thewashingmachinepost




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ever wanted just one?

devilsportswear.com

i could probably list this as 'number 250 in an occasional and seemingly never ending series' because it's one of those subjects that rears its head at the most inappropriate times. if you fancy designing your own cycling kit, and you're the only one in the team, where the heck are you going to go? i did pick up on an advertisement recently that promised a minimum order of five, which for velo club d'ardbeg was certainly entering the realms of possibility (everybody needs at least two sets anyway, right?). but hot on the heels of such an interesting notion, which had certainly encouraged discussion in the peloton, an e-mail arrived in my inbox from a company offering the possibility of a minimum order of just one. now we're talking, chaps.

devilsportswear, based in staffordshire england, as well as slovakia (everybody's got to be somewhere) will, apparently, happily make you just one jersey, or pair of shorts or both, and not charge you a mortgage for the pleasure. colours available to your team designer (no team should be without one) number over ninety, and the garments include long and short sleeve jerseys, jackets, armwarmers, kneewarmers - you get the general idea. designs can be one hundred percent original, or semi-custom if you wish, but there's a pretty good chance there's something available to suit us all.

logically enough it costs a lot more per garment for one than for a hundred, but if you need that special jersey for next year's london-paris, any excuses have just fizzled away.

devilsportswear.com

posted on wednesday 31 october 2007.

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getting an eiffel

london paris

apologies for the dreadful heading, but from my point of view, it's better out than in. as i'm sure everyone is tired of hearing, i had the great good fortune to ride the 2007 london-paris: around 600km over the course of three days, with full technical support, rolling road closures and, one of the best bits, a wonderful eddy merckx bicycle to ride. and while i was looking forward to riding the same route again in 2008, surprise, surprise, all has changed. and now i'm looking forward to it even more.

and there's one word that says it all - pave. yes, for 2008, the london-paris ride will head into northern france and include at least one section (though david harmon tells me they're angling to include a couple more) of paris roubaix cobbles. how utterly amazing does it get? however, just to add even more icing on the cake, the organisers have arranged rolling road closures across the end of the champs elysee, past the arc de triomph and ending at the eiffel tower.

the first stage is from london to dover at 200km. second day is a comforting 230km including the pave (my understanding is that the really, really fast group will have to cycle the cobbles, while the rest of us can opt for pathways at the side - guess which i plan to ride?). this sets us up for a paltry 170km on the run into paris on the final day. the 2008 london-paris ride takes place from 26-29 june, costs £649 ($1290) and includes food, ferry, accommodation and technical support, though this year the eurostar return and bike repatriation is extra. obviously i will not be riding this for fun, but selflessly on your behalf for words and pictures.

entries open in november, so have a serious think about it. i'm riding again, jez probably will, anthony mccrossan, sean kelly and possibly david harmon too. would we lie to you?

londres-paris.com

posted on wednesday 31 october 2007.

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rolling again

culture clash two

bicycle couriers, cycle journalists, media folk and some unnamed netherlanders will be cycling in the classic car club in old street, london - not that far removed from the host gallery as it happens - pedalling for all their worth over five hundred metres without travelling an inch (sorry for the mixed measurements). that's because their bicycles (you surely didn't think they'd be using motor cars?) will be firmly captured on rollers.

yes, the rapha people are at it again. having successfully revived the art of roller racing in february's culture clash, this is culture clash two - entertainment as it was in the fifties, though the big band has been replaced by disc jockeys. it all takes place on saturday 17th november starting at 7pm and rattling on until 1am (well past any conscientious cyclist's bed-time) and will include a have a go race giving anyone not fitting into the above mentioned categories the chance to acquire powerful amounts of lactic acid in a very short space of time. prizes include items from the extensive rapha wardrobe along with other merchandise all for a cost of £10 on the door (tickets in advance from rapha's website for £8). £2.50 from each sale goes to leuka - a leukaemia research charity, and numbers are limited to 500.

february's champions are preparing to defend their titles come the 17th, so if you're going to be in the neighbourhood, this sounds like an ideal way to avoid saturday night tv.

posted on tuesday 30 october 2007.

