..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

when you fall in love it often takes you by suprise

you may know, in retrospect that it was bound to happen, but when it does, it still catches you out. dario pegoretti (if you have not come across mr pegoretti before see Rouleur issue 5 - you know the one, with the birds on the front) made the most stunning frame (fixed wheel, but can be with a derailleur - if you must!) for me to ride the L2P. not only is the craftsmanship absolutely stunning but the paint job was a really eye turner. like all good (in this case really excellent) things one has to wait and wait and wait but it was so, very so worth it. roger from mosquito and i built it the day before departure of L2P and i did not ride it till the morning we left..... don't ask.

love at first sight
i knew
as soon as i spotted
the pearlescent white and baby blue frame

a work
of art?
where engineering becomes
ethereal

building it as good friends and
offering italian parts to
an italian creation
slowly, including lots of story
and laughter

slowly
the skeleton becomes more than just tubes -
whole

on riding
this is the flight
fancy and
full
joy and pleasure
excitement and
wholesome
happiness

people stare, look and admire
not me
but
you,
my luigino,
my italian cafe racer

and so it thus was - steel, the all steel bicycle, wonderful handcut lugs, columbus tubing, chromed chainstay (extremely retro), chrome drop outs and the most stunning forks and fork crown - ever. ever. a double headed crown with chromed top plate. the forks are round and gently curved - completely unnecessary, but superb all the same. the finest of craftsmanship and dedication. hours upon hours of work. no wonder it takes so long in delivery! pegoretti luigini All the tubes are true and accurate and the wheels slide smoothly and confidently into the delightfully chromed track ends and front dropouts. so much so, it just encourages one to ride no hands...hmmmmmm!

i rode the wheels supplied by mosquito for an earlier test of an Indie fab (see thewashingmachinepost review) which seemed sensible but i include a photo or two with my own athena deep section rims with record hubs - very cool - i think!

i am amazed, still now, at this bicycle. when i told a friend from korea that i was riding a pegoretti in the L2P he told me that surely i must know that i am so lucky to do so and if not - then i jolly well ought to be. well yes, i do know that and to say it rode like an angel all the way to paris would be a gross understatement. pegoretti luigini with campag chainset, velosolo rear cog, deda handlebars and a brooks swift saddle all was good in the world for those three eventful days. it attracted a HUGE amount of attention chat and and questions, not only from riders but from the spectators and other interested parties we met along the way. and, no doubt, an equal amount of envy.

i am worried, extremely worried, i never thought that i would find a bike that would question my love for my c40 but i have.... and...who knows how this story ends. so far though, i urge you to beg borrow or steal (the robin hoods of this world only!) in order to get a work of art by dario pegoretti. you'll want to put it on your mantlepeice to admire it....to feel love once again and, of course to ride too....

© Jez Hastings July 2009

posted on sunday 26 July 2009

Today I am at a loss

No alarm at 05:30hrs
No getting ready
No clothes set out
No deciding what bonk bars or how many dried figs to stuff in pockets (never enough by the way)
No good morning and other pleasantries to and from my team and room-mate Harmon
No slipping into the bathroom for a refreshing shower
No walking silently to breakfast
No sussing what or what not to eat
No packing bags and getting on the coach
No checking bikes/kit/musettes
No nervous depart
No ........riding, attacking, climbing, sprinting, pushing, hurting, eating ridiculous amounts of food and copious amounts of isotonic drinks by the bidonful
No motorcycle outriders
No team cars
No ever cheery mechanics (how do they do that? Nigel, Graeme and teamsters)
No clapping school kids
No Rev Murph or semi-naked antipodean ride captains
No fab maseuses who also look good on a Specialized (hmmmmm)
No private jokes between close riders
No getting binbags to turn into emergency gilets.
No rain, flood, sun, hot, clammy weather to bid us on our way
No welcome from caring staff. (thanks Jane, Adam, Dave and Sven
No gala dinner
No L2P this day...
Just riding ......today...
and memories which keep us going till next......

© Jez Hastings July 2009

posted on sunday 5 July 2009

news from the front

sporting welcome to great coffee jerseys, and matching marresi leather shoes, the only photo i have of messrs harmon (left) and hastings en route to paris where they are now being searched for any evidence of brain cells.

photo courtesy of london-paris/hotchillee

posted on saturday 27 june 2009

Derailleur -non merci!

so we are nearly there, and like all preparations it has has it's ups and downs. the nicest thing about the whole is the amount of kindness and friendship we have come across on this journey.(not an uncommon twmp phenomena.)
it started as a crazy bet mid channel and pretty soon became reality. interestingly there are still bets on whether we will make it to gay Paris.

the other amazing thing is that we have got ourselves here nearly without injury or incident (save a wee ankle rolling by dh ugh!) as well as fitting in life the universe and everything else!

but best of all we are nearly at the start.

we have honed legs, excellent machines and full kit-thanks to debbies and endura. the big things are important too; the guys at rourkes and mosquito and burls. velosolo for the fab british made aluminum sprockets and funky stickers, the folks at hubjub for a kiss-off hub, ...and also twmp without whom we would be very wanting!

It is now down to us. wonderful jane at l2p has sent us our joining instructions and all bets are on still...and I am sure there are a few doubters. but suceed we must, not only to save face and honour but also for all the folks who have signed my sponsorship form in our wee local shop and online too. those who have watched and shaken their heads as i went out hail or shine, wet or dry to mile-eat over the past months. these people, who may well not understand the cyclists' 'way of the (fixed) wheel' but do know and recognize commitment when they come across it and have been prepared to support this rash of madness.

to you, dear reader, for your support too.
all there is now to do is to stop worrying about the potholes
in the road and enjoy the journey.....dŽrailleur -non merci!

© Jez Hastings June 2009

posted on sunday21 june 2009

dromarti sportivo shoes - life with passion......

sometimes you come across a product that you just know is going to be fit for purpose. however there must be times when style and beauty are involved and included. in fact these ought to be considered every time for a good item. unfortunately, manufacturers conveniently forget them in the hunt for cheapness or perceived value.

the shoes remind me of the first pair of grown up shoes i bought. quality, well cut leather, sewn well and finished. i still have them some thirty years later. these marresi shoes, sold by dromarti, are built on a proper last, made by a cobbler - not a factory worker turning out footwear for the masses, (which if they were to get through a couple of weeks of proper wear, the owner would count themselves lucky). this does not make for a cheap shoe and not only is the quality of the leather - high, but the workmanship is too - worth every penny in my opinion. the style is very retro - perfect for the L2P fixed vision!

whereas my other cool shoes( addias black racing carbon) are uber svelte and northern european in their clean lines and construction, these marresis carry a spirit of previous eras, where the tight leather had to be broken in, and the brown is reminiscent of a more organic time on sun burned strade bianche and fields of cows upon fine grass.

these are for crossing of mountains or touring excursions. they need, as all quality leather does, to be broken in - not in a rubbing, blister bearing way, but that of newness, as the leather slowly moulds itself to the foot. a month and 1400km Êlater they are my first choice to ride. I have used them to wear off the bike too. they do not stand out as cycling shoes, although one school boy did ask why i was wearing football boots like his grandpa had. ( i took it as a compliment).

the soles are modern and purposeful. they have the spd two hole cleat allocation and heavy duty grey/white knobbly soles- good on mud.i was surprised and delighted that the package included two screw on front studs. (i will certainly be using these for the coming cross season).

there are holes punched in the uppers, for ventilation, (as well as style - top marks there). very advantageous on hot summer touring/sportif riding but in the wet - yes we have had some here on the outer edge - Êthey also let it in quickly. not really an issue, but something to be aware of should one wish to be ultra critical. not forgetting that the leather polishes up beautifully - i like that!

wearing them brings me closer to the romance and panache that the Italian craftsmen bestowe with such enthusiam and skill.we must honour them not only by riding, but riding with style.

