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the mighty dave t's words of the week

"i only wanted to go for a bike ride and talk about cricket."

why now?

the large motorised cavalcade following this week's australian tour down under notwithstanding, cycling, along with walking, has an enviable reputation for being a relatively benign, green mode of transport. to an extent, both need minimal infrastructure to function, particularly if kept separate from motorised traffic. sacramento, for example, has around thirty miles of two-lane cycle track, with walking/running provision alongside, conveniently estranged from the adjacent roadway (as well as from folsom prison). on a far less ostentatious scale, islay has three miles of tarmac pathway leading from port ellen village to ardbeg distillery, passing both laphroaig and lagavulin distilleries en-route.

granted, the latter route can be a tad inconvenient for both walkers and cyclists in the summer months, when whisky aficionados, unsteady on their feet, tend to overpopulate the tarmac, carrying bags laden with whisky bottles. having to continually shout 'excuse me!" all the way to ardbeg and back, eventually becomes a bit tiresome. however, the path serves its purpose well by having essentially removed the whisky visitors from the road, meaning several less obstacles with which the pelotonese once had to contend.

with the oft-mentioned obesity crisis affecting both the adult and school-age population, government agencies and the national health service have been at pains to have us take more exercise, to get out of the car and onto our feet or saddles. such advice is geared (pardon the pun) to improve the nation's general well-being and simultaneously reduce the pressure on the nhs. quite how well that advice has been/is being heeded is an arguable point. but the aforementioned persuasions were made ahead of current concerns that we edge ever nearer to the climate change abyss, reports of which populate every newspaper and news report at present.

keen observation of newsworthy phenomena will frequently elicit the view, that there rarely exists a bandwagon onto which someone is not willing to jump: gluten-free, veganism, climate change, hybrid cars, e-bikes; the list grows longer by the day. the news that the city of birmingham (uk) is vying to become the first in the country to rid its centre of the motor car, is no doubt a sensible and salient response to the inevitability of climate change. it is an admirable stance by the conurbation notorious for spaghetti junction, one that they apparently borrowed from belgium's mediaeval city of ghent. the latter implemented a traffic-free plan in 2017 with significant practical and economic success.

birmingham's plan revolves around removing perceived and actual barriers to cycling or walking, while making driving across town a bit more inconvenient. ghent's deputy mayor, filip watteeuw contends that "(a city's) best car plan, is a bike plan." a sizeable proportion of the belgian city's traffic congestion was discovered to have been caused by too many motorists undertaking short trips that could just as easily have been made on foot or by bicycle. thus, ghent's solution was to make a 300 metre car trip into one lasting two kilometres.

you do have to admire their thinking.

however, now that birmingham intends to follow suit, the question we must ask ourselves is 'why now'? there's little doubt that this single action not only promises to improve the health of many 'brummies', but it will undoubtedly ease congestion in the city centre and improve the city's air quality by removing pollution from heavily populated areas. but, while the move seems to come with the best of municipal intentions, the bandwagon still hovers eerily in the background. had ms thunberg not raised the spectre of climate change to that of global importance, would birmingham have chosen this voluntary course of action?

after all, cycling has been available as a healthy, low-pollution option since the late nineteenth century, and walking has been an option ever since adam and eve went looking for apple trees. never once was either of the preceding seen to implore humanity to move in the opposite direction and wholeheartedly embrace the motor car as a viable, noisier and destructive alternative. so my inherent cynicism, while welcoming almost any strategy that will shift the balance in favour of cycling, still has this niggling doubt over birmingham's true motives. a quarter of all car journeys in the city are under one mile (a trait, if not a percentage, shared by many a town and city, including that of bowmore on islay), while cycle trips number a pitiful 1%; so they have a great deal of scope for improvement. however, once we're past the first few towns and cities to move in this direction, all the brownie points will have been used up and a new bandwagon will need to be recruited.

meanwhile, ghent has cleaner air, with nitrogen oxide levels down 20% in the last three years, proving, if nothing else, that banning cars is one ginger peachy idea. so why has it taken rising sea levels, coastal erosion, worsening weather and australian bushfires to recognise that we were right all along? after all, i've been writing this stuff for the last 23 years.

