thewashingmachinepost




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retro - what retro?

adidas road shoes

it's a hard life keeping thewashingmachinepost supplied with daily content; settling down in front of a hot macbook pro every evening, ignoring all around in order to satisfy the hundreds around the world who suffer from insomnia. therefore, when a smattering of help presents itself in oven-ready format, who am i to refuse? in this case, the assistance heralds its way from jez hastings, he of the occasional previous contribution, who has been road testing a pair of adidas leather road shoes.

i like monochrome images, maybe because at art school i spent too much time in the dark room, processing crap pictures that i had tried to make into somewhat more decent ones. i look now to people such as ben ingham, stephen vanfleteren, mark monk-terry amongst others, who specialise in the colourless game. black and white. evocative of so much of cycling history and lore.

alpaca, a sunday in hell, hard riders, mile eaters, pain and suffering. images that leave imprints on our souls, let alone our brains. the quietness of the lack of colour, when intensity of light is king, where quality outlasts the final sprint of a flurry of lycra and noise. monochrome - the day's colour of another era. i like this time. it has good memories.

adidas used to produce cracking shoes - i know i had a pair; they were leather, hard wearing and at the time, had a long life, (the company was started in 1924 and stayed in the same family- till bernard tapie tried to regenerate in the late 1980s.) i used them for everything cycling. if you didn't have a pair of pete salisbury touring shoes, then you could get away with adidas race; strange but true. then they were no more.

till now that is.

there are so many race shoes on the market these days, and choosing a pair to suit could be a potential nightmare. mosquito bikes sent the full leather adidas cycling super pro classic road shoes to test, and i was over the moon. i'm not keen on snazzy styles with the latest baleen whale fixing, or full waterproof beaver hide go fast grooves. i wanted something that reminded of the miles i had achieved with old friends, shoes that had made contact with my ultimate machine - whichever that was at the time. when these arrived they were so very retro!

retro looks for sure and feeling too but - what's this - modern performance, black leather upper and a full carbon sole? i couldn't wait.

adidas road shoes

normally i spend time looking, thinking, pondering, but with these they were put to use immediately. with a full carbon sole they are as 'hard as nails' providing great contact with the pedals (original black looks) and what's more, you can polish them - (i do) - i love that so much.

they're comfortable - they don't make my feet bleed, they're cool, - well i think so. they are light and when you walk in them they are just like any other race shoe: they make you move like a duck, despite the heel tab plates at the bottom. these do, however, stop wear on the carbon.

but the main thing is, when i put them on, (usually the last item of kit before i get on the c40), i enter another zone and become one of those images, those wonder making monochrome images, of a time past when the bike was king of the road.

posted on saturday 4th october

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the outdoor life

xcweather.co.uk

saturday morning, the wind is around 55-60kph and the precipitation is approaching in horizontal streams. not the sort of weather you really want to be cycing in, even if there's stuff to be tested and reviewed. the clothing currently at washingmachinepost towers for dissemination would not benefit at all from being ridden in such conditions, because the end result would have no bearing on the conditions under which it would normally be worn. yes, i have some of the finest waterproofing known to cycle kind, but then i wouldn't really be testing the right thing. i have, therefore, the dubious luxury of remaining indoors in civvies.

and should it have been a weekday workday, i also have the luxury of living mere minutes away from the office that regularly requires my presence; it is quicker to walk than the extricate the colnago from the bikeshed. so even in conditions such as those that currently prevail, i simply need wear waterproof trousers and a rainjacket, both of which can be stowed somewhere warm and dry on arrival. but what of those who have either elected to have cycling form their entire transport solution or, indeed, those for whom alternatives do not exist? it's not just west coast scotland that suffers from a rudimentary public transport system; many rural areas are similarly not provided for. no endless stream of buses, no railway station, taxis that are few and far between (if they exist at all), and most certainly no tube stations. does commerce provide for the ever growing minority?

