Another Cycling Forum

Transcription

Another
Cycling
Forum
Issue 1
Dec 2005
A collection
of threads...
ACF Best of…
cycling nirvana
Sam
What takes you there?
Vince (Newbie)
For me it would probably be cycling down form Longcliffe to Fenny Bentley early on a warm
summer morning befire the tourists come out. I will have climbed up from Cromford and will be
nicely placed to get a bacon buttie from friends in Ashbourne befor a quick dash back down the A52 to home and a
smug feeling for the rest of the day
Si Davies
A combination of fitness, good form, a sunny day and a long hard hill. It's that rare instance in time when you hit the
rythm, your legs and lungs might be screaming in pain but for some reason it doesn't matter and you know that you
can just keep going for ever, out the saddle, pounding away: you know that today the hill is yours and that there's
nothing it can do to defend itself. Even better if your mates are falling by the wayside behind you and turning to
shivering wrecks in heaps on the verges.
Also like single track in the summer, fr'instance, went out Fri evening - trails deserted and dry and hard. First time i'd
ridden the geared mtb with the medium trav fork for ages - just floated over the ruts and tree roots, went much too
fast for my own good, scared my self silly on a couple of down hills but had the best ride i'd had for ages.
bikereader.com another cycling forum
Then there's just being on a bike in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest house or road or person. It's like
you've etepped out of your normal life and are now living a real life...Infact there are just so many ways of getting
nirvana on a bike that I wonder why so few people cycle?
2
The Power of Finch’s Shed!
ACF Best of…
Thanks to all the feature writers for agreeing to help out,
those who subbed, sent extra pics, etc, and all the forum
for contributing to an entertaining year.
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NB: All typos were made by the original posters.
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ACF Best of… Touring
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Jezza
Touring
abridged from
http://bikereader.com/
forum/index.php?topic=4248.0
Dedicated to the people of
Zimbabwe.
S
4
ome years ago in a bar in
Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, I
mentioned to my friend Dan
that there was a part of the
country I had always wanted to
visit, the south-western region
known as Matabeleland, and that
the bit I really wanted to see was
the Matopos, a National Park of
rounded granite hills and dramatic
rock formations that had long been
sacred to the Matabele people. The
main problem with the plan had
always been how to get there.
Driving was one option, but the
roads were very bad and offered
limited opportunities for access.
Hiking was possible up to a point,
but lions, leopards and elephants
were present in the area, and being
on foot seemed to accentuate our
lowly status on the food chain. Dan
had been frowning while I voiced
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Through the
Matopos by
mountain bike
these concerns, and suddenly
said: “Why not go by bike? We’d
do a good distance each day, we
could get right off the beaten
track and could probably avoid
any potential dangers by being
more mobile.” He assured me that
he had the perfect bikes for the
job, and we agreed to meet the
next day at his house.
commenting knowingly on the
likelihood of rain, whether his
wives had got in the harvest yet in
his home village and how his
children were getting on at school.
Cherub walked for three hours
from his township to get to work
in the mornings, and no doubt as a
consequence of this spent much of
the day snoring in the guard hut in
the company of a huge spliff of
marijuana, known as mbanje.
These came as a round twist of
brown paper, of the kind used for
wrapping parcels, which was
simply untwisted and then rolled
up and smoked. Reminiscent in
many ways of a burning field of
stubble, they were nonetheless
effective, and the particular type
was known as a half, one, or two,
which was the number of days
that you were stoned after
having smoked it. There was
some legendary three-day stuff,
but that only came from
Malawi and sometimes gave
people heart attacks.
Cherub
walked for
three
hours from
Dan lived in a part of town known
his
as the Avenues, a series of wide
boulevards shaded by glorious
township
jacaranda trees that in October
would shower the streets with
to get to
purple petals. Driving along
Enterprise Road into the city in the
work in the
bright sunlight there was no sign of
the jacaranda blossom yet; we were
mornings,
still in July, mid-winter, and the
and no
mornings were crisp with frost,
although by midday the temperature
ubt
would be 30ºC. Lines of people stood at do
the bus stops along the road, and
spent
occasionally a groaning Peugeot estate
car would suddenly swerve off the road
much of
towards them, stopping a few yards
ahead of the bus stop and precipitating a the day
stampede. Known as ET’s or Emergency
snoring in
Taxis, with a regular load of two
passengers in the front seat, four in the
the guard
back and four in the boot, these venerable
contraptions afforded a degree of intimacy;
hut in the
it was necessary for all the passengers in
the boot to link arms to prevent the one
company
closest to the tailgate from falling out over
of a huge
the bumps.
spliff …
Arriving at the gates of Dan’s house I
embarked upon the protracted greetings that
were required with his security guard, who
was known as Cherub. This involved
An unsteady Cherub led me
round to the patio where Dan
was kneeling surrounded by
camping gear. Two purple
Saracen mountain bikes
were propped against the
table, and he was busy
hammering a pannier into
shape. I was introduced to
my bike, which was very
impressive – I had never
been on a mountain bike
before, and it seemed to
exude confidence. It had
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Malindidzimu
Sunrise saw us driving through a landscape of
undulating hills studded with granite boulders called
kopjes, pronounced ‘copies’. We passed mud huts
which had layered thatched roofs in the traditional
Matabele style and groups of pot-bellied children
waved as we roared by. I managed to escape my
seat by climbing over the backs of the benches, and
spoke to Dan about where we should be dropped.
The driver knew the road we needed, and pulled
up at a crossroads, with a narrow dirt road leading
off into the hills. We said goodbye to the
passengers, the conductor vaulted onto the roof
and lowered the bikes down to us. With a
crashing of gears the driver pulled back onto the
road, the music started up again and the bus
disappeared in a haze of red dust as the engine
note grew fainter and fainter. Suddenly there
was silence except for the wind in the grass
and the chirping of insects.
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effect, and had consequently
developed a rather coy form of
locomotion, almost wincing as
he tiptoed towards us, as if his
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The road was soft sand, with occasional
middlecorrugations from where 4x4 vehicles had
aged lady
churned up the surface. It was rough going.
We found that riding down the centre where
the grass had sprung up between the wheel turned to
ruts offered much better purchase for the
me and
tyres and the bikes were more stable there.
We were passing open fields of tawnysaid
coloured grassland which grew to roughly
four feet in height, and after a while we
“hold
began to climb up an escarpment lined
this”,
with msasa trees. These offered some
shade as it had been growing very warm,
handing
and our thermometer, which was in the
shape of a green plastic frog, showed
me a
32ºC in the shade. Passing beneath one
tree Dan suddenly shouted a warning,
large, irate
and I stopped quickly. He leaned over
and picked up a thorn from the road,
chicken.
handing it to me as I drew alongside. It
I took it
was roughly four inches long, needle
sharp, and would have gone through
from her,
the sole of an army boot, let alone a
bicycle tyre.
not
As the shadows lengthened we
realising
passed a white painted boulder and
a sign that welcomed us to Matopos that it w
as
National Park. A small hut stood
to
become
nearby, and we propped the bikes
against the wall and went in. The
my
interior was wonderfully cool, and
a cheerful young Matabele guide
companio
in a khaki uniform emerged from a
room at the back of the hut, the
n for the
soles of his desert boots
next 11
squeaking across the highly
polished stone floor. He was
hours.
aware of this slightly comical
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I caught sight of Dan talking to a
very tall policeman, and shouldered
my way through the crowd to
them. He introduced me to
Knowledge, who told us that we
should stay close to him as nobody
wanted to sit next to policemen on
buses so we would be guaranteed
some space. We made our way to a
bright green bus with the words
‘Kukurwa Kurerwa’ on the side and
managed to get the bikes stowed
on the roof. It then transpired that
this was the wrong bus, so down
came the bikes, the temperature
rose several degrees and the driver
walked off in the direction of the
bar. Knowledge found a conductor
for another bus which was
reassuringly emblazoned with the
words “Trust in God” and somehow
herded us aboard; in the ensuing
melee his cap was knocked askew
and his shiny boots were trodden
on, but all along he continued to
Somehow we got underway, the
bus nosing its way out into the
Harare traffic. The conductor spent
more time outside the bus than in,
vaulting through the doorway and
up onto the roof while we were
still rolling to a halt to pick up yet
more passengers. Although all the
seats were taken, room was found
in the aisle for a group of
Mozambicans who carried
enormous laundry bags full of
Kapenta, a small, pungent fish not
unlike whitebait. The music was
played at earsplitting volume,
meaning that the conversations
that were continuously carried on
down the length of the bus had to
he shouted. Within the first hour I
lost all sensation below the knees,
as the bench ahead of me was so
close that I had assumed a kind of
squatting position. I could see Dan
a few rows ahead, and occasionally
he managed to turn his head far
enough to catch my eye and give
me a wink. Otherwise I could not
move a muscle, and tried to focus
on events outside the window. The
first roadblock was negotiated
without too much trouble – a
twenty minute delay while beer
was found for the soldiers – and
their keen young officer who had
intended to search the bus got as
far as the steps before having
second thoughts. The second
roadblock came an hour later, as
the sun was setting, and was a
more protracted affair; it was here
that we lost the Mozambicans,
who probably didn’t have the
money for the bribe. Quite what
the soldiers wanted with 200 kilos
of stinking fish was beyond the
realms of my imagination at that
point. Somehow I began to fall
asleep, the chicken on my lap
giving an occasional, increasingly
feeble squawk. I dozed fitfully,
waking periodically to see the
lights of lorries passing us in the
night, or hearing low murmured voices and seeing
guns glinting in the moonlight at the roadblocks.
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Nothing could have prepared me
for cycling a heavily-laden
mountain bike through the centre
of an African city. Drivers revved
their engines, conductors bellowed
at passengers, lumps of meat
sizzled on spits and street traders
glided past with bowls of fruit or
mealies on their heads, all the
while giving a curious hissing noise
while trying to attract attention.
smile bashfully as he pushed his
way down the bus. I ended up
squeezed into the window seat,
and was just taking stock of the
situation when a middle-aged lady
wearing a colourful dress
decorated with pictures of the
president turned to me and said
“hold this”, handing me a large,
irate chicken. Being of a generally
helpful disposition I took it from
her, not realising that it was to
become my companion for the
next 11 hours.
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21 gears, changed with two buttons
operated by the thumb, and the
tyres appeared enormous and
rugged. I had a trial run up and
down the driveway, and found it
deceptively straightforward.
Everything was to be carried on the
rear panniers, which posed a
challenge with regard to weight
distribution. For a 14-day trek in the
mountains I would normally carry
a rucksack weighing up to a third
of my bodyweight, but cycling was
going to involve entirely new
muscle groups, and I wasn’t sure
what would be feasible. Night-time
temperatures in Matabeleland
would be bitterly cold, we knew, so
a tent was essential, as well as
fairly warm sleeping bags. Cooking
would be done on a Trangia stove
fuelled by meths. Water could be a
problem – the whole area was
semi-desert, and cycling in the heat
of the day we would dehydrate
very quickly. In the event we took 2
one-litre bottles each as well as a
water bag which could be worn as
a backpack.
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squeaking shoes might undermine
his dignity. At a long wooden
counter beneath the standard issue
portrait of the president we filled
out disclaimer forms, promising
that if we were eaten by hippos
(but curiously no mention of any
other animal) we would not hold
the government of Zimbabwe
responsible. We paid Z$14 each,
roughly 5 pence a night for a two
week stay. Emerging into the glare
again we set off towards the
campsite at Maleme Dam.
Overlooking a lake surrounded by a
ring of dome-shaped granite
kopjes, the campsite was deserted,
and we found a small bay in the
shade of a mahobahoba tree,
pitching the tent in the sand a few
feet from the hillside. I went to
fetch water from a standpipe as
Dan dug out the Trangia and got
dinner on the go. This consisted of
Sumu (ratatouille in a tin) with
chopped beer sticks (like Peperami)
and Sadza (thick porridge made
from maize flour). After coffee we
had a smoke and watched the mist
descend across the lake as the
moon rose high in an ice-blue sky.
6
I woke at 4 am with the cold. It was
absolutely freezing. Sand had
rucked up under my back and my
breath misted the air. I had a
system when camping of keeping
glasses in the right boot, torch in
the left, and I located both and
found the little green frog
thermometer. It said -12ºC. I
shivered for another 20 minutes
and then decided to forsake my
sleeping bag and get up. I put on
every item of clothing, which was
two T-shirts, two bush shirts,
tracksuit trousers, jungle fatigues,
bush hat, wool jumper and a parka.
I was still freezing. There was no
frost at all as it was so dry, but the
sand was hard and cold and when I
picked up the Trangia my fingers
stuck to the lid. I could hardly strike
a match to light it but finally got it
going, and climbed back into my
bag as I waited for the water to
boil. After a short time a
monotonous stream of obscenity
showed that Dan was awake and
feeling the cold as well. There was
nothing for it but to sit and wait,
and at 5.30 the first rays of
sunlight struck the top of the hills
behind us. Within 15 minutes the
golden light crept down the slope
until it bathed the tent in warmth.
We began to recover and gradually
shiver less, and we watched the
mercury rise up the little green
frog from -10ºC to +17ºC while we
had breakfast.
We headed along the dirt road to
the site, and after a while turned
off onto a narrow trail that led up a
ravine. The path itself was roughly
a foot wide, with thick bush on
either side, and at times the
undergrowth forced us to
dismount and push the bikes,
angling the handlebars between
the trees. At one point I brushed
past a green, ivy-like plant similar
to bindweed and saw a row of
thorns embed themselves in my
shirt. They were curved like hooks,
but did not look substantial so I
pushed on. The next second a huge
tendril wrapped itself right around
me, pinning my arms, and as I
struggled another one caught my
legs pulling me off balance – the
more I struggled the tighter it
gripped me. I could do nothing but
feebly call for help, and when Dan
had finished laughing like a hyena
he eventually came and untangled
me. Finally, covered in scratches
and dirt, we emerged onto the
great bald dome off the hillside,
which shimmered and sparkled as
quartz in the golden rock caught
the sunlight. Coming over a rise we
could see the peak of
Malindidzimu ahead of us, and it
became easy to comprehend the
site’s significance. Looking down
into the valley ahead you could see
small kraals and villages, cattle
wandering home in the company
of herd boys, and the scene was
one of timeless tranquillity. A hot
wind blew up from the valley and
carried the scents of African dust,
herds of animals and the faint
smell of woodsmoke. Behind us
rose eerie rock formations, with
almost spherical stones piled one
upon the other in a miraculous
balancing act, forming patterns
and images that changed and
shifted constantly.
Ndhlovu
We began to establish a routine of
sorts. It was too cold to do much
before 8 am, and we would try and
get to where we were going by
mid-morning to lie up in the shade
for a while. The terrain could
literally be impassable – we would
blunder our way across bushcovered hillside, tormented by
mopane flies which crawled into
At a long wooden counter we filled out
disclaimer forms, promising that if we
were eaten by hippos we would not hold
the government of Zimbabwe
responsible.
your ears and up your nose, only
to find our way blocked by a wall
of rock or a deep crevasse. The
bikes were indestructible, which
is more than we were. I slipped
on a tree root, and in putting my
arm out as I fell my wrist got
bent back on itself. It swelled up
and began to ache until I could
no longer use my left arm. We
had spent most of the day
pushing the bikes through thick
bush, and it became impossible
to hold the handlebars. I
dragged the bike behind me up
the slope, past caring what
damage I was doing to either it
or myself. At last we came to a
small clearing, and decided to
camp there as
we were
simply too
shattered
to go
on.
literally
ld
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te
The
we would
impassable –
ay across
blunder our w
e, tormen
covered hillsid
mopane flies…
Lunch
was some bread, half an onion
and some biltong – dried meat
like beef jerky, usually elephant. I
went in search of some water,
not holding out much hope in
that parched landscape, but
after a short walk I could clearly
hear a trickle of a stream, and
there was a strong smell in the
air. Coming over the crest of a
hill I saw a spring emptying into
a shallow pond below me, and
three very large Cape buffalo
standing nearby. I watched them
for a while but they showed no
sign of moving, so I crept back
and got Dan. We decided to give
them an hour and then try and
get to the spring. The alternative
was to force our way back
through thick bush for several
hours to the last waterhole. By late
afternoon my head was pounding.
