve into this pretty rapidly. If those places are unavailable you may have to keep one in your bedroom, but this is the least ‘cyclist’ place to keep a bike, we’ll somehow always choose the public rooms to show off our bikes. However, if you live with a non-cyclist, especially if they are a wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend, then you’ll be encouraged to locate your bike in a ‘hideaway’ somewhere in the house, while they’re about anyway. We all know that if nobody saw change a tyre or take a chainset apart on the living room floor, it probably didn’t happen.

The ‘hideaway’ domestic bike storage often consists of a cupboard, in which your bike may be forced to share its accommodation with the hoover, ironing board & a plastic christmas tree, often with the indignity of a front wheel removed to fit. This isn’t ideal as we all know, for some reason unknown to cyclists, people tend to complain when the ironing board has an oily chainring mark on it. Your best bet in to commandeer an entire room, go large. There really is only one way to do this if you have a spare room, you need to offer to decorate it. As you ‘find’ more problems & ‘issues’ with this room, it’s your ideal chance to move some bikes in. The ‘issues’ are going to take time & money to fix, so it’s probably best to make better use of the space while you work out exactly how to make this room of your dwelling perfect for you partner’s wellbeing. Plenty of cyclists I know have their project room, which prior to the arrival of a child, will serve your needs, it may also encourage the in-laws to hire a B&B when they visit. The last thing you want them to see is your project/bike room & suss out your plan.

The only way in which the in-house storage can be considered a Bat-Cave is if it’s in your cellar, which nobody else knows about & it has a secret exit. If you’ve somehow managed to have it accepted than bikes could potentially be in every room in total harmony & the turbo is in full view, read no further, you have attained something we mortals can only dream about. I currently only know one such nirvana.

3. The Wooden Shed

A detached property for your bike collection is a real step up. I’ve witnessed various guises of ‘the wooden shed’, from a basic garden shed to a fully equipped & heated mini log cabin, with full coffee-making facilities.

The ‘basic shed’ is secured with a padlock if you’re lucky, the window is blacked-out & it can often leak a bit. In the worst case you may be sharing it with a lawnmower & various garden pots you will never use.  You can make this space work for you & it’s amazing what you can fit in a garden shed, but unfortunately the bike you want is always at the back, so you have to remove the lawnmower, spare wheels & the other bikes to get to it. This is a hindrance to your cycling, it also doesn’t have room for a turbo to be set up. Sometimes the basic shed option results in at least one bike remaining in the hall.

The luxury shed is a completely different scenario, I’ve witnessed a few quite stunning examples of this type, well-built large wooden sheds, complete with power, turbo, TV & a kettle. In some ways the ‘extreme shed’ solution can be better than a garage, as it often won’t become a dumping ground for all those things you may need some day but never will, your partner thinks that’s what the garage is for. It can also accommodate a turbo trainer, which is another huge plus point. This option can be very close to the Bat-Cave, if planned & managed correctly, but can be very expensive.

All other variations exist between these two extremes of the wooden shed, it’s up to you to make the most of what you have available, they can all work very well.

4. The Garage

Nobody uses their garage for a car anymore, we’ve all got too much junk for that, only your car insurance provider thinks it’s a useable motor vehicle space. The garage has to be very carefully managed to secure your space for our two-wheeled friends, it’s often a free-for-all for the whole family, whether that’s a dumping ground, DIY chaos, or at the very worst a home for a train set, which will remove all available bike space.

The trick here is to claim some area, this will often involve a few small constructions to display/store your bikes correctly. This keeps the others away to some extent, while allowing you to have all bikes to hand, also forcing you to keep them in more or less one piece. There are various solutions for this, too many for me to go into here, you can make them with some simple hooks & some timber, or you can buy all sorts of hangers, lifters & holders for all sorts of prices. Your solution fits the space you have available, just don’t pile them all against a wall, as with the shed solution, the one you want to ride is always at the back.

Once you’ve claimed some space, you can start developing things, hanging bike tools on the wall, wheel storage, a workstand & a space for the turbo. If managed correctly, the garage can provide all this & become a partial Bat-Cave (or as close as you’ll get), but you also need to keep it under control, there’s always somebody wanting to invade bike space. You can start making it comfortable by plugging the gaps that send a cold wind blowing through you when you’re sweating on the turbo as it’s too cold to ride outside & finding a TV where you can watch the pro’s race as you train. Ultimately what was formerly your bike storage area could become a club room, a refuge for other riding companions to visit if they are stuck with a lesser option.

With this organisation comes a calmness, all your bike kit sorted & in place, but, as we all know, that won’t last long will it? Defend your garage space with all your might, it can easily slip away, keep it under control.

The Gist Of It

All the above options can provide you with your own Bat-Cave to some extent, it’ll take work to get there. Ultimately you’re aiming for yourself or a club-mate to develop a club-hut scenario, a refuge for like-minded souls, where the coffee is strong & the chat is bike. Get it in place for July, start building now & invite your buddies over after the Sunday ride to watch the Tour stage from York to Sheffield (6th July), all in your bike specific area, sitting in bike gear on your deck chairs in the garage with a nice cold beer & a TV.

Don’t settle for a place to put your bikes, find a place for your bikes to live, it needn’t be expensive, it just has to be tranquillo. Be the best Batman you can be.

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