Category: Words

Vanderman is a name that strikes a chord with all of those passionate about bike and trail access. The man seems to have a mission to conduct poor scientific research and target mountain bikers as a group that he sees as a threat to the ‘natural’ environment.

I won’t go into the hermaneutics of that concept, but lets just say there is a school of thought that disagrees with what he is saying. Anyway make your own mind up by reading what is proported to be a letter of his to the IOC regarding the inclusion of mountain biking a few years ago.

The Secretsinglespeeder is as infamous as the Sexmidget and Jim the Gimp in the shop and holds the infamous reputation as being classed as ‘another one of those singletrackers’. Looks like a clique has been mentally created. I think I might be in it too or maybe that’s the ‘singlespeed weirdo clique’. Not sure if that’s a good thing, but anyway RHS has a lot of nice photos on his site including these.

Given the Irish title of the site, I don’t do enough Irish stuff on here really, so here’s a link to a site of due relevance: Mountain Bike Ireland.

This is Notoriously Bad Typist’s website it has a few routes in the Peaks and Derbyshire. Somewhere I’m hoping to be riding this weekend.

Finally Armstrong finished a surprise 5th in the Dauphiné Libéré today. There’s perhaps a lot of reason in the thought that says Armstrong is playing mindgames with his opponents in the build up to the Tour. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens in the big race this year.

Regular readers maybe excused for thinking that I have fallen off the face of the Earth. Unfortunately this is not the case, but there has been a lot happening at rothar.com towers that has been conspiring to prevent frequent updates.

First up my time in the bike shop is drawing to a close and on Tuesday night several drinks were downed in celebration of the fact I’m leaving. Much entertainment was had and it was good to catch up with a few old colleagues who haven’t been around much recently.

Secondly I’ve already started my new job on a part time basis too, so I’ve been busy doing all sorts of stuff for that and then there have been some changes in my living arrangements that have caused a fair bit of termoil around these parts. To cut to the chase there hasn’t been much of an excuse, I’ve just been really slack.

There has however been one rather fundamental, important and rather secretive development. The much awaited new bike has landed and this morning I picked it up from the wonderful Mr & Mrs Johnson at Sideways Cycles, took it home, built it up and then after work test rode it extensively until it had turned dark outside. Another reason I’ve not been updating. There are some pictures here.

This may come as a bit of a surprise to some as I think they may have had a vague idea of what was coming but not really exactly what. When I was looking into getting it, I really struggled to find much to look at in terms of what was available in terms of finishing and options. The answer is that pretty much anything is possible if you can afford it. This one had a few custom options like disc and v-brake bosses, a forward facing seat tube slot, drilled BB shell for drainage, custom cable routing, geometry and paintwork.

Anyway to make life a bit easier for other people in a position similar to mine looking at getting something new, there is now a whole website dedicated to some of the finest bikes on earth over at ifrider.com, the home of the Independent Fabrication Owners’ Club. There’s now a permanent link to it from the main page too.

Perhaps most importantly I now have a bike for Mountain Mayhem…

I’ve been busy recently and that has meant not much time for riding. After watching all the beautiful weather we’ve been blessed with recently from behind a desk, when it was another bluebird day when I woke up this morning I was determined to get out and make the most of it.

I’ve been riding lots of new places this year and this was another opportunity to broaden my horizons. I choose to ride the Berwyn Mountains Wayfarer Loop ride as featured in Issue One of Singletrack. It’s an 57km route and the timing given was spot on, with a stop in the pub at Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog it was just under six hours before I returned to the car.

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Although it rained on the way there and the way back I was lucky enough to have rain-free ride, although the river crossings mean that keeping dry isn’t as easy as you’d think.

There’s something very special about riding in the Welsh countryside. I think it’s the complete silence of human activity that is most stunning that and being surrounded by towering real mountain landscapes.. I’m looking forward to getting back out there and riding again soon.

Cunego won the Giro leaving a lot of people wondering who he is. Cyclingnews produced the goods with an insight into the Italian rider many are hoping will be the next great Italian all-rounder. Interesting to see that he hails form the same town as Paola Pezzo.

