hey, continuing the theme of “I can’t wait for another adventure” I’ve got a new camping stove to show you. OK, not very exciting but I’ve been sick this week and unable to ride/race so I’ve had to find some sort of inspiration…. My previous expedition stove was an MSR Dragonfly multi-fuel stove - it burned pretty much any liquid fuel and did it well though I only ever ran it on white gas, unleaded petrol and on one occasion paraffin). It served me very well for 12 years until I sold it in Ecuador back in January. It wasn’t perfect - the pump design was compromised by a weak point (but fixed in later models) and at one point the burner became detached from the spindle/fuel pipe but MSR fitted a new one for free within a couple of days (after 8 years of use which says a lot for their customer service!). This week I replaced it with a Primus Omnifuel.. the successor to the Himalaya Multifuel.. this thing really does burn anything - liquid fuel as well as gas cartridges which is pretty handy. It comes with 3 different jets and a tool to swap them around depending on fuel type. I’ve only given it a test firing so far on white gas but I’m really impressed… dead easy to light and appears to be very powerful. I’ve no idea what the official heat output figures are, don’t really care - it looks ‘right’ The build quality is nice, it feels a much less fragile design than the Dragonfly and the best bit is that the pump is metal rather than plastic so should be nice and reliable on a long journey….. also handy is that the fuel bottle fitting is common with MSR bottles as I have a couple of those in different sizes kicking around here already.
I’ll report back as soon as it gets some solid outdoor use but based on the reviews I’ve seen I doubt I’ll be disappointed. Worth considering if you are in the market for a stove for overseas adventures… Here’s a pic of mine…
which is a bit of a shit pic so here’s a ‘library’ photo as well… ;o)
Mine came from Outback Trading in Helston (top folk.. heck, they’re friends of mine so free plug is very much in order ;o) and came with fuel bottle, tools, solid feeling storage bags and a windshield.
Apologies in advance.. this could be something of a ‘dry’ post (ha-ha…… ok, that was shite) for those not interested in touring… but I am so I thought I’d tell you about the Ortlieb dry bags I bought to go with my replacement Extrawheel ready for the next big adventure. The bags that you can order with the Extrawheel are OK but mine were starting to fall apart at the seams after 8 weeks of, admittedly hard, use in Colombia and Ecuador. I ordered the new trailer without bags and instead sorted myself out with a pair of Ortlieb’s finest… the PS-490 (how imaginative…) is supposed to be the toughest in the range and I have to say the quality is superb for not a lot more money. The seams look and feel bombproof, as does the fabric. Mine are 59 litres and have pretty much the same form-factor as the Extrawheel 60l bags. They’re a nice understated colour (black and red as opposed to garish yellow) and are even a bit lighter than the Extrawheel bags, mine weigh in as about 90 grams lighter each… OK, it’s not a lot but 5000m up every little bit counts…. The only downer is the absence of a shoulder strap but I’m sure I’ll improvise something. Of course all this implies that I’m planning something… this is true but can’t make it public just yet for, I hope, obvious reasons…
Here’s a pic (see if you can contain your excitement, it’s not exactly bikeporn…)
Other stuff… I’ve not been doing much in the way of long rides (i.e 130km+), preferring to focus on speed, since coming back from South America, but those 90km climbs must have counted for something ‘cos when I went out yesterday with buddy Martin for a nice 160km romp in the sunshine the legs were fine with plenty of speed left over at the end. Just as well really, the Tour of the Black Mountains is less than 2 weeks away and now I can look forward to it properly ;o)
Anyway, in case you missed my last post or can’t be bothered to scroll down and have a look then I think you should really… donations welcome, hehe;o)
OK, as promised (and somewhat hastily coded) I just took live a simple website to accompany our travel photography exhibition in aid of the Julio Otoni Community Project. Rather than write it all agin I’ll just cut and paste from the email sent to my friends.. (so I have more time to sit out in the sun this evening…):
“… you may or may not know that I teamed up with my sister, Sal, to create an exhibition of travel photography to raise funds for the Julio Otoni Community Project in Rio de Janeiro… Earlier this year Sal was working with the kids in the favela (shanty-town) on the project while I was messing about on two wheels on the same continent, albeit a few thousand km further north in Colombia. The exhibition itself only lasted four days but was a huge success raising almost £1000! The feedback was so good we’re now looking for a new, higher profile venue - stay tuned for news on that. In the meantime though, and in response to many requests, for those unable to visit in person this time I’ve put together a simple website to accompany the exhibition where you can read about the project, view the photographs, order prints and if you are so inclined… make a donation (hint….)!
Sal’s work in particular is beautiful (heck, you already knew I was good…) - it is focused entirely on her time in Rio during which she built a terrific rapport with the kids… and it shows.
I’d be grateful for any feedback, especially if you spot any bugs running on your PC with whatever browser you use. It looks great on my Apple Mac with Firefox so if it looks rubbish to you the solution is simple… buy a Mac ;o) Oh, and don’t forget to forward it on to your friends….”
Click the screenshot below to go and have a look….
Phew, now that’s taken care of I have time to go and clean my bikes… it’s been somewhat “wet” around these parts recently….
With reference to my last post below I’m working really hard to get the exhibition site up and running (in between cycling of course and that minor distraction known as work), hence lack of words on here… I can tell you though that the grand total raised for the 4 days (+ 2hrs of Friday night) was £938 which is amazing…! I’m busting a gut to get the supporting site done by Sunday evening, in the meantime here’s a taster… one of Sal’s lovely pictures from the Julio Otoni Community Project in Rio.
