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landed

islay airport is situated at glenegedale, approximately half way between the villages of bowmore and port ellen, though its closer proximity to the latter has frequently had official sources refer to it as port ellen airport. nobody here would do that. within the past three years or so, its place in the landscape has been balanced by the construction of both laggan bay distillery and islay ales on the eastern side of the low road. perhaps testament to the island's popularity, highlands and islands airports (hial) list the number of passengers using the airport in 2024/25 at almost 31,400, an increase of 5% year-on-year.

monday to friday, those passenger numbers were enabled by two return flights from glasgow airport, augmented by a morning return flight on saturdays and another on sunday pm. it doesn't take an arithmetical genius to realise that the saturday flight schedule leaves the runway and airport unused on saturday afternoons, a fact that allowed members of the airport staff to hold a run the runway event in 2024, a charity run repeated only just yesterday in dry and almost sunny conditions, though slowed marginally by a sturdy headwind along the full length of the runway.

as a self-confessed non-runner, you may be wondering how i know all of this, but i must refer my interlocutors to the day job which necessitates that i record and occasionally photograph such happenstances for islay's community newspaper. not wishing to interrupt my usual saturday timetable, i preceded my arrival at the airport with a bike ride to debbie's in bruichladdich for the traditional double-egg roll and a soya latte, before retracing my tyre tracks as far as springbank, then heading along the high road to the link road that had me descend past laggan bay distillery to the low road almost directly opposite the airport.

where security concerns would normally confine a cyclist to the car park, the lack of any inbound or outbound flights, ultimately allowed me to ride the full length of the taxi-way to the edge of the runway, with my trusty compact digital camera, barely up to the task, but at least conveniently fitting in a jersey back pocket.

with a much shorter kids' race run simultaneously, there was a particularly healthy turnout, rather undermining the velo club's usual contention that few islanders seemed keen to join the sunday bike ride, on the grounds that it looks too much like hard work. as alluded to above, i am very definitely not a runner; i doubt i could comfortably run from my front door to the car park a few metres distant. and though the so-called fun-run (an oxymoron if ever there was one) was a mere five kilometres, many were turned out in appropriate athleisure apparel and pristine trainers, making more than just a passing effort towards reaching the finishing line, where cakes, teas, coffees and a raffle awaited.

despite such pedestrian enthusiasm spread across those five kilometres, a number of those to whom i spoke were convinced they'd struggle to undertake the almost 50km i amassed by the time i reached home.

never, in the history of cycling on islay, have pelotonic numbers come anywhere close to those on the startline for run the runway on saturday. even the local running club, formally instigated only last year, sports a membership of which the velo club peloton can only dream. they even have official, custom printed running vests and will curate a full-length marathon next month, and not for the first time.

granted, we have the ride of the falling rain, but though it's a ride that has persisted for more than twenty years, it scarcely competes with the level of application demonstrated by the island's runners. aside from the islay marathon, there is also an islay half-marathon which takes place the day before the ride of the falling rain and this year attracted an impressive entry of 145 runners, replete with digital timing chips to provide accurate results. not only did this particular running event precede the falling rain by several decades, but manages to recruit a sufficiently large number of local volunteers to act as marshals.

however, lest you think that today's monologue is simply a case of velocipedinal envy directed at the running fraternity, let me say that you are right on the money. that's exactly what it is, and it confounds the heck out of me. could it simply be that so many individuals are wrong? that the atlantic winds have seriously undermined the critical faculties of a sizeable portion of the island's population? could it be that the revolution is mis-directed?

i certainly hope so.

sunday 23 august 2026

oye cómo va

in the early years of the velo club, when most of us were still young in the mirror as well as the head, a sunday bike ride would often leave at the appointed hour of 10am from debbie's in bruichladdich and encompass the thirty-plus kilometres to ardbeg distillery, where we'd avail ourselves of coffee and, perchance, a plate of clootie dumpling. in the summer months, the latter was often augmented with ice-cream. from port ellen village to ardbeg is approximately five kilometres along a road that features three malt whisky distilleries. in order: laphroaig, lagavulin and ardbeg.