We had about 3 inches of warm
water left in our bottles, and my
tongue was sticking to the roof of
my mouth. We looked at each
other, and then stood up. I began
to walk down the hill, legs shaking
and heart racing. I remember I had
a packet of cigarettes in my pocket,
and wasn’t sure if I should light
one or not. The buffalo were a
group of old males, and like old
males of many species were
therefore grumpy old gits who
were pretty set in their ways. They
could not work out why these oddlooking monkeys were marching
towards them. It was the smallest
buff who broke first – he snorted,
jerked his head in alarm and
suddenly they all took off across
the hillside. I filled the bottles
while Dan kept watch. The water
smelt thick and rank with animal
scent, and there were bits of mud
or dung floating in it, but I didn’t
care. Loaded down with the bottles
we made our way back to the
bikes.
As we were running low on
provisions, we planned an
excursion outside the
park into what were
called the communal
areas. There was a
village about 10
km from the
gate and the
map we
had
y be
d
s bushnted by
these small kids, perhaps seven
years of age, who walked home
each evening past long, thick grass
that was the perfect hiding place
for a lion. We could not have
caused more of a stir if we had
tried – barefooted kids carrying
books on their heads ran alongside
us laughing and chattering all the
while as we pedalled our way up
the hill into the village. We bought
some biscuits, bread, margarine
and mealie flour at the butchery. At
the bottle store we asked for two
cokes, and were told that we
needed two empty bottles as a
deposit before the owner would
sell us new ones. This was an
unexpected blow. Seeing our
dismay, she agreed to lend us two
empties until we had finished the
full ones, and thus everyone was
happy.
It was then that Dan spotted a
rectangular two litre cardboard
carton on the shelf. Asking what it
was, the owner fetched it down for
him. On the side was a picture of a
pink elephant below which
‘Ndhlovu’, elephant, was written,
and the words ‘Shake Shake’.
Unsure whether this was an
instruction or a description of the
side effects, we decided to find out.
It was what they euphemistically
term ‘opaque beer’, although the
stuff bears no resemblance to what
most of the world considers beer
to be. It was thick, sour and grey in
colour, with the unmistakeable
tang of vomit. The bits that stuck
to your teeth only served to
encourage this illusion. After a few
swigs I’d had enough, but Dan was
going to get his money’s worth,
and somehow drained the entire
vile carton. At this point we
realised we had an audience. Two
old men pushed their way past the
children crowding round the door,
came inside and greeted us by
clapping rhythmically and
inquiring after our health. We
knew the form by now, and had a
good line on crop rotation, the
ailments of cattle and general
expense of wives. I realised with a
sinking heart that they were
eyeing up the Ndhlovu which Dan
had just emptied. There was
nothing for it. I broke out a twenty
dollar bill and ordered four of the
damn things. We handed round
cigarettes, and got stuck in. They
were probably both in their fifties,
but looked much older. Dressed
alike in wide-lapelled jackets, one
had pinstripe trousers and the
other wore a pair of brown drip-dry
nylon slacks. One had a pair of
baseball boots on and the other
was barefoot. Both had trilby hats
and were carrying knobkerries, a
kind of walking stick with a
rounded head traditionally used as
a weapon. We spoke of house
prices in England, the importance
of a good education, and how the
world was as usual in a sorry state
and wasn’t it a shame that the
Arabs and Israelis couldn’t sit down
over an Ndhlovu together like we
were doing. Much clapping and
nodding sagely.
After a time I became aware of an
unpleasant tightness in my
abdomen, caused by three-and-abit litres of ‘opaque beer’, and I
thought we ought to be heading
back. We parted amicably, and not
without some difficulty I managed
to swing a leg over the saddle and
get on the bike. I merely felt
bloated; Dan on the other hand
was acting very strangely. He kept
muttering and giggling to himself
and was swaying all over the road.
We came to a section which we
had laboured up that morning, a
steep descent with soft sand at the
bottom and long grass on either
side of the road. Dan went for it – I
heard him click into top gear
behind me, and I did the same. We
were flying down the slope in 21st
gear crouched over the handlebars
, and I was slightly in the lead,
when out of the corner of my eye I
saw a snake emerge from the grass
at the side of the road. It took us in
at a glance, and rearing up,
catapulted itself forward, passing
between my wheels and
underneath the pedals as they
turned. I saw it shoot across the
road and into the grass on the
opposite verge. I was so surprised
that I turned to see if Dan had seen
it. I thought he was in pain judging
by his expression, until it dawned
on me that he was paralysed with
laughter. I hit a stone and slid off
the bike in a graceful arc,
collapsing into the dust. He
crashed into my bike and went
over like a sack of spuds. We
howled with laughter until tears
ran down our faces. All I could
repeat was “Did you see that?” and
all he could do was nod, wide-eyed.
showed
a bottle
store and
butchery. We
set off into
the chill
morning, and
as we
crossed the
cattle grid into
the communal
areas we came
across children
making their way to
school. There were no
fences round the park, so
the cattle grid seemed a bit
pointless, and I wondered at
So many
atrocities
were
committed
by these
soldiers
that some
figures
estimate
that up to
30,000
people
were killed,
and
countless
others
tortured
and
maimed.
That evening we sat wrapped in
7
our sleeping bags in front of the
fire. Overhead were stars upon
stars, coruscating colours gleaming
with untarnished light. Occasionally
a satellite would track steadily
across the sky, and shooting stars
dropped silently, trailing glittering
strands of debris. Around us the
bush was alive with chirps and
rustles, and we saw a pair of closeset golden eyes watching us from
the shadows – probably a genet or
one of the smaller felines. A
nightjar’s fluting call came from
below us in the valley, and
periodically the rock dassies would
begin their nightly social rounds,
which consisted of standing on top
of a hill and screaming “Oi!” at the
top of their voice.
Silozwane
8
Throughout Zimbabwe there are
numerous caves and rock
formations that contain what are
known as bushman paintings.
These paintings depict the animals
that the San Bushmen, who were
the original inhabitants of the
land, used to hunt. The natural
fortress of the Matopos has
hundreds of these sites, and one of
the most spectacular is Silozwane.
Situated just to the south of the
park, the site lies high on a bare
hillside that involved a steep
descent to the entrance of the
cave. My jungle boots had no
purchase at all on the surface, so I
took them off, feeling the warmth
of the rock under my bare feet. The
cave entrance itself lay in shadow,
and before I went in I clapped
several times and called out “Go Go
Goi”, like saying “knock knock”.
Reasons for this were twofold; the
world of spirits is palpable in this
place – you feel that you are in a
sacred location, and that your
system of rational explanation for
things can be turned on its head in
an instant. Tradition dictates that
you enter these caves politely so as
not to disturb the spirits, rather
than blundering about in a
disrespectful manner. Secondly, the
Matopos has one of the highest
concentration of leopards in the
world, and they like living in caves.
The cave must have been 100 feet
deep. The air was cool and still, and
we could see the paintings that
covered the far wall. Underfoot
was a soft, grey, powdery dust, and
we walked deep under the arching
roof towards the back. The
paintings were in a range of
colours from creamy white to a dull
ochre red. Some black objects were
hard to make out, but you could
see the twisting spiral horns of
kudu, giraffes with rectangular
patterns on their coat and some
insects that appeared to be ant
lions. The hunters themselves were
done in a rich brown colour, and
they carried bows and spears in
their outstretched arms. Animals
overlapped each other across the
walls, and I made out the picture of
a lioness which was remarkably
clear; the curious thing about it
was that where her each of her
legs ended, there was a perfect
imprint of a lioness paw – the
three tear-drop pads and separate
toes. Additionally, her tail was
extended as a long line reaching
behind her. I realised that this
wasn’t just a picture of a lioness, it
was a guide on how to track one –
the pawprints were naturally the
traces she would leave, and if you
ever see a lion walking down a
sandy road, you’ll see that their tail
drags in the dust leaving a long
line. The artist had crossed the line
between what it looked like and
what it actually was.
There were scores of tracks in the
cave, indications of the activity
that the hours of darkness saw. So
much had passed through in the
night that it was hard to make out
what was what, but we discerned
porcupines, vervet monkeys,
klipspringer, leguaan lizard and a
snake. I searched along the walls
for grain bins, but in vain; many
caves throughout the area still
have grain bins that were hidden
during the Matabele Rebellion of
1896, when warriors would launch
hit-and-run raids on settlers before
retreating back into the hills. Some
of these caves saw more recent use
in the 1980s, when Matabele
guerrillas hid from the
Zimbabwean army that swept
through Matabeleland like wildfire
in an attempt to stamp out any
dissent to the government of
Robert Mugabe. Most notorious of
the troops were the 5th brigade,
who had been trained by the North
Koreans. So many atrocities were
committed by these soldiers that
some figures estimate that up to
30,000 people were killed, and
countless others tortured and
maimed. In the 1990s, when
international mining companies
began a project assessing some old
gold mines with a view to restart
digging, reports began to emerge
that they were discovering shafts
hundreds of feet deep that were
filled with bodies, and the project
was quickly abandoned. The
Matabele have not forgotten, and
the time became known as
“Gukurahundi”, “the rain that
washes away the chaff”.
The hillsides shimmered in the sun
and my breath scorched my throat.
Waves of heat rose from the
glaring rock and I narrowed my
eyes to slits. There was a scuff on
the toe of my boot and I kept
looking at it stupidly as it went
round on the pedals, idiot rhymes
forming and unforming in my
head: ‘one step, two step, tickle you
under there’. ‘My fingers and toes
keep moving’. Sweat ran over my
glasses and off the end of my nose,
and my ears were singing, though
whether from my personal cloud of
mopane flies or simply my
pounding bloodflow I could not
tell. I dreamed of a cool English
autumn day with rain in the air, or
sitting in front of an old black and
white film while raindrops
pattered on the window. The green
lushness of fields and the breeze of
the Suffolk coast, cool even in
midsummer. The tinkle of ice in tall
glasses, and sitting in the shade of
a garden with a fountain trickling
nearby. The seethe and swish of
the waves on Southwold beach.
‘One bloody foot before the next
bloody foot’. We entered a glade
where trees met overhead, casting
pools of shade, and stopped, thank
god.
Dan was in a bad way. We both
were, but he was worse. He looked
absolutely haggard, with hollow
cheeks and feverish eyes. I was
dripping with sweat but saw his
shirt was dry. He sat down dully on
a rock and stared at the ground.
His lips had cracked in the heat and
a trickle of blood ran down the
corner of his face. I found my water
bottle and rummaged around in
the panniers until I found the
rations. I tore open the plastic bag
with the sugar in it and emptied 6
teaspoons into my water bottle,
then found the salt and put in a
teaspoon of that. I shook it up and
gave it to him. He brushed it away,
and went back to looking at the
ground.
“Just fucking drink it, will you?”
The
adventure
continues…
Mbabhuni
We took our time over
breakfast the next
morning: mealie meal
porridge, fig rolls,
bread and jam. The
sun was high in the
sky by the time we
had packed up, and we
planned a fairly easy
ride…
Mblioma
The smoke from the
slab of termite mound
on the fire rose slowly,
releasing a musky,
herbal scent, and
drifted across our little
camp. We had found a
sandy spot
overlooking a lake on
the far side of which
stood a National Parks
picnic site which was
deserted…
Harare or bust
We loaded up in
another freezing
dawn. We had to head
towards Maleme to
join up with the main
road out of the park. I
watched the sun move
across the land,
creeping into the
pools of shadow and
glinting off spider
webs thick as
tripwires…
Epilogue
As I sit here I can hear
the soft hush of rain
as it shines the roofs
of the town, and TV
aerials dance in the
wind outside. Through
the window the waves
roll in towards
Southwold beach…
© Jeremy Dales
Continued at
http://bikereader.co/
forum/index.php?topi
c=4248.0
STAR TUMBLER
Days like these
Hilldodger
that make being an historian sooo good! I knew
that one of the top cycle racers during the Penny
era was Fred Wood from Leicester, but I'd drawn a
blank on all the avenues of research. Today I get a
letter form a lady with two photographs of the guy
and details of him winning the World
championships in New Zealand in 1887. Might not
sound exciting to you, but we dream of days like
this!
One of those weeks
Ping Mr and Mrs Pike
..nothing seems to work. I have made no progress at work
this week, been busy outside of work, hardly seen my wife or
my son. At least cycling well is some consolation. Has anyone
ever used WiX (Windows Installer XML) to produce an MSI?
Any problems with installation paths or virtual folder
settings?
Pray tell me m'dears. What is 'Ferret Roulette'? Kitzy & Spesh
gave me a brief insight but wondered what was involved?
Hmmmmm?
Word of the Day
after midnight. Posts on caption it threads I wish i had a
tad more wit
Ed O Brien
Si Davies
is "bounderising". Meaning: "to imbibe liquors, to eat
heartily, to walk on one's heels and to generally spread
oneself."as invented by the Clarion Cycling Club on their first
ride on Good Friday, 1894 from Snow Hill Station,
Birmingham. On this ride bounderising took place at
Bridgenorth, Stourport, Ombersley, Pershore and Evesham.
I’ve been trying to attract new
members
So that’s what everyone does
Bomber
Tesco Giant Sorreen Offer!!
Hairy Hippy
Tesco's have got large, uncut, Sorreens on BOGOF. (No
personal interest except my belly)
For dinner I'm mostly having...
Awful Quiet
Beans and Rice!
That Poor Woman
SteveB
...by plastering a photo of me meeting Jan Ullrich on 3 or 4
other cycling forums. It's had quite a lot of interest and, I
think, stimulated a fair bit of guest activity, but none of the
guests have joined (as far as I know). OK, I wasn't expecting
a high conversion rate because people don't just switch a to
new cycling forum willy-nilly. But it's a shame that not even
one person has stuck around.
I've just been watching Sky News, the newsreader, Kay
something or other is obviously being made to read the
news with something wrong with her neck. Everytime she
speaks her head rolls from one side to the other.
Barry Scott
In America Barry Scott is Dan Dolan and the product is called
"Easy Off BAM!"
For sale: Loads of Buffy boxed sets! Buffy the Vampire Slayer
seasons 1 - 6 and Angel Season 2 plus other videos from
Angel seasons.Cost over £380 new, yours £55 plus postage if
don't want to collect. Treat yourself! Please PM for more
info.
Found a job
Rhodes Piano Legs
Hello. Not been around much 'cos my secondment finally
started and I've been away from home or too busy at work
to log on And now I'm on holiday.What have I missed?
An extreme long shot, but if anyone has a pair knocking
about or knows where I can pick up a pair let me know.
Clare
Pingu
Buffy seasons 1 - 6
Stickytoffee
Sid
Nick H
Hummers
9
ACF Best of… Reviews
REVIEWS
BITSKNITSHITSKITn*HIT
¡
Hits
On One – on-line retaler
A while back I reviewed the Il Pompino and said I'd get to OnOne's customer service separately. Well, here it is. My first
purchase from On-One comprised some bib shorts. They
arrived promptly, fitted well, were very comfortable and my
other half promptly nicked a pair. All very lovely.