Our opening night for the exhibition on Friday was a huge success. It was invitation only and just for a couple of hours but with wine courtesy of the local brewery loads of people turned out on what was a filthy night weather-wise. We raised £257 just in that short space of time and the reception was fantastic. With the next four days open to the general public we’re hopeful we’ll raise enough cash to really make a difference out there in Rio. I still haven’t had time to create the exhibition gallery but here are a few pics from before we opened. My sister, Sal, in particular has been a huge driving force behind the success of this and also her friend Lee who has been absolutely brilliant. The feedback has been so good in fact that I think we will be looking for another more well known venue for a longer display… somewhere in Truro or Falmouth would be good.
on the topic of not having time, I must confess I’m getting increasingly frustrated, the last 3 weekends have been a write-off pretty much because the by the weekend I’m stressed out/worn out and my eczema is getting worse again as a result. I’m particularly demoralized when I start missing races… I missed the Plymouth 50 because I had was really sore and had to face a long drive early the following morning, I missed this morning’s race because I slept through the alarm from exhaustion - This last week I’ve been loaded up to the eyeballs with immune suppressant on my face and cortisone on my body to keep things under control and right now I’ve had enough… OK, maybe it’s not that big deal but sometimes it really gets to me! It may mean the end of my racing this year which is a shame because I have very good legs at the moment but it’s making me dream of a long Andean escape, by bicycle of course, which ultimately would be a very good thing I think ;o)
It’s been a while since I wrote something genuinely useful on here (!) so this evening I thought I mention something about the maps I have with a long Andean journey in mind. I’ve already written about the maps I used in Colombia and Ecuador, you can see that post here so for this post I’ll concentrate on the remaining Andean countries… Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina…. I’ve had various road maps for a while now but the options got a lot better recently when Rough Guides started producing a range of country maps. My first acquaintance with the range was my map of Southern India… they show a really excellent level of detail and are a scale that is genuinely useful to the cycle tourist, generally around 1:1,500 000. Add to that a very detailed index with grid refs, points of interest marked and that they are printed on a tough, waterproof plastic ‘paper’ then they really are ideal. For the Andean countries the range doesn’t yet include Bolivia but I hav Peru, Chile and Argentina covered. For revisiting Ecuador and Colombia I’ll re-use the maps I already own but Ecuador at least I think is in the Rough Guides range.
Good road maps of Bolivia are harder to find, the best one I have is a 1:1 750 000 map by Berndtson & Berndtson. It shows a reasonable level of detail but I have no idea what the accuracy is like, accurate maps of Bolivia are probably only available to the military of that country… but a bit like Morocco, there are so few roads in remote areas that aside from maybe errors of 100km in any direction with regard to geographic location it would be hard to go wrong… well, that’s my theory anyway… besides you can always ask a passing alpaca… I did have a map of Bolivia that was essentially just a series of satellite photos stitched together with roads and towns super-imposed but for the minute I haven’t got a clue what I’ve done with it…..
So there you go, if your destination is in the range then I reckon the Rough Guides maps are the way to go. Otherwise for Europe and N Africa the Michelin maps are very good. For India Lonely Planet has a very comprehensive road atlas (a copy of which is in my bookshelf) and for anywhere else go and have a look and see what Stanfords in London have got, they’re pretty useful.
Our travel photography exhibition I mentioned a while back opens on Friday, I say “our” but it’s very much my sister’s event, after all she worked directly with the favela community in Rio, my work is just providing a little extra ‘meat’ I suppose. She’s been doing a great job of promoting too and somehow managed to find her way onto local radio to talk about it last week…! I’m hopeful with all the publicity we’ll raise some decent funds for the project. There’s no point in me trying to rehash my sister’s words on the topic so I’m unashamedly reproducing her own blog post on it all… so it’s over to Sal:
“One week to go until the exhibition, its all going well, prints are looking great and it all seems to be coming together. If anything, its going to be bigger than I imagined, a lot of interest seems to’ve been generated in the photos and more importantly, the cause. I’m even making a live appearence on our local BBC radio later this afternoon to talk about it. They must be short of news!! Anyway, one really important thing cropped up this week which was the new website for the Julio Otoni favela in Rio de Janeiro. Its a great site with a load of information about the projects there in the favela and how much of an impact they’ve made on the community. So check it out at www.julio-otoni.org
I also thought it would be good for a portion of the proceeds to help some of our local kids out here in Cornwall by supporting the Precious Lives Appeal. Quite a powerful cause that affects many people here in the South-West. It’s here at www.chsw.org.uk
We are also receiving kind support from Jingando, a UK based company who sell the amazing Jinga shoes, ethically produced in Brazil, sweat-shop free and with a percentage of their profits supporting the project in the Julio Otoni favela. They currently provide 25% of the running costs of this project, so get something comfy for your feet and support a good cause! www.Jingashop.com There will be a pair of their shoes up for grabs in one of the raffles at the exhbition.
And finally, there will be some beautiful art prints by Emma Jeffryes www.beside-the-wave.co.uk , some ceramics and an original painting by myself up for private auction. Loads of reasons to come along to the exhibition! Hopefully see you there.”
Pretty much says it all I think. For those wo can’t make it along in person I’ll very soon be putting up a web gallery showing the images on display so at least you’ll get to have a look. Sal’s work is quite beautiful…. it wouln’t be right to give an opinion on my own… ;o)
Just a quick one I wanted to share with you, check this video of a chap doing trials riding… on a road bike..! Man, if I could do this what a way to warm up and provide some entertainment in the race HQ parking lot…. It’s very impressive for a drop bar, skinny tyred bike,… heck, impressive whatever bike:
8 hours! That’s how long it took to get home from Havant today… accidents, caravans, tractors and old folk who buy sportscars and then drive them at 30mph… arrrgh! I hate the car, I really do. I have to be back up there again for a few days next week… the difference this time is that a colleague of mine is also travelling up so I’m toying with the idea of giving him my gear to carry in his car while I cycle up.. it’s about 240miles, I can leave here Sunday morning with a light overnight pack on my pack, get as far as, say, Weymouth, and then cycle the remaining distance on Monday to be there for my meetings on Tuesday… and of course as I would have been driving on Monday anyway I could book the time on my bike to work…. On my race bike with the forecast south-westerly wind at my back it could be a good ride…. I’d scrounge a lift back home again of course… :o)
I took my bike up with me this time and had a brilliant spin through the Sussex lanes last night, it’s been a while since I cycled up that way and really noticed the lack of significant hills (well, compared with Cornwall anyway) which made a pleasant change. On my way back to my hotel in Emsworth I passed what looked like a club TT about to start, I wish I’d stopped and asked, next week I’m tempted to go back that way and ask nicely if I can play too… !
