thewashingmachinepost




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what a darned fine way to start the year

might dave t at sign on

i'm not really one much for awards, unless it's chris hoy winning bbc sports personality of the year or becoming sir chris hoy in the new year's honours list. those are incredibly worthwhile awards that reward a particular athlete for all his hard work, for being an excellent ambassador for the sport, and for raising the profile of cycling in the national and international media. well done that man.

however, an award has come my way as of today, and this one is very worthwhile for two very good reasons. firstly it is testament to the power of the web and secondly testament to the goodwill that seems to have been achieved by thewashingmachinepost and the associated bits and pieces that i have unceremoniously tacked on the sides. one of those has been the ride of the falling rain, sadly not a name i managed to come up with myself, which has just won best event in the awards for argyll via the for argyll website.

i know that i asked you just before christmas to nominate and then vote for our annual circumnavigation of the island on bicycle, but even i'm surprised that we managed to pull it off. yep, ride of the falling rain came in first. so after my listing an endless stream of names yesterday that i wished to thank for support over 2008, i now have to extend that to everyone in the whole wide world who took the time to vote. i appreciate every last mouse click.

if you'd like to watch the award announcements video, click here, and if you fancy taking part in the best event in argyll, drop me an e-mail and i'll put you on the newsletter list.

twmp

posted on thursday 1 january 2009

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that time of year again

no website is an island

no man is an island, and that applies to cycling websites too, at least it does to thewashingmachinepost. despite the fact that i could write (and talk) for britain, churning out millions of pixels on any given cycling subject at the drop of a helmet, there is a shelf life on the ability to do this forever without external input. so much of what you read every day is there because some people in this great world of the pedal have been kind enough to supply me with either the gem of an idea, or various artifacts for review.

when sitting down to compile this article/list, i was rather humbled to realise just how many folks i owe a serious debt of gratitude to: it's not always an easy task to fill these pixels every day, but it most certainly an enjoyable one. andy and mick at prendas have a sort of unofficial slogan: 'it's great being us', which always seems to be the case, but by the same standards, it's great being me. if all i have to do each day is write several hundred words that allows me to enjoy wearing the very latest in cycling apparel, ride state of the art bicycles and test some of the planet's finest componentry, then that seems an excellent trade-off. however, the very, very best part of thewashingmachinepost is the number of wonderful people i have met, many of whom have become firm friends. while i have little experience of other walks of life, it seems a truism that few in the bicycle industry are there for the money.

so just to finish the year on what i consider a high note, i have compiled my new year's honours list of those i am especially beholden to, but rather than force all and sundry to read through endless names, i've popped it on a separate page; if you'd like to find out the true backbone of thewashingmachinepost, then click here. either way, i'll see you all next year.

have a very happy new year, and just stick to the carbo drinks and christmas cake at midnight.

twmp

posted on wednesday 31 december 2008

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on wall dating

horst brozy cycling calendar 2009

washingmachinepost towers always looks bare and, dare i say it, ordinary when christmas is over and the decorations all come down (apart from that niggling little piece of tinsel atop the big painting in the sitting room. never could quite get that bit) leaving the large expanse of wallpaper and wood that we now remember was there at the beginning of december. but worse is to come. as of january 1st, all of last year's calendars will be defunct, or at least from the wee numbers in boxes point of view. fortunately, with the improvement in calendar design, printing and production over the past few years, many of the photos or illustrations are just poised to be placed behind a frame, possibly covering the space(s) left bare by the unhooking of last year's calendars.

this is especially true of the 2008 heros du velo calendar from my esteemed friend, the great brintoni, (especially the illustration of saronni winning the world championship on that colnago) along with the photography featured on the rouleur calendar. neither of those will be found anywhere a bin. i have been fortunate to receive a 2009 rouleur calendar, but a replacement for those heroes was proving a mite more difficult. there's always the cycle passion calendar proffered by prendas, but that could be considered a trifle unseemly in certain quarters (you don't know mrs washingmachinepost like i know mrs washingmachinepost), and given my artistic background (such as it is) i rather favour a calendar of the illustrative type.

