Whiter Shade

Sometimes, when I'm out riding and should be thinking hard about serious work or domestic-related matters, I find my mind wandering to the more esoteric reaches of bike culture semiotics.

Today was a case in point. What, I wondered, lies behind the increasing and mysterious popularity of white Assos kit? 

Not as trivial a subject as you might think. Our choice of clothing, how we present ourselves to others, is never insignificant.

Before the Industrial Revolution, pale skin was a clear indicator of wealth or breeding. Relatively simple to decode, white hands and face said:

"I do not have to toil all day in fields under a boiling sun, or stoke fires in someone else's house."    Fine clothes in delicate fabrics reinforced the message, but a milk-like complexion was the real giveaway.

Things changed of course, first with the arrival of factories and offices which took many of the working classes inside to labour; and later when the rich discovered summers on the Cote D'Azur and private yachts.  A perfect tan announced that its owner was a person of leisure, an international jet-setter.

Package tours and St Tropez spray booths have disrupted that particular piece of symbolism, but the underlying principles still apply.

When I started cycling, shorts were black.  The occasional coloured side-panel was tolerated but anything more guaranteed you the role of club laughing stock.  I once turned up to a Sunday run wearing red Giordana tights (our jerseys were red and white) and the cruel Rudolf Nureyev jibes and Santa jokes continued for months. 

The drawbacks of white -- or very pale -- cycling clothes are well known: they make you look fat and emphasise your privates.  

Plus, on the simplest level -- you need somewhere to wipe your hands.  When your chain comes off or you need to change a tyre,  a pair of black shorts are very effective hand cleaners.

So the not-so hidden message of white Assos (and its marginally cheaper cousin white Castelli)?  

"My bike is very expensive and very new.  In the unlikely event of anything going wrong, I shall simply call a man to fix it.  I have no intention of riding in the rain or getting a puncture.  And anyway,  I can afford to buy lots more new shorts at £90 a pop if these ones get dirty."

So now you know.  Glad to be of service. 

Coming up short

I'm old enough that when I started cycling the chamois inserts in shorts were genuinely made from goats.

Thin, unpadded ovals; they were wonderfully soft and absorbent in the shop and for the first ride, but washing gave them the consistency and feel of coarse-grade sandpaper. 

 

To make it wearable, you had to grasp the insert with both hands and scrub like a demented Victorian washerwoman; then apply "chamois cream", a thick yellow gunk which just gave it the feel of sandpaper covered in axle grease.

Unsurprisingly, there seemed to be more cases of saddle sores, infections and the dreaded boils in those days; and you sympathised with those old-school pro's who would begin the day with a sirloin steak stuffed beneath their privates, ride a 200-mile stage and then fling the flattened, seasoned cut of meat to the hotel chef to prepare for that night's dinner.

Decent artificial chamois brought an end to all that, of course, and the reduction in cyclist-groin-to-animal-product-interaction has been one of the many improvements I've seen in cycling over the past twenty years.

But my increasing mileage in preparation for June has highlighted some, er, shortcomings in my shorts department -- and I've had to take action.  

I've ordered a new pair of Assos F1's -- suspiciously cheap off of that Ebay; and bought a tub of the same company's pricey new-age bum butter.

It's certainly a different product to the chamois cream of thirty years ago -- lightly perfumed and with the consistency of an expensive moisturiser.  Rather disturbingly, it warns "avoid intimate areas" -- how does that work, then? 

Initial impressions are favourable -- despite an unexpected warming sensation on first application.  Lance Armstrong apparently recommends some product used by American farmers on their cows' udders -- but I think I'll stick with the Swiss variety.

I'll keep you updated.  Although, obviously, not in too much detail.

 

Just what I always wanted

Matt Seaton wrote entertainingly in the Guardian this week about Christmas and cyclists -- specifically about buying presents for your cycling significant other. In paraphrase, his point is "don't bother". Cyclists are devious, capricious and selfish. If they haven't already got a cycling-related object, they probably don't want it. If they do want it, they've probably already bought it for themselves -- and lied to you about how much it cost.

He's probably right, although there are some things that few cyclists would turn down if they were found in their stockings. With the weather turning icy in London this past week, my thoughts have been turning to an Assos jacket -- perhaps the Airblock 851, or even the outrageously expensive FuguJack. Incidentally, is the name FuguJack a Fuentes-style reference to Tony Rominger's dog, or a rare example of the world-famous Swiss humour?

And Rapha's pink, chain-print kit bag is so utterly wrong it's completely right.

Campagnolo's full toolkits are hard to find but still the holy grail for spanner-monkeys everywhere. I've already got all the Campag tools I need -- the others in the kit are either obsolete or only relevant if you're pressing twenty headsets a day -- but who wouldn't want the polished wood box as a workshop centrepiece?

You can't go wrong with socks -- no cyclist ever has enough - as long as they're short and white, with no pretence at coloured faux-pro or, heaven forbid, long and black like Armstrong.