tuesday 21 january 2020

always read the label

the last time i experienced a dry day's bike ride was on christmas day last year. even saturday, forecast to be sunny and dry, turned out otherwise; it is only through habit that i'd worn a waterproof jacket atop a thermal version to stay both warm and dry. if you cast your mind back a day or two, when i demonstrated my complete misunderstanding of quantum physics, you'd rather hope that, if it's possible to train two, high-altitude stellar observatories to track quasars separated by millions of light years, not only from each other, but by their distance from earth, then surely it's possible to offer a reasonably accurate, terrestrial weather forecast. for not only was i promised a dry day, but one featuring light, if not totally absent winds.

on sunday's ride, we of the velo club were spared the potential problem of slippery roads, courtesy of overnight cloud cover. having returned from an evening's musical celebrations in the early hours of the morning, when the ambient temperature was a couple of degrees below zero, i had feared for our stability come sunday morning. ultimately, the frost was absent, but by the time the sun rose in the morning, zero degrees had yet to be achieved. unfortunately, the forecast peace and calm was, once again, interrupted by winds considerably stronger than advised, and we were left wondering where, how, or even if quantum mechanics comes into this.

after saturday, i augmented my thermal garmentage with a merino neck-warmer, kindly supplied by the nice people at pearson cycles.

though there's no disrespect intended, i'm fairly sure none of you would expect a merino neckwarmer to be the subject of an in-depth review. and i'd be the first to agree. however, trivial though it may appear, it's less about the constitution of the neckwarmer, than it is about the branding that appears on the edge of the collar.

i've always been a bit of a sucker for a quality script typeface, precisely like that employed by pearson cycles, even if it is largely hidden by view in the way in which a neckwarmer tends to concertina about your person. however, even when that happens, there's an attached red and white pearson's rose hallmark sitting front and centre to help identify, not only the veracity of the item, but its origin, declaring you to be a member of the velocipedinal cognoscenti. and i figure we're probably all in favour of that.

there are many brand marques throughout the world, that signify not only the quality thereof, but the implied provenance. like gibson guitars in place of an epiphone, an aston martin in preference to a dacia, and a colnago as opposed to a kinesis. and though it's an arguable point, the corporate branding or, in this case, the script logo, can provide an indication of just what it is you've bought into. the only exception to this contention that springs to mind, is that of pinarello, who, in my humble opinion, really need to do something about that dreadful logo that adorns the head tube.

i'm somewhat ambivalent to the contemporary practice of having the manufacturer's name writ large along the downtube, if only because it smacks of a complete absence of subtlety. i do accept the premise as relates to the bicycles of the professional peloton, where advertising is an inherent part of the sport, but in day to day (and slower) reality, who really cares? however, when that logo inhabits such a marvellous typeface, who wouldn't want to make it as large as the metal or carbon tubing will allow? but, to step off the superficial escalator for a moment, that pearson logo advises of the history and expertise that comes with 160 years of velocipedinal history.

tom pearson started his blacksmith's business in sutton, surrey when the town was surrounded by open farmland. in need of a mark, or logo, to advertise the quality of his craftsmanship, he settled on what is nowadays referred to as the pearson rose. and it makes pearson cycles the oldest bike shop in the world. nobody has that kind of experience. so even if your only connection with those 160 years comes by way of a merino neckwarmer, attendance at their recent gravel evening, or fascination with a delightful script logo, its hard to come by quality of such depth and heritage in an age when bicycle chain stores are owned by investment companies rather than cyclists. which is probably why pearson claims to exist to make the world want to cycle.

it's salutory that all that can be summarised with a rose and a logotype.

pearson cycles

monday 20 january 2020

entanglement

something that is as much a surprise to me as it is to many, is my possession of a higher grade certificate in physics, displaying a rather admirable pass. the surprise aspect of the equation is the fact that i really didn't understand (or thought i didn't) most of that which i was being taught. nowadays, i find the subject quite fascinating, but all those years ago, most of the sometimes complex explanations were in the process of going right over my head. of course, my higher grade physics simply wouldn't cut the mustard nowadays; when dipping a tentative foot into the realms of particle physics, we had need only of coping with protons, electrons and neutrons. science has since identified a darned sight more than three sub-atomic particles, culminating in the discovery of mr higgs' elusive boson.