There is once again to be a Tour of Britain. News about it has been varied but basically its to run over five days between September 1st and 5th. It will be the first national pro tour in the UK for five years when the PruTour saw some interesting stages, least not the riders all getting sent the wrong way…

Anyway it looks set to start in the UK capital of cycling, here in Manchester and will be followed by stage in Yorkshire. The third stage will visit cities in the East Midlands, with the fourth stage centred on South Wales. The finale will be a criterium in London’s Westminster area. The BBC has secured coverage rights.

How about this for a piece of kit? How long before it is being used for all the wrong reasons. Swear words an’ everyfink.

I’ve posted a few links to kev’d up motors in the past. This one gets extra marks for the fact that some people appear to have taken it seriously. The good news is that the car in question is now dead. The better news is that there is another one in the pipeline…

Did I say we’re into Sleepless in the Saddle again this year? I think I forgot to post that yesterday. Jed and I are going back for another attempt at the pairs class. I’m hoping for slighly cooler weather than last year and will not be using a Camelbak bladder that has been breeding nasty bacteria for several months.

There’s less than a month left now until my last day in the bike shop, after well over ten years working in the bike trade I’m going to be moving on to other things. It hasn’t all really sunk in yet, but I know I’m going to miss working with some great people, good friends and being involved in bikes. Ironically I may have actually more time to ride – something which I’m looking forward to.

The Penguin game mk. IV seems to have been a reasonable hit, but arguably this is even better: Red Bull’s latest campaign.

GT’s parent company also owns Mongoose who are now developing their own spin on the i-Drive suspension system. Bikemagic have taken a look at it. For some bizarre reason I actually quite like the look of that.

There are some more results from Madrid over at MBA. Interesting to see Ryder Hesjedal so far down the finishing list. There’s a substantial age gap between him and Thomas Frischknecht and a substantial gap in their respective placings. Miguel Martinez’s time out from Mountain Biking doesn’t seem to have worked in his favour either.

I don’t know whether Travis Brown won the recent Big Bear event on his Singlespeed, but it is fairly certain he is a rather impressive rider.

Along with Singletrack’s Mark Alker, I was on Radio 4s You and Yours programme today to talk about the global shortage of certain raw materials and how this may impact on the bicycle trade. There’s more about it on Singletrackworld and Bikebiz.

My point is that new season bikes don’t all appear on a certain date. The launch of bikes in recent years has been staggered across many months, spanning from July through to January. Different models appear at different times and if a particular style of bike from one manufacturer isn’t available, it’s fairly likely that another company will have a similar product that is available.

The advantage for many small IBDs is that there is a certain amount of flexibility in being able to move between suppliers to meet demand. I still think that the coming months will be a real test of the on-demand ordering and supply chain that certain elements of the industry seem to have adopted. I think the coming months are veiled in a certain amount of uncertainty partly due to many of the manufacturers playing their cards very close to their chests.

Price increases which seem to be due, are probably the biggest variable over which uncertainty remains. Increases as high as 20% have been rumoured, but quite what level of increase arrives is unclear. Further some manufacturers may lower the specification on bikes to retain certain models at certain key price points. Again it’s a case of riding out the event to see what happens…

There ain’t no drugs for you to find here. I imagine there are a few people pleased about that fact.

Pedantic or a just decision due to a flouting of the guideline? The decision to strip Marcus Gronholm of his victory in the World Rally Championship is a controversial decision and one that has undoubtedly resulted in some harsh words in the Peugeot technical team All this because of a little bit of plastic.

Meirhaeghe won in Madrid, beating his nearest rival by almost a minute and a half and covering 48km at an average speed of almost 24km/h. That’s fairly rapid. In the womens class Paola Pezzo finished 6th in her first big race since coming out of retirement to compete for olympic gold. The results are here. Race two of the series is in the Belgian Ardennes this coming weekend.

The Giro continues and there is a round up of the Tour du Languedoc-Roussillon over at Cyclingnews. Armstrong took the last stage, Moreau won overall and Cadel Evans was disqualified. Summary here.

This weekend sees the first round of the Mountain Bike World Championships taking place in Madrid. There’s a website dedicated to this years series up on the UCI website.

