And If You Can't Wait That Long For The Tour of Britain

Whilst just searching for a repeat of The Professionals, I've found out that ITV4 are showing the Tour Of Ireland each night at 7pm this week. Come on Cavendish.

Tour Of Britain Comes To London

Having thoroughly enjoyed a couple of bike race events over the last 12 months (last year's Tour De France prologue in London and the Smithfield's Nocturne) I can recommend the upcoming London Stage of the Tour Of Britain on Sunday 7th of September. The line-up looks pretty strong, offering a chance to see a good selection of British riders, both those from the Tour De France (David Millar, Mark Cavendish) as well as those who've excelled at the Olympics over the last few weeks (Geraint Thomas, Bradley Wiggins), not to mention riders from further afield.

The route forms a circuit along the Embankment between Tower Hill and Westminster. For more info, have a butchers here.

Things I Learnt Last Weekend

• Printed out Google maps are not really adequate for locating campsites down Peak's country lanes at 12:30 in the morning


• You can, however, find sneaky spots in the Peak's National Park for doing some wild-camping, if needs must


• The Goldeneye Map of the Peak District is great for suggesting cycle routes, but you have to be very careful when navigating as the level of detail is a bit lacking (I took at least three wrong turns thanks to the map)


• If you are going to put your bike in guard's van on a East Midlands train (which has nothing for you to attach it to) don't then sit in the carriage next to it, otherwise you will hear your bike smashing to the floor, the first time the train rounds a bend


• The Peak District is hugely pretty

Actually I already knew that last one, I'd just forgotten.

So as you can probably tell from the above, the trip turned out to be "eventful". In particular the whole finding-the-campsite/wildcamping incident meant I didn't get to sleep till 1:30-2am (and was then up again at 5:30am taking my tent down, before anyone official found me). This all lead to me being knackered on the Saturday morning and downgrading my cycling plan from the route mentioned here to this one. It was still 50 miles and about as hilly as I was capable of on the day. In particular Winnat's Pass (which has a 20% gradient) utterly defeated me at the end of the day, but was still an impressive geological feature. Coming down the other side towards Edale was lovely though (always enjoyable flying down a hill while others plod up with gritted teeth. On heavy mountain bikes). Other highlights included the Broken Road, the shady, forested hill around Cressbrook and the long, open descent from Wormhill.

The North Lees Campsite (when I finally got there at 6:30 on the Saturday morning) was nice. Just a shower/toilet block and drying room by way of facilities, but pleasant, wooded surroundings and a good, secluded location. Note - if you're walking/pushing a bike to the site, it's *far* quicker to take the footpaths up from Hathersage village centre, rather than walk on the road.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to wangle a diversion to Arbor Low, but did discover Night Watchman beer

Definitely could do with some more hill practice, so off to Leith Hill again, this weekend I think.

Best Bike Ever!

A write-up of my weekend's Peaks District adventures will follow soon, but in the meantime, I've just spotted this on eBay. Possibly the greatest bike ever. It can do "moderate off-roading" and has even take 3 adults once (there was a pub involved, inevitably)

Ready for the Weekend (maybe)

I'm off to the Peaks this weekend, to give the new bike a thorough workout. I have:

• bought a Goldeneye Cycling Map of the Peaks


• picked out a route (looks hilly, looks hard, will probably end up doing something else


• done some practice (up and down Crystal Palace Hill. Up and down Leith Hill/Box Hill/etc on the South Downs


• bought a seat bag to put my stuff in.


• bought some energy bars

Hopefully, it will be a weekend of hard, but rewarding climbs, beautiful scenery, Neolithic Stones and nice beer.

What to Do When Your Derailleur Goes All Knackered

Jen, David and I did a bike ride on Sunday (from the Around South London book, 32 miles from Headcorn, "two water bottles" difficulty) and although it was largely a pleasant ride through rural Kent, it all went a bit wrong towards the end.


Pic courtesy of Jen

As we were coming up a hill into Sissinghurst, something happened to David's gears, resulting in bad noises and an inability to change gears without the chain coming off. After much road side poking and prodding between the three us, and a tentative "I'll give it a quick ride see if that's fixed it" from David, it became apparent that the derailleur was not guiding the chain correctly, resulting in it constantly trying to move it onto another ring. Given that it was patently not behaving we were now in the "let's see if we can bend it back into the right place" territory, but we hadn't noticed that a plastic peg had snapped, so that the derailleur was completely knackered. We all stood around marvelling about how little we knew about how gears worked. We ended up pushing the bikes for 6 miles.