Not much else to talk about really, I’m pretty stressed out at the mo, I really needed to get out on my bike this evening after finally getting home.. so I did. I think I would have gone ga-ga long ago without my 2-wheeled stress management tool. I did however order a new Extrawheel trailer to replace the one I left behind in Colombia… and a bunch of South American road maps….. you can probably figure out what that means ;o)
something of a retro flavour today… while waiting for my flight on Friday I was reading the letters page of a well known broadsheet newspaper and came across a contribution from one wit suggesting that a return to the headgear of yesteryear could be beneficial… bowler hats with crumple zones and so on. All bollocks really, I just liked the picture but it did make me wonder if Rapha haven’t missed a trick with a cyclists bowler, panama etc all made from premium waterproof breathable materials with a natty bit of pink trim, or for the more rural types… how about a trappers hat made from the bollock hair of the Mongolian Leaping Jerboa….
Whatever, I now have an idea for this years Christmas ‘10′….
I must confess I did feel a moment of smugness at being a cyclist this morning while on my way to work as I raced past a queue of cars all waiting to fill up at over £1.50/litre… I know not everyone can ride a bike and so on and I feel for those that the current fuel shortage hurts because they have no choice but it is sooo nice to not be dependent on a car. The one thing that has shocked me about the whole tanker driver strike is just how much they earn…. £36,000 I think was the basic rate and they’re striking ‘cos they want £39,000…. makes me wonder why I bothered going through all the effort and stress to qualify as an engineer when I could have saved myself all the time and trouble, and earned a wedge more to date, by driving a truck. This country is screwed up… when it values it’s scientists, nurses, engineers etc less than a basic truck driver. OK, they claim it’s a dangerous job… no more dangerous than being exposed to prototype machinery, flying in that stuff, or for the nurses being exposed to all manner of potential risks etc etc. Statiscally when the number of tankers on the road at any one time is taken into account I’d have said it was a relatively safe job…. Having said that I won’t be rushing to get my HGV license, the mind-numbing boredom would get me.
On the topic of careers and stuff… I’m all over the place mentally at the moment. Since I came back from South America and once again exposed myself to the stresses of work and daily life in this fooked up nation my eczema has been steadily getting worse once again to the extent that this last fortnight or so life has been especially painful and distressing once again. I try to keep going as normal but sometimes I find it hard to cope. I really don’t know what’s keeping me here, I have no dependent family, no relationship and other than my family I don’t really mean much to anyone in this country. My friends are scattered around the world, I have plenty of savings and I’m still young enough that if I took a big risk and it didn’t work out I could quite happily recover from it, to a degree. There is this concept called ’security’ that I used to care so little about but as I get older it looms ever larger. I think it’s time to do something radical again before it’s too late… and heck, with nothing in particular to come back to then I’ll be far more open to the opportunities that inevitably would present themselves, whatever they turn out to be.
For the next couple of days though I’m firmly a slave of the corporate machine which is a pain. I’d rather be racing tomorrow night but instead I’ll be travelling to meetings :o(
yesterday afternoon was the Devon & Cornwall Police CC and Emergency Service National Champs on the S6/10 at Ladock… I’m not in either of those categories but it was also an open event in general so with some 80-plus riders from around the country it was quite an event (John Trott always does a fantastic job of organising these), it’s not often we get a quality field of that size down here in Cornwall. I was off number 56 so had a bit of a wait, my warm-up wasn’t brilliant either - a heavy week at work had left me feeling tired so I turned off the computer and heart monitor in an “ignorance is bliss” moment and simply hoped for the best…. It’s funny how sometimes the days you feel like crap can turn out to be some of the fastest… The S6 is a long way from being a quick course ( I think quite a shock for the visiting riders…) - the deceptive gradients suck the speed from one’s wheels so winning time yesterday was only 22:08… I recorded my fastest time ever for the S6 at 22:42 which surprised me given the way I’d been feeling… I think that put me in 11th, so I suppose that’s OK in a big field.. and the only fixie rider. I didn’t hang around afterwards… BBQ + red wine in the evening sun by the sea over at Portmellon was beckoning… :o)
Today was the second half of the champs, a ‘25′ up on the S100. I didn’t enter ‘cos I know I don’t recover well overnight when already tired and I want to be fresh for the Plymouth 50 next week. That’s the official excuse anyway but the reality is I really just wanted to go riding for the hell of it… Happy with that decision, despite tired legs the combination of sunshine and 100km of empty cliff-top roads down west with a cafe stop on the beach was perfect this morning. Could have done without the flats tho…
Tonight then… I’m rambling away on here mainly because I’m having a really hard time editing my image selection for the exhibition down to just 25 or so… I have so much good work you see… oh Ok, that was a bit smug… I think I really need to be brutal and stick to an overriding theme within the overall travel context.
I was writing (real letter with real ink, lucky them eh?!) to a friend earlier today with some random news when it occurred to me that all the quality journals have a Sunday Supplement…. well today is a Sunday and this is a top quality journal right?! They’re usually full of crap about celebs and fashion and stuff. Well the celebrity bit is above in the preceding paragraphs… (i.e me… ahem, but you’re reading..!) so that leaves fashion then…. so I can say that my sister Sal brought me back some really cool Havaianas from Rio.. I’m wearing them now…. well, apparently these are the latest sought after thing but really they just look regular old flip-flops to me albeit in funky colours… sadly walking down Camborne high street in ‘em doesn’t have quite the same feel as schlepping across the warm sands of Copacabana beach… even more sadly it doesn’t look the same either... On which note I think I really should get on with something constructive… like buying a ticket to Rio…
If you’re going to be in the area around 4th to 8th July I’m teaming up with my sister, Sal, for a joint exhibition of travel photography… It’s all in aid of the Julia Otoni Favela Community Project in Rio that Sal spent the first few months of the year working for while I was pedalling my way around Colombia and Ecuador. Sal is exhibiting her images from the project specifically (they really are beautiful) while I’m selecting from my portfolio of work from my travels around the world… and guess what, none of my images will show bicycles… except maybe one from Colombia might just creep in, not sure - I haven’t made my final selections yet.
