The Science Of The Tour

This looks interesting; a discussion, at the Science Museum, of what exactly it takes to complete the Tour De France. Plus you can have a beer while you listen. I wonder if they'll touch on the more "pharamceutical" aspects (in the news again, thanks to Floyd Landis)

Raphé

Despite the best efforts of various pubs, London's not really had somewhere you can watch the Tour De France and have coffee/beer/Special Brew. Hopefully that will change with the opening of Rapha's Cycle Club (basically a cafe-cum-exhibition-space, for the duration of the summer, in Farringdon). They'll be showing the Tour live, along with the Giro and other road races. No doubt the drinks will be oh-so-stylish and possibly a little expensive, but if it's a nice place to catch some cycling, I won't be complaining.

Bargain Merino

High tech fabrics are great and everything, but for breathability, wicking and a general nice feeling against the skin, you can't beat merino wool. I've recently snapped up a pair of Smartwool Light Mini Cycling Socks for £5 from the Howies store in Carnaby Street. I'm not sure if they've got any left, but if not I notice this place has them for £7.95.

Possibly even more bargain-tastic, On-One have long-sleeve, merino zip tops reduced to £27.50. Stock up now, for next winter.

Great bike blog

Not mine! This one http://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/ :-)

Nice Team Sky Paris Roubaix Video

If you don't know the Paris Roubaix bike race (aka Hell Of The North) is reknowned for the rain- and wind-blasted cobbles that the riders have to travel across. Michael Barry from Team Sky has made this nice video of their training run across them, which captures the experience rather well.

Securing Your Bike Storage

If, like me, you've recently moved and want to plan how to store your bike securely, this two-part article on Bike Radar has a lot of good advice

Potholes

Having just started cycling again (see previous post), my first thought after "Wow, this is great" was "Where have all those holes come from?". The roads around my way seemed to be a minefield of hollows and ditches,

'Turns out that it's the harsh winter's fault. Some of these are hugely dangerous to cyclists, so the LCC are encouraging you to report them to the TFL.

Back On The Bike

After moving house and having a baby I'm finally back on my bike, and thankfully it's coincided with the last two days' glorious riding weather. Not only does it feel great to stretch the legs, but it's turning out to be fun trying to find a route to my office that does not involve Sydenham Hill or the centre of Peckham.

In the meanwhile, there's a nice summary of the forthcoming bike racing season at The Bike Show up at The Racing Year With Lionel Birnie. A nice intro if you want to know the difference between your Dauphine Libere and your Ronde van Vlaanderen.

Something Which Has Always Puzzled Me

I can understand people who choose to wear cycle helmets.

I can understand people who choose not to wear cycle helmets.

What I don't understand is people who carry a helmet around, dangling off their handlebars. What are they saving it for, some particularly gnarly bit of their route to work ? Or perhaps they just enjoy the extra challenge of having some extra weight on their handlebars to complicate their steering?

Watching Next Year's Tour

The route for the 2010 Tour has been announced and Rotterdam has been chosen for le Grand Depart. The Bike Show has some nice ideas for getting over there via Eurostar and bike, and watching the early stages in Holland. I'd be particularly tempted to see the stage in Brussels or maybe stage 3 from Wanze yo Arenberg Porte du Hainaut and combine it with a trip to the monasterey in Westvleteren to pick up some of their beer.

Having said that, I think an upcoming addition to the family may limit my future cycling jaunts :-)

Pants and more cycle cinema

There are many great things about riding a bike to work, but forgetting a change of pants and socks TWO DAYS IN A ROW is not one of them. There's only so many times you can ask your boss if you can pop out for 10 minutes to buy some underwear.

On a lighter note - the London Bike Film Festival opened last night and I went along to watch Breaking Away, the 1979 film about small-town American life, broken dreams and cycling. I'd not seen it before, but it was a lot of fun and more light-hearted than I expected. The climax of the film is, essentially, a bicycle relay race, complete with the competitors passing the bike from team-member to team-member. It was frankly, insane! Do such things exist, or was it just a dramatic invention for the purposes of the plot?

The festival is on for the rest of the weekend at the Barbican. I think Tour Des Legends looks particularly good. Get down there if you want to some more cycle-oriented movies; there was a great atmosphere last night, plus current British Road Race Champion, Kristian House was there.

Bike Films For The Bank Holiday

Tomorrow night, Monday, in Brockwell Park they're showing the fantastic Belleville Rendezvous, along with live music, a bike race and The Harder They Come (not sure about the bike connection with that one, I thought it was about reggae). More details here

And if you're looking for something more environmental, the Climate Camp in Blackheath is showing some films about sustainable transport tonight, Sunday, "when it gets dark" using bicycle generators! Go to the camp entrance (off Hare & Billett Road) and ask to be directed to the 'cyclology tent'.