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seeing is believing

muc-off optix

this year's braveheart ride was muddy. or at least parts of it were, along with masses of isle of wight ferry* all over the farm roads. the only cyclists who were spared the mess all over clothes and glasses were sean kelly and brian smith, and that only because they suffered mechanicals within a very short distance. and having spent about forty five minutes today cleaning the dried-in gloop off the company colnago, it's perhaps not that surprising that the rudy projects suffered a similar fate.

however, cleaning crud off a carbon frame with a sponge and soapy water, is not quite the technique you want when attempting to shine precision optics suffering a thin film of the brown opaque stuff. in my case, this is even more of a kid gloves operation because the rudys have the rx clip-in insert so that i can actually see where i'm going. scratches i do not want, because as time moves along, these are only going to get more numerous.

however, a solution (pardon the pun) is at hand from x-lite sub company, muc-off, in the shape of their optix pack. this cleverly consists of a neat hard plastic, zipped case containing a small spray bottle of lens cleaner and a particularly generous, soft cleaning cloth along and an instruction card. there's a plastic tagged, muc-off monogrammed zip that ought to be easy enough to open even with gloved hands, and a clip hook (carabiner) on the back to allow affixing to a belt or rucksack loop. the container does not open fully, but has elastic mini straps holding front and back together, thus stopping those potentially awkward moments when you unzip and everything falls into the mud/road/water/whatever.

the biodegradable cleaning solution is applied to the lenses by a pump action spray from the 35ml bottle (refills are available) then polished to a streak-free finish with the soft black cloth. on this occasion, the cleaning power and lack of streaks was so impressive, that i cleaned my regular specs as well. it's amazing what you can see with clean lenses. recommended price is £:11.99 which is probably a heck of a lot less than you paid for the 'bins' in the first place.

unreservedly recommended - does exactly what it says on the box.

*what's hot and steaming and comes out of cow(e)s backwards.

posted on monday 29 october 2007.

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best seat in the house

brooks swallow titanium

it's an unusual bicycle, component or item of cycling clothing that doesn't present itself to its best (or worst) advantage within a relatively short period of time. granted, there's always room for a long-term test, but experience so far has shown that this usually tends to confirm the initial impressions. this time, however, it will likely take a good deal longer before this test has a conclusion that can be committed to pixels.

shortly to be fitted to the company colnago is a brooks titanium saddle - combining the old with the new, if you like - to find out if the original really is still the best. modern saddles, even leather ones, are pretty much constructed in a similar fashion: a rigid former of plastic, composite or carbon, overlayed with padding then covered with leather, pretend leather, lycra or other hard-wearing material. generally speaking, if your saddle of choice is uncomfortable when purchased, it's likely to remain so for the life of the saddle. because of this, a number of manufacturers now offer a try before you buy scheme, a handy way of minimising expenditure on several models before finding one that your bum likes.

brooks leather saddles, however, are different: a fashioned piece of tanned leather, made rigid by brooks' hand-processing, is rivetted to a steel or titanium frame incorporating a tension bolt at the nose to allow shape retention during the life of the saddle. the corollary of the construction process is that the leather seat rides like a coal bunker for about the first few weeks of use. if you were to base your judgement on initial perceptions, you probably wouldn't cross your dealer's palm with silver at all. to quote from rapha continental for the first 135 miles i was in mild to intense then agonizing pain. and then suddenly my saddle was perfect - p e r f e c t. it happened just like that, suddenly and completely. and since there seems to be a dearth of impartial printed material regarding the efficacy of these traditional british saddles, i'm going to find out for you.

the swallow saddle was originally produced by brooks in 1937, and is the chief ancestor of the modern racing saddle - it's even the ancestor of itself, come to that. if you're a weight weenie, this is not the saddle for you. with an advertised weight of 360g, compared to the fizik arione titanium (owned by the same parent company, selle italia) at under 200g, it obviously doesn't win the gravity wars. however, since a decent haircut would save at least the same, gravity be damned. price is comparable to aforementioned offering from fizik, at around £165 ($425), so after the leather has had its initial treatment of proofide, fitting will proceed, and sore backside or not, the road test will continue.

witness this selflessness on your behalf as it unfolds over the next few months.

posted on monday 29 october 2007.