So what can you do if this happens and you're miles from a bike shop and you don't have a spare derailleur with you? Are you doomed to push your bike for the rest of the route? Well, the best advice I've found is to:

1 - Put the bike in a gear you will be happy cycling in for the rest of the day (bit hard, as you'll have to guess a bit, but probably something in the middle)
2 - Remove the chain using a chain tool (that I forgot)
3 - Remove enough links (using your tool) so that the chain will go round the large front and back rings ONLY (missing out the two small cogs) with a fair degree of tension
4 - Replace the chain around those two only (using a spare chain link, which I DID remember)

These pics hopefully show what I mean.
BEFORE:

AFTER:


You have effectively made a single-gear bike, which you should be able to pedal, but will obviously struggle to go up hills/break the land speed record, but hopefully the chain should stay on long enough for you to get home/to the bike shop. However please note:

1 - Removing links from chains is a tricky job at the best of times, so best not to do it for the first time when you really need to fix your bike. This describes it in reasonable depth.

2 - I HAVE NOT TRIED THE ABOVE, SO YOU DO SO ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK :-)


Thanks to "Slice" for the single-gear suggestion

New Bike

Exciting news! I finally took the plunge and bought a new bike. A colleague (my boss, in fact) was selling his Condor Squadra which he rode up Alpe D’Huez in L'Etape a few years ago and I made the mistake of giving it a test-ride. This was the first time I've ridden a "proper" road bike, since I fell off one in a church car park in Renfrewshire 25 years ago, and it was a pretty revelatory experience. Suddenly I was faster than most people. Suddenly I made lights, that previously I got caught at every day. Suddenly I didn't have anywhere to put my panniers :-)

So having umm-ed and ahh-ed, and learnt about groupsets, and test-rode a heap of other racers at Evans, I decided that the sheer enjoyment of riding the bike was too much to forego and decided to buy it. I got a good price (even with our work's Ride2Work scheme, I couldn't get anything quite as good for the same cash for new).

So what to do now ? I don't want to just use the bike for commuting, but as the bike is built to be as light as possible, it isn't really designed to then have a load of panniers on it, as would happen if I took it off for a weekend tour like my "Gloucester to Hungerford" trip. I think I need to re-think my trips into circular ones where I leave all my stuff back at base, while just how far I can go in one day before I fall over. My first planned trip is to the Peak District in a few weekend’s time. Not sure of my route yet, but somewhere starting (and finishing) around Hathersage/Edale I think.

More to follow...

Oh Dear!

David Cameron (leader of the Conservative party and someone who makes great play of his cycling credentials) has had his bike nicked from outside Tescos in Portobello Road), although according to the Evening Standard "Cameron had chained it to a 2ft bollard, allowing thieves to lift both the bike and the lock clear"

<shakes head>

New Cycling "Knickers"

This week I've been wearing my new Swrve "knickers" (American for 3/4 length trousers). I have to say these are awesome, being specifically cut for cycling, but at the same time are almost smart enough that you can wear in the office/pub (if you can't be bothered changing). They have nice big pockets at the back and are cut lower at the front so they don't into your stomach when you're bent over on the bike.

I bought them at this place in Vancouver (benefitting from the strong pound) for about £45 but at more expensive over here unfortunately £65. They're still worth trying if they sound like they might be your kind of thing

I've got them in cotton, but you can also get them in more technical fabrics, if you need.

Highlight of the Week

While watching the Tour De France yesterday on ITV4 I noticed that on the road, in white paint instead of the usual list of riders names (Evans, Cav, Schleck, etc) or messages from the Socialist Party of France, someone had painted a large 15ft cock and balls (someone British, I'm guessing :-))

I'll post a picture as soon as I can find one.

Bikes and Trains

Trains and bikes should go well together, however privitisation and overcrowding seem to have left a situation where different companies have different policies at different times and checking them requires judicious use of Google. Thankfully A To B Magazine maintain an up-to-date and in-depth guide to all the networks' different restrictions.

In fact it's so in-depth that it will tell you what all the companies' policies on tandems are, should you be interested.

Back from holiday...

...new posts to follow.