unless you work for a largish and particularly forward looking employer, i think the answer to my last question is probably a resounding 'no'. one of my colleagues lives around 20km from the office, and over the years has become so much of a cyclist that people are wont to point this out in conversation. however, the daily commute features a ride across uiskentuie strand, around a 6km stretch of very open road that provides no shelter from the elements whatsoever. committed as he is (and he probably should be), he regularly pedals this on a daily basis, rain, wind (well, almost - there are limits), and shine.

on arrival at his desk, he has one option: none. there are no showers for a quick freshen up, wet cycle clothing needs to lie across the storage heaters, and the bike sits outside against a lamp post. fair enough, it's his choice to travel this way, since he does own a motor vehicle, and the newspaper for which we both put in the hours, runs on a shoestring. so it is perhaps unreasonable to expect our employers to provide the much desired facilities; or is it? this particular scenario must be repeated up and down the country, and it may well be that we have only our selves to blame for putting up with it. when we read of chris king providing showers, towels, lockers, loaner bikes and holiday incentives for those who choose to travel by bike, it doesn't make us feel any better. but unless employers have a particularly favourable view of cycling and the environmental benefits, or simply happen to be decent enough folks to realise the situation, i don't suppose the thought of spending money on the facilities already highlighted, are likely to be particularly high on the financial agenda.

in which case, should you happen to share this dearth of provision, perhaps it's up to us, the underprivileged and opressed (a dod of melodrama never hurt any campaign) to at least get the idea onto an agenda in the first place. many parents have said that they prevent their kids from cycling to school because of the traffic of which they are, ironically, an integral part. so perhaps there are a significant number who would gladly trade four wheels for two, if they felt they wouldn't be disenfranchised and a mite cold and damp when they got to their desks.

just a thought.

posted on saturday 4th october

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the style council

rapha tweed softshell

when starting out as a proper cyclist, it took me quite some time to accept the standard mode of clothing to be worn on the bike. this standard mode was not one that was imposed by my peer group, because until recently, i had no peer group - at least not one that included cyclists. so, in a similar fashion to my early years as a drummer, trying to figure out what type of sticks to buy (which type sir? - eh... wood?), i had to resort to the pages of the comic to see what everyone else was wearing. of course, it never quite clicked at the time, that most of the cyclists depicted in said publication were professionals, and therefore wore jerseys provided by the sponsor(s). with no-one else around to advise otherwise, that's what i bought; replacing t-shirts with motorola and once jerseys, and a pair of cheap(ish) shorts. not the bib type, because i couldn't figure out how to size those; nothing much has changed.

however, there came a point in time, on purchase of the first edition of a landbouwkrediet colnago jersey (you can figure out why, i'm sure), that i realsied that i really didn't wish to look like like someone had sprayed me with several tubes of paint as i passed their garden. 'z' jersey notwithstanding, i quite quickly changed to a more subtle variation on the trade jersey, such as a long-sleeved peugeot; how can you possibly go wrong with black and white?

yes, you are more than welcome to point the finger now that i have been seen wearing giro d'italia pink, and more recently, lime green. if justification were needed, i'm happy to point out that both are solid colours with no hint of a sponsor's logo. even when doing so in ardbeg colours (pretty much black and gold), it has a degree of sophistication that surpasses that of polti, le groupement or liquigas, to name but a few. so i figure my style on the bike, such as it is, has improved over the years.

and more recently, there have been one or two cycle clothing manufacturers who have pushed the boat out a bit in both style, fabrics and colours, with prices to match that have allied sartorial elegance on the bike, with that of those who regard themselves as dedicated followers of fashion off the bike. but, of course, it always takes a leap of faith to move these standards just that one notch higher; a bit like spinal tap, or camapgnolo eleven speed. the more astute amongst you will have realised by now that we're talking about the guys and gals from perren street: rapha

rapha tweed softshell

while not quite hanging on the coathangers overlooking kentish town west railway station, rapha's new tweed softshell jacket will be on show at earls court next week, and available to buy just shortly afterwards. featuring a pure wool, prince of wales check pattern outer, this utterly fabulous jacket will only see the light of day on the back of 100 happy - if inordinately rich - fashion conscious cyclists. because luxury like this only arrives in a limited edition, and needs the outlay of a substantial number of pennies; many more than some folks would be happy to spend on a bike. however, this is not a case of all show but no go: the tweed softshell is quick drying, breathable and hard wearing, even managing to incorporate reflective trim front and back, without upsetting the opulent elegance.