one aspect of my science education that i'm pretty sure was left well alone, was that of quantum mechanics, a subject i'd be hard-pushed to define without recourse to a hefty text book beside my laptop. perhaps the most basic posit of quantum physics is the incomprehensible notion that a particle can exist in more than one place at a time, and need not adopt a single physical state (assuming i've grasped the basics correctly). i have read and watched with serious intent, purely from an academic perspective, to better understand the principles of this quantum science without much success. however, it seems quite unlikely, at present, that quantum goings-on will greatly impinge upon day to day velocipedinal matters.

however, there's an evens chance that i could be wrong.

never one to pass up the opportunity to become thoroughly confused, i recently watched a bbc documentary concerning the phenomenon known as 'quantum entanglement'. i'd be lying if i said i was fully conversant with the principle, but basically the contention is that two particles, separated even by millions of light years, can exhibit identical properties, where one behaves in exactly the same way as its distant partner.

to demonstrate this principle, physicists aimed a laser beam at calcium atoms, producing light photons emitted in two opposite directions. these were subsequently captured by two individual detectors, where it was possible to examine their so-called entanglement. naturally enough, this was not done in a shoe box in the broom cupboard, but involved two, high altitude observatories on tenerife, where the randomness of the control samples was verified by light emitted from two different quasars, millions of light years away and light years apart. apparently, their theoretical equations were confirmed.

which brings me neatly onto matthieu van der poel.

if you have watched any of the current cyclocross season on gcn, you will undoubtedly have watched the above mentioned gentleman hover around the front for a lap or four, prior to accelerating away from his peers and winning by a substantial margin, demonstrating, in the process, the sort of bike handling skills we all wish we possessed. i cannot deny that it rarely makes for exciting races, but that's more the fault of the competition, rather than van der poel himself. however, in the light of my introductory paragraphs, the consistency of his victories can perhaps be explained more simply.

if we're willing to accept the veracity of quantum entanglement, it seems highly likely that there is a matching matthieu van der poel in a galaxy, far, far away where gravity exerts considerably less restriction than that of earth. the apparently verified existence of entangled particles (in this case, known as matthieu van der poel 2) means that the latter can race more freely and at higher speed without the gravitational restrictions that affect his unentangled competitors. since quantum physics demands that such particles behave identically, i believe i may have solved the conundrum of how vdp makes it all look so easy.

of course, he could just be a lot fitter and train harder.

saturday 18 january 2020

the emperor's new clothes?

argyll and bute council, overlords of islay and jura, along with a substantial portion of the adjacent mainland, and in common with many other local councils, is in the process of considering forthcoming budgetary cuts. one of the less popular choices amongst all the unpopular choices, is the removal of financial support for school swimming lessons at the local leisure centre. though mainland landlubbers may query the outcry that has accompanied this future possibility, bear in mind that islay and jura's populace is surrounded by water, and that being able to swim might, in fact, be of greater import than for those living in kircaldy, east kilbride, or galashiels.

in order to register a communal distaste for the council's proposed hatchet job on school swimming, the leisure centre is promoting a petition. apparently, if they gain sufficient signatures, the council will be honour bound to take particular heed of the community's expressed displeasure. and should the campaign be successful, the children of islay and their parents will sleep more soundly in their beds at night. for if the council continues to underwrite the costs of swimming lessons, the cost of admission, so to speak, is relatively small. in fact, swimmers of any age need only a pair of swimming trunks or swimming costume, an appropriately sized-towel and a backpack in which to carry everything.

cycling, on the other hand, compares rather badly when it comes to the price of admission. the lowest priced road bike currently shown on evans cycles website retails at £285, and, to be honest, that's only the beginning. though many claims are made that cycling ought to be accessible even to those possessed only of regular apparel, the designers of which scarcely had bicycles in mind when sketching their trousers, skirts, hoodies or woolly pullovers, we all know to our (financial) cost, that it will all end in tears.

making life in the saddle considerably more comfortable will necessitate the acquisition of padded, lycra bibshorts and a jersey with three rear pockets. for the benefit of preserving pride amongst the peloton, it will also become necessary to purchase a pair of clipless pedals and concomitant footwear. plus a helmet. and what if it rains? and obviously, a short-sleeve jersey and bibshorts are scarcely appropriate attire for a cold wet january; bibtights and fleecy jersey will also need to be found in the wardrobe.