Then it came to buying a bike. Firstly I tried ordering frame
and forks. There were none available, and I received an email
saying they were not available and it wasn't known when they
would be available. The email sounded very much "don't give a
stuff", and put me off somewhat. I rang around various shops
that I knew had carried On-One Pompinos in the past, only to
be informed that shops wouldn't deal with On-One any more
because (a) their customer service blew goats; and (b) On-One
wouldn't deal with shops. The next step in my arsenal was to
try the "Awwww but I weally, weally want one Mr Pompino
man." This worked. After a fashion. A week before their mad
Easter sale Brant told me that I could have one at the sale
price. I'd have been mad not to. So I duly ordered one.
10
That was when the trouble started. Working for a Government
Quango, at the time on "Black Special" security alert, I had to
inform our post room that I had a bike arriving, just in case it
was treated as a suspicious package. This meant giving them
an ETA. A week passed and nothing had turned up. I emailed
Brant. Nothing. We were about to go on holiday. I started
worrying. Finally I got in touch with them by emailing a plea
for them to call me with a delivery date because my bike
might get destroyed in a controlled explosion and Brant called
me with the information that they had lost my order. Ah. We
re-arranged delivery, this time to Scotland, where we were
going on holiday.
It turned up 5 days later. It was the wrong size. Crushed by
disappointment, I built the bike up anyway, but the toe
overlap made me look like Bigfoot. To be fair they were very
good about swapping it. Brant's explanation was that he'd
thought girl = small = small bike, even though we'd discussed
my size requirements in detail. And, to be absolutely fair, his
baby daughter had just died so he was hardly concentrating
On-one on-line
Specialized Tarmac E5
On-line retailers
Dura Ace 2005
TIME Atac Alium pedals
Rapha Sportwool
Big Bras
Surly Sinulator
entirely on customer service. The truck turned up the next day
to collect the original bike and deliver the correct size. A few
weeks later I ordered a double fixed hub and some shorts. They
were out of hubs but were expecting some in, so I asked them
to put the shorts to one side and send the whole lot out
together when the hubs arrived. I found out about the hubs
arriving by reading the website. And by then all the clothing
had gone. No shorts had been set aside for me. I was a bit
narked. If they'd said that the shorts were likely to get sold in
the meantime I'd have said just to ship them and I'd pay the
extra postage. However. On-One products are great. They're
quirky. They have little foibles. I like that in my kit; I'm more of a
border collie than a Labrador retriever sort of a person. Brant
gets involved - I had a crash recently, putting a hole in my
elbow so big the bone was clearly visible: I wrote to tell him
how impressed I was with the On-One long sleeve jersey that
held my elbow together so well I rode to work without
realising how badly I was hurt. He sent me a new one. Free. As
a present.
When they're on form they are really on form. I like dealing
with On-One even though it can be less than straightforward.
They are quirky, just like their products. They can occasionally
drop the ball, but that doesn't mean they don't care. They do.
They recognise a loyal customer when they see one and they
listen to their customer base. Don't expect everything to go
100% right 100% of the time when dealing with On-One, which
is a truism of every retailer. They don't have quite the same
approach to customer service that the big companies do, and I
suspect sometimes they're too busy riding their bikes to get
around to selling them. And you know what? I appreciate that.
For the sake of the things you can't get anywhere else, the
things that echo the quirkiness of their producers. The things I
like so much. Don't go to On-One for standard things like
bottom brackets, the things you can get elsewhere, because if
you happen to try ordering when they're busy being people
rather than retailers, you'll wish you'd bought elsewhere. Go to
them for those lovely, quirky, very British things you can't find
anywhere else. Things made by people rather than corporate
drones.
It's more than worth it.
Ravennbait
Kit
The
Specialized
Tarmac E5
http://bikereader.com/forum/index.php?
topic=1513.0
The Tarmac E5, for me, is the culmination
of a hell of alot of grief. I mean it, if I'd
have bought a bike with this kit on it
straight off I'd have saved so much
money and been able to just buy the
frame anytime I felt like it. Things aren't
always that simple. I had to got through
a lengthy process of slowly buying and
selling bits when I could afford it. See,
believe it or not, I don't actually enjoy
selling all the stuff on the forum, It's
great and all that in terms of friends and
being able to get rid of stuff to people
that actually want it. but let's face it it's
alot of hassle. I like buying things
though so with that comes the selling,
it's a necessary bi-product and I have to
admit sometimes it's satisfying to help
somebody out. It's also good in that if I
want to buy or upgrade something I can
sell the old bit on the forum and voila
the new bit is cheaper. All the buying
and selling aside, The Spesh is really
something to be seen. A picture is good
but if you can, go to the shops and get a
look at one of these. The finish is simply
sublime, 1K carbon weave fused into
pillarbox red E5 Alu. The best thing is
that there is not an imperfection on it.
Apparently they can only produce 5
frames per size per day, which is about
50% of standard output. This is because
the dark forces required to meld the
sections together are so powerful that
many of the clone technicians die during
the process.
I never really thought it was the frame
that "made" a bike but since going from
The Barracuda to the Bianchi to the
Spesh, the leaps in performance have
been quite startling. This bike rides like I
imagined a bike rode when the posh
blokes in the comic were giving away the
big ratings to expensive bikes.
It's pretty light too, mine's a 60cm so I
never bothered to get a frame weight
cause the majority of people who are
interested in weight are a fair bitty
smaller than me. Also at my height
stiffness is a more important attribute.
All I can say is that it's as stiff as the
stiffest bike I experienced which was a
Principia. The Spesh however is far more
comfortable. I am no expert but I
wouldn't say it's the carbon on the frame
that does that. I'd say it was the supplied
Pave post. However the frame probably
does contribute to the comfort in that
it's maybe 2cm shorter that the other
bikes I have owned, therefore with the
same front stack height I have a more
comfortable position. This for me is a
piece of enlightenment many cyclists
could benefit from. I believe that if you
are more comfortable you'll go faster
and better, it's still possible to get really
low being 2 or 3 cm higher up, it's just
easier on the body. The frame has been
pimped with the aforementioned kit,
Record throughout, Ksyrium SL, Cinelli
Ram, Selle Italia Signo and Look Keo
pedals and comes in at an impressive 16
1/2 lb or thereabouts.
It corners like a tram, climbs like a
demon and soaks up rubbish surface like
your riding on silk. The only thing I did
notice was a tiny bit of cable buzz on the
huge downtube. After about 250ml so
far I have absolutely no complaints. I am
fresher than ever when I finish a ride
which I'm sure is because my body is
taking less of a hammering.
The looks as well. When people used to
ask me what my Bianchi was worth and I
told them they used to scoff and say it
was far too much for a bike. A few of the
same people after asking the same
question about the Spesh told me they
could see why.
It looks as close to being the ferrari
Enzo of the bike world as a bike can get. I
used to be of the opinion that if you
wanted quality, If you wanted looks and
elegance, then you had to go British or
Italian. But I am forced to rethink, the
Yanks have got someting happening too.
Finch
Hits - on-line retailer polls from ACF
http://bikereader.com/forum/index.php?board=49.0
Numbers indicate number of votes cast
wiggle
Fair 13
parkers
Excellent 21
Poor 2
Excellent 8
Excellent75
st john
street
Prendas
Excellent 22
Fair 2
Excellent 25
Fair 0
Fair 5
Poor 0
Fair 7
Poor 11
prendas.co.uk
Fair 16
Poor 1
sjscycles.com
Poor 9
Excellent 5
parker-international.co.uk
Fair 25
evans
evanscycles.com
halfords.com
Excellent 2
wiggle.co.uk
halfords
Awful 0
chainrectioncycles.co.uk
Poor 0
chain
reaction
cycles
11
Bits
Dura Ace 2005
LamBo
OK so let's explore the latest
and greatest from Shimano.
First things first, I am a
Campagnolo fan.
I am also a designer and
engineer so have an (even
more) forensic and
passionate interest in
beautiful machinery than
many.
First of all it works. Second
it is light. Third, it is actually
rather beautiful.
This third point has taken a
while to sink in. Only fully
hitting home after a spot of
rather diligent cleaning this
afternoon. As to the first point, it
works but it needs regular tweaking.
This leads me to think 10 sprockets
really is the limit in the current space.
Gears change under any load. The brakes are
superb, sometimes almost too strong. The
chainset has that kind of positive whirr and solidity that
heralds fine engineering. The lightness, performance and
beauty are connected in that way that real design should be.
The chainset is the flagship component of complete groupsets.
This is where the divine union of form and function are at their
most obvious. The right crank flows seamlessly and organically
into the spider like quicksilver, like a visual snapshot of the
Knits
Rapha Sportwool
12
material
flow in the forging process. This is skilfully juxtaposed with the
razor sharp machining of the chainrings. Look closely
and many of the profiles are the result of this organic form
Finch
First of all let's
get one thing
straight . The
Rapha jerseys
( contrary to
popular
belief ) are
not Merino
Wool. They
have
merino
wool in
them but
are 50%
polyester. This made me wonder at first
about the sense in shelling out £105 for a
cycling jersey. However I done it and I
have to say I'm very pleased with the
outcome.
The reason behind the polyester content
seems to be so that the jersey has a
certain amount of elasticity which is fine
by me, because, the shoulders are a snug
fit and it'd be easy to warp pure wool.
The quality of manufacturing is apparent
straight away, it comes in a bag in a
mussette in a bag with a supporting
letter and loads of chesy authentic feel
black and white postcards. It even has a
label in the rear zip pocket (which is
waterproof) with a story about how hard
Hinault was. This alone will appeal to
some cyclists enough to warrant
purchase.
The real quality though, is in the item
itself. Even though it's black it stays cool
http://bikereader.com/forum/index.php?topic=240.0
and then decides to keep you warm if it's
cold. The zip is of a high quality and has
a bit to bite to help get it up and down,
the sleeves could have done with being
narrower and If you're not living up here
in Scotland it may be an idea to go for
the short sleeved version that comes
with free arm-warmers.
All in all an extremely high quality, well
made, easy to look after garment . Rapha
will even repair/replace them if you
crash or manage to ruin it in the wash
etc , now that's service , they even
offered to replace mine with the S/S
version when I wasn't sure I needed the
sleeves (even though I'd been using it).
REVIEWS
meeting the machining. Sections increase
at each arm of the spider and are reverse
machined for lightness where there are fewer
forces. I've always been a sucker for organic forms
brought to life by super crisp mechanical detailing.
The brakes are splendid. Having cascaded down
some of the big Alps last week, I can confirm
they reduce forward motion and don't give any
nasty surprises. All brakes need to do I would
suggest. Details: the rear mech has
aluminium screws, the anodising and
polish is super deep and durable. I still
think the Shimano quick release cam on
the brakes is super neat.
Criticisms:
The STIs are like jewels - but what they
really need is some wee bumpers on their
outermost surface. It is very easy to scratch
them when leaning the bike up against any
surface apart from fine chamois wallpaper. A
small profiling of the rubber hood could take
care of this.
It would be nice if you could grab a handful of
higher gears in one sweep a la Campag. However,
multiple clicks can be punched in very easily.
And a couple of things about the STIs that are slightly
annoying: they chatter when you ride over bumps with
one or more hands off the bars; and why can't Shimano, with
their vast resources, hide all the bloody wires under the tape?
In a nutshell, a groupset that performs flawlessly and may give
Campag something to think about in a beauty contest.
Bits
Time Atac Alium
Ludwig
ed o brain:
But remember though, it is only stuff. Stuff,
although important for meeting our material
needs, maybe a little less so for our desires, is
exactly that. Stuff! Stuff perishes, gets damaged,
gets stolen, becomes obsolete etc. and generally
people last a lot longer and are far more important. As also are
your beliefs, whatever they may be.
I don't disagree with you lamBo, but it’s always important to have
a little perspective.
You are right about the chattering. 105 on both my bikes. They
talk to each other!
LamBo:
I agree Ed, materialism is not an ethos to live a life by. However, it
doesn't mean one can't appreciate a well-executed,
manufactured object.
Simonali:
Ultegra STIs rattle like anything, too!
Heretic:
Centaur don't!
Gonzo:
No, it leaves the freewheel to make all the noise!
Also you can put cables under the bar tape, get some nokon
cables.
Heretic:
Use the Campag levers with the Shimano rear end. Plenty of ways
to make it work & the Ergos are a lot better as I may have said
before.....
used. Not the lightest or the best
looking, but the best functionally
speaking. What used to annoy me most
about pedals was that some, especially
SPD's, had a little gap when you pulled
up on the pedal so that the cleat was
pulling up and hitting the top of the
pedal that contained the cleat (OK, I
haven't described that too well,but you
get the idea) .It felt like the pedal wasn't
properly attached to the foot and it was
wasteful in terms of energy, especially
on steep climbs. SPD's were like this out
of the box, SPD-SL's after a few hundred
miles and Looks the same. With the TIME
Attac's there is none of this. Beautifully
smooth pedaling is possible. Also, the
engagement/disengagement is very
smooth and easy and you can choose
variable amounts of float by swapping
left and right cleats over. And the float
is so smooth and wonderfully
consistent. Unlike SPD-SL's which
causes a kind of grating feeling on
your foot when the foot is floating
over the pedal. All in all, I find it
hard to find any faults whatsover
with the TIME attac pedals.
Andy Gates
They've been my
commuting pedal of
choice for nearly fifteen
thousand miles. Very
tough, very low
maintenance
Frenchie
Great pedals. Love them
Bomber
Best pedals i've used period.
Oily Rag
I have a pair of the original ones still
going strong, although I dont use that
bike much these days. In fact they
(ATACs) are the first and only clipless
pedals I have ever used.
Tatanab
I agree with everybody that they are fine
in deed.
Time are about the only pedal I haven't
tried, despite hearing good things about
them. I tried the first ever LOOK pedals
that came out in 85 or whatever it was ,
and have tried most others since then.
Recently, I have had all sorts of SPD's,
LOOKS and Shimano road pedals
and I have to say that these
TIME's are
the best I
have
13
REVIEWS
Knits
sports bra for large
bazoomas
WafflyCat
One for the ladies, please
Sports bras. There must be
more than me who is a
lady cyclist who has
significantly sized built-in
frontal flotation aids. Can anyone
recommend a sports bra for large
bazoomas? The ones I find in local shops are
all for ladies with little boobs...
Kathy Pike
Go for the Shock Absorber range, the stuff
that's supposed to be impact level 4. I have
this bra
(http://www.figleaves.com/uk/product.asp?
product_id=SHK-B517&node_id=368), and
it's amazingly comfortable and bouncereducing. Shock Absorber also do crop-top
styles, but I find they're less... supportive.
CRAN
Not that I know much about sports bras, but
by coincidence there was something on the
radio 1 or 2 the other morning about 'booby
trap' sports bras. google brings up
www.boobytrap.biz and
www.boobydoo.co.uk neither of which I am
going to be opening up at work, even
though they are sports related I just know
the wrong person would walk past as I
opened the page...
RAVENBAIT
I second Kathy's suggestion. I'm 32DD and
get on well with Shock Absorber. Also
available from JJB sports, by the way.
WafflyCat
Ta muchly ladies. If they do an F cup in
Shock Absorber, I'll be happy! Cheers.
Bits
Surly Singulator
SAM
I'd appreciate if
someone could
write a review of
this to give me a
little more reason
either to buy one, or not.