© Jez Hastings June 2009

posted on wednesday 3 june 2009

Italian Inspiration.....British Steel

Unlike commentating on the Tour de France, life on the Giro d' Italia is a far less frantic affair which affords both myself and superstar colleague Sean Kelly to take a spin for a couple of hours with a fast bunch or two, prior to getting into work.

To my great delight and surprise I find I am a bit fitter than I expected to be, in the light of the setbacks laid out in my last blog entry. I seem to be able to hold the wheel well and close gaps if they open. Ok, so I'm no Bradley Wiggins yet but it's certainly doing wonders for my leg speed.

So am I ready? In short...no.

"But Why?" I hear you cry, "After all these months of riding!"

Well I will be come the roll out from Hampton Court. Certainly ready enough to enjoy our amble through the French countryside by the time L2P rolls around in five weeks. It's the extra couple of kilos off, and the half a dozen 100milers that I will undertake when I get back, that will round my spring off nicely.

I may not be ready quite yet, but as you will have noticed (see below) my all new Brian Rourke 853 fixed is. Brian's son Jason, one of Europe's very finest constructors, has constructed a retro beauty. Even my wife likes it, which probably means I should just hang it up on the wall as art. But no...I must use the machine for what it was made for as soon as I jet back to the UK.

There is nothing radical about the bike. In fact it's at 72 degree parallel - virtually an armchair by modern standards, but a long and careful search of the very nicest of parts has I think, created a masterpiece:

Frame - Brian Rourke hand built in Reynolds 853
Fork - Alpina carbon with aluminium steerer.
Finish - Frame and Fork in Land Rover Heritage Green,

Hubs - White Industries large flange track hubset
Rims - Mavic Open Pro Ceramic 32h crossing 3 times
Spokes - Sapim double butted
Tyres - Continental GP 4000S 23mm
B/B - Royce titanium
Chainset - White Industries One Billet single speed
Chain - 3/32
Seatpost - Ritchey WCS aluminium 27.2mm
Stem - Ritchey WCS aluminium 120mm
Bars - Ritchey WCS Classic Road
Tape - Cinelli black
Saddle - hmmm good question.....
Brakes - Campagnolo Centaur
Levers - Cane Creek
Headset - Chris King

© David Harmon, May 2009

posted on monday 25 may 2009

david harmon's brian rourke fixed

with little more than a month to go before this year's london-paris ride leaves from london, rumour has it that jez hastings is having a pegoretti built for his attempt; currently breath is being held to see whether it materialises. however, there can be no doubt over david harmon's mount for the ride, as we now have pictures of the completed brian rourke custom bike on which he plans to give mr hastings a hard time; or maybe even give himself a hard time.

a beautiful piece of machinery

© David Harmon, May 2009

posted on sunday 24 may 2009

love, just doing it.

time is moving on, the giro is underway and now passing and miles are still being eaten. not that the various and nefarious weather patterns have tried to put a stop to it all.

by the time one gets to this stage in the season ANY thought of turbo training is TOTALLY put aside with that ever so useful sentence oh well, it may as well be a rest day and therefore it is as good as buried. those days do come and they are noted in my training diary as r and r (rest and recovery). although it gnaws at me it seems not to hurt so much when written like that!

despite all this the rat must be fed and the miles or, if you are fully into the maglia rosa event now, the kilometres, slip by. and sometimes they are wet and sometimes not, but click by they do. at this stage of the training programme it is the daily target that nags. it can be quietened with several days of long riding and the odd time trial thrown in to mess the head. mixed with my guiding, awheel and afoot, these figures certainly have grown. where does the time go? it is not hard any more. joyful and leg achy but not hard. however when i am not able to get out (on r and r) i become spleeny. interestingly my recent kilometre chart is about average but my average speed has gone up by 1.6 kph. i guess i must have become more mean? (pun intended). yes i am that much of an anorak to record such stuff and nonsense!

this afternoon i went riding out with my son. he is nine years old and keen as chips. we rode down the road. it was not very windy; just stiff enough to nag at you and at one point he was tucked in right behind me. i looked and he was smiling, and such a broad smile legs turning and bike moving forward. flowing. it was not difficult. i will never forget that moment. just a son and his dad bicycling together. i love to ride he said. i just love the feeling.

it felt better after that moment than any rest ever could bring.

and that is what is about, not just exercise, not just riding or resting, or competition or anything else for that matter. love. that is why we do it. i love the bike and and i love the feeling. i am the cyclist. just doing it.

© Jez Hastings May 2009

posted on thursday 21 may 2009

Cousin It

When I wake to find myself in that place, I know there will be battle ahead.

In my place I am in pitch black emptiness; no walls or door to be seen or found, no window, no keyhole, no cracks, just It.

It lurks. It shuffles and breathes. It hates and seethes and schemes and then we wrestle...tooth and nail, with the desperation of knowing that, should I lose, there will be nowhere else to go. I have lost before, and each time I have lost I have spent months recovering, rebuilding and re-arming myself better to fight It the next time I find myself facing into darkness.

It has the power to pervert, to twist, to draw me down roads unimagined, to make me undertake actions irrational and avoid actions necessary but, as I get older, I can recognise Its game, anticipate Its tactics and moves and, to a large extent parry them.

There is no rhyme or reason to where and when depression re-appears, but it always does. Sometimes it is mild, just snapping at my heals and taunting me. At those times I don't fear It. At other times it is all consuming, a desperate fight and the destruction is catastrophic.

This time I have been containing It, dancing around It, feeling Its brooding menace and darting free when it lunges forward but no amount of concentration can avoid some wounds.

Some people cycle because they love it, I cycle because I need it.

Long ago I decided that clinical medication was not for me and over many years I have used an armoury of techniques and activities to keep me safer including riding my bike. Pedaling a bike is like meditation for me. For many it's a time to think, for me it's a time to not think and provides a cornerstone to me staying well. Even so, there are times when cycling takes a hit, when It has found some new way to taunt me and dismantle my fortifications and the last three weeks have been just such a time.

I've kept my legs turning, even managed to get out and ride with my eldest son Joseph who has become charged with energy for riding a bike but in truth I have been hanging on by my fingertips.

The reason I can right this entry now is that all the darting and parrying seems to have been enough. I know the corner, for this time at least, has again been turned.