though it is now possible to avail oneself of modest refreshment at the first two, in years gone by, ardbeg was the only one to afford a full menu and dining in their old kiln café, a facility frequented not only by visitors, but many locals too, often entaiing a bit of a wait for a table, unless the weather was sufficiently kind to allow dining al fresco. for reasons best known to those at head office near edinburgh, at some point in the relatively recent past, it was decided that the food was marginalising the whisky, which, after all, was the very reason for having a distillery there in the first place.

sadly, this clash of catering vs marketing resulted in the complete dismantling of what was once the finest and most highly-recommended dining facility on the island. many of the dining options were transferred out of doors to a repurposed airstream trailer, (ardstream) in the courtyard, despite the island's proclivity for wet and windy even at the height of summer. combine that with an indefensible need to play 70s pop music at high volume during opening hours, and you can perhaps divine why the distillery lost favour with a fervent peloton.

even this year, mid-point dining during the ride of the falling rain was repositioned to the village of port ellen due to ardbeg no longer serving food or even coffee at weekends. changed days indeed.

and what little thunder they might still possess seems likely to be summarily removed when portintruan distillery opens in the foreseeable future, replete as it intends to be with bicycle parking and a restaurant/café offering substantial views along islay's southern coast. to make matters even better/worse (delete as applicable), this much anticipated food stop will be managed by jackie thomson, formerly the visitor centre manager at (you've guessed it), ardbeg's old kiln café.

the more things change, the more they stay the same.

however, the opening of portintruan distillery will immediately require a renaming of the three distilleries path, a facility opened in 2016, taking pedestrians and cyclists from port ellen primary school to ardbeg distillery without need to join motor traffic on the road. for those who are experienced cyclists, riding close to state-of-the-art carbon, the road is the better option; the path was designed for those of a more leisurely persuasion. though i and my colleagues have ridden the path, it becomes endlessly frustrating for cyclists and pedestrians alike, with the former having often to ride very slowly and carefully, interspersed with "excuse me" and "sorry" regularly annunciated along its entire length.

what it has done, however, is remove the often ever-so-slightly inebriated whisky tourists from the path of a marauding, yet ever-so-careful peloton. the dangers of collision between velocipedes and whisky bottles are drastically reduced by our remaining confidently on the road we have regularly plied for over twenty years.

as far as i'm aware, there have been no serious incidents between pedestrians and cyclists on the three distilleries path in the ten years of its existence, and i don't see that changing when a fourth is added before the end of the year. which brings even more attention to the decision by the mayor of italian lakeside city of como to ban all bicycles from the town's historic centre because he was hit by an e-bike. covering about 30 streets and due to come into force in september, the ban will require cyclists on e-bikes or acoustic bikes to dismount. residents and politicians have accused alessandro rapinise of "waging a personal vendetta". there is already a petition calling for him to reverse the ban.

the mayor has stated that the ban is necessary to protect public safety, but you do have to wonder if he'd have had a similar reaction if he'd been hit by a car, which, i suspect, is a more common occurrence (car to car, not car to person). would he have implemented a complete ban on motor cars from como's streets on the grounds of public safety?

i think we all know the answer to that question.

saturday 22 august 2026

working for peanuts

the cartoon characters, charlie brown, shermy and patty first appeared in print in october 1950. over the next fifty years, joined by an ever widening circle of friends, they aged not one whit, but in the process, subtly influenced a large number of today's population. when i attended art college in the early 1970s, i religiously purchased a copy of the observer newspaper every weekend, with the specific intention of cutting out the colour peanuts cartoon that appeared in every week's colour magazine. many of these, i'm proud to say, still reside in a brown envelope in a bedside drawer. one college friend wallpapered his room in the university halls of residence with the selfsame cartoon strips, including the ceiling.