and so it goes, and so it goes.

yet it seems that the above outlined costs are no real barrier to the way of the saddle. according to recent market research, the growth of cycling apparel sales reached $5 billion at the end of last year and is expected to continue its upward trend. this is fuelled by the rising number of cycle clubs, and a growing interest in event participation, thus bringing comfort and joy to the world's bike shop cash registers. it's not a trend solely confined to europe and north america; hong kong, of all places, experienced a 9% increase in cycling apparel sales, while japan was none too far behind at 7% growth. oddly enough, it transpires that the wearing of cycle clothing as an emerging fashion in the far east has helped these buoyant figures, along with continuous improvement in materials.

as is often the case when it comes to the nomenclature employed by the world of market research, what you and i would probably refer to as bike shops, seems officially to be seen as 'the offline distribution channel', which, the survey tells us, is likely to grab a significant proportion of sales, if purely on the basis that customers prefer to 'try before they buy'. however, online sales are also expected to do just ginger peachy, thank you very much, across the same period, as manufacturers hedge their bets and sell through both channels.

it seems a bit of a shame that, just as persistence market research announced the above results of their survey, that the employees of britain's cycle surgery received formal notice of the owners' intention to close down both offline and online distribution channels of the business, having claimed that its existence is no longer sustainable. yet, almost in the same breath, halfords noted a 6% rise in cycle-related sales.

it's a funny old world, isn't it?

friday 17 january 2020

it never gets old

i always promised myself that i would never let it happen. i may have spent way too many column centimetres moaning about the imposition of integrated headsets (something ernesto colnago said would never appear on bicycles bearing his name), external and subsequently, press-fit bottom brackets, but despite my continued misgivings over the necessity of hydraulic disc brakes on road bikes, i generally find modern technological developments of particular interest, even if i find their application somewhat misplaced. so i figured i would not succumb to the epithet, 'nostalgia is yesterday's thing'.

disappointingly and yet not so disappointingly, that's precisely what seems to have happened.

with the benefit of rose-tinted glasses and a pair of chater-lea's grand tour pedals, it often seems that they really did know how to build stuff in the halcyon days of yore. granted, the latter mentioned pedals probably weigh more than the average carbon chainset, but lightweight, didn't always mean less than 6.8kg. and to be honest, if everyone was riding ten-speed racers that were closer to 10kg there's little to say that the sport would be any less enthralling than it is today. for the less aerobically endowed, that might entail a minute or two more on the sunday ride climbs, but to be honest, so what?

however, despite my favouring steel built frames (my go-to bicycle is a ritchey logic), i have studiously avoided pursuing the purchase of 1960/70s italian lugged steel, in the certainty that this would brand me as a cyclist past my sell-by date. for similar reasons, i have diligently procrastinated over the prospective purchase of a mid-1950s slingerland radio king snare drum. both are arguably, a joy to behold, but do they really fit the definition of pragmatism? and i really and truly thought i'd got clean away until receipt of chater-lea's new year e-mail, advising their acquisition of the classic lightweights website.

the website originated in 2006 under the stewardship of peter underwood, as a vehicle for said gent to share memories and photos with several like-minded friends. prior to this, it existed as the cambridge lightweight newsletter, second volume pdf copies of which are available to download from the classic lightweights website.

so, where's the atrraction? well, if i might inhabit the realm of the slightly trivial for a moment, click on the menu link leading to italian classics, and before many scrolling pixels have passed, not only is there a colnago arabesque to drool over, but thumbnails of 'real' head tube badges. notice i employed the adjective 'real', emphasising my preference for colourful, metal artifacts rivetted or screwed to the metal behind them. decals applied below the clearcoat will never compare. add to that, the fact that it's also possible to download a selection of 50s and 60s catalogues, and what's not to like?