Undoubtedly my preparation has been affected but, to be honest, riding an event will always be secondary to being well. Besides worrying about training would only give It another weapon against me.

For now It will retreat and I will be able to ride again and keep It at bay.

© David Harmon, May 2009

posted on friday 1 may 2009

when things are...

when things are so good it feels like the wind will always be at your back and the gear just perfect.

when things are that good you could ride forever. on fixed, i am now so comfortable i can ride with the boys not only up but down foreland hill without having to say goodbyeseeyouatthebottom.

when things are this good i wake with my kit laid out at the end of the bed, knowing that i have picked my favourite jersey and shorts for this ride on this day. shoes fit easily and casquette goes under the helmet easily with no adjustment.

when things are as good as this then one's local bike shop has the perfect tyres in stock and in the size you need then NOW!

when things are this good we can mend punctures and be on our way in the twinkling of an eye.

when things are as good as this the sun is shining and warm even on a fresh morning.

when things are as good as this the energy bar tastes like black forest gateau!

when things can be this good, morecambe and mcwise are on ctv and it is no problem to get!

when things are wonderfully good i come back after a hard ride and sink into a steaming bath in order to soak for as long as i wish and have an aperitif with my beautiful wife.

when things are this good, debbie tells us mad things like how to make a chocolate orange without peeling the said fruit before pouring chocolate over it. - no it did not work, but by my how we laughed!

when things are as good as all the above i know i am on my way to paris.

miles have been won through rain, wind, hail, wildness and crazy days. laughter and chats with good friends along the way and now with early summer around the corner we all know that it has all been worthwhile.

©Jez Hastings April 2009

posted on thursday 30 april 2009

i wish i had been lighter

jez accompanied some other lunatics from west lothian clarion, cycling from edinburgh to manchester. though why you would is anyone's guess.

i wish i had been fitter, despite the prep miles.
i wish i had time to properly prepare for a constant headwind and rain ( surprise, surprise i did not expect it to be islay weather on the mainland!)
i wish my bike was a light as matt's who galloped up the hills
i wish that the up hills were all constant - the 1 in 6's i could have done without
i wish i had chosen a less heroic gear
i wish i could, today, eat as much food and yet still feel hungry
i wish that when the rain came down it was not 'en face' for 167 kms
i wish that the time spent rolling could have lasted longer but for less pain
i wish that our support crew was not so damned happy all the bloody time
i wish i could have been as happy as above and make up more songs
i wish that my turn on the front was as easy as matt's
i wish that i could feel that good when the sun shone shone across the glen all the time
i wish that we did not have to clean our bikes at the end of everyday
i wish that my legs could recover as quickly as my nine year old son's
i wish that i was not so tired when i went to bed alongside my beautiful wife
i wish that everybody we met was enthusiastic as the hotelier in thorthorwald
i wish that we NEVER have a tea stop experience as the one in gretna on day two ....ever!
i wish i could recall everything we talked about and solved on the road for those three days
i wish i could share those laughs with you too
i wish that we could arrive as hopeful as that all the time
and....
i wish i could do it all again

©Jez Hastings April 2009

posted on thursday 16 april 2009

getting there...

so we are on track. muscles feel good and have gotten into the rest 'thang'. am certainly noticing the difference and so is bp. i find now, having stuck religiously to the planned regime, that i am able to pedal faster for less energy. distances can be eaten at a high rate and even into hard winds i feel invigorated. i am still on the bob jackson as dario pegoretti is busy trying to get the luigino to mosquito by the month's end.

i am so looking forward to it, and when things are hard it keeps me going. i love my bob jackson track frame and the clang of the salmon garde de boue that keep the islay road muck off my debbie's coffee shop road jersey, but i am also looking forward to riding a purpose built dream machine.

it has taken alot of folks to make this happen so far: roger, phil and gill from ymosquito, bp from TWMP towers - rider and confessor, dave t - yet another training companion and wit, my darling wife tink who loves me even when i am grumpy cos i haven't got out on my bike today, dave harmon my (at the moment) virtual riding partner and l2p companion, the folks at debbie's who ply us with the best espresso one could wish for, my kids who realise that if i don't get out on my bike today i may as well have put on my grumpy pants, the guys at cyclevox who think we are mad but love us all the same, matt ball from wlc who puts up with my old man racing head on, as well as locals and l2p guys and gals who really support all this cycling malarchy! and even if it is just a couple of old farts pedalling out a crazy bet mid channel last year, it has become a team effort and when you realise this, it makes it all so worthwhile.

next week matt and i are riding the inaugural 'raid clarion', a ride from edinburgh to manchester on fixed.

as it is said in by those in the know -
we've more gonads than gears!
i am getting there.

©Jez Hastings April 2009

posted on saturday 4 april 2009

head wind, hard men

it seems to have happened, what with the temperature rising and blossom on trees (down 'sarf' in another country) and dry roads. riding is now easier. no need to bulk up with woolen undergarments and thick winter jackets and the ubiquitous overshoes. this week we shed them. freedom accompanies us in more ways than haute couture allows. with heads full of conversation of riding miles for eagles and drumming up we are now full of the joys of spring.

we head out into sunshine and wind to climb our nearest, and only hill. it can be quite substantial if, like today, it was into a headwind. and push on we do. turning the cranks steadily, climbing and climbing. the cloud is now low and wind relentless, so much so that as i round a corner bp notices and calls out. his voice is ripped away. later he tells me that i was at an interesting gravity defying angle. it is cold at storakaig and our breathing is as laboured as the wind is hard. we descend into warmer layers and then...turn back into a head wind. we bit-and-bit it to debbies, continuously pushing each other. not quite a chaingang but it's as close as it gets in these rarified lonely places. three friends awheel, a sweep of the long strand and a force 7 'en face'.

it's a tough ride and we push on.

then, we are warming ourselves with soya cappuccinos and talk about hard men of the past. we laugh and rejoice in each others stories and cameraderie. we become part of our own of cycling history and folklore. later my quads hurt. it is a nice ache and i know that my training regime has upped a notch.the base miles have served me well. today is a rest day and and i am now keen to get out the morrow - to make myself hurt once more.

©Jez Hastings March 2009

posted on tuesday 24 march 2009

The Measure of a Man

Scroll down to the foot of this blog and you will find that way back in the dim and distant winter months Jez received the made to measure treatment at Mosquito Bikes of London, being poked, prodded and scrutinised from every conceivable angle in order to achieve the perfect data sheet for the perfect bike build, for the perfect weekend jaunt to Paris.

Like Jez, I decided that it's not often you do something quite as daft as pedaling all the way to Paris without the help of more than one gear,Êso a treat was in order. To which, I took the trip up to Brian Rourke Cycles in Burslem, Staffordshire, just on the outskirts of Stoke-on Trent for my own custom London-Paris Cycle Tour fixed.

Here Brian and son Jason have crafted some of the finest steel frames to come out the UK over the past two decades. Working for the large part in Reynolds 531, 753, and 853 tubing, they are now helping to led the resurgence of steel as a cutting edge construction material with construction in 953 stainless steel tubing.