I think Meirhaeghe is going to be tough to beat again this year which is a good thing if it makes for an exciting series and everyone trying to beat him. I don’t know how but I missed this Bikemagic interview originally – it’s a reasonable read. Following up from a recent post I think his comments on 29ers are interesting:

Q: Do you expect to see more 29in wheel bikes used by World Cup racers, now that they are UCI legal?

A: I am not in favour of 29inch wheels being allowed in racing. First of all it is so difficult for the market to adapt – brakes, forks, everything has to be adapted. I think it is rude they have allowed that, maybe they want to evolve it more like cyclo-cross. Also, the length of race, some people want them shorter. In one or two years it could be just like cyclo-cross – one hour races with cyclo-cross bikes. It’s two completely different sports and it’s a difference in length. One hour is a resistence sport and two hours is an endurance sport, [and it’s a] completely different athlete who does these two things. So I don’t think we should evolve into shorter races or to 29in wheels. They will be allowed from the first of January, I hope they will be disallowed from the second of January. There was a questionnaire to all of the teams and I think 90% of the teams said no and then it was approved. Why have a questionnaire? I cannot understand that.

The fourth version of the penguin series has been released. You can find it at yetisports.

There is a fair chance that John Kerry will be the next President of the United States and if you didn’t know not only is he a rider, he has fairly good taste in bikes, although possibly not cycling apparel. That’s a rather expensive Serotta…

If you only follow one link from todays post, then let it be this one: Jim Strange’s list of potential sponsor replacements for the US Postal Service team is here. Including suggestion #4:

Federal Express. The other mortal enemy of USPS, the kits would be a great improvement over UPS and they could have clever mottos like “When you absolutely, positively have to be there first.” The team would flown around Europe stuffed into boxes on a cargo jet.

Mean while the US Postal team have been keen to show that T-Mobile will not have an easy fight on their hands come the Tour. They have been showing their strength in recent stages of the Tour du Languedoc-Roussillon. Even the current leader of the race, Thor Hushovd, commented: “I asked myself what was going on. Honestly, I was worried. It was as if they wanted to test everybody before the Tour and frankly I think everyone was tested. Even Armstrong took pulls at the front… Incredible.”

When you find out that you’ve killed a bike, there are a few things you could do, but whilst you think about what it is you want to be riding next, you could always do a sort of photo tribute to it and go through the highs and low of ownership. Sort of a bit like this.

Someone over in the ‘States has made the critical error of saying he doesn’t like Singlespeeding being the way it is. Yep it’s different and deservedly so. In what must be the first post for a long time, maybe ever without either politics or porn, Big Jonny has composed a critique and defence of the one geared riders. Unfortunately given that there is a huge amount of ‘interesting material’ over at Drunkcyclist, some of you won’t want to be reading it at work…

The Giro has passed the halfway point and Saeco have a firm rein on events. There’s more on that and the fact that Lance Armstrong’s USPS presented by Berry Floor team seem to have secured a replacement sponsor for US Postal here.

Cipolini’s departure from the Giro hasn’t been a silent event. He’s had some choice words about, well pretty much everything and is now talking of throwing in the towel before Le Tour. And finally Millar has spoken about the Cofidis shenanigans for the first time – Velonews has the article.

An old friend of mine from Guernsey was in the shop again today. Damian Thacker and I met at a ten mile time trial one Thursday night. It might have been a Tuesday, but my memory is a bit hazy. Anyway he rocked up on a mountain bike with slicks and proceeded to set one of the fastest times of the night, much to the chagrin of some of the roadies there. To all present it was obvious that he was pretty handy on a bike.

These days, Damian is most frequently seen in various stages of preparation for what seems to be an increasingly successful Triathlon career, including a recent 16th place at the ITU World Triathlon Championships in Madeira. High Tri placings mean that you not only have to be good on the bike, but that you have to be good in each of the three legs. Good effort I reckon.

Here’s the latest from Italy.

And the new XC course at Innerleithen is now nearly all finished. I think we’re going to have to get back up there for another crack fairly soon.

And this is a very, very, very good idea. I am quite jealous.