Theres a well-known cycling adage that the formula for the perfect number of bikes for a cyclist to own is n+1 where 'n' equals the number of bikes a rider owns at any given time. The implication that a true cyclist is always thinking about the next bike they're going to buy as they toil …
Continue reading The Hopeless Quest for Cycling Nirvana via eBay and Mindless Optimism
One of the lesser mentioned and debated side effects of not riding as much as one used to is that bikes and kit simply don't wear out as fast as they did when one is young and keen. I once reckoned that if a cartridge bottom bracket (remember them anybody? - you know the ones …
Continue reading So here it is, Merry Christmas, every bodies having….. hugely rising costs!
A recent extended trip away with work has kept be off the bike for over a month. In the last 40 odd days I've stayed in about 15 different hotels in various countries from Chile to Australia. Sounds idyllic? Well, somebody has to do it I suppose but it certainly doesn't do anything for ones …
Sometimes you just need to mix things up. Take the road less travelled (or in this case the trail less ridden), take a risk, try something new. After all as some random wise man once allegedly said 'variety is the spice of life'. It's all to easy to get into a riding rut. Same …
Firstly let's get something straight right off the bat. I'm not going too bang on about Polish frame builders or Romanian wheel truing experts coming over here and stealing our jobs. Nor am I going to advocate the wholesale repatriation of families who have come to this country and discovered to their delight they don't have to cycle …
Guilt is a very corrosive emotion. It nags and niggles and eats away at you from the inside. Insidious thoughts begin to pervade your waking hours and darken your dreams. Its even worse when the cause of your guilt is based and founded on your own wilful neglect of something that once was so special. Once she was …
First the usual disclaimer - I've never met Shane Sutton, Victoria Pendleton, Jess Varnish or indeed any of the current GB cycling team past or present. (Actually that's not true, Dame Sarah Storey bless her once cruised effortlessly past me with a lovely cheery 'hello' a few years back as I grovelled up a minor …
First, a disclaimer. I'm only another disillusioned fan. I've never met any of the people involved, I've never seen or examined one of these alleged motorised cheat machines. I have no idea if the guys and girls with their names all over the press are innocent or guilty as charged. Like most of the other …
Continue reading Mechanical Doping -Pro Cycling’s Latest Attempt to Self-Destruct
'Built not Bought' is a tag line and sticker now currently popular on the modified car scene. Displaying one on the back window or bumper of ones 'ride' proclaims to the world at large (or at least the tiny proportion of it that actually cares) that those ill-advised styling touches and that badly installed exhaust …
Continue reading Self Build Satisfaction – ‘Built not Bought’
My relationship with cycles with treaded knobbly tyres is a long and complex one. Once way back in the mists of my competitive youth off-road riding meant winter cyclo-cross races held at muddy playing fields or municipal recreation grounds during the road racing off-season. Like many aspiring junior roadies I subjected myself to these bleak windswept afternoons of cycling …
The Declining Cyclist 