by the time the originator, charles m schultz, had ended his life's work, he had published almost 17,900 cartoon strips, leading some fans to entitle them the greatest story ever told. reputedly schultz was never a fan of the name peanuts, a situation that persisted even after he had put the notepad away and placed his pen in a drawer for the last time. the cartoons had originally appeared, in the three years prior to 1950, under the title li'l folks, but for copyright reasons, that had to be changed. debuting in the original 1950 cartoons and based on one of the dogs charles schultz had owned as a child, was the infamous snoopy, a character whose popularity arguably rivalled that of the strip's principal character, charlie brown. while charlie morphed from an unlucky schoolkid, to an unlucky baseball team captain, snoopy ('a funny looking kid with a big nose'), accompanied by his sidekick woodstock, a yellow bird which spoke only in vertical strokes, inhabited a far more fantastical range of careers.

these included the world war 1 flying ace, the nemesis of the red baron (former mahavishnu orchestra drummer, billy cobham, featured two compositions entitled snoopy's search and red baron on the 1973 album spectrum. this had been preceded seven years earlier, by the pop group, the royal guardsmen who released snoopy vs the red baron, which reached number 6 in the uk pop charts in 1967). he was also renowned as the easter beagle, while the apollo 10 lunar module was named snoopy and the command module, charlie brown. snoopy was also renowned for disguising himself at hallowe'en as 'the great pumpkin' in order to surprise linus, patiently awaiting the arrival of the great pumpkin.

and joe cool.

and snoopy was a noted cyclist.

the latter fact is one with which i'm personally familiar, having received a velocipedinally illustrated t-shirt at christmas from an office colleague over two years ago. it has been well-worn, to say the least. i am, however, insufficiently well-read to know whether schultz included snoopy and/or woodstock on a bicycle within any specific cartoon strip (and if i undertake the research to find out, we could be here for weeks). however, it is possible to acquire a range of apparel featuring the world's most famous dog on a bicycle. the purpose of today's monologue is to persuade you to do so.

while i perfectly understand that your point of view might vary dramatically to that of mine, unless you are a dyed-in-the-wool cycling activist, wearing a snoopy-on-a-bike t-shirt or hoodie is a subtle means of advertising your affection for man's greatest invention (along with, according to graeme obree, the duvet). however, rather than sending a blunt visual that you like bicycles, a tee with snoopy on a bike highlights a more playful and less confrontational nature. and that goes double if woodstock is included. my argument does, however, rest heavily on the apprehension by others that an important statement is, nonetheless, being made.

i'm a firm believer that direct proselytisation is rarely welcome, so if we wish to spread the word in a manner that doesn't include gravel, cyclocross, tour de france, mvdp, or tadej, if only on the basis that these are way too specific for the innocent bystander, there really is no better symbol than snoopy on a bike.

friday 21 august 2026

you're welcome.

growing up?

it's hard to pin down just when the domain of the gravellous first became a thing. travel far enough back through the previous decade of the 21st century, and the clamouring as to who first invented the gravel bike becomes ever more cacophonous, ultimately resting upon the specific definition of the genre. there's probably no real argument over the country of its origin, since north america, by virtue of its size and expanse, appears to be home to more kilometres of gravel roads than any european country. that particular fact was amply demonstrated by the original rapha continental, a group of cycling mavericks endorsed by perren street and its portland office in the upstairs floor of a wooden building, at the foot of the stairs leading to which was frequently a brood of hens.

the yard was mostly gravel.