do i want one? you bet your eleventh sprocket i do, but rapha's stand at earls court is likely to be as close as i'm likely to get.

ah well, c'est la vie

the tweed softshell is expected to retail at £450, and should be available in early november | rapha.cc

posted on friday 3rd october

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pen pals

bic jersey

in 1945, marcel bich, for whatever reason, noticed that fountain pens had a tendency to leak, and whether they did so or not, the needed to be refilled. obvious now, but perhaps not so in the mid-forties. working on the idea for around five years, marcel introduced a ballpoint pen using a thick, paste-like ink, dropped the 'h' from his name (tastefully avoiding the english pronunciation which was remarkably akin to the name for a female dog), and called the end result bic. the notion of a ballpoint pen, however, wasn't new, since the inventor of the stained breast pocket, laszlo biro had already patented the idea; marcel bich obtained patent rights to allow his bic pen to see the light of day (or paper). in 2005 the company sold its 100 billionth disposable ballpoint.

during the 1970s the little ball headed character used as the bic logo appeared on a cycle jersey, a jersey worn by vuelta and tour champion, luis ocana. supposedly riding a motobecane team champion, luis ocana won the 1973 tour de france, though rumours of the time said that ocana was in fact on a bicycle made by gemini. either way, both jersey and bicycle were in that orange. ocana, however, is probably better remembered for the tour that he didn't win: 1971. in atrocious weather, eddy merckx skidded into a low wall on the descent of the col de mente. ocana, battling to stay in the yellow jersey, was unable to avoid the stricken merckx and he too fell from his bike. unable to free himself from his toe straps in time he was hit by joop zoetemelk, and required to be flown to hospital by helicopter. ocana's 1971 tour de france was over, and as a mark of respect, merckx refused to wear the yellow jersey at the start of the following stage.

the resurgence of the bic colours to the workaday peloton (that's you and me) has arrived in stages; earlier this year prendas' mick and andy produced a bic casquette, wishing at the time that there may be an opportunity to complete at least two thirds of the set. after finding an original bic wool jersey from the period, it became possible to produce an authentic replica of such in the modern lycra/polyester we have come to know and machine wash. and it's in stock as we speak for a substantially affordable £39.95 ($70) in sizes that range from small, all the way up to 6xl. of course, you'll need to buy your own yellow bic pen.

peugeot jersey

since mick and andy at prendas are sticklers for doing things the proper way, the brief disappearance, and now reappearance of the iconic peugeot jersey, as worn by post hero, robert millar, has been due to renewal of the necessary licence. i know from first-hand knowledge, that prendas do not produce any retro jersey without the necessary permissions from the original sponsor, always assuming that they still exist. so, gone are the bp logos as featured on the tom simpson era jersey, but new is the word peugeot along the side panels. available in short sleeve format, the jersey is also on sale at £39.95 ($70) and in similar size variations to that of the bic jersey.

also available, to complete the image, are bibshorts at £49.95 ($89), a matching cap at £7.95 ($14), and even a pair of coolmax socks at £5.95 ($10.50). judging by the weather outside at the moment, it might not be a bad idea to choose a pair of armwarmers too.

