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 …
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 …
Continue reading Winter Riding – The great sartorial leveller
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 …
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 …
Continue reading Strava – The route to minor cycling immortality or a descent into madness?
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 …
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 …
Continue reading Cycling Etiquette – What not to wear, what not to ride, and what not to say!
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 …
Continue reading Best Five Cycling Books (Well, best six really)
As we enter a period of what our weather forecast professionals tell us could be an Indian Summer my body which as been relatively creak free all through yet another wet miserable British summer has decided to celebrate the warmer temperatures by throwing its metaphorical teddy out of the pram. My left knee is sending all the …
Continue reading Knee Pain – Continue riding or rest up? (man-up or laze-up?)
The Declining Cyclist 