TheGlueMan
Probably the Ford Edsel of cycle
components, as in, 'Good grief, you
didn't actually b u y a Singulator',
before the party covers you in
popcorn. Then again it may be just
the job. But which
job would
that be?
SAM
Ford
Edsel.
This is
good. Tell
me more. Is Si
about? I thought
he had one.
SiDavies
Bits
Lumicycle
Glow
Ring
Andy
Gates
14
What is it?
It's a
replacement
for the end-cap on a Lumi
halogen lamp. A white
plastic diffuser which
catches the stray light and
glows. It is intended as a
visibility aid: all of the highpower light sets are
awesome forward, but lack
sideways visibility.
How much? £3.99. Dirt
cheap if you have a set of
Lumis.
Is it any good? It's bloody
nuclear! The ring itself
lights up like a big
coruscating lump of light, so
all-round visiblilty is superb.
It increases the visual size of
the lamp head and catches
people's attention before
the focused beam hits 'em which seems to be hugely
effective in lane-splitting.
It also throws light back on
the rider and cockpit, so
you're lit up like a limelight
bad guy.
Downsides? Lumi say don't
run it with more than the
5w bulb or it will be
"distracting". They're not
wrong. With a 12w, it's the
Eye of Sauron - a lump of
light held between the
horns of my bar-ends with a
beam shooting forward.
Dazzling, to the point where
it affects your night vision.
A bit of black tape on the
top should cut that down.
Rae
Hmmm, what's the internal
diameter of that thing
Andy? <....goes and
measures external diameter
of Edison halide.....>
Grub
Andy, I took mine off
because it was distracting,
but I didn't think about
gaffer tape on the top.
Well, guess I should put it
back on then.
Andy Gates
Completely: unscrew the
existing cap, and screw this
on instead.
Derosa
Sorry for being dense, I
must be missing the
obvious here Do you take
the glass out and put it
under the glow ring?
Grub
The normal end of the lumi
is an anodised metal cap,
the glow ring is a resin cap
that glows instead.
Bob Eveerick
I've been using a glow-ring
for a while with a mixture
of 5, 10 and 21w bulbs; on
road and off, lit and unlit
areas. I must admit that I
haven't found 'scatter' that
much of a problem?
ps, I'm not sure about using
insulating tape, the
adhesive may affect the
plastic?
Si's Surely Singulator Review.
They're shite. Sorry, did you want
some more technical detail? Well,
based on the old version - I'd hope
that the new one has improved.
The first problem is that you need
to change the spring if you want it
to push up instead of down (I
prefer up because it wraps more
chain around the sprocket). When
you remove the old spring you will
immediatly forget which is which
and have no idea which way each
one should go. Second problem is
that it doesn't really matter which
spring you use because unless you
have the finness of a brain surgeon
and the luck of a cat you will over
tighten the tension ever so slightly
and the spring will be fucked.
Apart from the spring problems it's
a good bit of kit - looks OK (for a
tensioner), quite tough, and easy to
instal and get the right chain line.
However, mine still works thanks
to having a cable tie between the
arm and the chain stay to keep the
tension. Another testimony to the
Surely: my mate, a very good home
bike mechanic, bought one and
tried to fit it before the start of the
SSMM24 race. Never have I heard
someone swear so much and never
before have I seen someone chuck
a bike so far in disgust.Alternitively,
do a bit of fabrication on an old
rear mech - it works and it's cheap.
ACF Best of… Food
FOOD
p://bikereade
htt
r.
hp?board=47
x.p
.0
de
forum/i
m/
n
co
Pregnant...?
Hungry...?
Sid
SteveB
Just noticed the side dishes...
grapes and salad.
mmmmm!! I've been poking them
in my eyes and there's no mention
of not doing that in the
instructions. Do I have a case for a
bit of compo?
Man that's some ground breaking
dish. Imagine coming home from a
hard day down the pit, and the
wife laying on a spread like that!
'What's for tea love'
'Baked Bananas and ham coverd in
a hot mayonnaise like sause'
'Bananas and what??? Where's the
chips'
'There aren't any, but I've done up
a nice bunch of grapes to go with
it'
Paul McMahon
Sid
mmm mmm.........mmmmmm And
you can make sandwiches with the
leftovers! As 70s food goes.. this is
edible Glam Rock!
The seventies answer to stella!
The Glue Man
Paul McMahon
Seventies food eh? My wife still
talks about the time when curries
always had pineapple and
sultanas. None of yer authentic
rubbish then.
...or are you just pleased to see
me?
Sid
Liz
nice between a couple of thick
slices of Soreen, Paul
Paul McMahon
I'm definitely going to heave.
Si Davies
Having clicked on the topic and
not had the picture appear for a
short time I was somewhat
confused as to the meaning of the
original post - surfice to say, when
the picture did appear I was
somewhat relieved, it wasn't quite
as bad as the conclusion that I'd
come to regarding the OP. Having
said that, I've heard that it is quite
nice fried up with some onions,
but she'd probably not feel that
hungry moments after giving
birth....
Basil W Brush
I was always disappointed (god
knows why) that Mrs Brush never
had any of these fabled odd
cravings during her pregnancies.
I've always wondered what a coal
omelet tastes like.
How to use Chop
Sticks
Basil W Brush
ve just found these
instructions on how to use
chop sticks.
No wonder I was finding it
difficult. I was doing the 5th
picture down.
Melton
Its a fact your tastebuds
deteriorate with age. I think
everyone remembers a food from
their youth that as a special
memory. Mine is pie and chips
from a local chippy
when I was 15 everythink in the
world was just right and I had just
snogged a middle aged woman. I
occasionally snog a middle aged
woman now but the pie and chips
are not so nice
Pcolbeck
But if you smoke for 20 years then
give up its like getting your
teenage taste buds back I had a red
wine epiphany about two weeks
after stopping smoking. I really
couldn't believe something tasted
that complex and absolutely
fantastic (and it wasn't a
horrendously expensive bottle just
a decent supermarket plonk). This
was one of the main things that
kept me off fags.
Brummiebackpacker
My mate started smoking again
after stopping for 6 months
because he couldn't stand the
new taste of beer!!!
Pcolbeck
I'm not suprised. The hops part of
the flavour stands out a lot more
when you stop smoking, luckily I
like that.
Awful Quiet
Beer is good!!!! Mmmmmm...
beeerrrrrrr!!! (going to get a beer
now... )
Kathy Pike
Oooh, that'd go nicely with the
borscht I'm just finishing.
mmmmmmmmmm meat trifle!
Food tastes sh*t
when you get older
15
ACF Best of… Freewheeling
16
17
16
17
ACF Best of… DIY
welcome
to my
world
This section of Another Cycling Forum is about
my plans to beat the GUINNESS record for
cycling round the world.
Nick H
DIY
I
hope to start my record attempt
in April 2006. In the meantime
I’m a bit busy ‘cos I’ve got the
builders in. Look at this fat bastard
who I snapped on my roof the
other day, demolishing a chimney.
He’s got manboobs! Let’s a have a
closer look at this tub of lard. Oh.
It’s me. Looks like the wind has got
in my shirt. You can tell that I’m
really a finely honed cyclist
because I’m wearing a Colnago
cap.
18
Confession time: I really am 13
stone 4lbs (186 lbs/84 kg) which is
at least 30 lbs (13 kg) too much,
probably because the only exercise
I've had in the last 12 months is 30
miles of cycling. Last year I had a
three month cycling holiday in
which I covered about 3000 miles
(4800 km). For the previous 17
years I didn’t push a pedal; I’m a 43
year old born-again cyclist. But
I’ve convinced myself that I can do
an 18,000 mile lap of the Earth in
120 days, covering 150 miles (240
km) per day. The current record is
299 days, or 60 miles/100 km per
day.
…the
vending
machine
for selling
English
schoolgirls’
used
knickers to
Japanese
business
men…I
could go
on..
Conventional wisdom says that
riding around the world requires a
mountain bike or a sturdy touring
bike. But I’ll be using a racing bike.
So I’ll be dishing out severe
punishment to some exotic bits of
carbon fibre and titanium. I’m
paying for all my gear, so I can
afford to be brutally honest about
what works and what doesn’t;
there’s nothing more irritating
than a sponsored ‘adventurer’ who
goes fishing for freebies and plugs
them relentlessly even if they’re
rubbish. I hope that my fellow
cyclists will be able to learn
something from my stint as a
globe-trotting test lab.
But I also hope that manufacturers
who are pleased with what I say
about their products will respond
by donating something to my
chosen charities. There are two
charities I hope to raise money for:
Cancer Research and the Back-Up
Trust. I am paying all the costs of
the ride myself, so don’t send me
any money – just send it to
whichever charity you want to
support. If you have trouble
picking one,
please give to
both!
"Come and
meet Jan "
I dreamt up the
idea for this ride
last November in
San Francisco
when I ordered
my lovely new
Serotta. Since
then I’ve been mulling it over, but
haven’t dared tell people because I
have a terrible track record for
unfinished projects. Well, not just
unfinished projects, but fantasy
projects which barely get started.
There was the trans-Sahara
exploration by motorbike, the race
against the Eurostar (also by
motorbike), the seaplane service in
the South China Sea, the electric
tricycle London taxi, the vending
machine for selling English
schoolgirls’ used knickers to
Japanese businessmen…I could go
on.
Pedalling a bicycle for a few
thousand miles seems quite
sensible by my standards. I’ve got
the bike, and I’m well on the way to
getting enough time and money.
So I thought it was time to start
some serious preparation. Which
meant I had to go public with my
plans. The first person I told was
Stefan, the boss of the firm that
makes the fabled Lightweight
carbon fibre wheels. They are the
most expensive bicycle wheels I
know of. Each one costs twice as
much as my car. They’re hand made
by Stefan and his colleagues, and
there’s always a long waiting list
for them because so many
professional racers want them.
Everyone from Armstrong to Zabel
has bought them, even though
they have to pay for them with
their own money. Stefan doesn’t
give them to the pros, but they still
insist on them even though they
are offered free alternatives by
Zipp, Bontrager, Mavic et al.
I have a bit of a weakness when it
fine, and only a few grams heavier
Fizik Arione or Brooks Swift –
haven’t decided yet
Thomson Masterpiece seat post –
it will bear the weight of nearly all
the luggage
Carbonsports Lightweight
Obermayer wheels. Bought the
Lightweights out of lust, and then
justified it by noticing that they are
zero maintenance – you can’t even
true the spokes because they’re
glued on!
comes to paying silly amounts of
money for the ultimate bit of kit.
So I bought some. Not just
standard Lightweights, but the top
model Obermayers, which not even
Lance has. They’re very
aerodynamic, but they’re probably
no quicker than ordinary wheels at
the lowly speeds I shall be cycling
at across Nebraska or Northants or
New South Wales. They’re a few
grams lighter than cheaper wheels,
but what difference will that make
when I’m already lugging several
kilos of tent and saucepans? But
they are very, very beautiful, and I
get instantly cheered up just by
staring at them and revelling in the
aura projected by their
workmanship. They are also said
by Carbonsports to be stronger
than any other wheels, and
maintenance free. All the
components are glued together, so
they can’t even be trued; one less
job for me! The only way you can
hurt them is to cut the carbon and
kevlar spokes. If that happens,
you’re stuffed. There’s no chance of
a roadside repair; you have to send
them back to the factory in
Friedrichshafen to be rebuilt.
Damn! He called my bluff. So I’ve
bought my ticket to
Friedrichshafen, where I’ll have to
tell Jan and Erik. And they’ll
probably call my bluff too, so I’ll
just have to cycle round the bloody
world. The shame of doing it
badly would be unbearable, so I
shall have to do it brilliantly, and
smash the record to smithereens
so that nobody can grab it back off
me before I get to see my name in
the Guinness Book of Records.
Conventional wisdom says that
carbon wheels crumble whenever
you ride them through a pothole.
So they must be kept for racing
only (when they just might save
you vital seconds) and you should
never risk damaging them by using
them for training. The notion of
using them for touring is held to
be so idiotic that no-one even
needs to issue an edict on how
idiotic it is. It’s unthinkable.
Serotta F3 forks - er…because they
say Serotta on them?
It’s 6 months until I leave, so
there’s plenty of time for testing
and changing the spec – so please
pitch in with your thoughts. Try not
to suggest any expensive changes I’m feeling a bit strapped right
now! God knows how much I’ve
spent but it can’t be too far short
of ten grand. (full spec with pics at
http://bikereader.com/forum/index.
php?topic=5068.0).
Carbonsports Lightweight brake
blocks – claimed to work in the
wet. I'll let you know
Dugast tubs – a new hard-wearing
model, using a synthetic casing
instead of cotton or silk (I think).
They’re not yet released. They will
be 25 mm. I chose Dugasts for their
reputed comfort. And anyway, the
wheels aren't made in a clincher
version.
Tune bottle cages – because they’re
fun and they look well blingin'.
Here’s what I’ve bought, and why:
Serotta Ottrot ST frame – for
comfort. I chose a sloping top tube
for maximum seat post length,
which makes luggage fitment a bit
easier
Chris King NoThreadset headset –
because everyone likes it
Deda Synapsi integrated bars and
stem – so I can ride hands-together
in a semi-TT position for better
aerodynamics
Ultegra 10 speed triple levers and
mechs – because I wanted 30
speeds and Dura Ace 10 speed
triple wasn’t available. I rejected
Record because it feels sloppy and
has 4 gear levers, not 2 (a Shimano
patent) and because the Shimano
brake hoods are very comfy to cling
to when climbing
Dura Ace cassette and chain – well,
gotta have a bit of Dura Ace
somewhere
Rotor RS4 ti triple crankset – for
reduced wear and tear on the body
Look Keo ti pedals – completely
unnecessary. My old Looks were
Without them I couldn't hold my
head up at weightweenies.com.
They seem strong too. 750 ml Tacx
bottles are on order.
Carradice SQR Tour bag – the
biggest wedge bag I could find. I’m
determined not to use panniers
because of the drag
Jandd frame bag (not pictured) –
it’s ugly, but I’d rather have it than
be handicapped by the drag of a
bar bag
Ciclosport HAC 4 computer (not
pictured) – to keep me amused. It
measures heartbeat, altitude,
cadence and power output!
Follow Nick H’s diary at:
http://bikereader.com/forum/
index.php?board=71.0
But when I emailed Stefan to ask if
Lightweights would be suitable for
circling the globe on rough roads,
with luggage but without a
support car, he said it was a
marvellous idea. Then he said
“We’re having an open day at the
factory. Ullrich and Zabel will be
there, and so will the media. Come
and meet them – I want to tell
them what you’re doing. Bring your
bike and we’ll all go for a ride
afterwards.”
Here's my bike
God knows
how much
I’ve spent
but it can’t
be too far
short of ten
grand…
Zero Gravity ’05 ti brakes – got
carried away by saving a few
grams. Why??
19
s
n
a
i
b
s
e
l
6
,
o
m
i
Al
e
r
o
t
s
r
o
u
q
i
l
a
and
friend decides it is time to try out the margherita
reciepe that involves tequila, triple sec, limes
and...beer. We drink. Women, in pairs begin to arrive.
Eventually there are 6. They are all lesbians. I am the
only male. I am enjoying myself. The limo arrives, and
the driver eyes these women and then looks at me.
He is clearly trying to decide if I'm either a pimp, or
just very well connected. We all clamber in the limo.
Most limos have a mini bar. This one does too, but it
is empty. Utah again. We drive to the most down at
heel mexican restaurant I've ever seen. Authentic
would be too kind.