prendas.co.uk

posted on thursday 2nd october

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what a lot of sprockets

disraeli gears

i can't help but find it ironic that, for very many of the early years of the tour de france, the riders were exceptionally keen to make use of the newly invented derailleur gear systems, as less than perfected by a number of european manufacturers. yet here we are in the twentyfirst century with technology being offered from all sides, and there are a growing number who have forsaken the possibility of eleven sprockets or even the ability to flick from gear to gear using electricity.granted, the chaps in the tour up until the thirties, had somewhat heavier steeds than available to us nowadays, and i'm reasonably confident that the majority of fixed gear enthusiasts would be less than likely to climb the cols of the pyrenees or the alps using their one gear. still, if flat land is all that life presents you with (or even the daily commute), then despite my love of irony, who am i to stand in your way?

for those with either a more challenging route in mind, or simply a healthy delight in the pastime of freewheeling, development continues apace; campagnolo have their spinal tap moment, while shimano have gone fly-by-wire. and doubtless campagnolo, fsa, and sram will eventually follow suit. some of us just delight in the artifact that is the derailleur gear, quite fascinated how such an apparently simple piece of aluminium alloy or carbon is now able to shift a speeding chain (a guy can dream, can't he?) up and down ten or eleven sprockets with precision that would have been perceived as unattainable by those early pioneers of the art - both of manufacturing and riding.despite nostalgia being yesterday's thing, some of these past derailleur gears are still much sought after either for their mechanical prowess or simply their affinity to great art. and as with all things in all walks or cycles of life nowadays, there is a website able to satisfy the needs of even the most demanding of gearheads. in 1967, the british blues/rock trio, cream, released their second album disraeli gears, the title of which was inadvertantly supplied by the band's roadie, mick turner, while discussing eric clapton's desire to buy himself a racing bicycle. it takes not a lot of steps sideways to realise that this is an excellent url for a website cataloguing more derailleur gears than you would have thought ever existed.disraeli gears is not just a collection of photos of bits of metal and/or bent tin. michael sweatman deserves the anorak of the century accolade for the sterling work he has put into this site. everything is catalogued and annotated with weights, maximum cog capacity, chain width, pivots; in fact, far more than any human really needs to know. and if thewashingmachinepost was in the position of bestowing awards, mr sweatman would be well in the frame to receive one. this is a real labour of love, and i implore you to click across and marvel at his tenacity, skill and patience.

suddenly fixed seems like only one gear.

disraeligears.co.uk

credit where credit is due,so thanks to david seaman for pointing me in the right direction

posted on wednesday 1st october

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campagnolo 75 years of cycling passion. paolo facchinetti & guido p rubino. velopress 159pp illus. hardback. £27.50 ($39.95)

campagnolo 75 years of passion

a recent issue of rouleur promised, in a duel of words between rohan dubash and richard hallett, to settle the argument of the ages: which is better - campagnolo or shimano? of course, it's an argument that can never be satisfactorily brought to a conclusion, because so much depends on the psyche of the arguer. i have no compunction whatsoever in nailing my washingmachinepost colours to the metaphorical flag in favour of campagnolo. why? i'm really not that sure, though i could answer the same when asked about my affection for colnago bicycles. on the occasions that i have ridden a shimano (or latterly, a sram equipped machine) it has worked just as it probably should have - but it just wasn't campagnolo. and in similar fashion to an apple computer, i'm willing to put out a few more pounds for what i perceive to be a better groupset even if that is based on a set of indefinables.

and i'm very happy to say that i am far from being the only one who feels this way. in fact, by campagnolo fanatic standards, i feel rather on the conservative side. but to satisfy every campyphile between me and the guy who had the logo tattooed on the back of his neck, velopress have published what must be considered the ultimate campagnolo coffee table book. this is a large format, hardback book containing pretty much every aspect of the campagnolo world: the history of tullio campagnolo's beginnings on the croce d'aune pass (i was really hoping that, for the 75th anniversary, they'd rename the centaur group croce d'aune) to the start of the campagnolo world in 1933. it's even up to date enough to cover the advent of eleven speed; timing is everything.