The craftsmanship will of course be as exquisitely exclusive as that of Jez's new machine, but the fitting process couldn't be more different.

Three years ago I had a bike made that fitted me so well, I have been setting up every bike I have ridden since to exactly the same position. Notably long in the top tube and rather traditional at 72 degrees parallel it's the perfect layout for a frame that has to carry me many hours in comfort. So when presented with this bike as the template for his own build, Brian rootled around in the drawer and brought out the old and trusty wooden frame gauge and tape measure to simply take down the measurements angle by angle and centimetre by centimetre.

Apart from holding up the frame whilst Brian did the business with his magic measuring stick there wasn't much for me to do to help and, once I had decided that a shop bike stand could do the job better than me I took the opportunity to take a look around one of the better kept secrets of Brian Rourke Cycles, the upstairs play den known as 'Kelly's Bar'.

Next time you visit Brian Rourke Cycles just pull any one of the staff aside, and ask in deeply hushed tones whether you can have a look upstairs at the treasure trove of cycling memories. As a pro, Rourke himself had a reputation as a hardman on a bike, something you'd never guess from his modest persona off the bike and the first time you visit Brian's shop, it comes as a bit of a surprise that a man well respected throughout the UK should have built himself a little corner of nostalgia dedicated to others.

There are some real gems scattered in amongst photos of Brian's own National Championship wins and team line ups of his beloved Stoke City Football Club, including the new 953 bike he built for Kelly himself next to a frame built for World and Olympic Champion Nicole Cooke, who has had a long and friendly association with the Rourke marque Perhaps though, the most interesting item can be found on the wall next to the framed photos of Stanley Matthews; Rainbow bands and BP crests on each shoulder mark it out as something very rare indeed, an original World Champion's Jersey from the late Tom Simpson.

The Kelly bike has more of a tale attached to it than just another machine for the King of the Cobbles to test at leisure. Each October the great Irishman, who spent the better part of a decade as the world's number 1 ranked professional, takes part inÊ'Rourkie's Ride' organised by Brian to raise money for research and care for sufferers of Cystic Fibrosis and this bike was built for the 2008 ride. Without fuss or trumpet blowing, Rourkie's Ride continues to grow as one of the friendliest and best loved charity rides in the country, raising £60,000 last year alone.

My L2P fixed will be finished within weeks, painted up in Land Rover heritage green with cream panels and very retro black Brian Rourke decals. The spec sheet reveals that this is indeed going to be a special build: Royce b/b, Chris King headset, White Industries track hubs laced up to Mavic ceramic rims, forged White Industries 175mm cranks and a clutch of high end finishing parts

All lovingly put together by Brian Rourke, a man who builds some of the finest frames in the world, raises tens of thousands of pounds each year for charity, rides a bike like he was still 21 and always makes me a cup of tea when I turn up.

Now that's the measure of a true man.

©David Harmon, March 2009

posted on saturday 14 march 2009

being the breeze....

i read this recently on the label in my rapha fixed shorts, and it got me thinking. as the rain and wind and snow start once again here on this wee isle and my hope is for a dry day the morrow - after all, it is club ride day and is also known to others as - sunday.

i meet with the breeze quite alot in my life. both as wilderness guide and rider. can we be the breeze or can we become the breeze? i would like to think so and especially on a bicycle. and some would say even more so on fixed. the breeze runs by and touches you, maybe caresses like a long lost lover. sometimes when it is needed and othertimes just to be pig headed.we have all been there, struggling into a headwind. and yep, we get bull sized ones here. i am told it is character building.

and then we have real breezes that whisper around you, helping you climb that hill, cooling you down on a hot descent, rolling along with you in the bunch imperceptably easing you through the air.

yet there is a step up from that point. it is when the season is underway, you have built up the core miles, legs are still good and one day you get dressed to ride. these are your favourite cycling clothes; shoes that are old friends, position on bike is perfect, sun is shining, it is not too hot - not too cold and you clip in, and set off.

it does not take long....

warm muscles push the cranks easily and they turn just as well. coming down the brae you have no sense of time or momentum. you are just there, the chain and wheels in perfect harmony. the road swishes under your tyres, the chain hums in sympony (new word) and there is no need for effort. it does not exist today.

the landscape moves along. in a motionless film-like trance, nothing can take this away. movement. time. space.

it is not till you're home that you realise this momentous happening.

yes, you can say today, i was the breeze.

©Jez Hastings March 2009

posted on saturday 7 2009

Frost Days....they're grrrreat!

I was never much of a fan of Kelloggs sugary little numbers, they were always far too sweet for me but their marketing icon, the ever upbeat Tony the Tiger is still one of the abiding visual memories of my youth. Somehow the cartoon cat managed to maintain a sunny disposition through all trials and tribulations and coming into the first week of really hard riding for me in 2009 I can see where he's coming from.

So far it's been steady but it's not been super, there have been quality miles but too often punctuated by periods of enforced inactivity,either through the pressures of work, family, or theÊlimitations imposed by the first 'real' winter in the UK for nearly twenty years.

So what have I learnt about myself and the way forward towards to the London-Paris Cycle Tour over the last two frost-bitten months since New Year's Day?

It's clear now that I am getting leaner, have a much better base than I have had for about 18 months and that's down to good old fashioned all weather riding with odd turbo session thrown in when conditions got beyond uncomfortable into just plain dangerous territory. I've also begun to love my bike again, something that if I were to be truly honest I hadn't done for quite a while, even though, at 43 years of age, it's suddenly becoming a lot harder to claw my way back to going well.

Yet I have also established that my body still responds well to being forced to make the effort, especially consistent effort and that is going to be the key to rolling up to the start of L2P in the best shape I've had for years. So,in order to achieve that consistency I am going to have to mix biking with something that is far more convenient when I am travelling for my job as a cycling commentator, namely running.

Some of you may know that after my abortive attempt to train for last year's New York Marathon I vowed to stick to the bike, but it seems I will have no choice but to don the shoes now and again to pound the roads of Europe. Not so though during Paris-Nice, which begins in Amily next Sunday, where I will take the Museeuw and ride the last 40-50 km of each stage.

March is slated as my first full month'sÊfull training and with the weather so glorious in Shropshire today, IÊcommitted myself fully to getting on top of the big gear and giving it a go around what I call my 'how much training do I still need to do?' circuit, to get a gut feeling about my form.

Best we skip over this bit then......save to say that what is mainly lacking is endurance and the ability to suffer under load, hardly surprising as the last two months have been all about just spinning away in a low gear.

All in all it seems I might actually pull this off, thanks to the joys of riding through a British Winter.

Ride safe

Hours so far from 1st March: 2 1/2
Start weight 1st January 2009: 82kg
Weight 1st March January: 77.5kg

©David Harmon, March 2009

posted on monday 2 march 2009

What it is to ride a Two up Time Trial on fixed

It's the the gathering of friends the day before and making new ones

It's the footering about on the garage late at night nervously exchanging cogs to get a similar gear to each other having had a reasonbly sucessful practice ride earlier!

