Oh dear. Sad to see this arrive in my inbox tonight. It’s never cool to take advantage of someone else’s misfortune I guess but being so blatant about it and emailing everyone on your email list to say what an arse you are seems a bit much.
I generally support an independent bike shop where possible with the likes of Balfes, Seabass, Brixton Cycles and Cycle PS but I have bought the odd bits from Evans and others. They generally don’t suit my needs as much but I don’t have a problem with them or Cycle Surgery or even On Your Bike.
Now the RIBA has often been accused of being an elitist organisation with too many middle class males forming an old boys club. Fortunately the RIBA are doing all they can to dispel that myth.
I’ve been going to the Thursday morning Rapha rides round Regents since September 2014 and almost always had a really good session. Some are better than others due to size of the group and how well everyone is working together, as well as how familiar you are with the people there that week.
Last Thursday was probably one of the best sessions I’d been to. We started in a group of six in the usual two up formation moving through from the inside and sitting on the front for around a minute before pulling through. Interestingly we went round clockwise for a change which was great. Riding the normal anti-clockwise has gotten to be pretty boring indeed so it was good to mix it up a bit.
That all seemed to be going well and felt incredibly smooth. Then the suggestion was made at one set of lights to do the last three laps as ‘through and off’. Whilst a good idea I’ve never seen it work in the mornings. It always ends up with someone surging when they should be easing off and then it just gets faster and faster until it just blows up in a mess. This usually doesn’t take long.
However this time, through a great deal of discipline and some guidance from Chris, it seemed to work. What a pleasure it was to have all six of us working this way. It was great to be trundling along at 40kph on the flat with just the sound of tyres on tarmac. It was a great work out without feeling like I’d be punched in the legs. That short burst of intensity with a relatively short rest was incredible. As there was only six of us the turns came pretty quick and I even managed to hold on to the end. It was like a shot of dopamine straight to brain. It felt so so good to be going so fast and yet the whole movement of the group be so smooth.
I absolutely loved it. So whilst the 5.30am starts don’t get any easier I’m always getting out of bed for this.
Even as a die hard Apple fan I like to think I’m able to have a little bit of perspective on some of these things these days. I used to dread going for a job where I would have to use a PC for work but now really couldn’t give a shit as it’s just a tool. I use whatever I can to get my job done. I guess growing up a bit helped me out of that irrational phase of my life of Apple fandom. Whilst the Mac vs PC argument seems to have subsided it’s now iOS vs Android and so on, but this time I couldn’t care less. Use what you want and enjoy it if you like it. Just don’t bang on in my ear about it, especially with some badly researched thing you read on the BBC. I couldn’t give a shit which phone you have. I like mine, I hope you like yours.
This is the same way I don’t really care about what wheels you have or your opinion on my choice of groupset or how many Rapha jerseys you have. If you like the colour that’s great. I don’t want to talk tech on a ride, or ever really.
Recently I was reminded that to a lot of people brands mean a lot and they’re passionately either for or against some as well as spend a lot of time thinking about this. My friend Mathew suggested it was a tribal thing. Being aware of this madness isn’t unusual if you ever read a tech article on the Guardian or such like as you scroll to the comments*.
So the reason for this post was that this graph appeared on Twitter recently which I was kind of taken aback by.
Hold on a second. 15% of your time being angry at Rapha? Wow. I get the controversial nature of the brand and yes I’ve read the occasional Road.cc review of a Rapha garment of clothing and the overt frothing of the mouth that follows from those who prefer to wear a club jersey or like their cheaper clothing brand. Some of which is fair perhaps and yes I’m not mad keen on the ‘suffering’ aesthetic, of which there’s a nice Medium article on. But the clothing is good and I like it which just is a choice. I don’t like Castelli as much but then I don’t proclaim to hate it or judge people who prefer that. I also really like my club jersey from Brixton.
Ok, so I took the bait and replied. What’s the problem with Rapha? 15% seems a lot for an adult to spend being angry at a brand.
@andymatthews £200 (golf) club membership. Join a club for £30/yr + learn group riding ppl! Red mist descending… must go to my safe place.