It’s probably best I hand over to Sal at this point, this is what she has to say over on her blog…
“It’s finally happening, an exhibition of photos from my time in the Julio Otoni & Prazeres favelas of Rio de Janeiro. I’ve dragged my brother Mike into it as well as he has some amazing images from his many travels. I really just wanted to be able to give something back to the incredible people I worked with in Rio, who have so little but were willing share so much. Its the least I can do. So whoever’s reading this if you can come along, please do, its for a very worthwile cause. There’ll be cards for sale and all prints will be available to order. The exhibition is taking place at Lobbs Farmshop between Friday 4th July - Tuesday 8th July.”
The farmshop by the way is at the front of the Heligan Gardens complex, can’t miss it… bring plenty of £££ they have some really nice stuff to eat….. but I digress, here’s the poster:
So there you go :o) Note , good use of the word “amazing” by Sal don’t you think… haha !
I’m wondering how to start this post without sounding too pleased… oh sod it, I am pretty happy today, with a new PB I’m really beginning to see some form in my legs now… (just as well with the Plymouth 50 coming up soon, tho still 2 months to the Welsh 100…). This morning was Truro CC’s Open 25 up on the S100/25 course… yeah, the one with the horrible climb to the turn… 2 laps of it as well and a downhill finish… so not really ideal terrain for a fixed gear but I do enjoy the satisfaction of doing well on a fixed… and today I was well happy with my “long 55″ (OK, very long at 55:57 but hey…!). I was on my Condor as usual with the 100-inch gear that seems to work so well for the majority of Cornish courses (except the really hilly ones like the Lizard). With a freshening north-westerly breeze blowing across the course the return leg of the primary lap from Indian Queens to Victoria felt especially tough, difficult to keep the bike above 39-40km/hr on this bit. I must say though when it is hard like that the fixed seems to work really well, even though I’m pushing a gear bigger than would be considered sensible at such low speeds the need to just keep rolling it around smoothly means I’m generally quicker than most on those sections…. but then I have to ease up on the flatter bits for a while to get some recovery in my legs. Where I really lose it though is on the downhill sections. Today that was the 2x descents from the turn at Indian Queens and a very fast downhill finish. Ho hum. It was fun though. I’d love to try the Condor on a properly flat course one day, stick a 13 or 14 on the back with the 55 ring and wind it up.
It’s when I start to go well I begin to wonder if a rear disc on that bike would make much difference to my speed… The Hed 90 is pretty deep and I like the light feel it gives to the bike when accelerating…. have to say though, my primary motivation for running the rear wheel that I do is that I always wanted an excuse to own a beautifully polished Royce Titanium track hub…. such a tart ;o) Having confessed to being a tart then it’ll be no surprise to know that I do also enjoy the attention the Condor gets while parked outside the HQ. It’s slowly gaining a fan club of it’s own. Folks comments are interesting too, the consensus seems to be that a fixed gear is too hard and they’d miss their gears, but the reality I’ve experienced is that you don’t even think about that when riding. With no gears to choose the decision making is taken away and all you can do is press the pedals as hard as you can… sustainably. It’s interesting to be called “an animal” however, expecially for this scrawny devil that used to be so shite at schools sports… in my early teens I was asthmatic, uncool, overweight and intelligent (ahem…. :o)… not a good recipe for happy school days… Note however, I’m not claiming to be “cool” now either… but I like to think I do OK, ha-ha!
Karl Hodson (Trigon) won the event with a super 54:00, Stuart Hall (Alltrax) and Paul Friday (PZW) took 2nd and 3rd respectively with 54:34 and 55:20. Must admit, I am rather envious of Pauls new Cervelo P3C… (and while I’m at it.. Phil Walker’s Isaac Aerotic is a lovely piece of carbon sculpture too). We (as in the Cyclelogic trio of Martin, myself and Chris Lobb) took the team prize. Martin was little slower than I expected with 55:42, he’s been racing an awful lot though so I think his upcoming holiday will restore some speed. Chris Lobb is turning in some cracking performances for his first season of races… wish I was 18 again, that age when you can race every day, drink every night and still recover… somehow… or if you’re Chris surf in the afternoons after racing as well….
so there you go. A nice sunny Sunday morning, and an afternoon spent lounging by the sea at home.
that’s me (in the red shirt) and Martin (on the left) by the way…
Next weekend I’m just riding a 10 on the Saturday afternoon, I’m looking forward to a long day out on the bike on Sunday - I could do with getting some longer miles in before the Tour of the Black Mountains and so on.
…. this fixed-gear stalwart has a dirty little secret growing in the TT weapon quiver. Look at that, I’m ashamed to admit, it’s a derailleur (Dura-Ace no less…). The Condor is not dead by any means it’s still my preferred tool for short distances, I just decided I wanted a little more ‘flexibility’ in my armoury especially for the upcoming 50 and 100 mile events. It’s not finished yet, so for now I’ll keep you guessing as to what it is…
Here in Cornwall a primary feature of high pressure (and consequently fine weather over most other areas…) seems to be fog… fog so thick I’ve been reduced to imagining the spring wildflowers in the hedgerows while riding to work. It was the same on Sunday morning as I headed on up to Roche for this weekend’s TT.. a quickie ‘10′ on the S100 course. This course in particular is hard work on a fixed gear featuring a bastard of a climb up to the turn that sucks the life out of your legs (what’s left anyway after an undulating outbound leg) leaving little to accelerate around the turn and then deal with a crazy high cadence descent…
I knew I wasn’t going to have an easy ride when I climbed back upstairs at 6am after breakfast… my legs felt tired just doing that (last week at work was a long, draining one and I’d not been taking it easy on the bike either) so it kind of felt like heading to the firing squad as I rolled up to the start after a difficult warm-up in which I’d failed to really find my legs. Some consolation - the fog had lifted by the time the first riders rolled away leaving almost perfectly still conditions.