horst brozy cycling calendar 2009

satisfyingly, mick and andy at prendas come up trumps yet again with the art of cycling calendar. having looked back over this past year (research purposes, you know) i have become more and more convinced that if prendas ciclismo didn't exist, we'd have to invent them. quite how they do it, i know not, but calendar heaven has been realised through the paintings of german artist horst brozy, not a name i have previously come across. despite being a painter of various other sports, including that bete noir, formula 1 motor racing, horst is a cycling enthusiast/fanatic putting most of us to shame by covering around 18,000km a year (where does he find the time to paint?). one of his paintings was purchased last year by rabobank to present to oscar freire after his win at milan san remo.

the paintings are attractively sketchy, having the satisfying appearance of works in progress, with captions or descriptions written over the paint. portrait accuracy is often subdued at the expense of expressionism but nonetheless adorable for all that. his painting of zabel and bettini shaking hands at this year's worlds is identifiable as zabel, but you'd struggle with bettini if the caption didn't indicate.

the calendar is huge, (60cm x 45cm) arriving in a similarly huge custom cardboard mailer, so fetch that measuring tape out the shed and check that it'll fit that expectantly vacant spot on the wall. it's also notable for its complete lack of naming months and days - but it's perfectly comprehensible and is a classic piece of eccentric design. if i read andy's writing correctly, there are very few of these left, so if you fancy covering a large portion of your home or office wall, pop over to prendas and place your £19.95 order for delivery as soon as the guys get back to work next week.

impressive.

on a side note: if you have a look at brozy's website and click the english version, the translation is inadvertantly quite humorous. english as she is spoke.

prendas.co.uk twmp

posted on monday 29 december 2008

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sartorial organisation

clothes around the house

in much the same way as half the cycling population of the world, getting up and going out always seems much harder than it conceivably should be. after all i/we live for little else than cycling that italian carbon fibre, yet sometimes the process of making it to the bikeshed seems fraught with obstacles - usually self-imposed. having read, many moons ago, that the best way to prepare for a morning's (or day's, if you're really lucky with time and permissions) ride, is to make sure that everything - and i really mean everything - is ready and waiting to be worn or grabbed the minute the feet hit that bedroom floor.

the worst part about such advice is that it means a degree of pre-organisation, and if you're anything like me, that is the greatest stumbling block to everything, never mind a few hours cycling. so while mrs washingmachinepost is watching endless soaps of an evening, i really should be raking through the beautifully and thematically arranged clothing at the side of the room (fiction? me?), choosing the very items that will make my pedalling hours more comfortable around twelve hours hence. but how the heck am i supposed to know that? this is winter, it's dark and cold, but it's also islay, and i feel such a fool for reminding you of the four seasons in one day slogan. at this time of year, that slogan probably applies to a far wider range of geographical locations than simply the west coast of scotland.

if you follow my impeccably flawed logic, there is every chance that whatever i choose on saturday night, will bear only a passing resemblance to withstanding the weather on sunday morning; only it'll be too dark to let me know the error of my ways until i step outside. but, for the sake of brevity, let's assume that i have chosen wisely, selected matching lycra and sportwool, and left all in the bathroom, thereby allowing mrs washingmachinepost the luxury of a lie-in while i try to figure out why i have both legs in the wrong side of my winter tights, as i fall into the bath (quietly).

but there's always a flaw in this perceptive pre-organisation: mrs will have moved my catlike helmet out of the kitchen but not happened to mention where it has been moved to. even though clairvoyance is not one of my limited arsenal of talents, you just know that waking her up to ask will incur the wrath of a wakened woman. there's also a good chance that only one glove will be found where two should have been. reminding you here of the barely lifting darkness, which lenses should i fit to the rudy projects? basing anything on a weather forecast is a dangerous business, and should be avoided at all costs. it's a wonder i ever get out on the colnago at all.

so it's all very well for someone to advise the assembling of the secret identity in advance, but had they actually thought the whole thing through? it seems very likely that the advice came from a personage blessed with the luxury of a following team car, carrying all the options that the more mundane amongst us (me) have insufficient rear pockets to carry. i'm not at odds with the notion; if that were so, i'd only be reminded of the need for a spare tube and pump as the back tyre flatted miles from anywhere. but that's just not an option. i realise one or two of you may have read this far in the hope of an alternative solution that would encompass your similar state of disorganisation, but sadly, wracking my brain as i have, no such answer has presented itself, and i fear i may have to live with tiptoeing around that creaky floorboard, bereft of at least one essential item for many more motnhs to come.

