Author: Cris Bloomfield

Sunday opening is back for the summer and given the forecast for the weather and the fact I’ve been feeling a bit run down, I decided to work rather than try riding this weekend even though Jed was riding the Welsh trails. From what I hear he enjoyed it despite the rain…

Graeme Obree is on something of a comeback at the moment which has to be a good thing for British Cycling. He is currently bidding to reclaim the world hour record set by Boardman in 2000. According to Cyclingnews, Obree has not set a date for his record attempt but Sunday will provide an indicator of his condition.

“If the test goes well, I plan to attack the world record fairly quickly,” Obree said. “Boardman’s distance [49.441 km] won’t be easy to beat, but I’m hopeful. I’ve followed a very strict training plan and even if I’m two kilos heavier than I was in 1993, it’s two kilos of muscle.”

Back in the 90s Greg Herbold used to ride Koga Miyata and I reckon if it wasn’t for him they’d be even less well known than they are. Well the word is that they’ll soon be available in the UK again. Here’s the website.

Just managing to squeeze one last update in before the end of the month and I can’t think of a more appropriate way to update than offering some good time wasting entertainment. If you liked the first penguin game check out the latest two additions over at Yetisports.

Manzano has made the move that has been widely speculated to be on the cards, but the shitstorm continues to gather in the wake of his allegations. Cyclingnews has the latest. Drugs don’t seem to be at all prevalent in the female side of the sport. I mean they certainly have some top of the kit, but you never hear much about doping scandals.

People living outside North America choosing to stick two fingers up to the film and music industry and share copyrigted material have for the most part been getting away with it, but that looks set to change:

From: Gilles
Subject: First file sharers prosecuted in Europe

We had been waiting for it for a long time, and here it is: for the first time in Europe, some people will be prosecuted for sharing copyrighted material.

Groups go after music swapping in Canada, Europe

“LONDON — Recording industry associations in Europe and Canada are going after 247 people for illegally swapping music on-line, taking up a
tactic used by music companies in the United States.

The London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said Tuesday that action had been taken in Germany, Denmark, Italy and Canada. The IFPI, which represents the recording industry worldwide, said lawsuits would be launched in more countries in coming
months as part of its campaign against music piracy.”

or

Europe’s song-swappers face court

“The music industry is to take legal action against 247 online song-swappers across Europe in the biggest crackdown against music piracy outside the US.”

For what it’s worth I still think they are going about this the wrong way. I mean look at Sony. I have loads of albums from artists under the Sony label and I have a Sony Net Minidisc which lets me record tracks from CD as well as MP3 and other electronic music files onto Minidisc using Sony’s own jukebox software, but under the current laws it’s all illegal.

What a miserable failure.

Some people chose to ride the Mary Townley Loop this weekend and it was a memorable event, unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. It was a muddy ride when I rode it last May and attempts to ride it after the recent rain we’ve had were likely to make it challenging.

I went out on Sunday with Steve Makin, Steve’s friend Bill, Jon Woodhouse and the absurdly fit Dave Clark and we rode from Sale Water Park up to Broadbottom and then back. It was mostly along the banks of the Mersey but it was a good distance. The ride down to Sale and back also adds to the distance, especially as I had to go and meet the Sexmidget on the way. It was a good ride and an idea for an Epic later in the year has been hatched.

It has also prompted me to try a carbon bar for the first time. I’ve tried suspension on the singlespeed, but it threw the gemoetry right out and I’ve started to get used to it being rigid. Yet even withe the ti spokes and steel frame and forks there’s a need for just a bit more comfort. I’ll have to see if this does the trick – I’ll post some photos of the latest singlespeed specification in a couple of days.

There’ll be some new kit on show at this years road races as both Mavic and Giro have new works in the pipeline and will be looking to make riders go faster than before. Meanwhile the Manzano debacle has been continuing, but it all seems a bit academic. The suspicion that doping was taking place was always there, it’s just that Manzano is the first rider to talk graphically and openly about what was happening.

For his sake I hope he gets a ride with Amore e Vita because if he was good enough for second in the Spanish Nationals without the aid of drugs, then he’s likely to be good enough to ride well a professional level without artifical assistance. He may not have the same form as before, but on the other hand maybe he will. At least he won’t have to worry about his blood thickening during the night.

The infamous lyrics “when tha shit goes down ya better be ready” sum up the current situation in the world of professional road racing. As I reported briefly on Thursday, former Kelme rider Jesus Manzano has been saying a lot about his personal experiences with doping and the near fatal consequences they held for him.

Now while it’s obvious why a lot of people would want him to stay quiet or stop talking, he’s been spilling a lot of information and from what I can see has been careful not to implicate other riders specifically. The fact he’s pretty much tarred all of the riders in his team already though isn’t going to make much difference to how the riders are reacting.

Interestingly, maybe it’s the fact that no big names have yet been dropped that has stopped the news from making it into the mainstream media. Most just report that Kelme has been dropped from this year’s Tour and that this follows Manzano’s revelations. After a relatively quite year in terms of doping last year, this year is looking stormy.

This has to be good news:

Chancellor Gordon Brown has announced a tax exemption scheme for bikes, The Green Transport Plan, which could see you saving up to 50% on your bike, and there’s no upper limit on the value of the bike. The only catch, if you can call it that, is that the Inland Revenue’s rules say that the bike must be used “mainly for transport to and from work” but that’s not really a terribly onerous requirement.

More at Bikemagic.

Now buying stuff off the Internet can be a bit of a hit or miss affair, but when you thing you’re getting this and this is what arrives, you’re going to be pissed. In fact you might tell some people you know, who’ll tell all the people they know and the whole thing spirals and then even I’m posting a link to it. The dirty details are here. I think there’s quite a strong case from going and buying certain stuff direct from a dealer.

I’ve been busy the last few days so haven’t had much time to put together a post. Carlton Reid from Bikebiz has put together a little article on bikes, which has made it onto the front page of Singletrack. The word is that shortages of bikes and components are on the cards for the months ahead, but basically it’s just a summary of what I’ve been saying on here for the last few weeks.

This is just gay and is now even more gay that it’s been edited.

Fox seem to have reprofiled their drop outs, but haven’t been bold enough to make them more forward opening which would have made them less likely to eject disc brake based front wheels that aren’t held securely in place. There’s more here (page not friendly to non IE based browsers).

Kelme are denying doping allegations and will there be a US Postal Sponsored team in next years pro peloton? Find out more at Cyclingnews.

Well I spent the weekend in the Yorkshire Dales and despite the wind and the rain it was fantastic. I mean the fact that the car door nearly got ripped off it’s hinges, the rain was horizontal and the Polaris riders (I don’t think I have ever seen so many people with the thousand yard stares on bikes – there were some people deep in the pain cave) around Leyburn looked absolutely buggered by about lunchtime on the first day didn’t seem to matter.

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The way that ribbons of sunlight were racing across the green fields of the Dales just seemed to make the place feel so alive. There’s something appealing about that landscape that I can’t quite put my finger on, but it just makes me think of that big debate between the difference between wildness and wilderness. I think its appeal was heightened by reading James Herriot and sipping decent bitter in fresh air and good company.

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Prior to this weekend’s big race twice former World Champion Oscar Freire stated:

“Up until now, I’ve always lacked a little something to win at San Remo,” Freire told La Dernière Heure . “A little luck, but sometimes a little lucidity as well. I feel as though I’m riding more with my head now, and who knows, maybe this will make the difference.”

Initially marked as one of the favourites for the Milan-San Remo, he clinched this years La Primavera on the line, poaching the win from Zabel who sat up too soon.

Now Hans Rey is one of those riders in a similar category to Frischnecht, Tomac, Overend, Furtado. In short he’s a living legend. Now I’ve had some communication with him because he’s done a lot of riding in the Alps and has given me some advice on a route I’ve been researching for a few years – it’s a big one and part of a Transalp epic I’m planning. So I was a bit interested to read about this opportunity to ride with one of the sports legendary figures.

The ABG letter from Bikebiz has disappeared having been pulled following a request from one of the parties involved. There is a lesson to be learnt from that debacle.

Team rothar.com are in this year’s SAAB Salomon Mountain Mayhem. The team listings are now appearing on the official website. We didn’t race last year, but this year the original (and now defunct) Team Jelly squad will be reforming under a new banner and looking for a good placing. Damn. Going to have to do some real training now.

Team Jelly (left to right): Conrad, Cris Paul & Jed
Prior to the Red Bull Mountain Mayhem 2001

The UCI are considering banning radio communications between the pelotons riders and team cars. The UCI official who is calling for the ban on ear-pieces, jersey-mikes and back-pocket transceivers is Jean Wauthier, the same official who rubbed the bike trade up the wrong way by freezing road-bike design and banning go-faster components.

Moreau is back, Pettachi suspects Cipo is playing a tactical move with regard to his level of fitness and Armstrong is going to sit out the 95th Milan-San Remo. The near 300k race doesn’t fit into his plans for a sixth Tour win. More at cyclingnews. Actually I don’t fancy the thought of riding nearly 190 miles this saturday either. Although I am sure Lance’s alternative plan doesn’t involve drinking beer in a pub somewhere, which mine definitely does.

On-line retailer Wiggle have had their wrists slapped for *discounting* (sorry this link has been pulled from the Bikebiz website) the prestigious ABG products (that’s Merlin, Litespeed, Tomac, etc). The question has been raised already: why were they given an account in the first place? There seem to be a fair few interpretations of this article from different people. I’ve bought stuff from Wiggle and been very happy with the service, but maybe they had this coming.

Now on the global markets metal prices have been on the rise since the end of last year. At the beginning of this year the out look still looked bleak and now things in the Far East have reached the point where the factory where Alex rims are manufactured has twice been robbed at gun-point and over 20 tonnes of steel stolen and man hole covers are being stolen from the streets of Taiwan. The forecast for the coming summer months and 2005 bike ranges is looking to be one of massive shortages and price hikes. Eeek.

So what happens when you steal someone’s custom built and immediately recognisable bike and then take it back to the paint shop where it was sprayed, where the painter is a friend of the frame builder? Well you can find out in this account from 26inches (you’ll need Adobe Acrobat Reader).

Now we get some unsavoury customers through our doors and I guess it just goes with the territory of working in a big city that you’re going to get a fair cross-section of the cycling and not-so-cycling community in at sometimes or another. Most are no bother, some are quite welcome and others I’m sure we could happily live with going somewhere else. This has become obvious to even some of our newest members of staff (long thread gets interesting about two-thirds of the way through).

Fortunately we have not yet had to resort to physical violence as a means of serving mutually beneficial customer/retailer relations, but I think that it is in the small print that this may be permitted under special circumstances. That said we have not been given any specific customer service training, so when pushed, anything may happen. Fortunately laughter, dry wit and sarcasm are excellent tools of the trade.*

And on that cheery note I am off to the Yorkshire Dales for the weekend.

(*All or part of this paragraph may not be true).

I don’t know for sure, but I imagine that Philippe Gaumont is about as popular as pork-pie at a Jewish wedding with the pro cycling peleton.

I did have a link to a load of photos from the Taiwan Bike Show of the 2005 Marzocchi fork line up, but the photos all seem to have been taken down now. So instead there’s this news, that Lance has a new bike for testing this year. The Madone SL.

The Madone SL is basically a different style Madone, which uses the same top tube and rear triangle as the Madone 5.9, but with what appears to be the down tube and seat tube of the Trek 5900 Superlight; this substitution most likely saves some weight over the standard Madone 5.9.

Photos and more on the latest OCLV fabrication over at Cyclingnews.

A few people have been doing a bit of running over the winter period to get in shape for the coming summer months. There’s always been a bit of debate over what the best way to keep in shape is, but here’s the answer:

Jogging burns more calories than the same amount of time spent spinning on your bike (about 10 calories per minute versus 8 calories per minute for a 150-pound person at a moderate effort). Running is valuable for maintaining fitness in the off-season; it delivers maximum cardiovascular benefits for your workout time–you can’t coast on your feet. If you’re sedentary, starting at zero fitness, any physical challenge makes you more fit for other activities. But if you’re already even moderately fit, train in the sport that you want to be good at. Training in any sport causes cardio-respiratory and muscle adaptations specific to that sport. To get fit for cycling, use your bike as your primary training tool. More at Mountain Bike Magazine’s site.

The quest for oil has it seems a lot to answer for. Some people refuse to fight for it, whilst others are dying to protect it. Now the development of oil resources is having serious effects on the migratory patterns of the very animals on which the expansion of white settlement in the US was based.

And more US-based joy. In the week that the Cheeseburger Bill was passed, banning frivolous lawsuits against producers and sellers of food and non-alcoholic drinks arising from obesity claims, there is a report from New Scientist that Americans are eating themselves to death: “soon poor diet and physical inactivity may overtake tobacco as the leading cause of death, according to a US government study.”

And to end an American influenced post, Big Jonny posted this up on his site a while back, this is the Immigration Game. It’s about push bikes and police cars.

Well Scotland was good. Three hours from door to door and we were there in time for fish and chips and a few pints in Dalbeattie. The locals were friendly, although most of the ones we met were difficult to comprehend, especially those drinking anti-freeze from pint pots and talking about Sea Bass and white knuckle rides.

The Belle Vue Bed and Breakfast (01556 611833) provided a great place to stay, with a friendly welcome just a couple of minutes from the centre of town and only about ten minutes from the entrance to Dalbeattie by bike. Of course it rained most of Sunday, but Conrad and I just rode it anyway because we’d packed loads of kit for any weather.

We managed to miss the famed slabs of the hardrock trail due to the signage, which probably isn’t a bad thing given any of the granite sections were pretty slippy in the torrential rain and neither of us fancied broken bones this weekend. After loading up the car it was off to Mabie, just twelve miles back up to Dumfries.

Mabie was a great surprise. More in the way of hills and even sections of very mature forest. The singletrack was fantastic, the wooden raised sections of the trail an interesting change and some fantastic bermed descents. I have to say I think this is my favourite ‘built trail’ so far. One thing’s for sure we’ll be going back.

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I made it up to Todmorden for my first Thursday night night ride of the year yesterday. Some good riding on some new trails, a bit of a social in the Tenth Muse afterwards and then on the way home was pulled over by the Police. I passed the breath test, but after a few swigs of whiskey and a pint, I was a bit apprehensive of the result. Glad I turned down the Tequila now.

Have I mentioned what a nice and very helpful bloke Shaun Murray of Aegis Design is? Well he’s been giving me a lot of assistance on a little web-based project I’ve been cooking up recently and I have to say I doubt that there is a better person to provide web hosting at the moment, so check it out.

Conrad and I are off up to Dalbeattie this weekend. I’m looking forward to a day of riding up in Scotland, but I’m not looking forward to the drive there and back. More news next week.