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the real tartan army

jez leg

well that's us back on the island after a wonderful day's cycling on saturday representing velo club d'ardbeg (it didn't rain) and despite a landslide on the rest and be thankful, meaning we'd to come home via crianlarich at the top of loch lomond. it was comforting to see a fair number of our mainland peloton similarly decked out in club colours. nice one chaps.

alan miller and his assistants at the braveheart fund laid out a superb course leading out from loudoun academy in galston, before wending its way through serious farming country, through muirkirk and catrine and plenty of other places i didn't know existed. there's a heck of a lot of hills round that way and it seems mr millar found every one of them - there's also a strangely calming satisfaction to be had from cycling along without a care in the world and without the faintest idea of where in the world you are. jez and i met scores of fellow cyclists as we pretended to be fast (though tis very demoralising to be passed on a climb by someone on a steel bike, wearing a pudding bowl helmet, and using toeclips and straps).

guests for the day included the inimitable anthony mccrossan and cycling.tv cohort, brian smith, along with seans yates and kelly, the incredibly amiable alan peiper, and the equally friendly david harmon and scott sunderland. mr peiper may have been 'retired' as a cyclist for the better part of ten years but he looks fitter than guys less than half his age. about five kilometres from the finish, when the 'pros' passed, they went past like a train. we thought we were doing well keeping up around thirty plus kph, but the train went past doing a good fifteen more. still, that's so easy to do when you have a team car following.

anthony and david

messrs smith and kelly had a softer ride, with the latter wrapping his rear mech in the back wheel, and the former breaking his chain only 16km into the ride. why didn't we think of excuses like that? all the braveheart team (except sean kelly) were kitted out in the latest braveheart.com team strip displaying more tartan than slipstream have argyle pattern (see photo).

hopefully all the four hundred plus cyclists taking part had as much fun as we did, even if the ground coverage was a mite agricultural at times (quite a lot of times, actually - my mechanic is going to have to spend all day tomorrow washing, fettling and polishing). a grand day out - same time same channel next year.

braveheart fund

posted on sunday 28 october 2007.

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live absolutely

earth, wind and rider jersey

with reference some of my recent articles/reviews regarding cycle clothing, we may almost have created our own problem. well, problem isn't really the correct word, because it's what could be regarded as a 'nice' problem. if we are all going to become more sartorially elegant when in the saddle (and like it or not, it has already happened) we are now honour bound to continue the look off the bike.

and, perhaps unsurprisingly, there are one or two enthusiastic clothing companies around who are only too eager to help us carry it off. one such is earth wind and rider, run by the irrepressible bill sebell, which has featured on the post some months back. bill was kind enough to send one of the earth wind and rider long sleeve jerseys all the way from cambridge, massachusetts for an islay review. while the jerseys are available in a variety of styles and also in short sleeves, since winter is almost upon us, long sleeves would seem the way to go for britainshire.

and, it has to be said, this is merino jersey luxury. constructed entirely from fine-knit merino wool with ribbed collar and cuffs, it features not only a quarter zip with a traditional cycling jersey collar, but also the almost obligatory three (commendably capacious) rear pockets with an embroidered logo on the middle one. while this could be seen as a concession to cycling fashion, there is, in fact, no earthly reason why these jerseys could not be worn as everyday cycle wear both on and off the bike. not something that could be said about your liquigas jersey.

the earth wind and rider jerseys are available in small, medium, large, extra large and extra extra large. the medium sized review jersey, aside from being soft and warm, has a commendably long body, similarly with the sleeves, something i haven't found to be true of every long sleeve jersey. and while it is nowhere near skinsuit tight (and why the heck would it be?) it's close fitting enough to keep the warmth in and not to flap in the wind. a brief ride proved the point: sleeves stayed put when on the tops or drops, and while the body is a standard length all round, it's easily long enough to cover your back (if you see what i mean).

but what would it be that mrs washingmachinepost hates most about merino wool? when it comes time to spruce up a bit, many require careful hand-washing (i have offered, honest) the earth, wind and rider jerseys, however, are fully machine washable. admittedly they require flat drying, but...

with the option of small quantity embroidery, it's interesting to note the exceptionally high quality of the large embroidered ewr logo on the front of this review garment. finish is very tidy with no extraneous threads to catch on those odd edges in the bike shed and not too ostentatious in its relief. if you fancy having a few of these with your club (or website) name emblazoned across the front, back or sleeve. the earth, wind and rider custom program starts at twelve pieces for any stock items with embroidery done locally in the united states, but they also offer larger custom programs factory direct. these start at 50 pieces for custom embroidery and 150 piece minimum for a custom jersey design and embroidery. it's a thought...

