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 …
Brexit for Cyclists -Are We In or Out?
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 and Neglect
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 …
Shane Sutton -Et Tu Victoria?
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 …
Mechanical Doping -Pro Cycling’s Latest Attempt to Self-Destruct
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 …
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Self Build Satisfaction – ‘Built not Bought’
'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 …
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My Fat Tyred Addiction
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 …
Winter Riding – The great sartorial leveller
One of the best things about riding during the UK winter is the way that mother nature helps to level the playing field. For a start when the roads take on their winter plumage of mud, frozen cowshit and massive potholes that seasonal British beast the 'winter bike' makes its first appearance of the year …
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The Wet and Winding Road
Remember remember soggy November, shit weather, crashes and snot - goes the UK riders parody of a well-known children's nursery rhyme. Yup, November is my full-blown excuse fest month. The slightest thing can keep me indoors and off the bike. Sainsbury's delivery? no problem dear, I'll stay in all day waiting for it in case it comes …
Strava – The route to minor cycling immortality or a descent into madness?
During my knee induced layoff I've been pondering my rather meagre cycling achievements. Since what I now like to refer to as 'my riding prime' pre-dated the digital age its highly unlikely that my best results from my racing days are recorded anywhere except in my fading memories. Past glories such as my heroic third …
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The Declining Cyclist 