authors facchinetti and rubino have certainly done their research, with the advantage of having had access to the campagnolo family archives. this makes it not only a delight for those of us who live to pore over every fine detail of such devilishly engineered components, but a bit of an education as to the social and historical aspects of italy in the earlyn to mid part of the nineteenth century. it's interesting to note that, in the aforementioned rouleur article, rohan dubash argued in favour of campagnolo very much on the emotional front, while mr hallett was content to put the case for shimano from the aspect of technical superiority. because while the name and the products from vicenza inspire incredible emotional response from campagnolo aficionados, tullio approached the whole business of supplying innovative components to the cycling world very much from a technical point of view.

tullio would apparently spend rather inordinate amounts of time perfecting his designs and products, before bringing them to market. this was done through supplying his gears, brakes and chainsets to the finest cyclists of each era, including fausto coppi, louison bobet, eddy merckx and miguel indurain. he also co-operated with italy's finest bicycle builders: de rosa, pinarello, colnago, and bianchi. of course, cycle components have come quite some distance since the invention of the quick release skewer, and the modern campagnolo hasn't shied from continued development, being the first of two to involve itself in the world of carbon fibre, stretching from initial deployment in the ergopower levers, to almost every corner of every component.

a history of campagnolo would not be complete or truthful without words on the japanese competition. throughout the period of time from 1956, when shimano produced its first derailleur, tullio campagnolo and shozaburo shimano established a realtionship that lasted throughout both their lifetimes. so while a certain campagnolo website happily and tongue in cheek promotes the friends don't let friends ride shimano slogan, the men at the top did not suffer from such trivial notions, however humorous they may be.

shimano's rapid rise into the world market rested not so much on any technological superiority, but more on an ability to read the market. in 1974, more bicycles were sold in north america than automobiles, a rise in sales not foreseen by any of the european manufacturers including campagnolo. shimano, however, were well poised to supply the demand.

if your bicycle has even one campagnolo component, or you have a campag casquette hanging in the cycle cupboard, you will want - no, need - to have a copy of this book. and with copies due to arrive in the uk around beginning of november, it makes the ideal christmas present for the cyclist in your life. particularly if you are the cyclist in your life.

campagnolo spoken here

campagnolo - 75 years of cycling passion is currently available in the usa from velopress, and will be available in the uk from cordee or prendas ciclismo in november 2008. pre-order your copy immediately.

velopress.com | cordee.co.uk | prendas.co.uk

posted on tuesday 30th september

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thewashingmachinepost film festival 2008


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with the london bicycle film festival on this coming weekend at the barbican and, believe it or not, a small islands film festival at ionad chaluim chille ile, bowmore islay, also on this weekend, it seems that television and online broadcasting has done anything but loosen our desire for film. and much as i'd love to invite you round to washingmachinepost towers where we could watch the road to roubaix and the eddy merckx story once mrs washingmachinepost has finished with coronation street, i don't think we'd all fit in. certainly an idea to mull over for the future; an islay bicycle film festival seems like a particularly fine idea. however, having regularly mentioned to mr mottram in perren street, and mr olson in portland that the rapha continental was a movie (or series of) just waiting to happen, daniel pasley hooked me up with the above. so this will have to be thewashingmachinepost film festival for 2008. hope you enjoyed it.

don't you love it when a plan comes together.

you can read about the rapha gentleman's ride here

posted on monday 29th september

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yes, it has come to this

chris king brown

a few days ago, i expounded one glitch in the firmament, that allowed us ordinary mortals to see the inner workings of the bicycle industry; the parts they'd rather we didn't know about. this concerned the latest cross jersey from rapha and the supposed 'loose' association in colour schemes by now careering out the doors at chris king components somewhere in north america. as a brief re-cap, rapha's cross jersey is brown (with orange), and so is the latest anodised colour from ck. however, if you thought that the conspiracy theory was stretched a bit far during that article, i'm going to worry you even more by an accidental development that has been fermenting in washingmachinepost towers over the past few days (you'd think i had enough on my plate without such ruminations).