It's sitting around the kitchen table talking tactics and realising that maybe the preparation is not quite up to what you thought it ought to have been.

It's the late night last minute shaving of legs because you know your team mates will mock and never speak to you again if you turn up hirsute.

It's the early alarm call knowing that you have been awake almost all night with anticipation in case you oversleep.

It's leaving in the dark having checked and rechecked bikes, kit, breakfast pieces (man's peanut butter and homemade strawberry jam), water bottles - oh yes and map/instructions of where the race HQ is.

it's leaving a loved one cosseted in a warm bed

it's nervously joking and pulling legs on the journey over.

it's at the sign on sussing out the opposition

it's the smell of race HQ - nervousness and overused single village hall toilets. no ralgex - it's out of fashion.

its being told time and again to ride our own race!

it's racing together and getting to the finish satisfied and having a cup of tea while waiting for the results.

it's heading back home, planning to do better next time.

it's laughing, cleaning bikes, washing kit and drinking strong coffee knowing that not only were we a team, but the only team that rode fixed!

©Jez Hastings February 2009

posted on tuesday 24 february 2009

smile if you're happy

I'm riding through the storm road awash with yesterday's litter and today's diesel that lies in rainbow puddles. I am following this multicolour track up into the glen. my head is full of turning the pedals, thinking in circles. aware of muscles tightening and loosening following a smooth movement that drives me upwards towards a low low cloud base. although I am working, I feel no stress; just a healthy effort of man and bike conquering gravity. I am in a zenlike moment, the space I occupy is bubble like. this weather could be disastrous on a wet wet day, and if I spent a sensible second thinking about it, I would have stayed indoors. but I am soaked through, working hard and thoroughly enjoying it. I can, in my minds eye, see every muscle group working - driving me forwards and upwards.

After three hours, I arrive at my destination. I am disappointed to know that I will have to stop - so I don't. I just ride on. The road is now dry, the wind has dropped and for another hour I ride purely for the pleasure. why? well, with the danger of sounding completely corny, because I can. I am ok - my fixed wheel at 66 inches is easy to turn and, moving through space, time is no longer relevant. the wheels are turning, calories burning and I am riding, riding and happy!

©Jez Hastings February 2009

posted on friday 20 february 2009

getting in the miles

the journey to paris is getting closer as time ticks away, and we all know that time is miles....

and both DH and i have been getting in the miles over the past couple of weeks and now it seems that we are not supposed to do so - this i am told by folks much wiser than i - we are supposed to do hours instead. if you are into twittering then you will have perhaps read that the pros say - 'off to do five hours or that was a quick three hours'. therefore by 'saddle hours' rather than miles in the saddle one scores better quality kilometres! quite correctly so, because sports scientists have discovered that only certain miles count while others plainly do not. if one does enough research, the plethora of stuff is really too much.

i agree that just riding your bike is not necessarily a good way to prepare for an event. we have first hand experience of this in VC Ardbeg with a member who covers loads of commuter miles each year still blows when the club ride gets gnarly or attacks the odd wee hill.

so i am out making it count, DH and i have a programme that we try to stick to. not easy when self employed and with work arriving randomly at this time of year. no complaints; but feeding the offspring, i have been told, is more important than riding my bike - pardon? what!!? - so when work presents itself, who am i to turn it down?

however getting in some quality miles or kilometres - not to upset our european friends - is paramount and i love doing it. except when. like today, it is raining; not just wet, but hard driving cold winter rain. the stuff that challenges ducks let alone hardcore cyclists.

i need to be turning the pedals, in order to function. it seems weird, but i do. to me it determines who i am. selfishly it allows me a time to be, to exist and to look forward. in fact our middle daughter,when invited to ask Sir Chris Hoy a question at last years braveheart ride posed 'what do you think about when you are training?' his reply was the next target, and what he needed to do to get there. i.e. to complete this set of training.

so there we have it: getting in the miles, hours or whatever. thinking about the next lot and for me, even if into a headwind, the joy and privilege on being awheel.

yes time is miles - i am so lucky

©Jez Hastings February 2009

posted on thursday 12 february 2009

Pin sharp

Cast your minds back. We've all been there at one point in our lives. Remember back to when the love of your life left you, closing the door behind her/him to begin a life somewhere else... without you.

But, somehow, you just couldn't let go, couldn't bear to throw away the second toothbrush and wracked with melancholy each time 'your song' came on the radio. And then, one morning, years later without warning, there is a knock on the door and there she is.

Yesterday morning, my legs came back. And, just like that lover of old, they are no longer flushed with youth although time has not been too unkind; certainly not quite as svelte as they once were and slightly more hairy but... just as capable of giving you a damn good ride.

I have decamped to the same far flung corner of Wales as I was in at New Year on a week's training camp. The aim is use the week between commentating on the Tour of Qatar and the Tour of California to put in some long steady hours.

Yesterday I arrived with enough daylight remaining to spend a couple of hours in the saddle and pretty much glided around my usual two hour route, compared with the last time I rode it on New Year's Day. This is encouraging after a frustrating week in London where a combination of work and bad weather has severely curtailed my riding. But, as Jez has pointed out in an earlier entry, the recovery is as important as the effort, especially when those making the effort are the wrong side of 40.

I doubt if I have shifted off any more weight in the last week but as I haven't had access to the same set of scales, I am waiting another week to see how that's going, but the fact that I can come back and ride a familiar route with measurable improvement shows that getting the miles in over January and February, before targeted training begins in March seems to be working.

posted on sunday 8 february 2009

fish on a friday- shaved legs

it's traditional - to those of us who have a papish background - to eat fish on a friday; in fact, although we do not subscribe to any church going fraternity (each to their own) we had always had fish on a friday since before i was born. and as i write, my nine year old son is preparing herring for tea and guess what.... it's friday! the next generation is taking it on too. i guess if asked why we would say it's tradition and we all have traditions. there have even been songs about it - fiddler on the roof springs to mind.

so when having yet another team meeting in debbie's, her mother sidled up to me and asked rather sheepishly - do you really shave your legs? 'yes' i replied. we then got caught up with other things, so she'd no chance to ask why? and that was the end of the conversation. it got me thinking - why do we shave our legs?

there has always been talk of masseurs, road rash and other such things. however for most of us who do not have masseurs or race enough that road rash could be a factor, there must be another reason. and anyway, when originally asked by my girlfriend (now my wife), i cleverly offered the road rash reply. she retorted rather sensibly, 'so why not shave your arms - you'll get road rash on your arms too?' she was an international a hockey player so who was i to argue? i made a mental note - do not use that excuse again.

so why do we shave our legs?

sometimes, in these days of webmeistery, forums explode with shave or not shave? and we all know that mountainbikers do not shave at all. so why do roadies do it?

i had to cast way back into time and question where i got the idea from. after all, in my other life i am a wilderness guide - a rufftytufty job if ever there was one. men with beards and big boots etc, but then it came to me. when i am not in cycle gear i am in tweeds - it is expected for my work and would be frowned upon if i did not wear such. fishing, guiding, hillwalking. my keepering colleagues all wear tweeds here on the hill and so do i - it is our uniform, it works, it's tradition.

i remember, long ago, seeing carved legged men racing, racing hard and their legs glistened. and as i became involved with the cycling tribe, it was just something that we did. we rode, we raced, we toured, we shaved our legs. if you look at any image, even a monochrome one of yesteryear, those browned pistons shine with a bronzed sheen. those that carry riders far and wide would not look right all hairy and matted. they have to be shaved and so to be like them and to be a cyclist we shave. it determines who we are.

posted on saturday 7 february 2009

looking forward.....a quickie.....

the past is officially passe, i know, i declared it so. we only have the future to look forward to.