earth, wind and rider long sleeve merino jerseys sell for $120 (approx £60) which is an absolute steal. jerseys are sent to the uk by fedex and could be a serious christmas consideration for the cyclist in your life, even if that cyclist is you. bill sebell tells me that orders received by 5pm(gmt) on wednesday 19 december should be ok for christmas delivery. however, if it were i, the order would be placed earlier - fedex had a wee bit of bother finding islay (though there were mitigating circumstances - thank you vicky).

earth, wind and rider jersey

a seriously excellent item of cycle clothing for on or off the velocipede. have a look at earth, wind and rider

posted on wednesday 24 october 2007.

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room with a view

equal on the road

i don't know if jeremy clarkson has a blog anywhere on the internet, but these words should probably appear there rather than here. because here i'm preaching to the converted, unless a motorist has arrived here looking for washing machine information.

i received a poster from the scottish road safety unit, not a very good one, mind, but a poster nonetheless which was aimed at both cyclists and motorists. the idea was to promote the mindset that we are both equal on the road - the poster consisted of a driver behind a steering wheel and a cyclist behind handlebars (wearing a helmet, it should be noted) side by side and reinforced by a logo at the bottom superimposing a bicycle on the silhouette of a car. since a large number of cyclists are also motorists, i'm sure you'll agree that this is an admirable concept to promote.

except that the occasions when it presents itself as a real life concept are all too few. speaking to a londoner on the phone last week, a new recruit to the world of two wheels, i was asked if car drivers always drove within a coat of paint of cyclists trying valiantly to pedal to work. bearing in mind the guy was in london, a city of which i have no cycling experience whatsoever, i passed on tentative advice about claiming his roadspace and not being intimidated. very easy to do, when you live on an hebridean isle with very little traffic and wide open spaces.

but with the mighty dave t giving those south of the border the benefit of his experience this past weekend, and jez pointing out islay's birdlife to the intrigued, i was destined to plough my own furrow (just love those agricultural cliches) before retiring for a double espresso at debbie's on sunday. since many of our roads are single track, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, traffic is light to say the least. but in the space of a couple of kilometres, i met two vehicles travelling in the opposite direction who, if they even noticed i was there, certainly had no intention of shifting from their chosen trajectory.

now in the big city, i can readily appreciate how the daily rat race could lessen the concentration on other road users, be they cyclists or otherwise. but on a relaxing sunday morning in october round islay's west coast, where's the problem? and if it happens here, i can accept why it is perceived as hell on wheels in the metropolises.

if the notional rule of the sea is that steam should give way to sail, why is the motoring corollary not as acceptable? just because a tonne of metal has more presence than a few kilos of carbon is no reason for one to lord it over the other - there's more than one way to the sun, and that of the cyclist is just as valid as that of the motorist: maybe even more so in these days of global warming.

now, i just have to be careful that i don't snag a cleat getting off this soapbox.

posted on tuesday 23 october 2007.

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oh dear, oh dear

last pro-tour race of the season, the wonderfully named 'ride of the falling leaves' which sums up its delightful place in the cycling pantheon, and the territory through which it is run. as most of us are unlikely to be in the impressive position of popping across to lombardy to watch the race unfold, we have to rely on our 'service providers': british eurosplot or cycling.tv. with the latter unable to acquire the rights for either paris-tours or lombardy, it came down to british eurosplot to resolve the end of the season.

except the latter decided that wall to wall snooker (also being shown on bbc2) was more important than showing live cycling (a decision we must grudgingly accept, given that snooker is considerably more popular than cycling in the uk), and scheduled an hour's worth of highlights late on saturday evening. disappointingly, the snooker ran over by a half hour, so instead of broadcasting the cycling late, eurosplot cancelled it and showed moto gp instead. the highlights were eventually seen on sunday morning, but again late, because we had to watch some motorcyclists pouring champagne over each other.

but all was not lost because cycling.tv were due to show cyclocross from kalmthout on sunday afternoon. only they didn't. as it turns out, the uci had promised live feed but didn't follow through, so lots of us spent much of our sunday afternoon continually refreshing our browsers to watch a race that wasn't happening. how difficult would it have been to acknowledge this on the technical support page on the innertube forum?

for a while, the world's cyclists were in an excellent position regarding cycling coverage: suddenly that seems to be unravelling a bit. i hope it gets better again.

posted on sunday 21 october 2007.