and i've just realised i'm still wearing my winter cycling socks, when i haven't even been out on the bike today.

twmp

posted on monday 29 december 2008

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noggin the nog

noggin the nog

if you are of a certain age, or old enough to have had children of that certain age, you may well remember noggin the nog, a truly captivating animation series featuring noggin, nogbad the bad, graculus the dragon and others, all created by oliver postgate and peter firmin (coincidentally, the creator of basil brush). if you don't live in the uk, then this may mean nothing to you whatsoever, but bear with me. this series commenced with six ten minute, bbc commissioned animated films, produced and voiced over by postgate and drawn by firmin. by today's standards, state of the art animation it was not, but it had a delightful charm to it all, so much so that i was over the moon jim, when my brother sent me a video of those early episodes for my christmas, a few years ago.

whereas a bulk of modern day children's tv programming in the uk, and all over the world for all i know, is produced in accordance with audience ratings, in the sixties content was king; the eccentric notion of the day was telling stories that kids would enjoy and be fascinated by, that would stimulate the imagination, and quite how state of the art the animation, was hardly of great cause for concern. in the late eighties, long after postgate had moved on to other idyllic animations: bagpuss, pogle's wood, the clangers (surely you must remember them? the band, the soup dragons, took their name from this series), the bbc informed postgate and firmin that all future programming was to be judged on the aforementioned audience ratings, and that all children's programmes should have a hook, by which they apparently meant some startling incident every few seconds to hold the children's attention. since postgate's animations didn't and couldn't feature such hooks, the end came quickly to this garden of delights.

in a 2003 interview with the guardian newspaper, postgate, perceptive as ever, stated the following:

suppose that i am part of a silent martian invasion, and that my intention is slowly to destroy the whole culture of the human race. where would i start? i would start where thought first grows. i would start with children's television. my policy would be to give the children only the sort of thing they 'already know they enjoy', like a fizzing diet of manic jelly-babies. this would no doubt be exciting, but their hearts and their minds would receive no nourishment, they would come to know nothing of the richness of human life, love and knowledge, and slowly whole generations would grow up knowing nothing about anything but violence and personal supremacy. is that a fairy-tale? look around you."

i have to say that i wholeheartedly agree with the above. when noggin the nog was first broadcast on television i would have been around five or six, and all these years later, i can still remember it as if it was yesterday (in a quaint form of psychological revenge, i can't actually remember much about yesterday), but postgate's description of the martians' subtle invasion doesn't go quite far enough. what if, having deprived the kids of a satisfying childhood's televisual entertainment, you made sure that instead of walking or cycling to school, they were all taken from door to gates in a series of four wheel drive canisters. not for them the joy and discipline of owning a fine bicycle which your parents insisted you looked after properly. make sure that the chain is oiled (with a can of same) once a week, that the tyres are kept inflated to the correct pressure, frame and wheels washed thoroughly with soap and water every seven days, and that brakes and gears are always in perfect working order.

it's all about developing a sense of responsibility of ownership, providing the means to escape, both literally and figuratively, a degree of independence and would go a long way to minimising the current spate of child, and eventually adult, obesity.

at that age range up t my late teens, i used my bicycle to deliver newspapers in the mornings, doctors' prescriptions after school, and during the day my raleigh leaned rather forlornly against the school railings, having been pedalled the three miles there in the morning, and the reverse at end of day. i've turned out ok (i believe) - in fact i'm just back in from cleaning and oiling the colnago after a rather agricultural sunday ride; old (but good) habits die hard. it's not just nostalgia: there has been a wholesale change in the attitude of children at a very early age (i know, my daughter has just finished her first teaching practice in a glasgow primary school), so a lengthy diet of noggin the nog, the clangers and cycling to and from school every day ought to see it all sorted before the next decade is out.

that, unfortunately, is state of the art.

sadly, oliver postgate passed away on 8th december 2008.

dragons friendly society | noggin the nog twmp

posted on sunday 28 december 2008

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the full cycle - vin denson. mousehold press; softback illus. 159pp £12.95

the full cycle - vin denson

"the whole sport had a veneer of glamour, and it was easy to be overawed. yet the price for that celebrity was far from glamorous. it had to be paid for in pain and sweat over many miles of dusty or rain-soaked roads, in boiling heat or piercing cold."

