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folk/jazz? thank you, no

20 Nov

howies.
a company started by marketing people to sell expensive clothes to a certain type of person.
a person that their knowledge of marketing led them to target.
a person like me.
the clothes i wear fall into three types:
bike clothes
work clothes
howies clothes
i’m a sucker for their cool adverts like the one above.
but my favourite was in the autum catalogue:
in is
click on it to make it bigger

i never thought i would come of age…

14 Nov

nonna's milk
I’m a member of La Squadra but unfortunately I live 70 miles away. That means that I have only ridden with you once, on the fantastic Hot 100 ride.
So when I found out that two of my wife favourite bands were playing in Sheffield the day after her birthday, a plan was hatched…

Unfortunately, we didn’t think much to the gig, but the meal in Nonna’s on Saturday evening and the coffee this morning were worth the trip alone!

Grazie. E ’stato delizioso. Ci vediamo di nuovo molto presto …

dance yrself clean

13 Nov

enjoy your weekends everyone. i’ll be in Nonna’s this afternoon, followed by the LCD/Hot Chip gig at Magna afterwards…

console me

10 Nov

leaves
looks great but makes for scary cornering…

a red-headed step-child

7 Oct

the latest addition to the stable. a 2000 cannondale caad 3 r500.
ok, so it’s entry level, but it is unmistakably a ‘dale. the silhouette of fat (the fattest) tubes changing shape along their length, the super-smooth welds, the giant chainstays.
the design was all about one thing and that was channelling mr. cippolini’s power into the back wheel. comfort and compliance were for wusses…

Shutt Velo Rapide

5 Oct

Photographs from the Shutt Velo Rapide ride on the Chiltern Cycleway. 100 miles of lanes, hills and wet leaves. A few navigational challenges and some of the greatest faffing i’ve ever seen.
A good weekend though with nice people. To be repeated next month in Leicestershire – La Squadra members are of course very welcome…

shutt velo rapide

no-one’s first and you’re next

14 Sep

on monday i’ll ride my bike to work with panniers fitted to carry my shirts for the week
on tuesday i’ll ride a mountain bike in the woods after work
on wednesday i’ll shave my legs
on thursday i’ll race a time trial
on friday i’ll go to the pub after work on my vintage raleigh
on saturday i’ll go for on our club run to the cafe
on sunday i’ll be on the turbo trainer
or a charity ride
or a sportif
or at a trail centre
or riding my fixed gear
so what is it with cycling that breeds cliques?
i’m not a roadie, or a racer, or an mtb-er, tourist or hipster.
i’m a cyclist…
we seem to have enough people who don’t like us out there, without falling out with each other…
by the way – i’m rather pleased with my new coffee mug that has a break lever for a handle!

15 albums

2 Sep

scandal 29er on-one

The rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums you’ve heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.
Let me know your 15, because I’m interested in seeing what albums my friends choose.

Remember, list records in no particular order:
1.surfa rosa – the pixes
2.seamonsters – the wedding present
3.c86 – various artists (free with the nme)
4.takk… – sigur ros
5.beaucoup fish – underworld
6.mwng – super furry animals
7.in the flat field – bauhaus
8.the frenz experiment – the fall
9.hup – the wonder stuff
10.b-52’s – b-52’s
11.based on a true story – fat freddy’s drop
12.disintegration – the cure
13.beachcomber’s windowsill – stornaway
14.hatful of hollow – the smiths
15.gish – smashing pumpkins

it’s easy to write down 15
but then hard not to study it and change them all…

edit: no radiohead, bob dylan, iron maiden, stone roses etc etc

thanks to Dan for the idea.

where the odd and the mediocre wait…

25 Aug

Over the next few weeks i’ll be racing in three more open time trials. One 10 mile event, one 25 and a fifty!
Despite having competed for a few years now, I still struggle to put my finger on exactly what the appeal is. They hurt, they can be dangerous and competing can cost lots of money. And time trialling is not exactly adrenaline fuelled!
Yet, up and down Britain, almost every day of the year, people are putting themselves through the pain just to try and beat… themselves.
Y’see unless you’re at elite level and winning events, the only real satisfaction in time trialling is beating your personal best and for most people that only tends to happen for a few years while you’re new to the sport. Once you have been racing for a while though, the P.Bs dry up and you’ll plateau.
The usual solution is to begin ‘buying time’. A new bike, deep section wheels etc. For a few hundred quid you can get back that feeling of success by beating your own best time.

And that’s the odd thing.
23 minutes and eighteen seconds is a completely arbitary time period for everyone in the world apart from me. For me it is the time I achieved once in a ten mile time trial and on recent evidence, a time I’ll never achieve again.

But despite not getting any younger, thinner or having disposable income for a disc wheel,  I keep going back. Just in the hope that one day I’ll re-live the old days and beat 23′18″. A time that some of my fellow riders will never achieve and that others would be very disappointed with…
hq
Race HQ – like village halls and race HQs up and down the land. I can’t imagine that the French or Italian equivalents are quite the same. (more…)

the infotainment scan…

30 Jul

tony martin and me

sunday was my third attempt at beating an hour for a 25 mile time trial.

i failed by 12 seconds!

i’ll be back to try again, but have to admit i was pretty pissed-off to miss by such a small amount.

i’ve entered another in september. it might be time to try ‘training’!

at the weekend, i saw some pictures of contador and schlek’s time trial position overlaid, so i thought i’d compare my position to a specialist time trial professional.
the picture above shows tony martin and me at speed (albeit with me looking down). i was pleased to see how low i was compared to a pro, although tony doesn’t appear to have as much lard crammed into his skinsuit as i do.
the main difference seems to be the extremely steep seat post angle that modern time trial bikes have, putting the rider much further forward than us mortals.

thanks to mark pinsent and mark edward for the pictures – hope you don’t mind me nicking them.

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