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digital warmth

prendas windtex gloves

it might seem like the ideal way to pass the time on a bike: nice people send me cycle gear and clothing and all i have to do is test it as rigorously as i know how, then fill these pixels with my words of wisdom (or something very similar). in the summer months, this is quite easy, because i just cycle for miles and miles and miles before sitting down in a darkened corner with the computer.

winter, however, is a lot harder. because in winter, i get sent winter clothing (a perfectly laudable and logical pattern to follow) but the weather doesn't always comply. last year it took days and days before i could find any rain to go out in and test a waterproof jacket. with islay situated on the gulfstream, weather can often be mild at this time of year, but if we accept that global warming isn't just for guardian readers, sometimes it's cold and wet. the secret is to have the crap weather when you're testing, and pleasant weather when you're not.

today was cold and windy, ideal for wearing a pair of prendas windtex stretch winter gloves while slogging round my 50 kilometre training loop (and a wee bit more at the end, but only because i was having fun). it's a constant surprise at how thin and light thermal fabrics can be made nowadays - there's a good chance that these gloves are lighter than my regular track mitts. italian made, these long fingered gloves have padding on the palm that stretches across to the thumb valley (well what would you call it?) and half-way up the thumb itself. the fabric itself is stretchy windtex, one of those dashed clever man-made fabrics that repel wind and water while remaining breathable and thermal. not an inkling of an idea how this all works, but believe me it works very well.

prendas windtex gloves

some thermal gloves are warm enough to be worn as part of a polar expedition, and as such become almost as uncomfortable as cold hands. the prendas offering suffereth not from this - my puffing and panting over a three hour period simply meant that my paws remained cosy and not scorched. there's a very handy extended and velcroed elastic cuff that cheerfully overlaps the cuffs of whichever winter jersey you happen to be dressed in, an absolute godsend for those of us with long arms but shorter sleeves. and the lightness of the fabric meant that flipping up and down the gears presented no difficulty or discomfort. i had happy hands.

there is, helpfully, the prendas ciclismo wording on the back at just the right angle to let tom boonen know which brand of gloves you're wearing as you pip him in the sprint (are you sure it's only me that does this?).

on the downside (there's always a downside - a review doesn't qualify as a proper review unless there's a downside) they could do with a fluffy bit on the back of the thumb as a snotwipe (windtex isn't soft on the nose) and it was quite difficult to get the water bottle out its cage - grippy bits on the inside of the fingers would help. minor points, i admit but the addition of both would make them really, really great.

the prendas windtex stretch gloves can be had in sizes from small, medium, large (as tested) xl and xxl and cost £25.00. highly recommended for cold manipulative digits.

posted on saturday 20 october 2007.

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velosophy

rivendell bikes

i would love to say that the word in the heading was all my idea, but unfortunately for me, it wasn't. what does it mean? well, i'm figuring it relates to cycling philosophy, but its author says that he's still working on the concept, but wanted to get the word 'out there. well, he has now.

the originator is grant petersen of rivendell bikes, based in walnut creek, california. the astute amongst you will probably have realised that rivendell is a place in tolkein's 'lord of the rings' so there's a strong likelihood that rivendell do not produce state of the art carbon frames, lovingly tested in the wind tunnel of california state university. and you would be correct. (reading further, it turns out that rivendell bikes isn't really named after the elven place in lord of the rings, but you'll have to check out the trivia page on their site, to find that out.)

rivendell bikes produce hand-crafted, lugged steel frames with proper head badges, including one called 'legolas', yet another reference to 'lord of the rings, retailing at $1600 for frame and fork (it's a cyclo-cross frame). so what? - i hear me ask. well, as i carried the ever more weighty campagnolo carrier bag around the stands at earls court, it's fairly easy to see the difficulty that some manufacturers are having in distinguishing one make of carbon frame from another. something that was often achieved in the early part of last century, by employing ever more decorative lugs.