Speedy661
FREEWHEELING
I
intend to get as much milage
out of this story as possible, not
least because of its convenient
alliterative title. Here goes.
20
I work for a company based in
deepest Mormon Utah. Mormons
are hard working, largely opposed
to contraception, non-drinking and
do not consume tea or coffee, or
other 'warm, stimulating drinks'.
This results in a society rich in tiny
children, and many opportunities
to eat green jello ( jelly). Utah is the
largest consumer of jello in the US.
Many of the adults are also highly
caffinated. Coffee may be persona
non grata, but coke is almost
mandatory. I am, by the way, not, a
Mormon. I suspect you might have
gathered this, but clarity is a Good
Thing.
There are also a whole raft of
religious convictions that I am not
sufficiently au fait with to fairly
dissect. Sufficient to say that there
are a great many church based
meetings, societies, functions and
other intercourses that consume
many evenings and much of the
weekends. This can be rather
surprising to the unwitting visitor
who can find the streets as empty
as an alien abduction movie at
certain times of the week.
A friend of mine is a local. She is an
ex-mormon. The thing about exmormons is they tend to be
annoyed at feeling they've had the
wool pulled over their eyes for
however long, and consequently
don't leave quietly. Instead they
learn to drink hard, party well, and
generally don't pull their punches.
Despite the outward indications,
this is actually a very tough choice
for many, as it ostracizes them
from their community and often
their (large) families.
So, my friend has organized a night
out for her, me and a bunch of her
friends. She is straight, but for
some reason, all her friends seem
to be lesbians. (I perhaps am the
exception). Because no-one drinks,
taxis are not really needed -that
and every family seems to own an
SUV, a brace of nipponese
'compacts', a snowmobile, jetski,
boat and motorcrosser. There are
more CC's of engine displacement
per head than anywhere I've ever
been. I digress. So, no taxis. Thus
it becomes easier to rent a
limosuine than simply hail a cab.
It is 3.30 in the afternoon. My
The meal passes in a blur of burritos, quesadillas, and
the inevitable margheritas. There is much interest in
comparing the taste and potency of margheritas with
beer to those without. Several Mormon couples enter
our section of the restaurant, see us, and leave. We
are happy.
Eventually the limo returns. We pile back in and head
home. At this point, one of the girls (an Aussie, of
course), decides that beer is an abosolute necessity,
and persuades the driver to divert to the liquor store.
There is only one in the town, which has a population
of about 150,000. It is tiny, and the limo occupies the
whole car park. There is much gawping from passers
by. The girls leap out and in short order we are
furnished with beer, (3 kinds), wine, amaretto, brandy
and something violently orange. Thankfully the
empty mini bar does have glasses, and we are able to
generate some interesting kinetic cocktails. I manage
to open the sunroof and am able to get some nice
fresh air whilst watching the passing scenery and
supping my concoction. This generates much hilarity
from the girls and no amount of opprobrium from
the world at large.
We arrive back, disentangle ourselves from the limo,
give the driver some beer, and proceded directly to
the hot tub with our...iced tea, displacing a very
surprised mormon in the process.
So there I am, in a hot tub with liquor and half a
dozen inebriated lesbians. I shall leave the rest to
your imaginations.
Mark
4677.0
hp?topic=
m/index.p
ru
o
/f
m
o
ereader.c
http://bik
cu tom
Cyclists appreciate the craftsmanship involved and don't want to
appear mealy mouthed about things…
Paul McMahon
I've taken delivery of the Longstaff
compact audax (the one from the
C+ review). It's early days, but the
first outing (a 100km audax on
Sunday) was delightful. I'll review
the bike more fully after a few
more miles/ks. Here I want to have
a moan about the price. Or, more
specifically, the lack of a price until
the 11th hour.
It was about June that I went for a
fitting for the bike. At that time,
the website was advertising the
105/Centaur equipped bike
("Complete machine to set
specifications") at £1425.00. The
Ultegra/Chorus model was £1725. I
chose Chorus.
Several emails were exchanged
regarding tweaks, colour and kit. I
wanted an off-spec set of 'bars and
saddle. On several occasions, I
asked for confirmation of the price,
explaining that I assumed it would
be the one on the website. I was
told it would be confirmed.
However, I was most unhappy to
be told when the bike was ready
for collection that it would cost
£2300. I felt I had been suckered
into committing to a bike which
was much more expensive than
the price the shop knew I expected
to pay. In the end, a compromise
was reached, and I got a centaurequipped bike (with chorus BB and
cassette) for £1880.
I know I'm lucky to be able to
afford such a bike. And it is a very
beautiful machine. But is this
vagueness on prices typical in the
PH
I thought this was
shocking when you
first posted about
it, I hope the bike
lives up to it’s
reputation and is still giving
pleasure long after this nastiness is
forgotten. I look forward to
seeing it. I spoke to a friend with
two Longstaffs, a tandem and a
tourer, for both he received a
technical drawing and detailed
quote before confirming the order.
Looks like standards of service have
dropped.
Alchemy
I think they should be able to give
you a fairly accurate price when
you place the order. And they
should certainly contact you if that
changes at any stage while it's
being built, to make sure it's OK.
600 quid is a big difference. Not
good enough in my book
The Glue Man
Unfortunately it's far from
uncommon for custom builders to
do this and it leaves a sour taste on
what should be a good day.
Charlotte
Not Acceptable in a big way.
I would have kicked up a bigger
fuss prior to delivery and made it
very clear that I would be writing
letters to the cycling press as well
as posting my views to fora like
this.
I would have explained that the
last thing I would want is to bring
down the reputation of one of the
UK's last proper custom frame
builders, but if they couldn't
provide a decent level of customer
service, then I'd have no
alternative. I think you should
write a polite, but insistant letter
of complaint, copy it to a variety of
relevant periodicals and inform
Longstaff that you will be
forwarding their response to those
recipients. Then see what happens.
Paul McMahon
Actually, a letter is on the cards.
PH
How common is it?
Mercian lost an order from me by
not being willing to confirm a price
before order. Both Hewitt and
Thorn had no problem quoting
within hours of an enquiry and I've
received written quotes from
Roberts and Bob Jacksons.
The Glue Man
From personal experience and
asking around some builders like to
leave it open, relying on the
bespoke, money is vulgar, we're
artists angle, while others want to
know your budget.
Cyclists appreciate the
craftsmanship involved and don't
want to appear mealy mouthed
about things so bite the bullet. On
the one hand it's less than half the
price of the cheapest car and
should be around for years, on the
other it can be four times the price
of an equivalent built and
equipped bike and is after all, a bag
of tubes with the ends melted.
These days I'd drive home my top
whack to the point of being boring
(make it a nice round memorable
figure) and ask if they still want
the job. The etiquette of it would
astound the general public but we
grin and bear it.
Frenchie
I initially had to press Mercian
about pricing as well, BUT they
delivered within the agreed price
bracket so I can't complain. I liked
the work they did and I have my
fixed with them for some TLC at
the moment; so I hope it still holds
true! I feel you have been very
understanding Paul, esp. as you
faced a fait accompli. I am very
happy you enjoy the bike, but sorry
for you that the experience was so
painful. It certainly puts the brand
down for me.
When the frame was ready, I
visited the shop to finalise colour
and kit. I still wanted Chorus. Apart
from the saddle and bars,
everything else was to be standard.
Several days later, I got an email
saying that the price would be
"nearer to" £2000. This was
because the website was out of
date, and chorus was now 10, not 9,
speed. I wasn't delighted, but I
wasn't too surprised either.
industry? Why can't retailers be
more upfront about prices?
ACF Best of… Knowledge
21
ACF Best of… Race & Training
Race and
training
http://bikereader.com/forum/index.php?board=53.0
Racing
Si Davies
People on here seem a pretty laid back bunch of fellows who enjoy the journey
more than the arrival, so just wondering if any have done any racing and what
they thought of it - why do you do it or conversely why did you give up on it??
Personally I started racing MTB XC back in the early 90s. I'd only just started
biking so was in the novice class and normally finished mid field. Although did manage
a top five once in Sport class but that was on a course that was more like a CycloX than
MTB - lack of real technical stuff and plenty of hard long drags. Gave up racing because to
do any good you had to do all that training stuff and I'd rather be out doing the kind of
riding that I fancied on the day than have to stick to any kind of structured training plan. Did
one dual slalum and somehow finished 3rd out of about 20, but then DS got all jumpy and
needed special bikes so gave up on that Then a few years ago tried MTB XC enduros. Much
better because normal riding was good training for it - didn't have to sacrifice fun rides.
Again, finished mid-field normally, although did quite well at the Mountain Mayhem 24 as
part of a team. But gave up on that because of the extortionate cost - nearly £50 to enter a
race!!!! So now I only do the club hill climb once a year, which I've won twice but that's not
as good as it sounds - it's not a racing club. So, anyone else ever fancied a bit of racing but
been put off by the rigors of training needed and ultra competitiveness of some people that
one meets in racing (sure we'd all like to win but pushing people into trees ain't the way to
go about it).
Kitzy
I did my first cyclo-cross season when I was 5 , and then did practically every race in the
Wessex league until I was 12. After that I moved into the Junior category and got so
disheartened by racing against 16 year old boys that I gave up. I've done a couple of races
since then, but not many. 2 seasons ago I started timetrialling and did quite well for the first
season. Then last year I started my gap year and have been travelling so much that I didn't
make much of an effort on timetrialling. This year I havn't done any. The Boxing Day Fancy
Dress 10 is always fun though . Last year I went as a pirate, and the year before as a fairy. I've
never done any proper circuit racing or road racing, when I was 14 I did a few races at
Thruxton, but nothing since.
Spesh
22
I did two seasons of MTB XC racing in the Sport category, usually finishing in the middle
third of the field - assuming that I hadn't crashed or had a mechanical failure. I gave it up for
similar reasons to Si, having realised that to be properly competitive required having no life
outside of training and racing. Plus I lost a season due to involuntary work commitments. I
can't say that I'm all that tempted to have another go...
Paul McMahon
I raced 2 bmx-ers the other evening. Does that count? I caught up with them (they were just
pottering along) at the top of a short hill. They decided to take me on, legs going like the
clappers on their single speeds, while I just coasted down the other side. They were just
about keeping up, and one turned to me and said: "Blimey, they must be good bearings!" I
nearly explained that, being a good deal heavier than he was, gravity had much more to say
to me than him, but I decided that he didn't need to know that and, with 3 turns of my
pedals, I was gone...
Vinegar for
Recovery
Andy Gates
Okay, I wonder if some
of you sports-science
brains can help me
on this one. I get in
from a ride or a hard commute
or from lifting a bunch of weights,
and I'm a slumpy zombie for a
while. Now, sometimes I'm craving
water and salt - it's obvious there
that I've borked my eletrolytes, and
ZING! up I get shortly after. And
sometimes I crave sugary
goodness, so a banana-honey
sandwich or a Tunnock's Caramel
Wafer and ZING! up I get shortly
after 'cos it puts back that depleted
glycogen. But why sometimes do I
crave vinegar? Salt, nothing. Water,
nowt. Sugar, barely a twitch. And
then some pickle or a rollmop or
even just a teaspoon of freakin'
vinegar and ZING! back to life, back
to reality. I'm baffled
bards and warriors
Vinegar is a housewive's cure-all,
commonly used before we got all
prepackaged about medicine. It has
a long and impressive history. It
was found that acetic acid, the
principal constituent in vinegar,
played an important role in the
release of energy from fats and
carbohydrates. Vinegar also
participated in the development of
fats, glucose, amino acids and
hemoglobin (the red pigment in
the blood that supplies the body
with oxygen
Sam
Kitzy
Like Paul, I only race unofficially. In my case the competitive spirit revives whenever I'm in
London, stopped at a red like the good boy I am, and watch a cyclist(s) blow the light. Fueled
by a kind of righteous annoyance, it's very rare that I haven't passed them within a block or
two, proving that lost momentum isn't a real handicap when going from A to B. I can't really
explain why I do this but it always feels good. I also do my level best on hills (though not out
in the country, where I take my good old time).
Andy Gates
I thought cravings for pickled
onions were normal?
Well they are, but *why*? I can
make a good biochemical excuse
reason for everything else!
Rae
And there is nothing strange about
drinking a pint or so of vinegar
from the jar after you have eaten
the picked onions...is there??My
wife considers this to be my
number one worst habit
Charlotte
Ewww! Gross!
Racing Licence
blackpuddin
onnabike
I got my racing
licence this weekend
after registering with the Scotia
Cycle Speedway Club (soon to be
Edinburgh CSC). It says on it that
it's a 'Provisional' Licence.
What does this mean?Could I use it
to enter, say, some MTB XC races
next summer? I also noticed that
the bronze membership of the BCF
doesn't bring with it insurance
benefits.... Might have to
upgrade....
Y tin
Hmmm, not sure about down
south, but up here in sunny
Scotland, you can't race with a
bronze membership, you need to
have at least silver.
Gonzo
Yeah, you can't race on a bronze
membership. You'll need to get a
silver one. You can only get day
licences with which you cannot
accumulate points.
blackpuddin
onnabike
You expect me to win points
do you need one for XCing these
days?? Back in my day you didn't,
assuming that you were in the
mere-mortal categories of
fun/nov/sport/expert?
blackpuddin
onnabike
That's something else I need to
find out. At the mo definitely in
'nov' as regards fitness, and maybe
'sport' for ability - but training for
running the Edinburgh marathon
next year should see my fitness
match the ability and some fun
ensue.
Gonzo
Sleepless in the
Saddle
There were only 13 people who
turned up at the start line and so
everyone was feeling confident of
getting some points as all of the
top 6 places do! It was just
unfortunate that it was drizzling
and windy and we all got frozen to
the bone while the intracies of the
course were explained which, if you
ask me, sounded more like an
audax direction sheet!
fter 6 months of
training and a week of
last-minute
preparations (eating
lots and lots and
wondering if I have enough spare
inner tubes/the right tyres),
tonight I'm off to Catton Park for a
weekend at Sleepless in the Saddle.
As a Soloist.
The race started off with several
confused riders taking the wrong
turn on the first lap due in part to
the complete lack of cones to tell
us where to go! Regardless, after
several laps a nice hard session was
done on the front by someone,
which got the pack down to 6
people. As I knew that I can't
corner and that if I could build on
this lead to get the other 7 too far
off the back of my leading group to
get back on, I could be guaranteed
points. Therefore as I came into the
nice long headwind section, I put
into training all that time in Kent
and went past the front screaming
at those behind to hop on. While
people in Bath generally know how
to climb hills, there is mostly never
too much of a problem with wind! I
never assumed that I was that
good at riding through a headwind
though, but when I finished my
turn there was only one rider on
my wheel, and he just happened to
be from Essex. Essex is just about
the windiest place I have ever
ridden due in part to their
remarkable lack of variation in
their topography. After that it was
just a simple case of working
together to get to the finish line.
As he had already accumulated 4
points this season, he only needed
4th place to get up to 3rd cat,
whereas I needed all 6 from the
win for promotion, so it was
decided that I would finish first.
This was great in theory, but when
we noticed that there was a
chequred flag where there should
have been a one lap to go board, I
had to sprint for it anyhow to get
around my breakaway companion.
Now instead of cruising in the 4th
cat bunches, I am going to have to
learn how to race properly!
Skinny
For the uninitiated this is a 24 hour
MTB race, normally done in teams
of four or five. For some odd reason
at the start of the year I resolved to
enter the solo category. So from 2
PM Saturday until 2 PM Sunday, I
shall be mostly riding round an XC
course suffering increasing degrees
of pain, hunger, sleep deprivation
and distress.