however, as i have pointed out on many an unpopular occasion, daniel wakefield pasley, cole maness, jeremy dunn and colleagues undertook their popular series of rides aboard handbuilt, steel frames, shod with 28mm continental rubber on their chris king hubbed wheels, that scarcely resembled what we now refer to as gravel bikes. though emulating their road-based compatriots, carbon appears to have supplanted steel as a favoured frame material, but what has changed, and quite dramatically so, is an almost exponential growth in tyre width. yet, though i have no evidence whatsoever to suggest that early gravel bikes had adopted the tyre specifications of the bicycles already capable of achieving that which gravel had set out to prove, it seems logical to view that as a practical starting point. the uci mandates that cyclocross (to which i am referring) hold rigidly to a 33mm tyre width for competition purposes; based on very limited personal observation, many early gravel bikes appear to be fitted with sizes resembling the challenge chicanes fitted to my specialized crux.

if evidence is required to demonstrate the difference (my crux arrived with a pair of in-house 33mm specialized cyclocross tyres), a quick check of the the specialized website, the s-works version of the latest crux model is sold with 45mm tyres, a width which would have you ejected by the commissaires, were you to attempt a head-to-head with tibau nys, michael vantourenhout, or cameron mason. to the best of my knowledge, specialized still grudgingly classifies the crux as suitable for cross. extra expense for 'cross aficionados. even at the opposite end of the range, (the sport model), 45mm prevails.

cycling website the escape collective recently carried out a survey of almost 700 readers, to enquire if they had followed this particular trend - even as far as 50mm. that surely blurs the line between gravel and mountain biking; at those sort of parameters, the only real differences might rest entirely on suspension forks and handlebar style (and even the latter often seems up for grabs). according to the escape collective, the results of their modest survey indicated that a majority tend to be a tad more conservative in their tyre choices. that could be a sensible assessment of the tyre situation, since it appears the increasing width is predominantly at the behest of the racing fraternity.

like many early mountain bikes, substantial numbers of gravel machinery not only never see a finish-line, but rarely take those tyres offroad at all.

but one query raised by the website's survey asked, "has the term gravel become so broad, it has outgrown the point of being a useful definition?" that very question might be turned back on itself, to ask whether the term gravel was ever a useful definition in the first place? much like the term mountain bike, it arguably relies more on a marketing ideal than a barely adequate description. there is no agreed definition of the height at which a hill becomes a mountain, the latter being a highly subjective description. scotland has hundreds of peaks in excess of two thousand feet, the historic height at which it was agreed a hill became a mountain. but for those of us who either own or have owned a defined mountain bike, hands up all those who have ridden any one of them?

but given the uk's preponderance (pre-heatwaves) for mud over gravel, how many of the vast number of gravel-bike owners have regularly ridden on this particular substrate? and just to undermine any potential accusations of prejudice, i will freely admit that i have never entered a cyclocross race (though in my defence, i have dismounted, shouldered the bike, and clambered up a narrow forest track near islay woollen mill).

specific definitions are, however, the beloved sandpit toys of marketing departments the world over. enter any drum store you care to mention, and take a closer look at the apellations screened onto the cymbals; light ride, heavy ride, crash, splash and hi-hat, all applied at the behest of the marketeers. yet i have a particularly heavy ride cymbal that a fellow jazz drummer once used as a crash cymbal. sonority, it appears, is in the ear of the stick wielder. so is a bicycle with wide rubber a better example of gravel, than one sporting narrower? could wout win a gravel race on his uci compliant cyclocross bike? and does anyone really care?

gravel racers point to the increased grip, lower pressures and improved puncture resistance of wider tyres, none of which i find myself in disagreement. but having ridden the crux on 45mm tyres on the road, i can personally testify to the suspicion i was attempting to ride through a field of peanut butter, so slow was my progress. no matter your chosen discipline, subject it to a reality check before you get in too deep. if you're not racing and spending more time on-road than off, you are probably not the target audience for trends at either end of the spectrum.

the middle way has much to commend it.

thursday 20 august 2026

late to the party?

