Cycling Saviour

The last time I moved house, most of my belongings came with me -- on the back of my motorbike.  The remainder -- a Colnago, three pairs of skis and an Amstrad PCW 9512 -- arrived in a borrowed estate car three days later.

This time -- moving house over the Easter weekend, it took a team of five Kiwis four days to load and unload two giant pantechnicons and our world now consists almost entirely of several hundred identical cardboard boxes.

In a link with the past, however, my Casati came separately -- ridden the half-mile between old and new. 

We have moved into a rambling Gothic monstrosity which a colleague likened to something out of ScoobyDoo but the essentials of modern living -- broadband, digital TV, dishwasher etc., have slowly been reconnected.

Training opportunities have been limited, not helped by the unpredictable weather -- apart from one early morning blast down to Richmond Park.  Half an hour rummaging in the boxes turned up wildly inappropriate summer shorts and jersey, but the addition of  leg-warmers and an Assos climajet made it bearable.

Once again, it demonstrated cycling's ability to revive -- dare I say resurrect -- flagging body and spirit.  Workmen are digging up Sawyer's Hill, so the long drag up to Richmond Gate has been reclaimed by cyclists and deer -- both safe from motorised oppression.  A family of deer were standing in the middle of the road as I crested the hill; they looked -- startled -- in my direction then turned away, convinced that this slow-moving, bright blue creature was no threat. 

Three laps then back to the boxes with a renewed vigour.  Oh, and the Aga is great for drying damp riding gear.

Back to earth

Just back from four days in the Alps, ski-ing with a testosterone-fuelled Dads' Army from my youngest son's school.   It revealed one unfortunate truth -- despite all the miles of pedalling, my legs aren't quite as strong as I hoped they were.  At least one flat out, top-to-bottom run had my thighs screaming for mercy long before the final turn.

We spent one day gloriously off-piste, far away from the crowds and the lifts but some of the time we were faced with one of the great hazards of modern ski-ing -- high-speed motorway madness.  It was like London rush-hour with rubbish brakes, and at the end of the first day I went and bought a -- rather cool -- Giro helmet to ease my shredded nerves.

Back to work today and the madness of the real London rush hour.   I pulled up to the lights in Sloane Square and a black cab driver rolled down his side window to speak to me.  I feared the worst, but his intentions were good.

"Watch out for the bloke behind," he said "He's on the 'phone and not looking where he's going -- nearly had a cyclist off back there".

I thanked him and pointed out that, in the past twenty minutes, I'd seen three people texting as they drove along.  We grumbled together about the deteriorating standards of London driving for a couple of minutes until the lights changed.

Need to get training again soon.  Ski-ing's alright -- but you don't get big legs sitting at a computer. 

 

Bargain wool

Finisterre are a small British surf clothing company, a million miles from the fluorescent  glamour of the big multi-national "surf" fashion brands that fill high streets all over the world. 

They make superb garments for the cold, wet and windy reality of North European surfing: good designs, excellent fabric, no giant logos.  They share some of the design philosophy of Rapha in cycling, and the eco-consciousness of another favourite brand of mine -- Patagonia.

I've got a couple of Finisterre products -- including an unbelievably warm and weatherproof fleece, which is apparently an established favourite with lifeboat crews.  

What's this got to do with cycling?  They're about to launch a range of merino base layers at a very attractive price.  25 notes for a well-made, well designed bit of kit -- the thinking behind it is on their blog and worth reading.

Order two, they're nice people.

 

Utterly gratuitous picture of Vicky Pendleton

And how many of you noticed that on the double-page inside photo she was wearing black trainer socks?  Photo-shopped out for the cover?  Not that we're obsessive or anything.  

Great training weather in the South today -- bright and clear, a bit windy, but a real feel of Spring.    

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.

 

Victoria's Secret

The latest Observer Sports Monthly -- due this Sunday -- looks like becoming a collector's edition. The cover features triple world champion and prime British Beijing medal hope Victoria Pendleton -- stark naked on a bike, in tasteful homage to Lance Armstrong's 1999 Vanity Fair pose.

I predict that this weekend will see pathetic scenes being played out across the UK.


Middle-aged men whose weekend routines do not normally include the reading of a Sunday paper will gather in furtive groups outside newsagents, waiting for them to open. They will seize copies of the Observer and rush to the privacy of their homes where they will tear the sports supplement from its plastic covering and feast their eyes on the loveliness thereon.


Within minutes, obsessive cries will issue from bedrooms across the land:


"Is that a Madone 6.5? I would have thought they could have stretched to a 6.9, myself -- or preferably used a Litespeed or something, although I suppose the Trek is meant as an Armstrong tribute -- and what are those wheels? Bontragers? They could have upgraded to a pair of Zipps at the very least, or some Lightweights. What cowboy put the bar tape on like that? It won't last five minutes. And the bars are at the wrong angle anyway. I wish she'd move her leg, I can't see what seatpost they've fitted....."


Sad, but you know it's true.

The Slippery Slope

I've always been a sock purist.  Short, plain and white -- the only only acceptable covering for a cyclist's lower leg.  

However, I have been tempted from the paths of purity and righteousness by a rather fetching item from someone calling himself "The Sock Guy".  Bright yellow "Lion of Flanders" socks -- how could you resist?

Luckily, they aren't available in the UK at the moment -- Wiggle claim to sell them, but they're not in stock. 

So I turned for my pressing sock needs to Prendas -- planning to buy a couple of plain white pairs to keep me going.  Temptation loomed in the form of some stylish Italian champion tricolores, and some Belgian ones done out in red, black and yellow and the slogan "Biere, Frites et Merckx". 

Reader, I succumbed.  They're still short -- and mainly white -- but I fear it may be the first step on a road which leads to the ultimate shame -- calf-length, black Lance-a-likes.

Lovely day today.  My legs came out for the first time this year, along with my summer-weight blue Dauphin kit (Hello, girls!).

Spring may be just over the horizon.