Picture courtesy of "reynard"

London Bridge Bike Park

I've seen cycle parks in other cities (Bristol, Amsterdam) but not London until today. Luckily I have pretty good facilities at my office, but if you don't and work around the City, this could be a useful facility. Although, you will have to put up with the bell-end outside the "London Tombs" pretending to guillotine tourists.

Apparently there's one in Finsbury Park too.

Drookit!!

Wow! Did anyone else just get caught in that downpour? The Brixton Road was so bad that even the buses abandoned the bus lane for fear of drowning.

Still the Carradice ("that handbag" © my boss) proved exceptionally water-tight. Everything was still bone dry by the time I got home. Same couldn't be said for "other parts" of me. Times like these I wish Gore-tex shorts were less expensive and less "fetish" looking

Old Bikes

What better way to have a "lifestyle change", than to open a shop restoring vintage road bikes. I shall be cycling up to Sargent & Co in Finsbury Park soon, to check it out.

Made Me Laugh

"Why spend a king's ransom on the latest titanium confection when any weight advantage will be rendered irrelevant by a cheese-and-pickle sandwich and a thermos of soup?"

:-) From the Tweed Cycling Club

Incidentally, I saw the following *very* non-titanium bike outside an Old Street (natch) pub last night. I don't think I've ever seen such Heath Robinson looking brakes before

AA for Bikes?

I've often wondered if such a thing exists and then this morning I found business card for Bike-Ade outside my office. He only covers Central London, but it sounds a good idea nonetheless.

I hope I can fix most minor problems myself, and if anything more serious happens I'd probably just walk to a station, but I'll keep the card anyway, just in case.

First Big Ride on the New Bike

I've finally taken advantage of the good weather to take the new bike out for a (long) spin. I found the Ten Thames Bridges 100k route on Bikely and augmented it with an extra 50k between Herne Hill and the start of the route in Windsor.

The section from home to Windsor took in lots of West London, including much of Heathrow Airport. Whilst low on rutal charm, I have to admit to finding the environs of Heathrow oddly fascinating; all the low rise, anonymous business parks interspersed with 1930s suburban houses long since seperated from their demolished neighbours. Not to mention the constant stream of jets overhead - I soon passed the time playing guess the destination based on my (hazy) knowledge of airline tail logos.

The Ten Thames Bridges route itself was pretty lovely; lots of Home Counties greenery and obviously a number of bridges varying from the fairly imposing Marlow Suspension Bridge to a thin, no-cycling walkway across Mill End Weir. The latter was actually a highlight, despite having to get off and push, as you felt a lot closer to the water, with the Thames rushing, crystal-clear below. Having said that I'm not sure I'd get out the picnic chairs halfway across as one elderley couple had done.

Using just a printed out Bikely map for the route wasn't great (translation: massive navigation fail!). In future I think I'll create some kind of prompt sheet, complete with distances between turnings. There's nothing better at bringing down your average speed than having to ride up a hill that you're not 100% sure is on the route. At one point in the afternoon my nav was so off I had to turn on the GPS funcitonality of my Nokia N95 to work out which way I'd veered off the route proper.

The bike seemed perfectly up to the distance and in particular the Brooks saddle was a revelation. No sore undercarriage the next day. The Carradice saddle bag was also up to the task, storing plenty. However it's definitely from a "gentler" age of cycling - no ability to quickly remove and attach it when parked up outside a newsagents in the dodgy part of town.

Having convinced myself 150k is do-able, I think the next step is to maybe do an audax of a similar length. I've been eyeing up these two - Ruislip 205k and Luton and Herts 150k. Has anyone ridden either of them before?

I was pretty exhausted by the end, but sitting at Datchett station aftewards having a lucozade and salt-and-vinegar Discos, I was pretty pleased with a good day's riding.



(aerial pic of Marlow Suspension bridge courtesy of/stolen from http://www.marlowtown.co.uk/)

10% off Rapha

Promotional code I picked up at the Smithfields Nocturne:
SMTH2009
gets you 10% off on their site.

Although that still leaves them a little dearer than Halfords.

Valid at http://www.rapha.cc/ until the 20th

Penny Farthings and Bike Week

Last Sunday I caught the tail end of the Veteran Cycle Club's annual event at the Herne Hill Velodrome. It has to be said, there's something pretty awesome about seeing a Penny Farthing "racing" around the a bike track against other cycles from antiquity (I'd tell you what they were, but I haven't a clue - a velocipede? Solid tyred bike? No idea!). Unfortunately we only got there for the very end, so I think we'll have to return next year, but it does look they put on other events

Loads of bike events coming up this week (being Bike Week and all), but a few which have caught my eye are:

• Bike and Kite Festival - Blackheath, tomorrow and Sunday
• Southwark Cyclists Film Festival - Shortwave Cinema, Bermondsey, Monday evening - showing shorts plus Breaking Away. Email barrymasonuk@googlemail.com for details
• Greenfest - Furnival Gardens, Hammersmith, Sunday - not just bikes but general hippy-dippery
• Free breakfasts for cyclists - (Camden, Tower Hamlets, Hackney. Plus many others)