in the early 1990s, i came across ride uk bmx magazine, not as someone immersed in the genre, but as an individual intrigued by an apparent fascination with what i'd always regarded as probably the most impractical of bicycles. though 20" wheels were hardly the latest in fashionable accessories, the notion of building with 48 spokes in an era when even heavyweight touring wheels usually topped out at 36, seemed more of an aesthetic choice than the result of pragmatism (though from the former point of view, i could truly see the attraction). add to that the subsequent questionable practice of chromed spokes and rims on an hebridean island surrounded by the ocean, and my viewpoint seemed unlikely to improve.

however, since at least a small fraction of my income at the time was gained from selling and maintaining bicycles, during one of the cyclical patterns of bmx revival, i thought it best that i explore the meme in greater detail; a means of gaining favour with the cool kids, most of whom, if i'm honest, were actually less cool than was i. i'd be fibbing if i said i could recall from whence the impetus arrived, but i discovered the aforementioned bmx magazine, to which i immediately instigated a postal subscription.

lest you consider this an early attempt at a mid-life crisis, i should disavow you of that notion by explaining that the page layouts of ride uk bmx magazine greatly appealed to my graphic sensibilities. here, i reasoned, was a design innovation i figured i could adopt for my own purposes, particularly as i transitioned to an apple mac computer and adobe's flagship layout software, pagemaker. a subsequent telephone conversation with one of the noble brothers responsible for the magazine's existence, led me onto how it was possible to create the grunge-style letter forms using adobe illustrator, another piece of software with which i had more than just a passing familiarity. that led to fontographer, software not engendered by adobe, but a programme that allowed not only the design of complete font sets of any style, but the ability to generate them as fully-fledged typefaces that could be installed on any personal computer.

however, during said conversation, the magazine's designer mentioned raygun magazine as a source of inspiration, meaning, as you'll be not at all surprised to learn, that i needed to get hold of that particular magazine, originated and designed by influential graphic designer, david carson. the few copies i was able to acquire (and might still possess in an obscure corner of a bedroom cupboard) were revelationary. in an industry where it is de rigeur to leave a defined amount of space between columns of text, carson butted one up against the next, a choice which looked great but made for very hard reading. carson and raygun are still widely famed for publishing an entire interview set in wingdings (a typeface consisting entirely of symbols) and another which, on reaching the edge of the page, continued overleaf. in order to read said article, it was thus necessary to continually turn the page back and forth.

however, in much the same way that the defiant act of wearing entirely patchwork denim jeans at art school was completely undermined by marks & spencers selling crimplene trousers printed with a denim patchwork pattern, carson's graphic and typological innovations were soon copied, arising in publications as far apart from the grunge of green day and nirvana as it's possible to get attempting to emulate his graphic rebellion.

uniform acceptance by the establishment rendered carson's revolution somewhat inert and increasingly irrelevant. in the interim, publishing and graphic design have returned to their far more user-friendly and mundane origins. now that why not? associates, tomato and sunbather are effectively no more, with a diluting influence year on year, it seems possible to look back on the early to mid 1990s as one of graphic design's golden periods, possibly as irrelevant to contemporary times as seattle's grunge movement is to hip hop.

or perhaps not. though i undoubtedly have my opinions, it seems a tad incongruous that one of the 21st century's most successful and hitherto influential cycling apparel company has found it necessary to engage the services of mr carson to popularise their latest capsule collection, a design paradigm that would appear to contradict everything that brought founder simon mottram to bring the first, iconic classic jersey to market in 2004. if rapha, under the current leadership of fran millar, felt it necessary to reach backwards for inspiration, i feel they may have been better advised to revisit 2004 rather than 1994.

why, i ask myself, does the one-time leader-of-the-pack opt to plaster their jerseys with what resembles out-takes from raygun magazine. taken completely out of context, i could perhaps see carson aficionados swithering over a purchase, but even if you were a teenager when raygun was a thing, you'd currently be approaching your fifties, almost certainly with a diluted sense of ostentation, and hardly wishing to get into the situation of relating a potted history of david carson's one-time influence on european and american graphics to the younger members of your peloton.

why does a cycle jersey have to look like anything but a cycle jersey?

tuesday 18 august 2026