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the mighty dave t's words of the week

"i'm sure the uci would take a dim view of sprinting through on the inside. i certainly did"

a definitive maybe

i've never really come to terms with easter. nothing to do with the purpose behind the holiday, or that which it commemorates in the christian calendar, but the fact that it changes every year. no matter what, you always know when christmas day will be, when it's guy fawkes night, when it's hallowe'en, but year after year, it becomes necessary to look up the calendar or diary to learn on which date easter will fall. surely, if easter is related to the day on which christ was crucified, that day ought not to alter year after year?

however, easter is not the only moving target to impinge upon the workaday, as can perhaps be witnessed around about now. granted, that which i'm about to discuss suffers not only from a serious lack of regularity on an annual basis, but also when measured across differing parts of the country or the world. this is entirely related to what might be compartmentalised as garmentage.

though we're often at pains to mitigate the costs of being a cyclist, pretending that the price of entry is a mere bagatelle, that really only applies if you're happy to ride a bike your grandad left you while wearing a bin bag and a pair of hand-me-down trainers. cycling apparel, if nothing else, has managed single-handedly to seriously blur the difference between 'need' and 'want'. part of the sunday morning conversation between the mighty dave-t and myself, revolved around the sale prices applied to jersey and bibshorts at one of britain's larger uk cycling retailers, the sort of money that would barely purchase you a casquette from one of the big boys.

but, overall, it's not a problem that is confined soley to the price of this garmentage, for, in case it had escaped your attention, britain (in particular) is highly seasonal. thus, 'tis scarcely a simple case of owning a lightweight, short-sleeve jersey for summer weather, but it should also be accompanied by a slightly heavier weight jersey and possibly a variation in the perceived weight of baselayers: both polyester and merino. but there's no point in wearing one of those jerseys under a waterproof on a warm, yet lightly precipitative day. so maybe it's necessary to have waterproof jackets of varying weight too? or should that gilet also bear some water-resistance? and that's before we get onto the subject of bibshorts; lightweight, regular weight and thermal, augmented by at least one pair of bib-threequarters for the archetypal belgian/cyclocross look.

suddenly, that minimal price of entry has gone completely out of the window, when laughing at a set of carbon fibre golf clubs no longer seems the mickey-take it once appeared. yet, how can any self-respecting velocipedinist get through the cycling year with anything less? but once again, i am skirting round the issue, failing to pinpoint the 'problem' in definitive language. because the real difficulty, as i see it, is not how much kit it is necessary to own, but when it it is both prudent and seemly to transition from one state to the next?

it would be silly to deny that i am very much in favour of long-sleeved jerseys, having spent the better part of my washingmachinpost career espousing the delights to be had from inhabiting just such a garment. yet, during this year's heatwave, a meteorological eccentricity that reached even as far as the hebrides, it would have risked pointed stares from the civilian population to have ridden in anything other than lightweight, short-sleeve jerseys. and on the basis that i'm well-supplied with the latter, it well behoves me to gain the most practical usage from this section of my wardrobe. but when to implement that change?

saturday past dawned grey and wet and, to be honest, continued in the same vein for at least the next twelve hours. but, it's only just past midway through august, a month that usually qualifies as a designated summer month. unlike calmac, who see little wrong in diverting a ferry to the island's northern port due to strong offshore winds (barely 14mph), i am loathe to surrender my short-sleeves so early in the year; that's what armwarmers are for. i'm also trying hard to turn a blind eye to the jacket and waterproof coathooks in the spare room.

mentally, i'm prepared to surrender to more weatherproof 'garmentage' towards the end of september/beginning of october, but somehow, it seems imprudent to apply any strict chronological parameters to such matters. i'm inclined to appeal to the uci for guidance, but on the basis that it's an organisation hardly renowned for covering itself in glory, i fear we'll have to resort to the tried and tested methods and just play it by ear.

a bit like easter, now that you come to mention it.