Naturally I took issue with this. Not with the membership issue – £200 is a lot and certainly isn’t accessible, if you’re near one of their clubs it’s a great deal on coffee though. But what I took issue with is that I actually learnt to ride in a group on the Thursday morning rides round Regents Park, best of all they’re totally FREE. I made this point but it was ignored as presumably it didn’t fit the narrative of hatred. Not only are those rides free but they even give you a free coffee for turning up. So yes I guess you can pay the golf club membership fee, or you can just turn up on a free ride in your DHB tights and club jersey and go riding. Having been going consistently to these since September I’ve met an amazing group of people through it, a point I again made. Whatever you think of the brand the riding that goes on through their clubs is pretty decent as is the local club scene at Brixton. Both are good and both have their benefits. That illogical hatred and unwillingness to have your viewpoint changed is kind of odd though. Isn’t it actually about the riding?
And then I think to the fact that I’ve been spending a lot of time with my 93 year old Grandmother and think how fortunate we all are to have the time to get angry about a cycle clothing brand for 15% of our lives. We could all do with being a bit more tolerant.
*Adam Buxton beautifully took this madness apart in one of his Bug shows which you really should watch.
I’ve been more than a little sceptical about Cyclocross recently. It seems to be the new cool thing to do and that always seems to make me more than a little suspicious. Is it amazing or just a new fad? Emma once said this about people riding fixed as a fashion.
It’s like yo-yos. They’ll find something else in a bit.
Anyway, putting my prejudices to one side for a bit I wandered down to Herne Hill Velodrome on New Years day to sweat out some of my hangover and see what all the fuss was about. I also wanted to have a go at taking some pictures of moving objects rather than those inanimate buildings I normally do. It was also a good chance to use the 70-200 ƒ2.8, which rarely finds a reason to be used.
I got there mid way during the juniors race which looked like fun. I couldn’t really work out the course at first but gradually got the idea. I found a few places that might be good to spectate and take pics. A few friends arrived and we settled on the top left corner where the course dives down to the railway embankment and then back up and over and back towards the velodrome.
I was also there to support one of the Brixton riders, Will, who unfortunately drew number 13. As is the rules it was mounted upside down.
I had a go with a few test shots of some of the juniors who seemed to be flying around. Some of which were inconceivably tiny to my mind.
As well as the warm up laps the main group were doing. The Christmas tree chicane was one of my favourite parts of the course. A nice bit of imagination there from the course designers. Nice to see a few little playful touches appearing.
After that I said hello to Will and his teammate David before getting a few shots of the start and moving up to my preferred position for the rest of the race.
A few of the Vicious Velo lot were there and I had previously been told to shout various obscenities at them by Andy, which I of course obliged. I felt kind of guilty about it as none of them were smiling. Only Kev managed a set of the vees as requested and a smile. But at least they confirmed later on Twitter that the ‘encouragement’ was appreciated it’s just that it was hideously hard to raise a smile when working that much – which I can fully understand.
Running up that hill looked hideous really and whilst there weren’t many spectators, most seemed to congregate there to shout encouragement and generally observe the trickiest bit.
Some of the younger riders seemed to be running rings around the older ones. Some people described them as “just floating over it all” which seemed apt. Equally as entertaining to watch too.
So a lovely few hours at the Velodrome and I fully appreciate the skill and effort that goes into CX. It was a shame there weren’t more spectators but most people were probably nursing crushing mind altering hangovers at home. I can’t say I’m crazy about entering one but I’d definitely go and watch and support more Brixton or Vicious riders at another event. It was also really nice to use my camera again off a tripod!
Maybe 35 is too old to start crit racing but who cares. I have a bunch of things I want to do in 2015 and one of them is get involved in racing road bikes. The last MTB race was when I was 14 in Wiltshire and the only other races have been some badly done 24 hr team events around 2004 and the Brompton race last summer. So clearly not a lineage of racing I’m going to have a go. First stop a suitable bikes, a race license then a race series.
