Chasing wheels

Then you are riding a plank. No, it's not going to make any difference to how easy it is to glide through those gaps in traffic that you wish you were brave enough to take on.

At the weekend I managed to see some seriously ugly bikes and one seemingly mis-priced one. So, unless I mistook one cute Bianchi Milano town bike for another that price was 200 quid out. This is of course a trivial matter compared to the outbreak of ill-thought out bikes that plagued me.

Drop bars are a thing of true beauty, certainly in their classic form, with the smooth oval bend framing the front of any racing bike like the shoulder on a good wine bottle frames the neck. Dressed in white bar tape and attached to a quill stem there's something almost chivalric about them in those pictures that define the sport.

In this age of four bolt solutions and ergonomic bends that look like dropped spaghetti my heart is always lifted to see a well-positioned classic bar: the drop parallel to the ground and shifters reaching out from the top of the arc like a bowsprit and with the top edge also parallel to the ground.

OK I'll get to the point: I hate cut-down bars, be they flop'n'chop or shortened flat bars.

With the trendification of cycling in that hotbed of the ill-considered, Shoreditch, and increasing absorption of "messenger style" into the mainstream there's signs that Bikesnob NYC may find himself a second source of wonderment in London.

I will never understand why someone would want to ride a bike with a handlebar that resembles the top of a track pump or a hacksawed drop bar that looks more suited to use as a candelabra than steering.

Posted by Alex on 10 March 2008, 21:03 Digg this | Add to del.icio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Facebook | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks ()

Yes, in this weekend's Observer Sport Monthly. On her Trek road bike. There's a peek at it on Cycling Weekly's Tuesday comment piece:

Pendleton poses nude and the demise of the Archer

Their take on it seems to be that she can make her own choices and has done so. It's a line they take in reference to Richard Williams in the Guardian who questions why she has to strip off under the strapline "Pendleton gets dragged into a vicious cycle":

"Victoria Pendleton is a terrific athlete and an impressive woman but a world champion track cyclist, even a drop-dead gorgeous one, should have no need to broaden her appeal by stripping off for next Sunday's Observer Sports Magazine."

Cycling Weekly seems to in some way endorse this view saying that:

"It's just that it's hard to imagine the editor of OSM pitching the idea of a nude shoot with Chris Hoy or Bradley Wiggins or many other male athletes. "

The comment piece ends with "... there is a nagging regret that female sports stars are still being asked to strip off".

Which would all be a fair comment to make but for one thing: the shot is a very, very obvious homage to a very,very well known cycling image which also features a world class athlete, at the top of the sport of cycling, naked on a Trek bike.

Are we really expected to believe that both Lionel Birnie and Richard Williams wrote their articles and got them past the editor's desk without anyone even so much as raising a hand to point out that the image is in every way a visual tribute to

Annie Leibovitz's iconic portrait of Lance Armstrong

which was done for Vanity Fair and which echoes her most iconic image of a naked John Lennon next to Yoko Ono.

A Google image search for "Leibovitz Armstrong Portrait" puts the two images right next to each other. Would it have been so difficult for these two writers to have spotted the connection between the Pendleton portrait and Armstrong's and seen the significance of the visual message being conveyed?

If either Lionel or Richard would care to respond I am happy to publish their response as right of reply.

Posted by Alex on 26 February 2008, 18:02 Digg this | Add to del.icio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Facebook | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks ()

So Jan Ullrich has announced his retirement:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2007/feb07/feb26news2

(Incidentally cyclingnews.com is one of the best sources of cycling news out there)

Who now will us amateurs look to for inspiration when we suffer with our "winter weight issues"? This legion of nearly men and battlers who for years have relied on the misfortunes and struggles of Jan to inspire us. We may laugh at his woes but there is something incredibly likeable about the guy.

Frankly I can't bring myself to dislike a pro who ends up getting a ban because he went out clubbing and got some dodgy E cut with speed (amphetamines). Or who genuinely challenged Armstrong's obsessive preparation by sheer force even when not on top of his game.

In particular this is a rider who had the common decency to sit up and wait when Lance Armstrong fell in 2003, knowing that he had done the same when Jan fell in 2001. And not a word of complaint despite it possibly costing him the Tour when Lance surged back past him, nor about the problems he had endured with his team collapsing around him.

Let's not forget this guy won the Tour De France at 23, an age when most riders haven't got much beyond stating it as an ambition, and in doing so wrestled control of the Telekom team from the titleholder - and his nominal team captain - Bjarne Riis. He won the Olympic Road race in 2000 and was a Time Trial World Champion.

So raise a glass to Jan Ullrich, the fat lad who done good.

Posted by Alex on 26 February 2007, 19:02 Digg this | Add to del.icio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Facebook | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks ()

Good article from Bikebiz here:

http://www.bikebiz.co.uk/Why-is-stomach-stapling-sexier-than-cycling

The title says it all. While NICE (which is easier to type than the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) repeatedly mention cycling as a way to deal with obesity the mainstream media, in typically sensationalist and downright unjournalistic fashion report the headline as being gastric band surgery.

Posted by Alex on 13 December 2006, 23:12 Digg this | Add to del.icio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Facebook | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks ()

This week the debate has been raging over whether or not the Met Police are deliberately targeting cyclists in Richmond Park for exceeding the 20mph speed limit. You can follow most strands of the discussion on the Cycling Plus forum here:

http://www.cyclingplus.co.uk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=114300&whichpage=1

In addition there is apparently an unhelpful article in this week's Cycling Weekly (I don't read it as the only times I've picked it up I've thrown it away as a waste of money) which manages to use a picture of Warrick Spence, one of the best riders on the domestic Elite scene, and thus imply he is a law breaker. I'm guessing he's none to pleased about that.