in his review of joe parkin's dog in a hat, singletrack editor chipps starts "there are countless wool-jerseyed, drop bar racer types zipping around the lanes of surrey or yorkshire, imagining that they're a belgian cobbled classics star from yesteryear." chipps is probably quite correct, and it's a malady that affects those on bendy bars and skinny wheels alone, but there's nothing wrong in such imaginings. i'm sure it's not confined purely to the geographical areas outlined in singletrack magazine, as i too have imaginings of vague similitude while hammering through the abattoirenberg forest road in searing wind and driving rain, wearing sportwool and a winter hat. hardly any of us will ever make it to belgium, let alone partake of sporting hardship in that part of europe. and that's probably just as well. books such as the full cycle fulfil a part of the dream and inform the fakers.

in days when everything seems to be achieved by way of a reality tv show rather than sheer repetition and hard-graft, it bears reminding by those who have experienced the latter in pursuit of their dreams, just how hard it and occasionally glamorous it could and can be. vin denson, strangely referred to as 'vic throughout his overseas career, was one of those top brits who had the gumption to take the bars by the drops and spend much of his time racing for and with the greats on mainland europe. we can all read about henri anglade (pelforth), rick van looy (solo superia) and jacques anquetil (ford france/bic), but denson was one who rode for all three and paints a far less dramatic picture of his experiences than nostalgia would perhaps have us believe, particularly concerning van looy.

"there's a frame of mind which bike riders wil understand when i say that after a while i felt like a belgian. i could push harder and harder as the conditions got tougher."

in those days you didn't step off the train to be welcomed by the team soigneur, receive a fair wage for a fair day's work and move on to luxurious surroundings. ok, perhaps it still doesn't happen quite like that in certain quarters nowadays, but in the early sixties, many of the foreign riders were effectively supported by team benefactors whose sole motive for doing so was spare wealth and a passion for cycle racing. mr and mrs denson spent many of their idyllic years in france and belgium living either with the families of same, or in houses owned by such benefactors. just remember this next time you're reading an at home with lance interview in one of the glossies.

it was common for british riders to return home for the winter, when there was no racing to support them financially, and during one such return visit, denson - with a child on the way - took on an office job. it comes as no suprise that itchy pedals made that an employment that was unlikely to last too long. and as the saying goes, behind every great man, there's an even greater woman; when denson desperately wanted to return to france to try his hand at racing again, as a professional, nobody in his family of two said no.

the rest is history, a very noteworthy part of britain's cycle racing history, superbly written by a man who seems almost overlooked by the wool-jerseyed brigade (self included). when i mentioned to mike breckon that he had been mentioned in the author's acknowledgments, his reply: "he (denson) really is/was a real character and has some great stories to tell. the only problem is that once he starts he never stops - a bit like they say billy connolly is on stage! I suggested that he call his book 'to cut a long story short ...' it's only a pity that mousehold didn't include this on the back cover.

this is mighty dave t territory, and all the better for it. through his years in the army, denson avoided too many militaristic duties due to his being sequestered by a certain ray booty (a name oft mentioned by the mighty dave on sunday-rides). so his early career in britain, much like many nowadays, was spent time trialing. but unlike many of today's up and coming riders, denson had those extra cojones that dragged him from the parochial stage to that of the international. he rode the tour de france in 1961 as an independent (a class of rider no longer a part of the cyling firmament), again three years later as a professional and for the last time in 1968. along the way denson took part in the major classics on which we dote on eurosport and ctv, and as previously mentioned, rode alongside anquetil, aimar and stablinski in ford france/gitane then bic.

that we should have someone of denson's standing and respect take part in the golden years of cycling, is reason enough for applause, but that the man can write of his exploits so entertainingly and recollectively is worth twice the price of admission. the book is particularly well illustrated, and you can see what mike breckon was referring too in the captions. it is more usual to have a couple of lines indicating where, when and who: denson gives chapter and verse under each photo, many from his own collection. it's very, very hard to put this book down once you've started, so do yourself a great favour and use at least one of those book tokens received for christmas and acquire a copy of the full cycle, then put aside a day or two to do nothing else but read, enjoy and be enlightened.

truly one of the finest, in every sense of that word.

mousehold-press.co.uk

twmp

posted on saturday 27 december 2008

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