but with modern manufacturing making it much easier to produce carbon monocoque frames, there are not even lugs any more on which to spend the design budget. and purveyors of steel, particularly lugged steel frames, are now beginning to see a resurgence. witcomb cycles, a part of london's cycle heritage, took way more orders for their not particularly cheap lugged steel frames, than they had bargained for, despite the presence of an ultra modern, white carbon frame on the stand. and peter nisbet of colnago uk pointed out that, since the master x-lite had returned to an all steel fabrication and been made available in saronni world championship colours, sales had noticeably increased.

it's very unlikely that we'll see any of the pro-tour or uci continental teams throwing away the carbon in favour of lugged steel and alloy stems (shame they ever went away), but those of us who don't race and who have a hankering over something just that bit less generic than the rest of the club, seem to be returning to our roots. or at least some of us either already have, or are thinking about it.

so could it be that, much like rock and roll, we could see a re-cycling of ideas (pun intended), much like franz ferdinand managing to convince the record buyers of today that their music was new and innovative, and not at all like that of talking heads from the seventies? or all those jangly guitar bands pretending they've never heard of the byrds?

after all, if gandalf had owned a bicycle (and who's to say he didn't?), it wouldn't have been a carbon monocoque.

posted on saturday 20 october 2007.

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next year's falling rain

gran fondo

i know this is in the wrong place, but it will eventually make its way to the correct repository on the velo club d'ardbeg pages. eventually.

after a more than successful, if particularly wet, gran fondo d'ardbeg this past august, next year's ride of the falling rain is already in the planning stages. well, not quite planning, but we do know that it will take place on sunday 3rd august 2008, start from debbie's cafe in bruichladdich at 10am, have a midway stop at ardbeg's old kiln cafe, and finish when we get back. i think we'd be unlikely to find a long range weather forecast that would let us know the projected rainfall that far ahead.

most of you who partook of this year's event will already have their e-mail addresses safely on a file somewhere, but if you'd like to receive fairly irregular updates as we head towards august 2008, drop me a line at granfondo@vcdardbeg.net and i'll eandeavour to keep you up to date.

it is possible that it will morph from the gran fondo to the fleche d'ardbeg, but that's one of those things that's still in planning. there will also be a new route map, even though the route hasn't changed, if only because i enjoyed doing this year's so much. if you're thinking about it at all, it might be an idea to look at some accommodation options sooner rather than later. this can be done at islayinfo.com.

posted on friday 19 october 2007.

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on the telly

rouleur exhibition

there's always a possibility that i'm the only one who checks cycling.tv for the racing. disappointingly, they didn't broadcast paris-tours, and judging by the major timeshifting going on in the eurosport camp, it's a real pity that they're not doing lombardy either. however, there is a dollop of cyclo-cross on sunday (21st) so all is not lost.

anyway, i have (not for the first time) digressed, because i meant to say that the secret suprise hidden on cycling.tv is the so-called 'mac flash' channel (which also works on a pc). it's always possible that all of you already watch this on a regular basis, in which case, i now feel like more of an idiot than i did when i started. yes, having been one of those insufferable mac users who has periodically pestered anthony, simon and narrowstep about their continued reliance on windows media player, and the possibilities of cross-platform harmony that could be realised if they'd stream live coverage in flash, i have watched the mac flash channel before. but i failed to acquire the habit. until now, that is.

as i mentioned in my review of the rouleur annual and photography exhibition, i was sitting about central station when the opening party took place, so it was really nice to watch bits of it, and simon's ira ryan cap to see what i missed. there's a brief piece about the recycling.co.uk team merging with rapha condor for next year (uci continental) and an interview with chris hoy. if you've already been watching all this stuff, why didn't you tell me? - and if you haven't, join me in my regular fix.

cycling.tv

posted on friday 19 october 2007.

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a gallery of steel

pegoretti

if you read my previous post regarding the health and progress of dario pegoretti, you will be aware that due to a bout of professional incompetence, i was more engrossed in talking to phil at mosquito bikes about said mr pegoretti, than i was over garnering photographic evidence of his artistic decoration decorating the mosquito stand.

happily, there are people reading the post with greater presence of mind when confronted with such velocipedal art, and laurence arnold is just such a man. so i have presented his remarkably good closeups of the frame in this gallery for your greater edification. it is also evidence, if such were indeed required, that the great pegoretti is still on top of his game, illness or not.

contact mosquito for more info.

posted on thursday 18 october 2007.

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