Heading up to the turn I just couldn’t get my heart right up into my ‘zone’, my complaining legs pegged it to 186bpm… normally I can ride a 10 at around 190-191, touching 193 on occasion (my max is 195* at the moment)… until I hit the climb, that sorted me out with a steady 192. It was a real struggle to accelerate round the turn in my 100-inch gear, legs full of acid, and then the descent… turning that gear as fast as I good my heart maxed out and I could not get the bike past 42mph. The rest of the race was something of a painful blur - trying to recover from that burst at max while still keeping the speed up over the undulations to follow…. at times these are steep enough to suck the speed down as low as 22-23mph. It was fast day, no doubt about it, and in a good field my long 21 was only good enough for 8th. Never mind, I can always say I won the fixed gear class (ha-ha) being the only one silly enough to leave the gears behind. Consolation came in the form of a medal presented by Wendy Houvenaghel as we (Team Cyclelogic… Chris Lobb, Martin Bawden and myself) took the team prize.
I’d been so looking forward to going back to bed from pretty much the moment I got up… so that’s what I did as soon as I got home for a couple of hours before heading out on my Ganwell Pro for a sunshine cruise around the seaside lanes. Good fun, sort of, for a Sunday morning. One day I might try the concept of a lie-in followed by full English and a leisurely browse of the Sunday papers… one day.
Adios ;o)
* shows what a load of bollocks that old and oft-quoted formula of 220-your age is… I’m 36.
** apols for that somewhat ‘dry’ post, I left my sense of humour behind in the office last week. I’ll get it back soon, I hope, along with my legs… :o)
apologies for my recent absence… I’m a bit of a lucky dip at the moment in terms of mood… you see I have been trying to deal with depression for the last 10 years or so, at times things get very ‘dark’ and there are a few bad episodes I’d really rather forget. I thought I was on top of it but I guess I never really will be completely free of it and the last 3 weeks have been particularly hard going (I’ve been on a bit of a downward slope ever since coming home from Colombia to be honest)…. so this morning’s ride at the Frank Parkinson Bates Memorial 10, hosted by the Camel Valley Club, was a much needed boost. I haven’t really been doing much at all on the bike, feeling perpetually drained and not sleeping so after a few rough weeks of just trying to keep going I surprised myself with a pretty good ride this morning… OK I was ‘only’ 4th quickest (team mate Martin took the honours, and a bloody great cup!) but considering how I felt first thing I’m quite happy…. so the potential to ride quickly is still there in my legs it seems. I just need to sort my head out….
so, back to the race… well the forecast was dire with heavy rain and gales but all of that seemed to sweep through quickly in the night leaving almost still conditions and a light drizzly rain which felt quite comfortable once warmed up. That’s about all there is too it actually… it rained, we rode, and we (as in Cyclelogic - Martin, myself, Chris and Jeff) also took the team prize ;o) Only downside… I have an unsealed Sugino BB in my Condor so tomorrow it’ll have to come out for drying off and regreasing. I can’t be bothered this afternoon. The forecast for tomorrow is filthy again so I might actually get some DiY done as well… I have plans to rent my house out in the next few months, but that is a whole other story that will probably come out in due course…
Actually while I’m on… it’s not something I’ve ever talked about, I used to be ashamed of the way I am at times, still am to a small degree I suppose but I know I’m not alone. I’m lucky in that I have a close and supportive family though I feel terrible about the intense worry I’ve caused them during the really bad times. The causes are many and complex and it is history, I’m trying to move on, but I get so frustrated by my seeming inability to manage what is generally perceived as a ‘normal’ life. I’m quite happy to look after myself in dangerous and exciting situations around the world but as soon as I try to lead what is generally expected to be a normal life it all goes wrong… I’m ready to drop it all and f*ck off back to South America again for a year or more but I’m not sure if that is just running away again….ho hum. Apparently the Berber people of North Africa have a saying that everyone is born with a story in their heart, I guess I just haven’t found what mine is yet….
Adios!
Monday really bucked the trend for UK Bank Holiday (well it down here at least) with wall to wall sunshine. I predictably spent my morning out on the bike cruising along the cliff-tops down west, but that is not why I’m writing… I’m not in the mood for writing much at all in fact so my cop out for the next day or two is simply to put up those promised pics of my Condor ‘project’ now that it’s finished. Regular gearing is a nice round 100″ (55×15) which works great on the less than flat roads round here.
OK, I concede….today was the first time since I decided to ride all my TTs fixed that I actually really wanted some gears down at the back end… This morning was the South West District Championships and I really didn’t do as well as I should have done, just missing the top 10 by a handful of seconds in a field of 68. Things just didn’t go right this morning, I’ll make the excuses in a minute, hehe :o). but the bottom line is that I just didn’t “have it” today, I just could not find my groove and get on top of the gear. It happens. I suspect know I’m not really recovered from the race Thursday night either…
The forecast for this morning was grim - heavy rain and strong winds so waking up at 5.30am to still conditions and dry roads was a bonus… the rain did sweep in on the drive up to the race but had eased again by the time I reached HQ and stayed away all morning which was nice, no bike cleaning to be done this evening :o). The wind though was a different story… it didn’t feel too bad for the early starters off at 8 but I was a late start with an hour to wait, by 9am the wind had freshened to a solid force 6 from the south which, from my point of view was the worst possible direction for this course. The S100/10 is new this year, today the outbound (headwind) leg was longer than the return and with a long, steep climb to the turn. It was this that really killed me - my gear choice (99″) was fine for 97% of the course but fighting the wind up the climb I really could have done with a few extra teeth at the back, and a few less teeth for the tailwind descent on the return, I could not wind it up past 43mph. I might have been OK had I been on top form but I went and threw up on the climb (ugh…. made a mess on my skinsuit, not a nice thing to do riding into a strong headwind, hehe), a combination of effort and, I think, the painkillers I used this morning to dull the pain in my cracked ribs - they do upset my stomach slightly. After that I just couldn’t get it together…. So yeah, maybe I need to sort myself out with a geared bike for days like this… the S100 is going to be used a lot more now I think… I’ll have a chat with Steve over at Cyclelogic next week and see what is kicking around…. My fixed will always be my first choice though today I could probably have been riding this and it would not have made much difference….