Slightly more left-field, how about scouring E-bay for a musette or two? Always useful rolled up in your jersey pocket for those last-minute on the road purchases. Tim Hilton recommends carrying a musette to store edible road kill -- in his book "One more kilometre and we're in the showers", he talks fondly of pedalling home from a country run with a still-warm hare on his back.

Incidentally, if you've never read Tim's book, do so immediately. It's eccentric, discursive and hugely enjoyable -- every page packed with a love of bikes and life.

Francophones should check out the Caverne Du Sport for old copies of Miroir Cyclisme and the like. Even if you don't speak French, the photos and adverts are wonderfully atmospheric.

And finally, how about some home-made recycled bike trinkets? The Nuovo Record key-ring was sourced from my parts bin, but the classic pie-crust levers are cheap and plentiful through E-bay or bike jumbles. A bit of solder and some silver wire and your significant cyclist could be sporting a fetching pair of lightweight earrings.

You pays your money

Speaking of Assos and Rapha, both brands get a mixed reaction in the online cycling community. It doesn't help that they're the go-to brands of the "more-money-than-sense" brigade. Rapha's marketing is stylish but sometimes tries too hard, and their occasional excesses (did anyone actually buy their £130 Riders Log?), add to the suspicion that someone is having a laugh at our expense.

And expense is the big issue with Assos -- received wisdom says good quality but way overpriced - and no longer "Handmade in Switzerland".

Credit where it's due, however -- and recent weeks have restored my faith in both brands.

Last year, I bought a Rapha Softshell Jacket in a sale at VeloRution -- reduced from laughably expensive to extremely expensive. I wore it a few times through the Spring but wasn't over-impressed. However, since the temperature dropped a while ago, it's become an essential element of my daily riding. It fits well: is warm, comfortable and showerproof and has some great features. It's also one of the few items of cycling kit -- actually the only one -- that attracts compliments from non-bikies off the bike. For winter commuting, worth its weight in gold -- which to be fair is probably not far off the recommended retail. And the Rapha winter hat is a godsend as well -- keeping my ears warm and the spray out of my eyes, while still lending me a faint air of Roger de Vlaeminck. You'd almost think it was worth 35 quid.

I also bought -- in another sale -- an Assos Climajet rainjacket. I first used it for commuting and wasn't immediately convinced. It felt restrictive, rode up annoyingly under my bag and made me sweat on mild, wet days. I've been using a much cheaper jacket from Endura, a birthday present from Mrs Flandrian.

But this morning, the heavens opened as I left Richmond Park and the Climajet suddenly made sense. A snug fit over my racing kit, the freezing rain just bounced off it -- and I arrived home half an hour later dry and comfortable apart from soaked, icy shoes.

Good design, good materials, fit for purpose -- I guess you can't get them on the cheap.

As I left the Roehampton Gate Cafe this morning, I noticed an old couple outside who I've seen quite a few times. He's in his sixties, trim and fit with a white beard and a lovely old Witcomb fixed. She's of similar age, riding a well-kept hybrid.

I took my rain-jacket from my pocket as the first drops of rain fell, and heard him say:

"Oh look, that feller's caping up -- we'd better not be too long".

Caping up. What a lovely phrase from a bye-gone era.

More of that lost charm can be found on a film from the golden days of British cycling, recommended by the excellent washingmachinepost blog.

A time for fixed

Richmond Park, Sunday morning. Traditional refuge of the London bikie.

Howling wind and dark, threatening skies but a break -- for an hour at least -- in the lashing rain that has afflicted the capital for the past five days.

The park is strangely quiet, even though I'm later than usual. Noticeably absent is the streaming peloton of city-boys, clad in Assos and Rapha, astride their Cervelos and Felts, who've become such a noticeable fixture of the park this year.

I don't really blame them for staying in their beds -- cycling is supposed to be fun, despite the hair-shirt nonsense of the old school clubman, which I sometimes find coming out of my own mouth.

In fact, I've previously been mystified by the way that some of the city cyclerati insist on taking their 5-grand carbon super-bikes on routine training runs in the pouring rain. You can almost hear the grit and muck grinding their delicate carbon and alloy into a paste.


In my day, your "best" bike was put away in September, not to reappear until March at the earliest. You rode through the off-season on your "winter"bike -- frequently with a 66 or 68-inch fixed gear and full mudguards.

For more than twenty years now, that's what I've done -- with a variety of old track and road frames and spare and salvaged bits. This year, thanks to the Government's excellent Ride to Work Scheme, I've been able to buy a beautiful fixed Condor Tempo to do the job. It's the perfect commuting bike, but also ideal for cold-month training. I may even try an audax or sportive on it -- although not Paris-Roubaix.

So go on, city boys -- stash the Cervelo 'till Spring, get yourself a winter hack and get out there.