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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Cycling Forums – I ride, ergo I must always be right, ergo everyone else must be wrong and is therefore a moron of the first magnitude!
Would a relative beginner notice the difference if he bought a carbon fibre framed bike? and would said hypothetical bike make him faster? A seemingly innocent question which was posed recently on one of the most popular UK-based cycling forums in the section specifically for beginners to our sport / hobby. A reasonable enough question for a …
Cycling Etiquette – What not to wear, what not to ride, and what not to say!
A once famous cycle racer who now must not be named once said 'its not just about the bike', and he was right. Although the bike is terribly important in terms of things such as frame material, manufacturer and chainset configuration, it's also about what the rider wears, how he or she wears it, and most …
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Best Five Cycling Books (Well, best six really)
With my troublesome knee restricting my already restricted riding opportunities, my thoughts have turned to one of my other favourite pastimes - reading. I've always been an unashamed book-worm, devouring Tolkien and Twain at an age when it was deemed deeply uncool to open anything other than a football (or cycling!) magazine. The literature of …
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The Declining Cyclist 