of course, italy its not only famous for its desirable steel frames of yesteryear, but also for the polished alloy componentry originating from vicenza. while i cannot deny that the ritchey benefits greatly from a 2x12 record drivetrain and a marvellous set of 45mm carbon boras, neither could make the seemless transition from bike to mantelpiece in the way that a carefully mounted pair of camapgnolo c-record polished hubs could. that's not to imply, however, that campagnolo carbon is not without its brownie points...

all this would, of course, remain entrenched in the world of nostalgia, were it not for the existence of chater-lea's grand tour pedals. on their own, they are desirable enough, but included in the news provided within the aforesaid e-mail, is the promise of a soon-to-be-manifest, chater-lea alloy crankset, earmarked for both production and pre-ordering. therefore, if i do happen to stray towards nostalgia to occupy the total lack of space in the bikeshed, at least there are some more than appropriate modern components to prevent my being hounded by the carbon modernists.

classiclightweights | chater-lea

thursday 16 january 2020

the saltire contention

i'm not entirely sure of the reasons behind anthropomorphising certain adverse weather systems by providing them with names. is this a means of encouraging us to think of them as warm and cuddly, or making life somewhat simpler for those who have need of cataloguing major meteorological events? either way, naming monday's atlantic storm as 'brendan', in no way mitigated against the 70mph winds that destroyed 50% of my garden fence and threatened to lift me off my feet when heading out for pipe band practice on monday evening. nor, indeed, did they prevent the day's ferry sailings from being cancelled.

yet, despite january being our least favourable month in terms of inclement weather, without fail, i am almost guaranteed to come across a young japanese couple, dressed in heavy parkas with fur round the hood, trying man and womanfully to shelter themselves from the cold, wet and windy weather that imbues the local atmosphere. of course, they are here for the whisky (or, at least, he is), but what on earth, we are wont to wonder, brings them here in january? surely there must be more favourable weather in japan? yes, it will be cold, yes, it might well be raining, but taking a brief snapshot as i write, the wind is only 4mph in japan as opposed to 36mph on islay, (heading towards 58mph overnight).

what i cannot argue against, are islay's wide open spaces, offering a diametrically opposite experience to someone who possibly spends their time living in central tokyo or kyoto. and that's a sentiment that can be transposed onto the residents of glasgow, edinburgh or aberdeen. never forget the truth that 'outside is free'.

that latter fact might well have had some bearing on the recent survey conducted by transport scotland on behalf of cycling uk (the artist formerly known as ctc), where environmental factors are becoming increasingly important to scotland's residents. the corollary to the latter concern, apparently has it that more than 60% of those polled, figure that cycling would be likely to make the nation 'a better place'. released on tuesday of this week, transport scotland and cycling uk reported that almost 80% living north of the border were in agreement that, for the sake of the environment and our wide-open spaces, it would be better if more people cycled.

once again, i must interject my tempered cynicism mid-appraisal, on learning that the survey's sample numbered a mere 1,049, apparently interviewed face-to-face. you can perhaps see my rather moot point on learning that scotland's current population hovers around 5.5 million; my 'o'-level in statistics scarcely equips me to comprehend the co-relation between the polled sample and the country's citizenry.

however, i do wonder if it is a bit of a stretch to equate the results of the survey with apparent reality. though the claimed positive attitude demonstrated towards saltire cycling, including the acceptance that it contributes towards health and wellbeing, led many to contend the nation would be a better place if more cycled, it's questionable whether the statistics stack up. in 2015, holyrood's statistics showed 1.2% of those 5.5million used cycling as their principal mode of transport, with an average of 5.9% regularly cycling to work. again, i am hampered by my lack of comprehension when it comes to lies, damn lies and statistics, for if 4.4 million people figure scotland could become a northern velocipedinal xanadu, how come only 330,000 actually ride their bicycles?

i am, of course, deeply gratified by the results of this survey; it's nice to know that one's fellow countrymen and women might well be approaching the same mode of thought as oneself. so how come i don't quite believe it?

wednesday 15 january 2020

art for cycles' sake

a week or two past, as i headed home from double-egg and froth- supping, the nagging little hill at blackrock necssitated dropping from the outer ring to the smaller inner ring. time was when i would have attempted the rise without changing down, but i fear those times are long gone, likely never to return. unfortunately, in my eagerness to lessen my pain and suffering, i flipped the lever way too quickly, coupled with a slight mis-step in my cadence, and the chain dropped to the bottom bracket shell.