If you agree to follow this ideal then you will know that training/riding/racing can all be done without a worry in the world. i definitely understand, before your start ranting and raving and sending in emails and tweets, about learning from the past but it is to the future that we look. so, whilst everywhere else in britain - 'snow falls on london, country grinds to halt' syndrome here on the windy and wild isle it is dry and i plan to ride - and do a big one at that. it will be steady and consistent for that it what one is supposed to do at this period of training - keeping well below the threshold, getting in solid miles. it'll be purposeful, and i know that if i am alone in this pursuit of true a-wheelness then i will meditate to the rpm - 90 - hopefully. i may even watch the nature go by and see some interesting birds.

"Bicycling is the nearest approximation I know to the flight of birds. The airplane simply carries a man on its back like an obedient Pegasus; it gives him no wings of his own." Louis J. Helle, Jr., Spring in Washington.

years have passed like minutes and it seems like there are only minutes left. we all have stories alone or on a club run or riding with friends. they come to light - emerging sometimes, like new from ancient chrysalises and yet sometimes they are just regurgitated. we laugh the same and surprise each other with our delight of being awheel. these are the thoughts that enter one's mind when the miles are rolled out in such a way.

so we have to look forward to our future plans and what these may hold for us. technology has changed and we are comfortable with it. jack taylor, well known frame builder of a bygone era was reported to have said, publicly, "i don't believe in progress" and yet on this day roger hammond has won a stage in quatar beating the best of them. he did not wait or look behind but instead he opted for the future and went for it.

looking forward - it's the way to go.

posted on wednesday 4 february 2009

a rest is as good as a ride and...

the rest is not history.

this mad plan was hatched on a ferry and now DH and I are now in training hell or heaven, depending on work/health or happiness and we are moving slowly towards paris.

training/riding what's the difference?

ride lots is good advice but one can ride too much. and although I would love to be awheel almost all the time, i know that apart from work and family pressures (it helps if your kids/partner ride too, no matter what level) it would be great to do. so whilst the L2P crew have monthly ride-outs in London the rest of us mere mortals have to put up with lone miles, or ipod induced turbo sessions. if really necessary, and today may well be one of those days - (ugh) where targets are the way to go - it may not be what we want to hear. but without them we enter 'the way of the slack' and start to suffer from whydotodaywhatwecouldputofftiltomorrow syndrome. we have all been there and with a great event such as L2P, already a target has been set.

in this bleak midwinter, L2P seems a huge distance away, and so i have convinced myself that in order to get there, wee steps are better; although i must bear in mind that there are only 144 days left!

targets are things that i am sure we hate - i remember when i had a job-job on contract to a large corporate, there were targets - we were doomed to failure. i have found that there is a bountiful way of making sure that if this is the case, make them so impossible that achievement of such is a dream. now targets in that world have to be achievable (if not downright easy) which, to my 48 x 19 brain, means one might as well not have them at all.

however, if one sets a target that stretches, but enables one to reach a zenith (L2P) then all is good with the world. interestingly, a friend has set himself a target to lose a pound of weight a day for a month. he is not a cyclist, and up to date he is on target. he does admit that he is carrying quite alot of extra timber to enable this to happen. svelte racing 'puppies' (like us, i hear you whisper) find this much more difficult!

so in these days of storms, getting in the miles, keeping the energy intake controlled and not getting spleeny with the family because one is about to not quite get ones nose over the bar, is a tricky equation to solve. as the wind batters the house and the turbo lies unloved in the hangar of anger, there is nothing to do but read, so i find myself turning to bradley wiggins' excellent autobiography; i come across where he says rest is an important part of training.

i will just have to close my eyes, lie down and relax.

posted on friday 30 january 2009

Fixed in Time

I have asked myself; does sitting in a theatre watching five hours of archive film featuring the history of six day racing count as training for London to Paris? I'd have to conclude that it doesn't, but that is exactly what I did on Sunday instead of adding another two hours to the 8 1/2 hours that I managed in total last week.

But nothing could be more pure and inspiring to a would-be one gear rider than watching the cut and thrust of the 1968 Skol 6 on the big screen, with the effortless power and poise of Post and Sercu, or taking in scratchy news reports displaying the raw, naked ambition of Bobby Walthour, Alf Goullet or 'Torchy' Peden on the boards of Madison Square Gardens.

Before WW2 six day racing was the entertainment of choice on both sides of the Atlantic. It was, I am proud to say, introduced to the United States by three Englishmen, evolved rapidly into the classic two man team format and reached its zenith in The U.S. in a decade that spanned either side of the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

Al Capone, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were regulars at the Gardens, whipping the riders into a frenzy by laying down huge cash prizes for each prime, revelling in their own notoriety and lapping up the atmosphere of the track centre with its jazz bands, bars and five star eating. A far cry from riding L2P but for just this once I'll let myself off.

The Hammersmith Cyclists Film Show, organised by Bob Davies and film historian Ray Pascoe was a joy to avoid training for and packed with bike racing celebrities to boot. 'Fat' Albert Beurick, confidant to generations of British riders making their way in Belgium, most notably the late Tom Simpson, Vin Denson, winner of the Tour of Luxembourg and the first Briton to win a stage in the Giro d'Italia and the great, unsung Maurice Burton, now proprietor of De Ver Cycles but a veteran of 56 six-day races in a glorious eight year career on the boards of Europe.

No getting away from it, regardless of this pleasant Sunday diversion, it's a turbo training week ahead. Personally I feel the static trainer is possibly an instrument of torture left over from the medieval churches anti-heretic purges, depriving you of scenery, elements and in fact anything that ties you physically to the spinning globe, but this week it will be necessary to use one, as I am left to hold the fort at home while my wife Jan is away on business.