In the meantime, anyone who's had their chain snap will appreciate David Millar's reaction during the last 1km of a stage of last month's Giro D'Italia

Boris on helmets, terrorists and liberty

As you may know, the new mayor of London is a cyclist, but doesn't much like helmets. This causes great consternation to a lot of people (setting a bad example to children, etc. etc). Here he attempts to address the issue in his usual "bumbling" way. Clear a couple of days in your diary if you intend to read all the comments that follow it.

By the way, does anyone really think that kids are going influenced by the behaviour of Boris "Cool" Johnson ?

Pic from the Telegraph.

New Bike Mag

The Ride

The website makes it look quite trendy, but according to the creators:

"The journal is our stab at capturing the soul of cycling. Sod the reviews and route guides, we're about passion in riding, whatever bike its on. We're track, mountain bike, bmx, road, commuting, racing, free-ride. As long as people have a love for bikes then we're interested."

Be interesting to see what it's like.

Incidentally, if you're after a trendy bike mag, then you could do worse than check out Rouleur. I'm sure it's creators wouldn't mind me describing it as "coffee-table" (a polite way of saying 9 quid an issue), but if you like classic photography of epic Tour De France stages, you'll probably like it.

Sometimes you just need a new tyre

After 5 punctures in as many days (and an evening where three of us pored over the tyre looking for sub-atomic embedded bits of glass/stone/etc) I finally gave up and bought a new tyre. It was only 20 quid and if it means I don't have to use a cycle-pump or puncture repair kit this week it will have been worth it.

(picture of funky no-cycle sign taken in Barbican centre)

How Very Dare They

I've just noticed that at the bottom of my last receipt for some repairs at Brixton Cycles, under "Notes and Recommendations" it says

"Recommend cleaning your bike. It will work better"

They're right though,

If you find modern cycling...

...a little bit uncivilised, perhaps you'd care to check these people out, The Tweed Cycle Club. Apparently they organise rides from London.

I particularly like the following advice:

If the barometer forecasts rain, the cyclist is wise to remain in bed or repair to a hostelry for refreshment. Should there be no alternative to riding through a downpour, a fisherman's so'wester will keep the head dry allowing the cyclist to face into the heart of storm and push on with resolve and determination, remembering that moral fibre is the sturdiest of fabrics.

A Weekend of Cycling

On Saturday, Jen and I headed up to Smithfields to watch the Smithfields Nocturne. If you don't know this is an evening of cycle racing including some pretty big names (Geraint Thomas, Ed Clancy, Rob Hayles) as well as some more fun races including the infamous Folding Bike Race, in which competitors have to wear business attire. The whole thing was very enjoyable (helped by the plethora of nice pubs in the vicinity) in an impressive setting with the opportunity to be alarmed at just how fast pro-cyclists go (they barely came out in my photos in the evening light)

On Sunday we headed down to picture-postcard Sussex to do the Rye - Camber - Lydd route from the Sustrans website. If you've not been to this part of world before, it has quite an odd landscape: flat as a pancake, dotted with holiday homes and Dungeness dimly visible in the distance. The only problem with the actual cycle route is that large parts of it are on a rough track, next to the road. This is great if you're a family with kids who want to be safe, but for everyone else it limits your speed and you don't feel particularly removed from the noise and pollution from the cars.

On the way back we took the road, which is actually nicer - you can get a decent speed up and the traffic is reasonably light. It also meant we got back to Camber in time for quick dip in the sea.

Motorbikes in Bus Lanes

Allowing motorbikes in bus lanes is a contentious issue. Ken trialled a couple of schemes which showed a reduction in accidents, but then allegedly (according to the Evening BorisStandard ) the report was suppressed to avoid antagonising cyclists. Now Boris is in office he is planning on pressing ahead with it

Personally I've not had a problem with motorcyclists in bus lanes, but, it would be nice if motorbikes could be kept out of the cycle boxes at junctions a bit more effectively.

If you feel inclined, here's the LCC anti-motorbikes in bus lanes petition

Easy Rides in the South East

A useful link if, like me, you are planning some short cycling trips in the South East. Also they will hopefully be well signposted. Signage on Sustrans routes can be variable in quality. For instance, NCN1 from London to Brighton starts off brilliantly, however by the time you're cycling across Tilgate golf course (an official part of the route!) without a sign in sight, you may be doubting your own sanity.