It was nice knowing you all.
BentMikey
AS A SOLOIST? My shattered
nerves, that's gotta be incredibly
tough!
BasilWBrush
Just so you will be able to think
about what's going on in
Birmingham as you do that Skinny;
just as it gets dusky the family
Brush will be sitting down in an
Italian restaurant in Moseley to a
monumental pig out.
Oh, sorry! Doesn't that help?
Skinny
I'm still alive. Tired and sore, but
alive. 18 laps of a VERY BUMPY 6.7
mile course completed. 123.6 miles
in 13hours 30min according to the
computer. Bit disappointed as I lost
it psycologically at 1AM, jacked it in
for the night and didn't go out
again til 8.30 I'll do a report-type
thingy when I'm a bit less dazed
and confuse.
Si Davies
1St WIN !
23
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a
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nu
/index.php?topic=462.0
http://bikereader.com/forum
chaRlotte
goes racing
Charlotte throtles some bloke on the rollers
So there I am, unloading Christopher, my Columbus steel
road bike out of the boot of my team mate’s car and
watching all the elite riders arriving in their campervans,
minibuses, people-carriers and big, posh cars.
charlotte
race and training
24
D
o you ever remember that
television programme with
Chris Searle, “In at the Deep
End”? Each week, our hapless
presenter would be faced with
some amazingly daunting, possibly
dangerous and usually very
difficult challenge and would have
to measure himself up against
people who had been doing
whatever it was for years. I never
can remember the ratio of
programmes where he succeeded
to the ones where he didn’t, but it
always seemed to me that he
coped rather better than I would
under similar circumstances.
Maybe that was the idea.
I mention this because at 8am on a
Saturday morning, standing on the
tarmac at Milton Keynes Bowl cycle
racing circuit, I was beginning to
develop a deep sympathy for Mr
Searle and his many predicaments.
It would not be entirely fair to say
that I had been hoodwinked into
entering the Bedford three day
stage race, but I was getting the
distinct impression that when our
team captain had said “just come
along and give it a go”, she wasn’t
necessarily holding forth with all
the salient facts.
The Three Days of Bedford is an
international stage race, held over
the May Bank Holiday weekend
and comprising five events. A
number of sponsored, professional
teams take part and there were at
least thirty elite riders in a field of
over a hundred entrants. Teams
had come from all over Europe and
some girls from even further afield.
…I was
going to
decorate
the
tarmac
with my
breakfast
There’s a prologue – not so much a
time trial as a one-lap, 1.5km madarsed dash against the clock.
Then there’s a criterium, a fifty-odd
kilometre race round the same
twisty little circuit. The following
day, there’s a proper time trial
(albeit a little briefer than usual at
just short of 10k) and a road race in
the afternoon. The final day sees
a longer road race, with some hills
thrown in just to keep everybody
on their toes.
So there I am, unloading
Christopher, my Columbus steel
road bike out of the boot of my
team mate’s car and watching all
the elite riders arriving in their
campervans, minibuses, peoplecarriers and big, posh cars. No
sooner do they arrive, than people
start scurrying about, setting up
turbo-trainers, collapsible
armchairs and so on. A vast array
of tall, fit and impossibly healthy
!
O
G
young ladies are busying
themselves with assembling their
bikes, mixing energy drinks and
eating bananas. I wander over to
the HQ to register.
the first bend. I could still hear
the shouting from behind me, “go
on, love – give it some welly!” and I
kept pushing and pushing until I
got to the second corner and had
to back off a little to get round.
Queuing up to hand over my
suspiciously shiny and new race
licence to the guy behind the
trestle table, I am alarmed to see
the sheer quantity of very, very
serious looking women and their
very, very serious and expensive
looking bicycles. Although I am
well aware that It’s Not About The
Bike, I can’t help feeling that they
must be looking upon me in the
same way that I hold my nose up
at the teenager on the creaky
Halfords mountain bike that I pass
on the way to work. I make a
mental note to avoid bike snobbery
in future.
I exchange my licence for a set of
race numbers and a variety of
goodies, bottles and sample packs
of energy products and wander
back to the car park to talk tactics
with the ladies of The Mighty
Twickenham. Sadly, there’s not a
lot that you can do to improve your
performance in a prologue when
there’s only an hour to go before
the off and the only advice that
they could give me was “warm up,
make sure you start in a low gear
and properly clipped in, then pedal
like crazy until you cross the line”.
Seemed simple enough, really…
I asked him if he could give
me a little bit more of a
shove than he did with the
other girls, “about half
way round the course, if
that’s OK by you”, but I
don’t think he got the
joke…
Fifteen… Ten… Five, four, three,
two, one, GO!
I was off.
I heaved on the bars as I put as
much power down as I could,
changing up as I accelerated into
fifteen…
ten…
five,
four,
three,
two,
one
Once I’d stopped feeling like I was
going to decorate the tarmac with
my breakfast and I’d had a chance
to spin for ten minutes, I headed
back to the Twickenham compound
(i.e. the tailgate of Antonia’s estate
car) and dug out some food from
my rucksack. Not for me the
glamour of sports energy products
- lunch was a banana, two cheese
rolls and an out-of-date cereal bar.
About half way round, I realised
that I was going to have to back off
just a little or I’d totally mess it up,
so I concentrated on keeping my
power output steady whilst
getting low down on the drops and
staying as aero as I could on a
standard road bike. I powered
round the penultimate corner with
nothing in my head other than the
intense, red-hot feeling that
everything was about to explode
and I felt my legs telling me that
they didn’t much like this sprinting
business thank you very much.
The afternoon’s race was scheduled
to start at 1:30 and that gave me
an hour and a half to prepare
myself. In reality, this meant more
time to fret and fiddle with my
bike. At least it gave me some
time to digest lunch, although I
very much doubted that what I had
eaten was enough to fuel me
through what was to come.
The finish line was on a straight
with just a slight incline and as I
had no need to changing gear any
more, I moved my hands right to
the back of the drops and relaxed
my upper body, feeling all the
energy I had left being channelled
though the sole plates of my shoes.
That last hundred metres felt
much longer than the couple of
seconds that it took, but I finally
crossed the line and was able to
slump over the top tube, heaving
and panting.
I learned an important racing
lesson on the start line of the Crit.
Get there early! I’d been warming
up and came to the end of my lap
to see an already crowded start
line, full of girls jostling and
pushing to get themselves closer
to the front. Some were even
riding round the bunch on the
grass and then elbowing their way
into the stationary pack. I very
much doubted that any of these
young ladies were Sorbonne
graduates…
I stayed clipped in, turned and still
gasping for breath, headed in the
opposite direction to find
somewhere to warm
down.
I needed to
dissipate the lactic
acid in my
muscles, as I
didn’t want to
mess myself up
for the Crit in
the afternoon.
Anyway,
everyone else
was doing it and collapsing
on the grass like a numpty was not
going to be on the agenda.
The Commissaire gave a short
speech, telling us that we’d be off
in a minute and that he was just
waiting to hear that all the
marshals were in place. He
reminded us that lapped riders
would be pulled out at five to go
and told us to be careful as it was a
large field on a small circuit. Boy
was he right.
In truth, I felt a little
underwhelmed at the experience.
I knew that I had not put 100% into
in because I had needed to back off
From the very moment we were
off, the front of the pack went
mental. There were shouts and
calls in various languages and the
noise of grinding chains and cleats
being clipped in were almost
drowned out in my head by the
pounding of my heart.
The first
corner was a bit of a melee, with
people unsure of how to get round
safely and with riders from kerb to
kerb, this was obviously a major
I’d seen people time trialling before
and I’d taken part in a TTT a couple
of weeks ago, but I had yet to
experience a proper “being held up
before the off” type start. When
my number was called, I made my
way up to the line and the bloke
grabbed my bike for me, he could
see that I was so nervous, I was
visibly shaking. I asked what I
should do and got the same useful
reply – “When that bloke with the
clipboard over there says go, I’ll
give you a little shove and then you
pedal like hell.”
I’d ridden enough laps of the circuit
as a warm-up to have learned the
proper lines from the girls that I
was following and I knew just how
close I could come to the kerbs and
how careful I would have to be as I
leaned the bike over through the
tighter bends. What I hadn’t
prepared for was the sheer lungbursting pain that accompanies a
short, sharp prologue effort.
half way round. I somehow felt
that this was not right and that
the final effort had been sullied by
it. I was expecting to be roundly
trounced by the opposition, with
all their technical skills, training
and posh, whizzy bikes. In actual
fact, when the results came in, I
had scored a very respectable 38th
place. Yah-boo-sucks to the tri-bar
brigade!
25
worry. My fears were confirmed
when I reached halfway round the
first lap and calls went up of
“Crash! Watch yourself!” As I
approached, I saw one of the elite
riders from the front of the pack
laying by the side of the road, her
bike some distance from her. It
later transpired that she’d simply
gone into the corner too hard and
lost traction, slamming into a
wooden fence post and hurting
herself quite badly.
Moving to the other side of the
track, I got past the scene of the
accident and concentrated on not
taking part in one myself. Due in
part to the mixed range of abilities,
but also to the strong wind, the
pack was stringing out now and I
was somewhere in its middle. It
didn’t take long for the pack to
split, but ironically, after three laps
or so, the race was stopped to
allow an ambulance onto the
course to collect the fallen rider at
the halfway point.
Under the gaze of the officials, we
all lined up on the start line again.
We were under instructions to stay
in order and not to move forward
of anyone that we were riding
behind. Much like the disarray of
the massed start, it didn’t happen.
There was yet more pushing and
shoving and any order that might
have been established in the first
three laps was well and truly lost.
The Commissaire told us that he
was going to re-start the race with
25 laps to go and that we were to
take the first few hundred yards as
neutralised. Yeah, right…
26
So off we all went again,
thundering into the first turn and
this time there was more of a
distinction between packs. People
got strung out for a bit, but
eventually re-formed into little
groups and I quickly settled into
what I think was the second group.
Although I can’t actually be sure, it
has to be said. We spent the
majority of the rest of the race
grinding round the course at ever
increasing speeds. I got the hang
of cornering in a big way, realising
that it was none too different to
going scratching on my motorbike.
Look up, plan your line, easy in,
brake early if needs be, look at the
surface, drop your elbow, inside
pedal up, trust your tyres.
I found that my natural density
gave me a distinct advantage over
the lighter girls and the effects of
conservation of momentum
worked very much in my favour as I
barrelled into the turns. For us to
avoid getting lapped by the elite
pack, it was going to be necessary
to work as a team and one girl
took it upon herself to start
shouting at people to come
through a bit more. Although she
was quite obviously a bit of a
dragon, she was doing a well
needed job and getting people to
assume some of the responsibility
for our progress was, on reflection,
a Good Thing.
“No. 73, will you bloody well stop
wheel sucking and come through
now!!”
…will you
bloody
well stop
wheel
sucking
and come
through
now!!
“No. 89, it’s your turn – get up in
front if you want to ride with us!”
“No. 48, come on, wind it up –
we’re going to get passed if we
don’t sort it out!”
As it happened, we did get lapped
by the elite peleton. Although in
retrospect I’m disappointed that
we never managed to keep it from
happening, I can’t say that I was
quite so dismayed at the time, as it
meant that my race was shortened
by 7.5k and although this is a mere
bimble on a club ride, at full-on
race pace when your eyeballs are
glazing over with the effort, it’s a
bit of a bonus.
We got pulled out as we crested
the start/finish line and, rather
than warm down immediately, I
opted to bump up on the grass
with everyone else and watch the
finish. As I was riding back round
on the footpath, I noticed Janet –
our strongest rider, just ahead. It
turns out that she lost the lead
pack fairly early too and got lapped
herself.
When we saw them come round
for the last lap though, Nicky (our
sprinter) was still in the race and
we got to watch her come in with
the elite team riders, which was
quite gratifying. Spinning back to
the cars, we reflected that the race
Charlotte throtles
Christopher on the
road
had been a good one in as much as
the team got some points and
none of us had crashed. There
had been several more pile ups
during the course of the race and
as far as I was concerned, it wasn’t
surprising.
That evening was spent showering,
kneading out knotted muscles and
eating pasta in a local Italian
restaurant. According to the staff
there, Bedford has the largest
immigrant Italian population of
any UK town outside London. Bit
of luck if you’re staging a cycle
race, I’d say.
The following day saw the 9.7
kilometre time trial scheduled for
10am and we wanted to drive the
course of the afternoon’s road race
before that. As it turned out,
without us knowing, the route had
been altered such that even if my
navigation had been any good, we
still wouldn’t have been any the
wiser about where we were going
to be racing. Apparently there
was a team manager’s meeting the
day before announcing the route
change, but seeing as we didn’t
have a team manager as such…
After arriving at the HQ, signing on
again, putting my bike together
and warming up a bit, I set out on
the time trial course to get to the
start. The course went along the
B660, returning to the HQ and it
was useful to see the gradient that
I’d be testing on the way back.
Seeing as I was somewhere in the
middle of the running order, I also
got to watch competitors coming
the other way and observe the
pained expressions on their faces
as they laid down all the power
that they had. I was particularly
impressed with the rumbling noise
that the combination of tubs and
disc wheels make and prayed that I
wasn’t going to be the minuteman
for someone sounding like that.
Training with DrFerrari
NeilR
race and training
It all started as a co-incidence really. For
various reasons my calendar didn’t fit
with any of the usual training camps I’d
been to in Spain or Majorca in the past –
you know the sort of thing – warm
weather perhaps a few mountains, a
week of having a great time hammering
every day – only problem being of course
the inevitable post camp cold/’flu on
return to UK which at it’s worst meant
six to eight weeks off the bike and a
ruined season and at its best simply
allowed fitness levels to drop back to
where they were. And in any event a
camp was more a holiday than anything
else – when I got back I did the same
training as I’d always done and generally
as a consequence got more or less the
same results as I’d always done.
Certainly a definition of stupidity is
‘always doing the same thing and
expecting a different result’.
The rest of the Camp was spent on some
of the fundamentals underlying the
53x12 programme. Key amongst these is
the 1km uphill test – repeat rides up a
1km climb with slightly higher wattage
each time with Dr Ferrari extracting a
drop of blood to test lactate at the end
of each repeat. The exact same protocol
used for Armstrong and other
professional clients of Michele. So some
more unarguable numbers – well most
of us didn’t argue but one American
We also spent time practising some of
the key training elements underlying the
53x12 programme which is very carefully
structured around specific and
alternating cadences and varying heart
rates. This meant that when I finally
started on the training programme it
was all a bit clearer.
So I came back from Lanzarote a bit
thinner and a lot enthused. I was still
pinching myself at the unique
experience offered by being in such a
small group with continual input from
arguably the most successful cycling
coach the world has ever seen. However,
part of me was still a little sceptical that
what clearly has been very effective over
a long time with top athletes like
Armstrong wouldn’t be as effective with
someone like me who’s ambitions don’t
really nowadays stretch much beyond
Gran Fondo’s.
The approach I took therefore was ‘I’ll do
the programme exactly as sent every
week via internet and then we’ll see
how it goes’. To start with it did feel odd
as my body got used to higher cadences.
The first indication of the amount of
progress came on a weekend trip to the
Alps in mid May. I didn’t need numbers
to know that I was climbing Col de Croix
Fry not only a lot faster than last year
but also a lot ‘easier’ and at a much
higher average cadence.