I don’t have my exact placing yet, I’ll update this with results when I have them (updated: I was 12th, results in the comments field below.. Sean Childs’ ride was phenomenal!). I didn’t hang around for the prize-giving, being eager to head down to Portmellon and see my sister for lunch… which leads me on to my rant of the day…. With the warmer weather coming Cornwall is suffering the annual influx of “city folk on holiday” who haven’t got a clue how to cope with narrow windy roads… guys (and gals) if you’re reading… before heading down this way please, please learn where your reverse gear is…. freezing at the wheel with a panic stricken look on your face really is not helpful when you find yourself facing traffic in a road little wider than your car and the nearest passing place is just 5 yards behind you. I’ll help you, it’s easy to find, it looks like this:
Taking of width of your car… that’s another thing, learn how fu*kin’g (excuse language) wide it is please, your car, whatever it happens to be, is not wider than a bus and you don’t need 10 feet of clearance each side to pass me when I’ve kindly reversed 500 metres for you ‘cos you didn’t have a clue… (oh and bloody smile will you, you’re on holiday..) If I had my way I’d set up border controls and force everyone coming into Cornwall to have a reversing proficiency license…
Ok, rant over…. I’m off to glue some faster tubulars* on my TT wheels :o)
* specially for the bike geeks… I have been running Conti Competitions on my TT bike, not the fastest tub there is but very durable, last year I wrote off a few lighter (but faster) tubs so I decided to sacrifice the 7W or so of additional rolling resistance they’re supposed to have over a set of Veloflex jobs. I’ve managed to get my hands on a set of relatively rare (in the UK) 23mm wide Vittoria Corsa EVO CXs however which I can’t wait to try. The commonly available 21mm width doesn’t blend properly with the sidewall profile of the HED Stinger rims, 22-23mm as a package is better aerodynamically.
work has been bonkers this week… I mean more bonkers than usual so when Friday afternoon arrived the ’slump’ was deeper than normal, amplified probably by it being a long weekend over here in the UK. I generally avoid the usual Friday afternoon activity of pizza and cake (my body is a templeruin tourist attraction) in favour of other pursuits during the inevitable mental downtime but I’m still not sure how we came to this- for one brief idle moment between flurries of activity we found ourselves plugging certain phrases (mostly rude) into eBay to see what popped up in the search results. Usually nothing but the software always offers alternative content based on knocking one or two words out of the search term to find related items. Well today we came across this gem of a listing (screenshot here). The listing title is truly special “New 1 Zebra Mohawk Hoof Donkey Rubber Ducky Bath Time“… I mean… {speechless for a moment}.. no, speechless for good - I’m lost for words (politically and anatomically correct ones anyway) right now. I never expected plastic ducks to go off down this branch of the evolutionary tree. Not sure what happened but it clearly involves some flavour of cross-species interaction that doesn’t even bear thinking about. I wonder though if you can guess the search phrase that brought this one up. You’ll have to figure out a word that is missing in this the title but I’ll give you a clue that the phrase does include donkey. Snickers bar for the winner….. I await results (or likely total lack of) with interest…
On an unrelated topic… TT’s are normally painful enough but last night I rode the Penzance Wheelers ’sporting’ (just a posh way of saying hilly) open promotion. Two of my ribs are broken at the moment which severely limits my ability to do any hard riding out of the saddle so it was with some trepidation that I rolled up to the start line…. and yes, that first climb out of Leedstown hurt like hell, my legs didn’t really want to know either (I’m never good in an evening event… ) so I made the mental switch from racing to thinking of it as hard training which somehow made it much easier to deal with. I’m not sure if I was actually any kinder to myself in terms of effort though (despite still being able to stand up after) being rather surprised at my result. i.e much better than I expected. So I think from now until the end of the season I’ll just stop racing and “go training” instead with a number on my back and simply wait for the PBs to roll in :o) Non-cycling friends said I was stupid racing anyway with broken ribs, my excuse being single I don’t have a ‘moderating factor’ at home to act as my common sense, so my boundaries of what is and is not sensible I guess are just in a different place to most folks… or blurred, whatever. Results from last night are here, Cyclelogic as a team aren’t doing too bad this year… hehe.
One final thought, I saw an ad in Singletrack today for a trio of Trek mountainbikes all sharing the characteristic of having a front wheel bigger than the back (no, I’m not going to get into that debate). What caught my eye was the single-speed version with it’s absence of gears and shifters and stuff was £300 more expensive than it’s geared brethren… i.e pay more, get less…. I saw a definite parallel there with workplaces in general… or I suppose in my case the usual dichotomy between engineers and management… and then of course there are my friends who work in the financial sector (polite term)… :o)
Talking of friends in the financial sector, I decided I’ll not mention the chap who paid good ££ for a cycling fitness test to be given advice that IMO pretty much came to “lose weight, ride more”. Admittedly with some frilly training bits around the edges but I could have told him that :o) I’ll stop now while I still have said friends….
It had to happen didn’t it… after more than a week without any carbon or other jewellery adorning these pages (other than that crappy secondhand bike below :o) an over-compensation in the form of some nice new aerobars for my TT bike…. I picked them up today. I very nearly bought a set of Pro Missile bars, then decided that I’d be better off saving the cash for a disc and then after all that I had one those random “oh sod it where’s my wallet” moments that I suffer from time to time. I have to be honest the lack of adjustability on these wasn’t really a factor in the buying decision… being first and foremost a bike-tart it was the completely clean looks that are just the ticket for my fixed gear machine. It’s just lucky that they fit me perfectly :o). The cable routing is all internal (well, it would be if you had gears…) and it feels very stiff. Construction quality looks superb and it weighs just 439gr on my scale…. not that it’s important I hasten to add, it’s just for the benefit of my weightweenie readership… I’m not following protocol by showing a pic of ‘em on a set of scales because by now you should all know what a digital scale looks like…. well, anyway… The next statement will sound stupid to normal folk but if you’re “one of us” (i.e living in a twisted reality of what is important) then I think you’ll agree that £300 is excellent value… …
Talking of the bike, I have that carbon ring and a Sugino 75 crank on there now, this will finish it off nicely and then I’ll show you a pic. I might also go on at length about how wonderful the Sugino Superlap Bottom Bracket is (sounds a bit “gentlemans club” doesn’t it). Before that tho I’m going to take a hacksaw to these bars and cut the outboard extensions down by 2.5-3″, I don’t need that length… will probably bring it under 400gr, not that it really matters….. and then I do need to make some nice little aero end plugs for the extensions I think…
A change from cycling today… it’s time for a history lesson I think… you see I’m not the only genius Cornwall has produced… Richard Trevithick, inventor of the first working steam railway locomotive (as well as a bunch of other stuff) was also a Cornishman… and from this town too. As it’s the weekend though I’m not going to give a lengthy lecture, instead I’m setting you an assignment… read all about him here and then next week I’ll be asking questions…. (if I remember).