It looks like the Met Police will be out in force on Saturday and are expecting London Dynamo members to be at the head of things. A fairly obvious assumption given that there's usually at least 50 riders from the club out there every weekend.

My initial view was that we should toe the line and allow it to blow over: the Met get to act on a complaint and tick it off on their clear-up rate, in a couple of weeks things carry on as usual. As the week has worn on my hack hat has slid firmly into place so I think I may well take my press card, microphone and mindisc along just for the record.

I'll report back on what happens, although I do hope it all passes without incident. If not, well then I'll have to start making a few calls and asking a few questions.

Posted by Alex on 23 November 2006, 22:11 Digg this | Add to del.icio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Facebook | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks ()

An interesting article on the ever brilliant PezCycling News on just how much it costs to have a stage of Le Tour in the neighbourhood:

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=4481

Do some quick sums, or rough estimates, and you'll see that Le Grand Depart in London next July won't have come cheap.

It's also why the Tour doesn't tend to head into the Massif Central. Auvergnats are the French equivalents of Scots: tight-fisted or "radin", as the French would say. Which is a shame, because it's a wonderful part of France and names like Puy De dome and Mont Dore are etched in the legend of the event.

Posted by Alex on 3 November 2006, 23:11 Digg this | Add to del.icio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Facebook | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks ()

In nearly as many months we've had coverage of the tour of Britain and the World Championships. Has the BBC turned a corner and decided that cycling is worthy of inclusion in its schedules?

Yes, the critics will argue that the coverage was only highlights but with the ever-informative Hugh Porter behind the microphone, ably assisted by Chris Boardman, today's coverage of the time trials was pretty solid. Maybe it's the interviewees but the reporter they used just didn't seem to click for me - it felt like a classic case of Grandstand using a generalist to fill the gap rather than someone with a bit of expertise.

But there's no denying the coverage was generally good, although with highlights programmes it's very easy to crop out the flat patches. Even so it was more than a match for ITV's Tour de France coverage. Question is, will I be home in time tomorrow for the coverage of the men's and women's road races?

Posted by Alex on 23 September 2006, 19:09 Digg this | Add to del.icio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Facebook | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks ()

Matt Seaton writes in today's Guardian about his excitement at the coverage of the Tour of Britain (ToB) this week. I'm as excited as anyone by it and will be going down on Sunday armed with my microphone and camera to try and grab what I can. Matt's article mentions the coverage being given by the BBC:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1860698,00.html

Now I'm slightly more cynical about this coverage than Matt. A few months ago I pitched a package on David Millar's return to competitive cycling to Grandstand and had it knocked back, now they're devoting a two hour slot to the Tour of Britain this Sunday.

In my view, the BBC has never engaged properly with cycling as a sport at a level above "out of a duty to do so". So why the sudden flourish for this event when they've been content to do the bare minimum of coverage for the sport previously?

Politics for one thing. Given that the BBC is a seemingly integral part of the London 2012 Olympic project it needs to be seen to be involved with British sport. After all there's a GB Cycling team riding in the ToB so they can flag up a few rising stars. Then there's the issue of co-operating with Transport for London and the Local Authorities as part of the long march towards the Olympics.

As I have already said, I am glad to see the sport getting some decent coverage but part of me wonders if it's only a passing fad until the Olympics pass. There's no evidence of a longer-term commitment to the sport from broadcasters of the level and expertise that Channel 4 used to bring to the sport in the 1980s, nor even the much diminished ITV coverage of the Tour de France.

Yes, the BBC has covered track events in the past but this has almost always been in the context of a major event where Great Britain looks likely to win a medal, a policy which seems to be the norm when it comes to "minority sports".

Posted by Alex on 30 August 2006, 12:08 Digg this | Add to del.icio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Facebook | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks ()

Finally I get round to launching this site on the day that Floyd Landis' "B" sample comes back positive for an elevated testosterone:epitestosterone ratio. Not the best of days to set forth into the world of online cycling journalism.

Yes, it is sad that he has failed a control but the way in which the UCI has conducted itself with regard to announcing the "A" sample failure amidst panic over it being leaked to L'Equipe has debased the sport. By comparison, look at the way in which the IOC has reacted to the Gatlin positive and the rection to it.

While Dick Pound has once against continued to publicly denigrate cycling's efforts to deal with doping, the media view has been that athletics is doing something to get rid of the "cheats" while this is just another sad mark on the already tarnished name of cycling. This is grossly unfair and totally ignores the seemingly endless flow of top athletes who are still testing positive, just as in cycling.

I have always found this purtianical drive to "clean up sport" slightly ludicrous simply because throughout the history of just about everything there have been those who have sought to gain advantage by means that could be considered "not strictly gentlemanly".

Eventually they get found out and hounded out in disgrace in time honoured ritual. Simply saying you can't and threatening to ban people is hardly going to stop the deperate and desirous. That's not to say I'm in favour of it being allowed, it's just that it will happen whatever you do because fundamentally everyone who does it believes they'll be the one who doesn't get caught.

It's not going to change that millions of people ride bikes for commuting, for fun, for health and not just for racing. And that's what this is blog about - cycling in all its glory and all the bits I partake of and enjoy. So welcome to it and I hope i can build something for our mutual enjoyment.

Posted by Alex on 5 August 2006, 16:08 Digg this | Add to del.icio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Facebook | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks ()