Category: Words

It’s taken four days, but tonight on the way home I spotted my first IF in Boston, a rather nice Midnight Blue Metallic to Shark Grey Pearl fade steel Crown Jewel. In general I am really impressed by the number of bikes and riders here. Fixies and Singlespeeds are the most common bikes here ranging for ancient Raleighs and Univegas through to Bianchi Pistas and Serotta exotica.

There is a big range of bikes and people are riding them to work and for fun. They also have some rickshaw type taxiis to. People riding bikes is a great thing and the numbers here give you a lot of faith in the fact that future isn’t necessarily a car dominated certainty.

The other thing that gets you here is the number of iPods. Every 4th person you see has an iPod. The white ear phones are a dead giveaway. There maybe even more people who have them with different colour earphones. Advertising for them is also dominant especially on the transit (subway) system here in Boston. It’s hot here and getting hotter as a heatware moves eastwards across the US. I’ve spent the majority of my time in air conditioned hotel conference facilities, but the battle too and from the downtown area is a sweaty affair. It’s not just the heat that gets you, but the stiffling humidity too – especially when you’re in a suit.

My final rant about things here is that you can never find what you are looking for. Then when you don’t need it anymore you find it under your nose. For example… Yesterday I needed to get some card and a new USB Pen drive. At lunchtime I walked into the central downtown area. It took 40 minutes to find a stationers and a Radioshack electronics store. Today I spend all lunchtime looking for a pharmacy to get some Ibuprofen to counter the hideous lighting induced (the appalling carpets might have had something to do with this too) migraine headaches that have been driving me round the twist the last few days – last night they were so bad I slept for 14 hours, because I just couldn’t do anything else.

My wandering this afternoon around the maze of coridors in the Boston Sheraton led me to discover the fact that the Hotel is attached to a shopping mall that has a stationers and electronics shop. So I could have avoided an hour of getting hot and bothered yesterday by just going upstairs one floor and heading out into the mall. There was no pharmacy though. I only found that at the end of today downstairs in the lobby. Everything is so huge here that you really just can’t find what you’re looking for.

Luggage arrived eventually.

I’m in a rather lovely hotel just off Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA. Yesterday I hopped off the subway just north of the river and walked up Main Street through the MIT campus and onwards into Harvard. What a contrast between the two University campuses. Both like Manchester are very much integrated into the urban area, but there are vastly more big name chains and shops integrated into them. MIT has many ultra modern buildings, whilst Harvard seems to have many more that share the classical architecture that the older Oxbridge colleges offer.

After a bit of wandering I managed to find the hotel and after checking, I headed back out into the sweaty night iand wound up in a top bar called Grendel’s Den. This little gaff served the local beer, Sam Adams, and some too sweet for my palate stuff called Magic Hat #9 from Vermont. Factor in some top food outside on the terrace and live music from a band just sitting on park benches playing to folk on a humid, warm summer evening and it was a great way to spend the evening.

Of course actually getting here was rather more complicated. I recognise in the wake of 9/11 that they Americans are rather more security conscious but… The UK side of things was fairly normally. Getting frisked before boarding doesn’t seem that unnatural anymore. Having to give index finger fingerprints and have a digital photo taken at the passport control in Philly did feel like a bit of an invasion. From landing to getting to my connecting flight (which involved getting through passport control and then customs) took an hour and a half of standing in big old queues. I know it took exactly this long because I only just made it onto the plane. They literally shut the door behind me and started taxiing off.

Perhaps predictably my luggage (which I intrusted to an Ice Cube lookalike at baggage re-check-in in Philadelphia) still hasn’t arrived. The fact that the luggage carousel wasn’t working and everything was being stacked into a fairly big heap pehaps wasn’t a good sign. That it’s current whereabouts isn’t exactly clear is a fact that didn’t go down to well with me when I enquired at reception a few minutes ago. It might turn up today. If I’m lucky… I literally have what I am wearing – an issue that can be sorted with a trip to Gap or some other store shortly. My concern is what else is in my suitcase – namely all my stuff for the conference and the power adaptor for this laptop. Arse.

Right then. This time tomorrow I’ll be in Boston, Massachusetts. A week of work and a little bit of time to check out what New England has to offer. Of course there’ll be a visit to Independent Fabrication whilst I’m in town and hopefully an opportunity to do a little bit of riding too.

Looks like there’ll be an answer on the Floyd Landis case by the time I get back too. As has been discussed elsewhere, who’s to say that Floyd doesn’t have above average testosterone? Maybe in this one instance he did, but it seems unlikely. If he had a naturally high level of Testosterone, surely this would have been picked up a lot earlier in his professional career? As Armstrong was always very clear to say, he was like a pin-cushion with all the tests he was having to take.

It may be that there has been some lifestyle change that has led to a recent increase, or maybe this year the UCI have lowered the threshold value. I sincerely hope that there is no foul play involved, but at the moment I can’t see how his body would suddenly produce a significant increase that has led to this positive test. I guess the world will find out soon enough. Keep an eye on cyclingnews for more news.

Finally there’s this. Maybe something to add to the to do list:

From: Tom Purvis of greatdividerace.blogspot.com
Subject: Great Divide race ends with only one finisher

The grueling Great Divide solo, self-supported mountain-bike race, run on 2,490 miles of trails that dissect the United States from Banff, Alberta, Canada to Antelope Wells, New Mexico, ended last week with only one finisher. Matthew Lee finished in 17 days, 22 hours, 30 minutes, just missing Mike Curiak’s record, which still stands at 16d 00h 57m.

Lee encountered lots of rainy weather and had a couple of key mechanical problems, otherwise he might very well have beaten the record. Matthew won the race last year in 19d 04h 17m.

In all, eight riders started the 2006 Great Divide Race. The next closest finisher, John Nobile, made it as far as Steamboat Springs, CO July 5 before dropping out. Kenny Maldonado made it to Rawlins, WY. on July 16th when he too stopped.

Good work by Matt Lee. If he’d had a more reliable bike, it looks like he’d have broken Mike Curiak’s record. I don’t agree with some of the riders trying to do the route by getting back to the ‘roots’. They weren’t trying to ride the GDR on bikes in the 1800s. They were too busy trying not to get killed by lots of nasty North American predators to be buggering about in the mountains on bikes. Mountain Bikes these days are the product of various cycles of design, testing and development which has actually let to all kinds of wonderful technological advances like cycling shoes and clipless pedals. When a custom frame builder tries to ignore all of this you have to think that they’re a bit off the wall.

The final selection of photos from the Chamonix to Zermatt Haute Route trip with Ride the Alps are now up on the site. I also set up a Flickr group for the trip so you can see the photos from the other members of the group. Check it out.

I like the sound of this. It appeals along similar lines as the trip across France to Luzern did. Not quite sure if I’ll ever be in a position to do what Mark, Ruth and a pair of Pompinos did:

It’s a dull day in the office. It’s winter. In London. I haven’t been out on the mountain bike for months. The only redeeming feature of sitting here with no work to do is having Internet access. Since finding Singletrackworld.com nearly 3 years ago I think I have spent more time in the forum than I have asleep. But even the flood of junk that appears there can’t make today seem any more interesting.

I decided late last year that following our partial move away from Landaan back to my home county of Worcestershire that I would eventually leave my salaried job and go self employed. At the same time, Ruth and I could take the opportunity to go on a trip. A long one. One that stretched from one end of the summer to the other. And it was going to involve bikes.

Most people who come and read this blog will have got here either through a link at STW or by following a link I will have emailed you which makes you either a cyclist of some sort, related to me, or fully versed of my cycle addiction problem.

The plan was to ride the length of the Danube but the obvious topographical predictability of riding along a big river’s flood plain and the fact that most of Germany try and do it each year lead us to change our plan into something a little more adventurous.

Our itinerary is not over planned as the unknown will be as important as the trip, but the gernal plan is to ride along northern Spain, down the French side of the Pyrenees, across into Provence and then northern Italy. From here we will either turn left up through teh Alps and Bavaria back to northern Europe, or south down through Tuscany and into the Mezzogiorno of Italy. When we work it out, you will be the first to know…

Finally, just to add a little quirkiness we are going to be doing it with hardly any gear. R and I always travelled light anyway, but one thing I have no intention of doing is dragging a bike laden with bar bags, low riders, rear panniers and rack packs, weighing 100lbs up a col or mountain pass. So we are only taking bar and saddle bags. For the technical junkies around the first few weeks of this blog will bore for Britain about the gear we are taking. R will almost certainly write something more interesting a little later. Once we are on the road of course, it will be much more of a journal and a photograph repository.

Oh, and the bikes only have one gear. Each.

We like a challenge.

Five riders: Cris, Paul, Phil, Tyrrell & Gilly, the latter two of whom had never raced mountain bikes let alone raced a 24hr event. One goal: To finish the first ever Bontrager 24/12 event as a mixed fun team. The result: 2nd place in class (finishing just minutes behind the 1st place team too) with 30 laps. If we’d entered in the mixed team category we’d have placed in the top three too. Everyone’s really pleased and it was a good course and event.

The Indy and me lovin’ the tech. First Lap photo from Simon Barnes.

It wasn’t without glitches. When there was a water pressure problem in the night and I ended up drinking beer (it was a tough call) rather than waiting in line for people to fill 100 litre containers, there were sensitive sleepers sleeping in the noisy campsite (why?) and part of the course ran over a former landfill site, as a consequence there was a lot of glass on the woodbark covered trails (fortunately we only had one puncture as a team all race).

During Gilly’s second lap the heavens opened, with a 30 minute cloud burst which turned a technical course into a sliptastic mudfest. The course spent the rest of the event drying out and it didn’t take long for those people with the right tyres on to be able to ride the whole course again. By noonon Sunday the rain plus hundreds of riders taking the same lines had probably actually improved the course in some places, ironing out the tractor treads and bumps in the sun baked clay fields, it might have been faster, but I think my legs were a bit too tired to make the most of it.

Landis won the Tour. I haven’t really followed the event this year what with being away for two weeks and being really busy before that. With the scandal and all it’s fairly amazing the race went on. I suppose there will be a lot of European people wondering how in the vacuum left by Armstrong it has fallen to another talented American to win the most prestigious bike race in the World. Meanwile Ullrich and Sevilla are a bit miffed about being booted out of T Mobile…

Update

My handful of photos from the race are up here. My photography skills seem to have gone out of the window this weekend so most of them were pretty crap. Fortunately we had a residential camerameister in the team. Ace shots courtesy of Chilly (and Imogen) are over at Giant Pygmy.

Congratulations! Your lottery entry to ride The Cape Epic 2007 was successful.

Kind Regards
The Cape Epic Team

The race is the largest full-service mountain bike stage race in the world. The Epic, presented by adidas, will kick off for the fourth time on 24 March 2007 in Knysna and lead over 900 mountain bikers from across the globe through the magnificent scenery of the Western Cape. Finishers will have to ride more than 900 gruelling kilometres and climb some 16000 vertical metres during their adventurous eight-day journey ending on 31 March 2007 at the Cape Winelands just outside Cape Town.

Went to Europe. Rode the Alps. It was ace. Can’t wait to go back and do it again.

The first half of the photos from the fantastic Trans Alp adventure along the famous Haute Route are now up. The trip was run by Ride the Alps and led by the rather handy bike rider and former XC racer Jamie Carr. Props to Jamie for being a solid guide and all round top bloke. The photos can be found here. The second half of the set will follow soon…

Engleberg was great to revisit, but for me the real riding started in France. Graeme ‘MacPuppy’ Blance of Singletrack Cape Wrath Epic riding fame was entertaining us at the Alaskan Pup’s new Eurokennel. I don’t think the drive up the gorge from Grenoble was surpassed on the entire trip. I certainly doubt that we had any other driving section that produced the innards shifting lateral g-forces that those hairpin corners coupled with a bit of vorsprung durch technik quattro delivered. It was a great bit of road and is an enviable commute, either up or down.

The mountain plateau into which the village of Lans snuggles is surrounded by terrain that forms a winter playground and stunning summer mountain biking. If any one is thinking of riding in France I’d recommend here. A great part of the world with fantastic trails, mountain air and stunning scenery. The only problem was we couldn’t stay longer and explore more local riding.

The night was marked with a spectacular thunder and lighting storm above the village. The ride the next day took us up a slippery rock and root infested climb, along the route of which we encountered a tree that had been struck by lightning. Substantial shards of wooden shrapnel surrounded the remains of the tree for a radius of about 25m and it’s destruction was an impressive sight and reminder of the frailty of life and the power of nature. It was almost as impressive as the breathtaking views from the ridge. These looked back over the plateau and further down and across Grenoble. Lans really is heaven. Here’s the evidence.

From: Mike
Subject: Tee Hee

Out on her royal yacht the Queen was enjoying the sea air when she spied a man in the water off the port bow – clearly being menaced by a very large shark.

Through her binoculars she could see it was Christian Ronaldo, struggling frantically to free himself from the jaws of a 20 foot shark! The queen ordered the captain to change course to try and save the poor man, but she knew the yacht’s top speed would never get them there in time.

At that exact moment a speedboat containing three men wearing white England shirts sped into view. One of the men took aim at the shark and fired a harpoon into its ribs,immobilising it instantly. The other two reached out and pulled Ronaldo from the water and, using long clubs, beat the shark to death. They bundled the bleeding, semi-conscious Ronaldo into the speedboat along with the dead shark and prepared for a hasty retreat, when they heard frantic calling …….

It was the Queen calling them to the yacht.

On reaching yacht the Queen went into raptures about the rescue and said to Beckham, Rooney and Gerrard (for it was they) “I will give you a knighthood for your brave actions. I thought the England team would hate Ronaldo after the world cup, but I see that my England team are true heroes and should serve as a model for sportsmanship to other countries.” She knighted them there and then, and proceeded to sail away.

As she departed Rooney asked the others, “Who was that?!”

“That,” Beckham answered, “was our Queen. She rules the commonwealth and knows everything about our country.”

“Well,” Rooney replied, “she definitely knows F***all about shark fishing. How’s the bait holding up ?”

Back in the UK with a lot of stats under tyre rubber. 2,500 miles driving across England, France and Italy. Over 11,500m climbing and 19,000m descent on the bike and a successful completion of the Haute Route by bike with extra days riding in Engleberg in central Switzerland and Lans in the French Vercors thrown in too. I don’t really think cruising around the dusty and sandy shores of Lake Como really counts as riding, but Jed and I found time for that too.

The Engleberg shots are up here. It was a bit strange to go back to a place where I had ridden before and discover that the trails had been completely destroyed. The river that runs down the mountain from the resort runs through a very narrow glacial valley and clearly over the last few years has been carrying so much water and load that it has reshaped the immediate riparian area, resulting in a situation where the trail that used to run parallel to the river has been destroyed in places and replaced by a massive boulder and debris field. In other spots it was precariously narrow or undercut. There was a bit of scrambling up and down the valley because we weren’t going to ride the road…

The driving was surprisingly good. We were treated to spectacular lightning storms and torrential rain in the early hours as we blazed a trail across France, but by the time we reached Luzern the temperature was in the mid thirties and there wasn’t a hint of rain. That night there was another terrific storm, but again the rain only started the following day after we had finished a ride up in the mountains above Engleberg and were back at the car down the valley.

Driving also led to an interesting conversation with my insurance company. I really don’t understand why they will cover a named driver on my policy to drive in Europe’s EU countries but not in Switzerland. Governments and Millionaires across the world entrust the Swiss with their money through exclusive bank accounts, but a Uk company can’t apply general common sense when it comes to cover. That just seems wrong. Any way more reports from the trip soon….

From: Kate
Subject: Why we forward Jokes

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead.

He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.

After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the
sunlight.

When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side.

When he was close enough, he called out, “Excuse me, where are we?”

“This is Heaven, sir,” the man answered.

“Wow! Would you happen to have some water?” the man asked.

“Of course, sir. Come right in, and I’ll have some ice water brought right up.”

The man gestured, and the gate began to open.

“Can my friend,” gesturing toward his dog, “come in, too?” the traveler asked.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t accept pets.”

The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog.

After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence

As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.

“Excuse me!” he called to the man. “Do you have any water?”

“Yeah, sure, there’s a pump over there, come on in.”

“How about my friend here?” the traveler gestured to the dog.

“There should be a bowl by the pump.”

They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it.

The traveler filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog.

When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree.

“What do you call this place?” the traveler asked.

“This is Heaven,” he answered.

“Well, that’s confusing,” the traveler said. “The man down the road said that was Heaven, too.”

“Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That’s hell.”

“Doesn’t it make you mad for them to use your name like that?”

“No, we’re just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind.”

Tomorrow I’m off and heading south towards Europe and the Alps. It’s going to be ace. No updates for a couple of weeks and pretty much as soon as I land back in the UK it’ll be time to start getting ready for 24/12. Photos from Eastnor are now up here the ones with a distictive Indy Fab theme are lurking over at ifrider.com

Over at Singletrack’s IMBA forum discussion about the merits of Northshore are still going on. I’ve been following it and finding it quite interesting. I think these comments from Mr Fish are really some of the best I have heard yet:

still, rules, regulations, plans, ideas etc etc are all open to different interpretations and if i don’t like the sound of something i will say so, like for instance building lots of easy low level NS stuff without some sort of progression to MUCH bigger stuff is just wasting time and energy and making it not that envoirmently sound as peeps will get bored and go off where you can’t see them and build there own big stuff (shonky shore) on your fc land with no control, still have an accident and still sue you for it whilst still not hitting your target audience of teen scum/fat kids because its low and… well sod it …gay

Amen to that. Check out the fall out here. On a final note the Digital Camera Magazine competition is open to everyone and why not…