I will of course get a road ride in on Tuesday while Leon goes to nursery, and a good stint on the road at the weekend but to get ten or more balanced hours in, I'll drag out the magnetically flyweeled spawn of the devil in the evenings. I only hope that I can drag up a few memories of Sercu and Post to buoy me on my own stints of 'Racing to Nowhere'

Ride safe
Hours so far this week: 8 1/2
Start weight 1st January 2009: 82kg
Weight 26th January: 78.2kg

top photo: maurice burton; bottom pic: fat albert on hearing jez hastings will ride l2p on fixed.

posted on tuesday 27 january 2009

a good ride.

how do we know when it is such? maybe because the sun shines/ maybe because it just does not rain, perhaps we are with friends or maybe all of these plus. sometimes ( very unlikely in my case), it could be a race and you get a chance to be first and win too!

however it is, it goes deeper. it is within, legs are good, air clear and easy to breathe. not hot and stifling. getting such days are special, make you feel at one with your machine, moving effortlessly. smile. no need to say a thing, energy is bountiful and can go on forever. no man with the hammer on these days.

interestingly, beryl burton, the great english women's world champion, in the fifties, sixties and seventies never suffered from the bonk. burton won the women's world road race championship in 1960 and 1967 and was runner-up in 1961. not only was she a roadie but on the track, winning world championship medals almost every year across three decades. and in 1967 she set a new 12-hour time trial record of 277.25 miles - a mark that surpassed the menÕs record of the time by 0.73 miles and was not superseded by a man for another two years! the story goes that whilst setting this amazing record she caught and passed mike mcnamara who was on his way to setting the men's record at 276.52 miles and take the BBAR too. as she passed him she handed a liquorice allsort (trad sweety) and to cap it all he ate it. i wonder if she felt that that was a good ride?

in those days they trained in the winter on hack bikes - fixed wheels to gain souplesse and keep the legs spinning. there were roller races then but no turbos (spit, spit) and not as much private car ownership that we have today. you rode a bike, it was what you did. but i digress.

riding is great and a good ride makes it even better still. fixed wheel is, without doubt, the purest form of cycling - one feels the rhythm of the road, rouling in harmony with landscape, nature and oneself. indeed so much so that one becomes the journey. it happened today, it's all i need to say on my return.

a good ride.

photo - Bernard Thompson

posted on tuesday 27 january 2009

wet not wet - weather sucks

with poor weather globally, save for the southern hemisphere, we are joined in riding misery. it is what i take with me when going into the big wide. the big wide, here, is a better description than the outdoors. it is much more descriptive. big wide - the skies carry scudding clouds that, without warning, drop painful wet sleaty rain that hammers and rebounds off the tarmac. and as if that is not enough - the wind tears off the atlantic TGV-like non-stop.

if you are very unlucky then the weather can be recycled by andrew bauld's van heading the other way. we shout and curse then laugh like soaking maniacs . we are cyclists - we ride! but were thankfully soon at debbie's after a bucketful of extra character. the coffee is great. the rain does not fall down, it races across - from labrador across a wild atlantic turning whatever the road or river it has become to yet more than extreme.

thank goodness for sportique's warm up cream. and warm down too. after a hard ride, like today's is, it at least allows muscles to start moving in a humane way and if, like me, you have to get out and guide naturewatchers/wilderness lovers for seven hours - i like that too - then one can move, in a fashion, rain that resembles a bi-ped rather than than that of a heads down eyeballs out bi-cyclist!

i look forward to more hours more miles -for at least i did not resort to the turbo....as in the great Jean Bobet's words - tomorrow we ride.

rubber side down.

posted on saturday 24 january 2009

Breaking the Ice

The name of the village was Bitterley and the irony wasn't lost on me.

It's how much I regret not riding the bicycle for the last six months. It also happened to be how cold it was on Tuesday morning even long after the sun came up.

I initially turned up the Brown Clee north of Ludlow but just a couple of miles was enough to realiseÊthat there was no realistic chance of riding over the shoulder of the hill and on toward Wenlock Edge. Everywhere on the main road was just a sheet of ice and with just 2 1/2 hours before I had to be back at the village nursery to pick up my two year old son Leon, a quick swing back down the long run to Ludlow and into the valley road.

I'd say that when I'm in reasonable shape it takes 35 - 40 minutes to feel 'in the groove' on a training run, at the moment it's over an hour before I even settle down. That and a goodly portion of calorie counting is letting me know exactly where I am at the moment..and that's a long way to go.

Wednesday was at least milder but another 2 1/2 hours on the bike was passed in the company of former L2P rider and ever fit Ken Jones from Onimpex UK. Two years ago Ken gave Sean Kelly a hard time on the road to Paris and is a real dyed-in-the-wool English roadman. And the greatest thing about proper old school bike racers is they know it's not about proving yourself, the sport is already hard enough so my eternal thanks to Ken for setting just the right tempo all afternoon.

It's going to be hard fitting in another five hours before the week is out but I at least have a few hours tomorrow morning before heading to London to help host a film show at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith with the great Vin Denson.

Hours so far this week: 5 1/2
Start weight 1st January 2009: 82kg
Weight now: 78.2kg

Ride Safe

posted on friday 23 january 2009

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just get out and ride

i have read and read and read loads of training ideas and programmes but they all seem to ignore that most of us are not full time sponsored riders - either attached to a pro team or as a privateer funded by the dhss. fortunately or unfortunately, david harmon and i have business/work/families/ homeschools to run.

turbo training is about as exciting as watching varnish dry, but with more wetness and discomfort. however, being on the outer edge, sometimes one does not have a choice of how to get the hours/ miles in. despite this, today i headed out meet bp half way on a windy, windy (work that one out) road. we did probably just over a good hour and half, but with the gales subsiding it was still a hard13kph into the headwind, considering that we like to put in somewhere around the 28kph average - it was severely down and even harder.

i love cycling.

and i love the way that we can move within a landscape and that we do not subscribe to the 'it's too windy' school of not going out - unless of course the bike is likely to turn into a kite without so much as a a by your leave or thank you - then i, and hopefully bp are on the road. we are lucky, so very lucky, to have jobs that allow us to pursue our bliss.

i do appreciate that there are those who live by turbo training, and there have been been several books on the subject; wes hobson's Workout in a Binder - for Indoor Cycling or the much acclaimed Smart Cycling by arnie baker. however it is something that i hate with a vengeance and will only do it if the weather is so bad that dogs get blown inside out. that being said, my second claim racing club, West Lothian Clarion have turbo training each tuesday in bill's garage, up to ten folks turn up regularly. luckily i live so far away that i would have to be heading home before it started in order to make the ferry back. shame! to make the point even more firmly i have it in solid carbon that a certain hero by the name of r millar - (and who should we be to disagree) - swears that turbos are the spawn of the devil. (hear, hear).

so there you have it. i can only surmise that there is not such thing as bad weather - just bad clothing. now can i have that supadoopa rapha jacket...please?

©Jez Hastings January 2009

posted on monday 19 january 2009

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it's just not (euro)sport

Quite why I get talked into, or more accurately, talk myself into projects that to the normal, rational cyclist would suggest a degree of lunacy, is beyond me.

Back in June 2008 whilst relaxing with veteran ultra distance rider Jez Hastings and editor of cult cycling website thewashingmachinepost, brian palmer during the channel crossing that came at the end of day one in the London-Paris Cycle Tour, a strange and slightly barmy plan emerged to ride the following years event on fixed wheel bicycles, a total of 600km over often windy northern French countryside in just three days.

Now six months later I find that the good life of the second half of the last season has caught up with me and left me with a mountain to climb to achieve a level of fitness that would get me through just one day of fixed wheel riding over that distance, let alone three.

So what are the odds stacked against me arriving at the start line in shape for 2009? Pretty big as it turns out.