though this is the sort of incident that could normally be accommodated by some deft front lever use, however, on a short, sharp climb, having all but rolled to a halt, that option was nowhere to be seen. dismounting, i'd then to sully the fingers of my bright orange thermal gloves when popping the chain onto the inner-ring. moments like these are surely designed to bring home the inherent mechanical-ness and occasional related failings of the contemporary bicycle? but in point of fact, with one or two exceptions, the bicycle's simplicity of form is one to be admired from both near and far.

that said, despite my paying lip service to the latter, if you've ever put pen to paper in an attempt to capture that simplicity in graphic form, that simplicity has a nasty habit of disappearing very quickly. even allowing for skirting round the iniquities of chain illustration and those finicky derailleur thingies, the intrepid artist will inevitably come across dastardly spoking patterns. consider any attempts you may have errantly made in the science of wheelbuilding, and yes, it's going to be that hard.

nonetheless, the bicycle deserves to be the subject of illustration; perhaps even of adoration, as the oft-designated 'greatest of human inventions' (according to graeme obree, in tandem - pun intended - with the duvet). if i might briefly allude to art history, paul cézanne was particularly adept at portraying mont st. victoire, jackson pollock had a thing for paint dribbles and mark rothko often seemed fixated on large canvases featuring smudged colour squares. therefore, and not to discourage those who may feel inclined to draw or paint the n+1 cycles in the bikeshed, perhaps this is a task best left to the experts.

such as brooklyn's taliah lempert.

ms lempert's artistry has featured all too infrequently in these very pixels over the years, but despite inaugurating bicycle paintings well over twenty years ago, her inventive obsession with the bicycle seemingly knows no bounds. by comparison, in my latter years of secondary school, we were directed to make studies of fuschia flowers, subsequently to be stylised and ultimately brought to public gaze as a half-drop repeat pattern, suitable for a wallpaper design. i can but relate that, by the time the project had come to an (un)satisfactory end, if i ever come across another fuschia flower, it will be at least a millennium too soon.

yet taliah's tenacity and persistence with the bicycle as sole subject matter, not only displays the joy her work obviously brings to herself and others, her constant reinvention of the meme is impressive to say the least.

take the accompanying illustrations, for example. according to taliah "I'm so into making these watercolor screen monoprints. It's like a gesture drawing with color, sort of. Taking a minute to practice a sentence, see how it sounds. Take note." according to author of 'one more kilometre and we're in the showers' tim hilton, the average peloton is home to more artistically inclined individuals, than a similar subset of the great unwashed. however, for the benefit of those who can barely draw the curtains, let alone a picture of a fuschia, leave the crayons in the box; simply take a minute to practice a sentence; visually, mindfully or literally.

taliah lempert's bicycle paintings

tuesday 14 january 2020

tell them we sent you

quick mention for those intending to visit islay's shores on a bike during the summer. the velo club's recommended coffee/tea stops - in no particular order.

the old kiln cafe, ardbeg distillery. excellent food as well as designer coffees with froth. the single malt is apparently just ginger peachy. open monday to saturday from easter to september, seven days from june to september.

kilchoman distillery features a rather inviting café and restaurant, sited just off the road overlooking loch gorm on islay's west coast. now retailing a particularly attractive cycle jersey all of its very own, it's the very distillery to drop into while perambulating the atlantic coast, for both coffee and perchance a tour and a dram.

opened in april 2019, ardnahoe distillery features a particularly expansive visitor centre, with superb views over the sound of islay and the paps of jura. on a clear day you can see north to colonsay and mull. ostensibly open seven days with a particularly attractive menu in the illicit still restaurant and café and an espresso to be proud of. for single malt aficionados, it's unlikely there will be any homegrown product available for several years yet.

bruichladdich mini market (debbie's cafe), a few hundred yards from the distillery. highly commended designer coffees with outside tables. we like. open all year round with a cycling wall in the coffee corner.

welcometogreatcoffee.co.uk

and recently opened in islay house square, bridgend in the islay studios photo gallery, a fine selection of designer coffees are now available while you admire the surrounding imagery.

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as always, if you have any comments, please feel free to e-mail and thanks for reading.

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