I’m only telling you about him because today is Trevithick Day, last Saturday of April, which is near enough the 175th anniversary of his death, Camborne is overwhelmed by the smell of burning coal and hot oil as the streets are overrun with gorgeous old steam engines (road and rail). I’m not a steam enthusiast per se but I do love the hiss of steam, the clank of gears and chains, and the breathy tone of a steam whistle… So after this morning’s training ride I legged it out with my camera for a few moments.. before coming back in dire need of a steak sandwich (I’d been thinking about it all morning while riding) :o)
check out that eyeball…!
nice warm spot for a doze…
I have to take things easy on the bike for a while I think.. I’m not sleeping well thanks to only being able to lie on my left side and moving around kind of hurts with the bust ribs, it’ll give my body a chance to heal too. Thankfully the weather forecast for tomorrow is typically Cornish (i.e. wet) so it won’t be hard to stay off the bike for a day or two….
…will be resumed shortly. Heck it’s only been 4 days but {insert tongue in cheek here…} I wouldn’t want anyone to worry about my absence… as if you lot would, hah! It’s been a bonkers busy week, and I’m nursing a couple of cracked ribs and some cuts and bruises collected on Tuesday cycling to work… and on reflection riding that TT last night with aforementioned injuries might not have been so clever judging by the way I feel this evening… (but I still managed 3rd spot…) so you see I haven’t been particularly inspired to write. Heck I haven’t even managed to play with anything new and interesting in the two-wheeled world… even that carbon chainring is still on the bench rather than on the bike. Talking of playing with things though, just what is Floyd up to here…. ?!
p.s I did notice though that Pro have got some bar wrap out in pink with embossed flowers… almost worth the nine quid to make the guys feel uncomfortable on the chaingang… haha! Still pink is (or was anyway) the new black and I think I’d be happy to have it on my bike.. (modern man me, in touch with my feminine side and all that….. nah, that’s bollocks.)
I must confess I keep a weather eye on various hot topics of conversation at one or two web forums… which shall remain nameless by the way. I have to say though my level of interest in participating in the various debates has been waning steadily for some months now… I’ve always been one for only opening my mouth if I have something useful to say, though perhaps it is a good thing that the majority are not like that.. based on recent performances many forums would die a wimpering death… I just choose to point my mouse elsewhere. Once I had a genuine interest in what other folk were doing in terms of innovation (in truth it’s evolution really, a bike still has 2 wheels no matter how ‘advanced’ the build) in the light weight bikes world but even that has gone off the boil as the community is overrun with a never-ending stream of off the shelf mediocrity.. (snob…) a consequence I suppose of the ready availability these days of featherlight frames and relatively bog standard kit that weighs notalot….
Another trend I’ve noticed recently is a post that typically begins with “The FedEx man came today, guess what he brought”.. the author will then expound in great detail about how surprised and excited he (they’re invariably male…) was by the arrival of the FedEx van, what he was doing at the time and what he had for breakfast.. the readership, suitably baited, scroll down to see the pictures……. of a big cardboard box with a FedEx label on it… the author plainly so excited by the prospect of what is inside that he forgot to unpack it before taking photos and racing to his PC…. So I don’t really care any more.. I’ll just happily plow* my own furrow in pursuing my idea of what a nice bike is.
One thing I have noticed that the old Campagnolo vs Shibongo debate (sorry, “Shimano”… yes I like Campag…) seems to have gone all quiet at last. Is it because everyone has finally realised that it all works equally well or has everyone switched to SRAM, who trounced the opposition simply by calling their their groupset ‘Red’… well, everyone knows that red is the fastest colour so it’s a no-brainer right…? Or it might have been ’till Campag stuck a little ‘red’ logo on their limited edition “professional use only” ergo levers… and then made them available to the unprofessional public. The grapevine says that retro is on the way back so is the lack of a Shimano ‘red’-flavoured group simply that they are holding their trump card until the market is ready for Dura-Ace-Glitter-Purple?
Talking of debates… a product of more recent times than choice of groupset, and possibly a factor in it’s demise as a hot topic, is the “Is Rapha Kit worth the $$$” debate… It’s a simple yes or no answer really, some of it is good but at a premium, some of it just plain bonkers… this thread is a classic, pity the poor sod who asked the question if it was worth spending £90 or thereabouts on a pair of cycling mitts… 11 pages (@ time of writing) of non-advice later he still hasn’t got a definitive answer. Oh dear. I guess it’s the old adage that if you have to ask then you either can’t afford it or aren’t pretentious enough…. ;o)
Still, educationally I can thank Rapha for raising my awareness… until recently I had no idea you could make gloves from the scrotum leather of the Blind Mongolian Dingbat.**
Adios!
p.s.. ah, I forgot ceramic bearings.. now there’s another one….
* note my use of the American terminology in recognition of my transatlantic readership :o) Something tells me that if I used the ‘proper’ (hey, we invented the language) term “plough” there’s would be a bunch of folk thinking “WTF is he on about, pluffing a furrow…”????