One of the things I enjoyed reading last year was the progress made by one of the journalists at Road.cc as he trained for and raced locally around Bath. He even finished the year in the end of the pack.
Step 1 – suitable bike. Next stop British Cycling for a race license.
Hard to add much to BMX / skate videos as I’ve said before but then every now and then something comes along that blows you away. Some really nice bits in the clip below.
This story has popped up quite a bit recently but one of the best links I’ve found about it is this piece by Jack Thurston who gives an interesting background to Steve Abraham’s attempt to ride more than 75,065 miles in a year. Why? Well in 1939 Tommy Godwin set the long distance record at that figure and no one has broken it since. Having achieved this he then joined the RAF and went to war.
Steve is something of a legend in Britain’s small and low-key long distance cycling community. Raised in a cycling family, by the age of 13 he was already doing 100 miles rides and got into the audax scene in the early 1990s. In 2007 Steve set a new Audax UK points record, riding 23,834 miles in a year, mostly on weekends and during holidays as he was working full time. One of the many remarkable rides that year was the “Great Triangle”: from Milton Keynes south to Dover in Kent, then west to Land’s End in Cornwall, then up to the northern tip of Scotland and back to Milton Keynes. A total of 2,100 miles that took Steve just nine and half days. Oh, and he rode it all fixed wheel.
To achieve this he needs to average 205 miles a day for an entire year! It’s quite a commitment and there’s something about it I really admire, mainly due to it being slightly bonkers. He’s started already and can be followed on Strava and also has a site where updates are being posted by a series of helpers. There’s also a live satellite tracker.
..Steve is encouraging people to come out and ride with him, to provide moral support and a little shelter from the wind. Tommy Godwin’s record ride was paced for several months by a team of elite riders from Raleigh, so any help Steve gets out on the road will be perfectly within the rules. Godwin’s ride became a national event, something that was shared with cyclists up and down the country. Steve wants to do the same on his ride.
I’d love to join one of them at some point to offer support and help ease the strain on the front for a few miles for him. I also love this picture of his flat in Milton Keynes. Go Steve!
I found this interesting little video earlier which looks at the alterations made to London Bridge station in the 70’s as well as some of the history behind it. The clip is only 15 mins long and shows some great shots of the wider area at the time. It’s even more interesting to me as the whole station is now being reworked again 40 years later. I love the signal box they show as being all modern and new then. It’s always been a fascination to me as you get the train in.
Since using Strava this last year I’ve found a few nice little tools that either expand on the service somehow or extend it via their API and make it better or do something interesting that I thought would be worth sharing.
This little tool takes your Strava (or Runkeeper) activities for a set period to make “your exercise data as art”. You simply allow it to talk to your Strava account and then play with a few variables to get a nice A3 sized print and an image you can then share online. The graphics it produces are from the shapes created by your GPS track which is actually pretty interesting. Hopefully there’s more styles coming soon.
It’s interesting picking out the routes you’ve done. The Isle of Wight is pretty recognisable as is the Brompton race. Regents Park also sticks out whether as it’s own unique shape or tacked on to my commute. Nice to see a few more interesting shapes towards the end of the year though. This is mine from 2014 but it could equally be useful for say a big ride such as Lands End to John O’Groats or a big tour somewhere. Just put the date ranges in and plot a graphic. They do prints at £40 for an A3 one which seems reasonable – the quality is allegedly very good.
Multi ride mapper
This is a seriously clever little tool with lots and lots of configuration variables to allow you to create a unique graphic with your rides overlaid on one map. Again I’ve done the whole of 2014 but again this could be interesting for an event such as LEJOG.
The interface appears complex but it’s pretty simple to control. Once it’s set just hit run and it does its thing. Generating mine was interesting as you see lots of activity in London and then it expanding out gradually as rides got longer and more ambitious.
Anything I’ve missed? Hit me up on Twitter and I’ll add them to the list.
I haven’t fully understood this one yet but it does appear to allow you to cut up your Strava data in a myriad of ways. Data overload perhaps but it looks pretty powerful. Will have a play with this one tomorrow in a bit more detail. There’s also a similar function with the map as well as numerous others.