now, there is only one condition to my telling you this, and it doesn't depend on tall men with dark glasses wearing brown suits; it depends on you not breathing a word of this to mrs washingmachinepost, otherwise i'll be out in the bike shed living with my c40. i don't know how many of you peruse the associated pages of colnago.cc, but a month or so ago, colnago announced (well, actually i asked), that the all steel master x-light would be available in molteni colours, similar in intent to the saronni version that appeared in 2007. those of you with a colourful disposition will have picked up that main molteni colour is an understated orange, pretty darn close in affinity to the piping and panelling omnipresent on the rapha jersey and bib threequarters. and itself the perfect complementary colour to (yes) brown.

so now you have all the pieces required for possibly the next delight to make its way from thewashingmachinepost labs: a molteni coloured (prmo) master x-light frame, fitted with a chris king sotto voce (i might have more to say on these later) headset and a pair of chris king wheels with brown hubs, topped particularly well by a brooks brown leather saddle. i'm sure you can see where i'm coming from with this, but it does rather point out that, while we thought it was only rapha and chris king that were in cahoots, it turns out that the italians are in on the game too.

if we've come as far as to colour co-ordinate the cycling kit, the logical next step is to make sure the bike is not a jackson pollock. whatever you do, don't take colour advice from valverde.

colnago.com | rapha.cc | chrisking.com

posted on monday 29th september

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do clever ideas travel?

now, understand that i'm using islay as an example here, because that's where i live and it's where the problem in question has reared its less than pulchritudinous head on more than one occasion. but i'm pretty sure that the problem is a transferable one, though strangely i haven't seen it brought up in this context.

we're doing very nicely as regards cycling in this country at the moment - at least as far as competition success is concerned - and the government and the pro cycling lobby is keen to transfer the profile and feelgood factor to the more mundane, but even more necessary, day to day travel and touring cycling. nicole cooke took her second international title yesterday, in the women's world's road race ( a performance sadly not even hinted at by the brits in the men's race) and not only was it a major surprise to see that the beeb showed highlights of the race, but actually had someone in varese.

however, if we hark back to the more mundane level, a level where the best you're going to get is a decent cup of coffee at the end (and what's wrong with that?), there's a great deal can be done to assist those who would prefer to use their bicycles as often as possible. islay's a popular destination for a cycling holiday, but due to the amount of traffic that uses the roads heading in our direction on the mainland, many would prefer to get themselves to the kennacraig ferry terminal by public transport. you can fly, but lets try to keep the carbon footprint at a practical mimimum.

so if you can get yourself to glasgow, you can get on a citylink bus bound for campbeltown, a bus that stops off at the ferry on its way. however, citylink will not accept bicycles in the bootlocker unless it is packed in a cardboard box, or a bike bag. a practical thought, if you're citylink, because it stops there being oily, mucky chainrings and chains covering the more sedate passengers' luggage en route. however, a bike bag/box can be a bit of a pain if you've nowhere to put it when you get to the other end (agreed, leaving it in your hotel/self catering/b&b is quite possible, but i'm considering this as a two way trip - where would i put a bike bag, if i cycled to the ferry at port ellen?)

well, a rather elegant and pragmatic solution seems already to exist. if you were cheeky enough to click the video atop this article (thank you daniel pasley), the answer is already staring you in the face. i may well be in error in presuming this to be a north american solution, if only because i have never seen or heard of this on any uk coaches, but i see no reason why it needs to stay there.

fitting a pull-down rack on the front of a coach seems so cottonpickin' obvious. the happy cyclist who wishes to use public transport to get self and bicycle from a to b - for whatever reason - simply has to pull the rack down (if not already in use) and pop the bike on one of the fittings, then place any luggage in the boot. when arriving at the required destination, let the driver know you've a bike on the rack, and remove it. if there are no bikes on the rack, then it remains flush against the section under the windscreen.

i'm going to phone the bus company in the morning. and if anyone thinks i might be on the money here, you might try doing the same in your region.

posted on sunday 28th september

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