** given the general state of education in this country perhaps I should explain, before Rapha are deluged with hate mail from the animal rights lot, that I made that up… no such creature is being castrated in the interests of cycling fashion…. mainly because there is no such creature. It’s the African Hair Sheep instead…
The title reflects my state of mind this morning I think…. I entered the North Cornwall Tor cyclosportive today, a nice 100mile cruise around the coastal roads on North Cornwall… so this weekend I end up with eczema all over my face and chest. Nice, it’s pretty sore and from experience fatigue makes it worse… Nothing wrong with my legs but it kills the motivation so I’m going cafe cruising on my Merkx fixie instead. Actually while I’m on the topic, I know friends reading might be interested… the eczema is getting a whole lot better, the time away out in South America was long enough to detach completely from the stress back here it seems and it’s been really good since I came home. I feel like I ‘lost’ 5 years of my life thanks to that and related depression though and I am almost afraid to dare to hope that the days of all-over raw and blistered skin, wrapped in cotton and emollient might be over… I have some fun to catch up on I think this summer…. I need new inspiration to be honest.. the road race scene this far west has died a quiet death (there’s plenty of TTs which are a bit of fun however) and I hate to say it but even the sportives are starting to become a bit of a yawn - unless they’re the really bonkers challenging ones in the mountains (I’ll be back at the Tour of the Black Mountains this year, that was ace). I am missing those Andean roads though…. :o(
Talking of Andean roads… check this video… you may have seen it’s like already - one of those crazy bike courier races in NYC (see also the Pedal DVD) It doesn’t look much different to the day I cycled into Bogota to be honest… racing slalom through the bonkers traffic (reminder to self: take a mini helmet-cam on my next big trip….)
*** Updated, wow, we sold it… in less than 24hrs :o) ***
I’m not making any money on this, honest! This one belongs to friend Martin Bawden whom you met in one of my posts a couple of weeks ago. It was his 06/07 race frame and is now up for sale. In Martin’s own words… “2006 Look 496 Triathlon full carbon frame and forks. Complete with carbon ergo seat post and adjustable ergo stem. Size Medium. Well looked after and in very good condition. £1150 ono“.
I think that’s a pretty good price considering the current retail value of a new one is a full quota of arms and legs (aka £2700). If you need to know more, want a bigger picture or are interested drop me a comment below and I’ll put you in touch.
I’m pleased he had the good sense to photograph it against a neutral background so I don’t have to endure the usual comments from forum-based comedians about flaking garage doors, scruffy gardens or poor taste in carpet….
Bit of a mixed bag tonight.. I’ve been working away from home this last couple of days, always good for a change of scene and exposure to some refreshing new technology… also good for kicking back and letting someone else cook dinner while I enjoy the wine list (it’s the anti-oxidants you know, essential part of the cyclists diet… ahem :o) The hotel I stayed in was in a quiet little village, one of those impossibly twee places that looks like it has come from the top of a chocolate box… I have always wondered who takes the time in such places to trim the grass on the road-side verges with millimeter precision, heck, I bet even the squirrels wipe their arses in such places. The pub-cum-hotel was in keeping with the style of the village, I won’t criticize really because the owners are great and the food is top notch… but the heavily frilled and floral rooms do feel very much along the lines of “Padded Cell by Laura Ashley”….
Interesting item on the TV news this morning while sorting my gear out for the day… scientists have recreated the sound of a Neanderthal’s voice by analysis of the bone structure of various fossil remains. The result is a disappointingly pathetic squeak similar to one of those cheap piezo-electric buzzers from electronics hobby stores. Those guys could have saved themselves an awful lot of time and effort simply by coming down here to Cornwall where there still is a significant population of knuckle-draggers… (no names :o)
It was a lovely evening yesterday, I wish I had taken my bike up with me for a spin around the Somerset lanes… instead I had to make do with a 30 minute workout in my room with my speed-rope (okay, okay.. “skipping”). In my rush to pack I’d forgotten my running shoes and also “supportive” gym shorts …. so I can tell you that jumping rope in a pair of cotton boxers adds a whole new meaning to the term “willy waving”…
Crap, I can’t believe I even owned up to that…
Back on the bike tonight though. Being short of time just an interval session on the turbo as the wind is gusting 70mph outside & I’m really not in the mood for that…
It has been a most virtuous evening of resisting temptation… that is I forced myself to to focus on the essential and mucky-fingered jobs that really had to be done instead of playing about with the new kit that just arrived for my TT bike.. namely a nice Truvativ Omnium crank and carbon chainring. I’m not going to show you the crank (yet) because I’m a bit rushed, I have to be out of here at 5.30 am tomorrow to head off to a design review… needless to say given the current run of fine weather I’d rather be riding… OK, back to the chainring… here it is … in black and white because I think it looks better that way, and it’s not like you’re missing anything given that carbon is black anyway.
It’s a 55T, 1/8 thick job from Fibre Lyte here in the UK. They made it for me in about 8 days which seemed pretty reasonable… the cost will seem stupid to the non-bike nuts out there so I’ll not bother trying to justify it, I just wanted it. Nothing to do with the weight-weenie aspect (I’m weaning myself off that… I’m doing well too, normal weenie conduct would have dictated photographing it on a set of scales so folk can ooh and aaahh about how many grams it doesn’t weigh..) Rather it just looks cool… realistically however there are only two real options if you want a 1/8″ ring this big in a 144bcd… both custom and both expensive (MDT for alloy or Fibrelyte for carbon). I’m not too bothered about the wear rate - as a single ring on a 1/8″ fixed gear setup it should last a few seasons of use. I’ll report back on how it runs and apparent wear later in the season, standby however for some photos of it and the new crank installed… probably by the weekend.
As for the mucky fingered stuff… another bloody flat cycling home this afternoon (different bike, different place, equally as annoying) and a replacement BB bearing for my Merlin… actually a warranty replacement from Ernie over at ProCyclingDiscount (top chap, no fuss replacement) for the crazy light Token carbon-shelled, titanium axled one I fitted back in November…. with a bit of luck this one will last longer :o)
Now, if you’ll excuse me I really must live up to my professional obligations and iron a shirt for tomorrow… probably getting oily fingermarks on it in the process..