Firstly, I am a good 6.5 kilos over any sort of sensible weight for such a ride, a consequence of too much high living in the back end of the 2008 season. It's difficult when your job involves you sitting down all day and talking about cycling, but I should have known better than to stop actually doing any. Secondly, I know it's going to hurt and as anyone who has ever allowed an existence of pleasantries to overwhelm one of exercise will know, breaking the back of it in month one is painful and demoralising in the extreme.

Lastly, as a man with a very young son, a wife with a very demanding career and only precious weeks at home in the year, I invariably find something less painful and pleasant to do with my family before I high-tail it out of the country again.

Notwithstanding all these things I have made at least a start.

It's been a while since I've built up a proper fendered winter bike. Much of my riding gets done on the continent in winter where such things are simply unheard of; but thanks to the generous donation of an old Dolan audax frame and a concerted raiding of the workshop stores here at Chez Harmon, I have had a fairly dry backside for those few rides I have managed to fit in so far.

Dry maybe, but warm definitely not. Being a good chap I laid off excessive consumption during the Christmas and New Year to get in a few rides, grovelling all the way around my in-law's family home in Snowdonia but it's has been bitter cold for weeks, the sort of cold that freezes bidons on descents and makes 65 kilometres feel like 165, however beautiful the scenery.

This weekend I am off the bike again as I am working at the launch of the Cervelo Test Team, but if inspiration were needed, hanging about with the Tour de France winner and a group of professional riders is more than enough. Let's hope I remember that next week when I try to get my first full ten hour week in.

Ride safe.

©David Harmon January 2009

posted on saturday 17 january 2009

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Size Matters...

One of my dreams was to be a pro rider ( i think is was on a saturday once), not because i had any chance to riding well or even being a tinsey bit good, but because even way back then i knew that riders such as Thomas, Dayton, Woodburn and of course Engers - in the time of muted monochrome - had hand made bikes. against them i did not and could not stand a chance - in fact there were times that occasional chances to become nearly famous came and went - especially as they would catch me for more than a minute or two (per mile) on a test somewhere sometime. even if i had ridden out with my sprints on special carriers!

even if some of you wanted a 'Lilac Harry Quinn', it was just a dream; and yet to have a hand-made was bound to make your riding even that much better. in fact i followed a girl from lands end to john o' groats on one. it did not improve my riding, but it made for a pleasant event and a good opportunity to exchange some words...

In this sumptuous hacienda,
Where I weigh things up as they're on the way down
From beneath your Reverend Jim Jones bedspread
I watch the angels look down onto your sweet brow
If God had meant for us to work
Then I'm sure he would have given us jobs
Six weeks to live but at least I'm not in Journey
Sign on you crazy diamond
I didnÕt take much time convincing her
Baby, IÕm from the Wirral peninsula
A merciless despot, with nothing to lose
In my Dick Quax running shoes
Underneath the shade of the average tree where
They handed out mediocrity
I saw you with Alchemy under your arm
Standing in the middle of a long queue
I saw the Goodyear airship sail over your head
I saw the joke I told you fly over your head
Why don't they have any badminton courts in the jungle?
Because there isn't the demand
Oh let me take you by the hand
Sturmey-Archer Campagnolo
Sturmey-Archer Campagnolo
Sturmey-Archer Campagnolo
Sturmey-Archer Campagnolo
Sturmey-Archer Campagnolo
Sturmey-Archer Campagnolo
Sturmey-Archer Campagnolo on my mind

lyrics thanks to half man half biscuit

i eventually saved enough cash to relegate my elswick to the shed - it became my hack bike and occasional 'cross beast - and splash out on a handbuilt longstaff. he was good - one of the best - and I still have one of his tandem trikes that gets a regular airing. but the knowledge of the 70s and 80s is way behind anything we have today. yes, you can buy stuff off the shelf - and excellent too - we do not sport ' if it's not a colnago it's just a bicycle''' stickers on windows for nothing up here, you know!

so with some excitement (actually quite alot) and and equal measure of trepidation i found that i had been invited to mosquito to be sized up for a handbuilt machine. the main reason is because a certain mr harmon and i had a crazy bet last summer whilst pedaling to paris and now we will do the same this year but on fixed wheels...yeah stupid i know but before we get our heads fixed we need to have a machine that suits. the nice folks at mosquito suggested that the post should try out their specialist system and having heard bp rave about it i just had to have a go...didn't i?

no longer does one sit in a dusty cupboard at the side of a workshop drinking tea out of a chipped mug (although at longstaff's it was posher than that). now it is technology and customer service and interaction and...truth. roger asks more questions than paxman and builds a verbal picture of the cycling that one does and what one would aspire to also. a staff member brings an espresso almost as good as debbie's and then brings tools that look like they should have come from edinburgh castle (fine metal and wood). with such quality they must have been made in vicenza.

i am asked to assume several standing poses as roger assesses my balance (enough said). then it is onto the massage table for more measurements - he notes that i have one leg shorter than the other - i am aware of and it is remedied by regular physio - then... add one foot smaller too. something that cannot be remedied, but he did suggest a correct shoe size - did you know that your feet change length when you pedal? no neither did i but it also plays a vital part in the size and style of frame/riding due to the use of your human levers. he checked my hip angles, knee, hamstring and hip flexion (not bad for an old git) and then we got down to the hard bit.

we had to break out more espresso - thanks bertie - as roger did some alchemy with the computer, a piece of paper and a multi adjustable frame with fine turbo trainer attached. a glass of water was placed nearby. i made a note of this. then i was invited to sit upon said machine of wonder. roger had adjusted it and opposite me was a camera. just pedal - so i did. camera clicked i rode. he checked pedal position, angle and length - made a wee adjustment and off i went again. the same for handlebars and saddle and reach. it reminded me of a visit to the opticians - better or worse? worse. ok how about that? better. and again and more pedaling fast, sweaty, slow easy. water - ahh water - at least i remembered, and suddenly like magic it was refilled. i began to enter another zone as the instrument became extremely comfortable and i was riding far away....dreaming

a whole two and a half hours just whizzed by.

three days later a fine package arrived in the post. sizes, technical drawings, images on a cd rom and other necessities to make an informed choice. everything from saddle height, saddle drop to bar, rear setback, stem length and rise, saddle to bar and headset spacing is there. others also offer a fitting service and more white tiles are included but this professional bike fitting service is personal and zen-like at the same time......roger is like that......brilliant.

now that phil has been trained too, there is no excuse for missing out.

choosing a new bike is not easy and there is always a danger that we will let our hearts rule our sensibilities and our wallets too. i am about to enter this process- more of which will be reported on later.

if we ride regularly and often enough, we generally know our sizes but i cannot help think that some of these sizes differ in/on my varied machines in the shed. this one is for distance and sportives including L2P. it has to carry me for hundreds of kilometers a day and still be comfortable. i'm getting older and i need to be efficient in my energy usage, pedaling and easy on the road.

i am excited now and have to choose parts and a colour...hmmmm.

©jez hastings january 2009

posted on thursday 15 january 2009

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