So rather than give a boring reprise of
my other rides this year I’ll fast forward
to the Autumn Camp (again organised
by Sports Tours) held in Majorca at the
beginning of October. This was again an
excellent camp. It was great to meet a
lot of the same guys who’d been in
Lanzarote (and admire the racing
successes they’d had during the year)
aswell as make new friends and meet up
again with 53x12. In addition to Michele
and Pete from Sports Tours the other key
people are Stefano Ferrari with Fatima
Blasquez (3 times Spanish Olympian and
Tour de France feminin rider) helping
women riders on the rides and also
providing after ride massage. Because I
was ill at the beginning of the week I
had to carry out the key 1km test and
uphill time trial on my own with one of
Michele’s professional clients (a current
Tour de France rider) who’d flown out to
Majorca just to do the test to see if Dr
Ferrari would accept him as a client.
Same day, exactly the same test, he even
had to wait at one point while I had
blood taken. As I said at the time ‘how
cool is that! ‘
Anyway back to the numbers:
My VAM was 1200 mph (TdF rider was
1600 m ph). Importantly this is almost
exactly 20% higher than in Lanzarote.
I’ve lost 8 kg and now my body fat % is
10% - I think, pretty good for a forty
something fairly average rider. My watts
per kilo has also increased in line with
VAM, although still short of the magic
6.7 required to win the Tour is I think not
bad for me and hopefully with another 8
months or so on the programme will see
me to a gold medal in the Etape du Tour
and a top 500 placing in Nove Colli.
So overall what do I think of the 53x12
programme? It works. Just believe. I
thought I was fit but now am 20%
faster. Just think of the number of Tour
de France, Giro and World Cup successes
of Dr Ferrari. The only thing that is
different for the professionals is the
volume.It works. And it fits with the rest
of your life. The volume and organisation
of the sessions is such that it is much
easier to fit with a work and travel
schedule.It works. And you don’t get
sick. No overtraining on 53x12
programme.
And in addition to this I’ve had the
privilege of meeting and spending time
with Michele, Stefano and Fatima aswell
as the guys I’ve met on the camp. All
good friends and support for my opinion
that a lot of the nicest people are
cyclists.
As some of us older members of the
53x12 ‘family’ said – ‘I wish we’d known
all this 20 years ago!
So, I went to Lanzarote. Lots of scarily
skinny and fit looking people at the
airport – English, Irish, American and
Italian. This was then followed by the
ritual humiliation of the body fat check
and weigh in. I thought I was in
reasonable shape, however the man who
did the same checks on Lance said ‘16%’
which despite his impeccable Italian
good manners I couldn’t help but
interpret as ‘fat git’. The knife was
twisted a bit further by asking ‘had I
been doing much cycling recently’!
triathlete couldn’t believe them. I was
glad there were triathletes there – it
meant I wasn’t the slowest. We then
had a mountain time trial (more
numbers) for Michele to fine tune the
training levels indicated by the 1km test
results and a ‘fun race’ – this involved 2
riders being given a head start into a
head wind and then being chased down
over 40km by the peloton. Put like that it
doesn’t sound very much but no
description can really do justice to the
suffering involved in the chase.
27
ACF Best of… Ride
The
Dorset
Delight
Hummers
Ride
Route: 200k Audax around
North Dorset, no AAA, no ascent
details
Team details: 'Team Tan-Line':
consisting of Bomber, Kitzy and
Hummers
Ride Summary: An enjoyable
ride. Reasonably flat ride for 4 of
the 5 sections.
Prologue:
28
I posted a thread for this ride after
completing the Nello Century ride.
Of course, I was full of confidence
after completing that event and
was sure that with a regime of
regular 100-160k weekend and 5080k mid-week rides would mean
that this Audax would be a cinch.
Fast-forward nearly 3 months. With
only one 180k ride in early July
under my belt and my bike having
inexplicably gained (at least) half
stone after a beer/cream tea/pasty
fuelled holiday, I was less than
prepared for the event. Moreover,
my riding companions were junior
to me by 20 years and had done a
200k event the previous weekend
(taking in the IOW!!). Kitzy, as we
know, rides 100km just to buy the
papers!
Then there was the combination of
the route (through Dorset) and the
organiser. Don't get me wrong,
Pete Loake is a super chap but I
saw what one of his Dorset based
routes did to Charlotte and Kitzy
and was expecting lumpy-induced
suffering. Needless to say, 4 days
before the event date, the brash
confidence of June had evaporated.
If it wasn't for the fact that I was
going on a three-day epic through
France 10 days after the ride, I'd
have passed on it.
All great
rides
should
start with a So with trepidation, I duly sent my
of to Mr Loake and prayed
mug of tea cheque
for a mechanical breakdown on
from either route - around the 160k mark.
Stage 1:
a Church
All great rides should start with a
Hall or a
mug of tea from either a Church
Hall or a greasy spoon Caff. I
greasy
cannot convey to you the joy in my
when we turned up at
spoon Caff heart
7:40am and saw a portacabin
offering mugs of tea at a jolly
reasonable price. We did all the
signing up and I met Pete Loake.
I complimented him on his route
and remarked that on studying it
on the 4 OS 1:25000 maps it
covered, I was relieved that it
seemed to miss the 1 , 2 and 3
chevron minor roads that live in
Dorset. Pete just gave me an odd
look and made a strange laugh - as
did some bloke that looked like a
cross between a member of ZZ Top
and Sheldon Brown. I walked away
feeling just a little unnerved.
I had already made up my mind
that if I had any chance of finishing
the route, I had to resist the urge
to be in front and beat everyone
else. This meant either being right
up in front (highly unlikely) or, my
chosen strategy, right at the back
and out of sight of the group. In
the car I announced this to a
bemused Kitzy and Bomber - "No,
you youngsters must leave me
behind to die. I am an old man and
you have your lives in front of
you...." etc.
To achieve this, I had a secret plan;
wait for everyone to leave, lock
yourself in the toilet, come out 10
minutes later and then start your
ride. Unfortunately, I had not
foreseen the state of the toilets in
Dorchester and only managed 3
minutes in a cubicle that looked
more like a cattle pen. What is
Master/Sub-TV anyway? Is it like
the BBC for Submariners? Why
would it have a mobile phone
number? Needless to say, in less
than 3 miles I caught up with Kitzy
and Bomber and in 5 miles, the
majority of the group.
The ride to Sturminster Marshall
was flat but pretty. It is always
good to meet with other cyclists
and find out where they're from.
One couple had cycled down from
Cardiff the day before to take part
in the event. That’s hardcore!
We made good time and arrived at
the first control (44km) in just
under two hours to stuff our faces
with bananas and flapjack.
Stage 2:
We were the last to leave the
control and there was some
confusion over the route.
Eventually we turned up on a main
road and were able to work out
where we were on the map – no
harm done. Two veteran riders
appeared behind us on what
looked like veteran steeds with
matching legs.
ACF Best of… Ride
We rode together up through the
Tarrants and I found myself moving
up to the front with the intention
of talking to one of our newly
acquainted chums. Unfortunately,
he was not in a talkative mood and
I sensed he was a little put out that
an overweight lardy matched his
speed on what looked like a bike
held together by meccano and
cable ties. Oh well. I pulled away
and left him muttering under his
breath. The amble up through the
Tarrants was very pleasant and
soon we caught up with the main
group on the T by the main
Shaftsbury road. From here we had
to do a detour out to a village
called Ashmore. A pretty village but
with it came lumps. A familiar
feature of my cycling this year has
been an annoying power cut at
about the 30-50 mile mark. Sure
enough, my legs became like
jellyfish tendrils and I limped into
Shaftesbury on impulse power. I
was very glad we were going down
the zig-zags and not up them –
even though I nearly took out Kitzy
on one of the bends.
In Shaftesbury, our control, “The
John Peel Café” was chockers so we
went next door to a delightful little
caff. I had a pot of tea and a slice of
Apple cake whilst Kitzy and
Bomber tucked into bowls of what
looked like dog-sick mixed with
chunks of Avacado. The Homity pie
failed to tempt me to
vegetarianism and I went outside
to eat a Ginsters pasty like the
filthy meat murderer I am.
Stage 3:
We lost Bomber for a while. I’d left
him at the bar working out what
organs he could sell to secure
himself a pudding. Ah, Students!15
minutes later he arrived with a
huge plate of Apple pie. We
surmised that he had exchanged
sexual favours to get a slice that
big. After all, He does have a
mighty fine arse! Pete Loake was
also in the bar. I once again
remarked how pleasant the route
was and enquired as to what the
next section was like. “Undulating”,
the organiser retorted, just a little
tersely. Hmmmmmm. I left him
with the impression that we were
not the only people who felt we’d
got off lightly.
Stage 4:
“Undulating” Hmmmmm. An apt
description for this section. Steep
down hills and short but steep
uphill gave way to, well, just steep
uphill.
Dorset is full of place names that
offer clues as to it’s lumpy nature:
“Upwey”, “Higher Hapsden”
Wooten Fitzpaine”. It seemed that
in this section, if you could see an
escarpment, it was likely you had
to cycle up it. Fortunately I had
prepared Scapheapflyer III for such
an eventuality by readjusting my 7
speed shifters to only select the 1330 range on the 8 speed rear
cassette instead of the normal 1126. I never normally use the 36/30
combination but sensed that this
trip may require it. I wasn’t wrong.
Still, if it’d been all flat then it
would’ve been jolly dull. Apart
from losing traction on my rear
wheel going up one of the hills, it
wasn’t too bad!
I caught up with the two veterans
at Sherbourne just before our last
control. The one who had been
grumpy earlier informed me that
the hills were very easy and looked
at me as if I was something that
had been trodden into his cleats.
Kitzy and I came to the conclusion
that they were pixies and that we
should burn them at the next
opportunity as meeting with them
was invariably a prelude for
misfortune and/or discontent.
Stage 5:
This was the stage I was looking
forwards to the least. It looked
liked a straight 18 mile run down to
Dorchester but the A352 is a major
road with some four long uphill
slogs. Gritted teeth and judicious
use of the granny ring was
rewarded with evening sunshine
and 5 miles of downhill all the way
to Dorchester.
11 hours and 200k later, the finish
was in a pub, which on the face of
it was an excellent choice.
However, this was a Wetherspoons
pub where the empty beer pumps
are mere pub-furniture and the
this was a Wetherspoons pub where
the empty beer pumps are mere
pub-furniture and the staff are fans
of the Monty Python cheese shop
sketch
staff are fans of the Monty Python
cheese shop sketch.
For example:
“A pint of ‘Old Fartwelter please” “sorry, sir, it’s off” – “Ok, a pint of
‘Belch Eggy’ then” - “sorry, it’s off
too” – “Do you serve beer?” – “yes
sir, this is a pub sir” – “Well a pint
of ‘Silly Willy’ then” – “sorry sir,
that’s off too” – “you don’t have
any beer. Do you?” – “no sir” – “In
that case I shall be forced to drink
John Smiths”
You could try this with the desserts
too. One poor chap went to the bar
to buy a pint of Fortyniner (it was
off) and came back to find his
partially eaten meal cleared. Rather
than being offered a refund or a
replacement steak, he was offered
a choice from the full dessert
menu – compliments of the
manager - but only if he chose
strawberry ice cream and chocolate
fudge cake! Still, a pint of beer at
£1.69, what do you expect? Besides,
I had the last pint of Fortyniner.
A Great day, charming company
and a lovely ride. What more can a
man ask for?
A rather dull drag out of
Shaftesbury changed into a pretty
ride taking in Alfred’s Tower and
coming out just below Bruton.
Throughout our northward trend,
we’d been buffeted by a stiff
breeze but for the first time this
was at out tail as we turned south
and whizzed through Wincanton,
down through flat open
countryside to our next control, a
pub on the A30, Virginia Ash in
Henstridge. The bar boasted a full
range of ales. I looked at each one
as if they were beloved friends. It
was with a lump in my throat that
I turned away from them and
muttered the dreadful words “An
orange juice and lemonade, yes, a
large one please” – paying as much
as you would do for a pint of
Fortyniner. The route had been
comparatively flat and I sensed
there were lumps ahead so best to
be wise.
29
ACF Best of… Gallery
htt
p:/
/bi
ker
ea
de
r.co
m/
for
um
/in
de
x.p
hp
?to
pic
=6
325
.0
a trip
around
the
brompton
factory
Most Brompton's
are built to order,
so you can
specify what
colours you
would like. As the
main frame, rear
triangle and
handlebar stem
& forks can all be
different colours,
the frames are
stored in their
individual parts
waiting to be
assembled.
A Fold of Bromptons
This is Abdul
brazing part of
a frame. All the
frames are
marked with a
letter indicating
who brazed
them, Abdul's
work has an L
stamped on it
A lifetimes supply of cable
out for most of us,
perhaps enough for a days
assembly?
Zipperhead
rompton organised its
first ever factory tour on
October 15th. Visitors had
the opportunity to see
one of the UK's last
remaining bike
manufacturing facilities. The tour was
open to Brompton owners and
friends going to Cycle 2005. It began
at 9.30am and lasted one hour.
B
Visitors saw bike frames being
brazed, bikes being assembled and
quality inspection. They had the
chance to meet a lot of the people
who hand build the bikes: a very
different experience from getting a
bike imported from abroad.
Gallery
31
ACF Best of… gallery
This is one of the (hundreds) of jigs
used to build a Brompton, all made
in house. Fairly boring looking but
essential to the quality and
consistency of the end product
Stunning workmanship
A plethora of titanium back ends
One half of the hinge brazed onto
the forward part of the main frame
tube, ready to be brazed onto the
headtube. This is the result of a lot
of precision engineering.
Frames returned from being
powder coated
Wheels are laced up by
machine, but trued up by
a father & daughter,
28,000 of them every year
When you can
make them that
well, it's a
shame to cover
it with paint, so
if you want you
can have a
lacquered finish
to show off the
handywork
Madam Vice fondles a
pink tube
33
I want to go back
!!
!
!
!
!
s
u
o
r
e
ang
d
o
o
t
's
t
i
to bed... but
the garage. For some reason I have
brought a portable guitar stand
with me. I go back for the battery
pack. I set off for work at 7:55. I am
nearly 30 mins later than usual.
Bob Everick
What a morning - and it's only
9:30. I woke up, somewhat
abruptly, at 5:15 this morning with
a searing pain through my nose
and top lip. The wife had hit me in
the face with her wrist; apparently
in her sleep. However, it was my
fault. It was also my fault that the
blood from my nose and lip were
running onto the pillow.
In the mele it would appear that I
switched off the alarm; or at least
it was my fault that it didn't go off
at the usual 6:25. So, it was also my
fault that we got up at 7:05 rather
than the usual 6:30. It will no
doubt also be my fault that she's
missed her bus for the third
consecutive morning.
Still at least the dog enjoyed the
lie-in. He celebrated by wading
through 6 inches of mud on his
walk. It was my fault for letting
him apparently. At 7:30, rather than
setting off for work, I was washing
the dog. Having washed mud off
the dog I set about refilling the
bird feeders in the back
garden. We have 8 feeders.
It is a long job. I hung
the largest of the
feeders (which takes about 1kg of
seed) back on the nail. I bend
down to pick up the next feeder
only to be hit on the head by the
previous feeder as the nail on
which it has sat for the last
three years is pulled out of the
tree. I am now bleeding from a
head wound. It is again my
fault.
The wife
had hit me
in the face
with her
wrist;
apparently
in her
sleep.
However, it
was my
fault.
!
34
I eventually collect my cycling
gear and get the bike out of
the garage. I have forgotten
the battery pack for the
lights. I go back into the
house, go upstairs get the
pack and go back down to
Crossing the local park I am
accosted by a woman with a dog
as I try to pass by. The dog sees me
some way off and moves to the
side of the path. The woman then
begins a struggle to keep the dog
in the middle of the path. I
eventually pass the woman only to
be told that it's my fault that she
can't control the dog. The irony is
that the dog was trying to control
her.
Further into my commute on
another off-road path cycle there is
a pedestrian walking towards me. I
am as close the the left of the path
as I can get, she is as close to her
left. There is plenty of space. With
less than 5m of space between us
the woman moves sharply into my
path. I brake and stop. Her carrier
bag hits my front wheel. It is my
fault.
The wind in my face has caused my
lip to bleed again. The helmet has
caused my head to bleed. I wipe my
mouth with my hand. I have a
bloody smear on my wrist.As I look
down at my wrist as a sparrow flies
from around a parked van into my
chest. I now have a bloody mark on
my chest - I have killed a sparrow. It
is my third bird strike in a little
under two years.
I get to work at 8:40 to find that,
as ever, the showers are closed for
cleaning as they are most
mornings between 8 and 9. I
decide to complain to the building
manager - again. On my way to his
desk I notice the cleaners talking
around a coffee machine. I go back
to the shower area and put the
'closed for cleaning' and 'Wet floor'
sign into the cleaner's trolley. I
dump the whole lot in the corridor.
I shower. I notice that I have
brought a second pair of trousers
with me rather than a jacket. I have
a formal and off-site meeting with
a supplier at 11am which I will now
have to attend in shirt sleeves unless I can borrow a jacket
(again). I dry myself and put on my
shirt. It is not my shirt. I have
picked up one of a colleague. I am
6'1" and 14 stone. The owner of the
shirt is not.I look for my shirt. It is
on the floor, in a pool of water. I
have to dry my shirt under the
hand-dryer. I will now be attending
the 11am meeting in an expensive
but what will appear an unironed
shirt.
I eventually get to my desk and
look for my keys to get my laptop
out of my drawer. My desk keys are
in my panniers which are in a
locker in the shower room. I go
back to the shower room. I have
left my locker key on my desk. I
repeat my journey. I get back to my
desk and open my file drawer. I
realise that the laptop is in my
panniers - in the locker room. I go
back to the locker room. It is closed
for cleaning - I go in anyway. My
locker keys are again on my desk.
I again repeat my journey.
I get to my desk at 9:05 and open
e-mail. I have a message from my
manager wanting to know why I
missed the 8:30 dial-in. He didn't
invite me. It is my fault.
The meeting is re-arranged for
5:30pm. I call the wife and tell her I
won't be home until after 7pm. She
reminds me that we are going out
- at 7pm. Out of spite she cancels
the meal. It is my fault. Things can
only get better.
Bob
http
://b
ikere
ACF Best of… DIY
ader
.com
/for
um/
inde
x.ph
p?bo
ard=
55.0
M
Y
G
E
TDRH
OP and give me 40!
Workout 1
GUNNERbandits.
Morning, my bulk
I see we're all beefing up nicely. Protein consumption
looks good my friends. Think of all the animals dying
to cater for our anabolic growth.
PORK MY FRIENDS IS THE ANSWER!
Now that we are familiar with the various exercises,
and have put on a few pound of muscle, as well as
increasing our training poundage so we don't look like
a pack of nancy boys, we are going to reduce our
workload slightly. And also our time spent in the gym
But not our INTENSITY!!!!!!!
DO YOU HEAR ME!!!!!!!!!!!
NOT OUR INTENSITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NeilR
bog off - not until you get
some decent
airconditioning installed
in this gym. The
temperature in this gym is getting
unhealthy - cold showers and hard
work are needed my over healthy
friends. Although fear not when
the steroids really kick in you'll stop
having distracting libidinous
thoughts.
Gunner I feel that this gym is
starting to be one of those posing
gyms with mirrors everywhere brighter lights louder music and
more pain required!
GUNNER
Cuddy
Ruddy Norah....
GUNNER
RUDDY NORAH!!!!!!!!!
INDEED!!!!!!
I forgot to mention, maintain strict
form, at all times!!!!!!!!
I don't want to see weight being
tossed or swung about
MAINTAIN GOOD FORM, I TELL
YOU!!!!!!!!!
Workout 3
Core strength
Barbell curls 3 sets
Tricep pressdowns 4 sets
Weighted Incline Sit Up 4 sets
Cycling sit ups 3 sets 60 reps per
set
Shoulders/Legs
Military Press to front 5 sets
Upright Rows 5 sets
Dumbell Shrugs 3 sets
Leg press machine 7 sets
Thigh Extension 4 sets light
weight
You know the routine my oh so
thin chums
Push for 9-12 reps on each set, and
aim to increase weight on the bar
by about a pound each week
Hummers
13.2
Workout 2
I quite like the smell in here.
All manly and slightly erotic.
In, out, in, out, out, in, out out, in,
Don't
out out, in, out out, in, out out, in,
in, out out, in, out out, in,
forget, my out out,
out out, in, out out, in, out out, in,
out
stick like
Ooops! Another Hamster in
chum, that cubicle two please!?
we are not NeilR
the gym run Pilates classes?
putting on Does
Very good for core strength and
stability which is so impprtant to
fat but
us cyclists. There are also fringe
benefits if one's wife becomes an
muscle
exponent.
GUNNER
Fringe or flange benefits, Old
Chap?
NickNack
I must stop looking at stuff in the
gym. I feel knackered just thinking
about it.
This is really frightening stuff. My
HRM goes ballistic if I blink more
than 10 times a minute. I'm
sweating reading stuff. I'll just go
and lie down for a bit
Hummers
Will your regime work for someone
with a milk pudding rather than a
six-pack?
GUNNER
Humver, todays milk pudding is
tomorrows washboard as we used
to say when working out in
Vietnam in between firefights.
Stay angry my happy young friend.
Don't forget, my stick like chum,
that we are not putting on fat but
muscle, and muscle with power at
that
Stay hungry!
Didn't Rene Descartes say in his
treatise, that "The mirror is the eye
of a mans soul". I am sure that
some of us here get all the pain we
can handle when looking in the
mirro
CHEST/BACK WORK
Bench press 5 sets
Dips with weight 10kg 4 sets
Flyes 3sets
Bent Barbell Rows 5sets
Lat pulldowns to front 4 sets
Bicep pulldowns 4 sets
Cable Row Machine 4 sets
Dorsal raise from bench with 10kg
weight 4 sets incline sit up no
weight
35
ESSENTIAL BACKGROUND READING BEFORE YOU READ THIS http://bikereader.com/forum/index.php?topic=72.0
In pleasant anticipation of the
intellectual rigours ahead of me I
boarded the train to London-town,
my childhood home and the
setting for my early romance with
my future ex-husband Theodore. I
had decided to ride my new
Brompton, acquired under terms of
a settlement involving a certain
nautically employed person and a
faulty chandelier.
Gertrude Bolbus
Library
y recent excursion
to Leicester ended
with a visit to A&E
due to heart
palpitations
brought on by the execrable
captain of The Yodelling Boudicca,
about whom no more shall be said,
ever. I returned home to my
delightful semi-detached
bungalow, watered the Hydrangea
which is artificial yet still
benefits from a thorough
wash, and was almost
immediately off again.
This is unusual for me as
my constitution typically
requires that I enjoy a
short period of
adjournment from the
cares of "the outside
world" after my travels to
the North.
M
36
The occasion which prompted my
break from routine is something
called Critical Mass. It was my
understanding that this is a
pleasant excursion undertaken by
cyclists on a regular basis for the
purposes of education. The email I
received from an anonymous but
helpful young man named
FreddieKrugger99 made it quite
clear that the May ride was to be
devoted to appreciating Blue
Badge houses which served as
former residences of
mathematicians devoted to the
unravelling of Pi.
Readers aware of my earlier
technical difficulties will be
pleased to learn that I had spent
the morning folding and unfolding
this delightful little sprite in the
front garden and so was no longer
a “virgin”. This innocent endeavour
attracted the attention of the local
constable, concerned that I might
be engaged in an unnatural act.
There had been reports in the local
paper of just such an incident
involving a known Bickerton
fondler, so I was reassured rather
than outraged by the policeman's
concern for public morals.
The train ride was
uneventful except for the
lack of Earl Grey on the
refreshments trolley,
which caused a
formerly distinguished
gentleman to
commence foaming at
the mouth and
speaking in tongues, his
spittle-flecked consonants
a source of some irritation to
a vacationing Romanian
lecturer in salivatory linguistics,
whose sense of intellectual
curiosity made war with his desire
to consume the latest Dan Brown
'novel' (even smarties like candy)
and caused him some
gastrointestinal distress.
On my arrival I made my way down
to Waterloo Bridge without
incident.
Gentle readers, I was wholly
unprepared for what followed. My
suspicions were first raised when I
accepted a flyer from a gentleman
which I assumed contained
pertinent biographical sketches of
dabblers in the number arts. I was
shocked to discover a solicitation
for an "unclothed" bicycle ride,
which needless to say is not an
event which would interest me in
the slightest, despite the fact that I
continue to cut a girlish figure. I
daresay if looks could kill that
purveyor of filth would now be
pushing up daisies in a naturist
cemetery.
A perambulation through the
crowd of cyclists was enough to
inform me that the Critical Mass
isn’t in fact a coalition of scholars
awheel but instead a protest and
celebration wrapped in one
unorganised mess. I am not
without a spirit of adventure,
however, and despite the fact that I
had been invited under false
pretenses determined to
participate in the accepted fashion.
I set my Brompton down by
tucking its rear wheel underneath delightful! - and patiently awaited
developments. As I was without
compatriot this left me free to
“people watch”. Truth to tell, by all
appearances it was a most sociable
gathering. One man in particular
attracted my attention. He was
furtively stuffing what looked to
be a 'Cycle Naked' flyer into his
trouser pocket and searching the
crowd with what can only be
described as a hungry look when
his eyes fastened on me. I should
know that look. It was Theodore. I
could do nothing but sigh.
“I heard that from 20 feet away,
Gertrude,” is the way he greeted
his former partner (what a soulless
word this generation has chosen
for the sacrament!) after wheeling
his coconut brown Moulton over to
my location. Truly I am not
coldhearted so I gave him a quick
peck on the cheek as proof of my
residual affection. We did spend
many years as man and wife and
Moulton.
He looked about the same as he
always does. Disheveled, haughty,
priapic. “I see you received my
email,” he said with evident
satisfaction, in fact licking his lips.
Readers, I am not a physically
violent woman, reserving my
stamina for the mental arena.
Nevertheless I slapped my former
husband. Most people on the
receiving end of such a
communication could be expected
to recoil in anger, or hurt.
Theodore’s face assumed instead a
rictus of dreamy satisfaction.
no one
leads a
Critical
Mass - or
rather,
such
duties are
passed
unawares
to whoever
happens
to be in
front.
I dressed him down thoroughly,
which he seemed to enjoy all the
more, but honestly there was more
heat than fire in my presentation.
“It’s a lovely evening for a bicycle
ride,” said he when I had finished,
as if my verbiage was a roadside
attraction worth rubbernecking
but not stopping at. I sighed again
- I am told this is one of my chief
social failings - and accepted the
inevitable: Theodore would be my
ride partner on Critical Mass.
"People of the bike!"
he keened in that
always peculiar
register he adopts
whenever
condescending to
transmit his
brainwaves to the masses.
At this the bookseller whose
stock was being trampled
began to take an interest.
"Oi! You stand on it, you've
bought it!" called the vendor,
In defiance, Theo bent over and
stacked a few New Age volumes
into an untidy and structurally
unsound pile and climbed higher.
"People of the bike!" he shouted
again, extracting a rubberbanded
volume of notes from his jacket
pocket. My former husband has
never been able to speak
extemporaneously, even while
engaged in his marital duties, now
of course auctioned to the lowest
bidder.
A small crowd had gathered.
Curiosity or pity, I was unable to
ascertain.
Theodore raised his hand, not so
much a post-Leninist weatherman
testing the air as a Leonard
Bernstein opening the first
movement:
"I have gathered you together
under this profane example of
architecture to serve as my shock
troops as we 'reclaim the streets'.
Always remember: we are the
traffic! Let's go!"
Evidently a short movement, the
coda almost worthy of a
Hollywood scriptwriter. As it
happened a woman astride a
nearby fixed wheel machine at
that very moment had the
misfortune to tumble from her
impromptu trackstand, expelling
an involuntary toot of surprise on
her whistle - many riders had
them on lanyards around their
neck. This prompted shrill
rejoinders from across the crowd,
which I am informed announces
both impatience and joyfulness in
equal measure. As it was getting
to be about that time anyway, a
preliminary rustling of breathable
fabrics launched the first wave of
critical massers, accompanied as
always by a metropolitan police
escort. This later fact summoned
an anti-establishment tirade from
Theodore, still somehow
maintaining vertical hold on his
now-leaning tower of peacenik
literature, face flushed with what
he perceived to be his success with
his troops.
"No! You can go your own way!" he
barked, entirely unaware he was
covering Fleetwood Mac. At this he
promptly toppled into a small
stack of heuristic literature. The
bookseller was beside himself; I
compensated for his damages
from my purse, considering it a
savings on the bail I would've felt
unfortunately compelled to supply
otherwise.
Theo didn't bother dusting himself
off, but without a word of thanks
rapidly mounted his Moulton and
raced to the front of what he
evidently imagined to be his
battalion, no doubt expecting me
to catch him up. He was indeed
'leading', the look of satisfaction
on his face alternating with
frequent scowls at the rolling Bill
as well as at a young girl on a
bicycle with stabilisers whom he
took to be a usurper.
I won't go into the details of the
route he chose, except to observe
that we crisscrossed Soho more
times than seemed necessary. At
one point he grotesquely
requested that I quickly run into a
shop for something
unmentionable. That I did so
speaks to my Samaritan qualities
and training. In fact this was his
reason entire for 'inviting' me to
CM, and it transpires, for attending
Mass in the first place: he had
been banned from that particular
establishment after an argument
involving PVC, and the police
presence he abjured in fact
ensured that whatever fantasy he
had constructed involving his
purchase, my stern involvement,
and figures of authority would be
the current which fully charged
his... batteries. Thus was this
Critical Mass his ultimate turn-on.
In fact other participants of that
slow-moving parade later
concluded this was one of the
most friendly and relaxing masses
in recent memory, a happy
circumstance lost on Theodore,
whose labyrinthine libido was of
more urgent concern than
"reclaiming the streets".
Returning home that night I
reflected on my involvement with
this perplexing man. As the old
train rocked me in and out of
sleep, as usual I reached no
conclusions, but did attain that
dreamlike state in which one
cannot find answers, but can, for a
time, find peace.
It is a fact often commented upon
that no one leads a Critical Mass or rather, such duties are passed
unawares to whoever happens to
be in front. Not this time. After a
tedious session of chitchat which
we both found distasteful but
were unable to disengage from
without the usual gamesmanship
(we both like having the last
word), Theodore uncoupled his
eyes from my breasts, stood up on
the nearest table, which happened
to be filled with the wares of one
of the booksellers who makes a
home under Waterloo Bridge, and
whistled very loudly - a trick he
claims he learned during a course
of Pavlovian study and which did
indeed involuntarily summon up
certain shameless urges within me
despite myself.
hitherto concerning himself with
pulp fiction to pass the time.
37

Another Cycling Forum

Transcription

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