monday 20 august 2018

the circle game

on my first visit to portland's fair city in 2009, my good friend chris distefano, then the marketing genius at chris king components, took it upon himself to be my personal guide to the city's cycling culture; in particular, the wealth of framebuilders occupying its nooks and crannies. though some may have 'progressed' to working with carbon fibre, at the time, all was ferrous: lugged, tig-welded and fillet brazed. as with everything in life, experts in any given field will always make the difficult look easy and that was certainly the case with the craft of building bicycle frames.

however, well do i know that it's a craft i should never even consider attempting to master. not necessarily because i have a rather lackadaisical attitude towards precise measurement, to say nothing of my ineptitude with both saws and files. in fact, the real and frighteningly dangerous reason why i should be banned from becoming a framebuilder is mostly a case of misplaced narcissism. picture the scene: i have managed somehow to assemble the three main tubes into a verisimilitude of a frame; gas torch in hand, i step back to admire my craftsmanship and put the flame through the hose connected to the gas bottle.

you know it to be true.

far better, my visit to jude gerace's tiny cupboard in south east portland, where she began her wheelbuilding career as epic wheelworks in a workshop that was smaller than the elevator that took us there. specialized's lawyers put paid to the name epic and she now enjoys larger and brighter premises in a different part of the city under the name of sugar wheelworks. i could never build wheels the way she does, but building wheels seems a whole lot safer than making bicycle frames.

however, to a certain extent, it's still regarded as one of the black arts and not entirely without reason. at the inaugural, yet much lamented 'scottish bike show', i met derek mclay of wheelsmith, who occupied a busy stand at the event, spending his day discussing the finer points of spoke-lacing and rim profiles, while building bicycle wheels to die for. and that was the point at which i realised the difference between him and someone like me, who can assemble round wheels, but little more.

though i've not built a wheel in many a long year, there's a substantial difference between the wheels i can manage and the inestimably better versions offered by wheelsmith. though hardly flavour of the month these days, my own versions would pretty much always feature 32 spokes front and rear built three-cross onto shiny hubs. that's the way it is no matter what kind of riding you do, how tall or heavy you are and the nature of the bicycle you ride. very much a case of 'one size fits all'. not so at wheelsmith.

but then, there are the situations that, for one reason or another, step outside the norm. understandably, you and i confine our thoughts to wheels that will not only make us faster on the bike, but look every bit the part at the same time. anodised hubs, deep carbon rims and probably as few radial spokes as we can get away with. if they arrive with big white letters on the side, so much the better. but not everyone is as narrow-minded as are we and, to be honest, not everyone has the same requirements, which is where you need a wheelbuilder with the ability to think outside the box.

"My friend has bought a Bengal Tiger Cat and it's mental, but easily 'trained'. So, we're giving this a go."

i doubt that i need enter into more detail than shown in the accompanying images. "I'm using 48 spoke wheelchair hubs with a slightly trailing offset radial pattern. Custom cut spokes and ground down nipples. Carpet 'rimtape' is extra."

when i asked what tyre size would be needed and whether it is tubeless compatible, derek replied "You've got to be kitten me."

wheelsmith

sunday 19 august 2018

the game of snap

in previous years, our local newspaper has engaged the services of the local professional photographer to provide images of the annual agricultural show, held last week. however, this year, the gentleman was otherwise occupied, creating the need to invoke plan b, a strategy that involved me and my camera. this was made ever so slightly more complex by my having to play a snare drum with the community pipe band at periods unspecified at the time of arrival. thus, in order to make sure i nabbed as many relevant photos as possible, and very much against my natural tendency, i was as unsociable as it's possible to be, in order not to be tied to one location for too long, attempting to solve the world's problems, one conversation at a time.

i can think of no situation in which it would be correct to refer to me as any sort of photographer. the images that usually accompany my reviews are, more often than not, taken care of by the ten second timer on my lumix camera; in other words, there's no way i can be said to be entirely responsible for those that actually look quite good.

show day, thankfully, was entirely bereft of precipitation, imbued mostly with bright sunshine, making the viewing of the camera's lcd screen particularly difficult. thus, though i was quite capable of pointing the lens in the right direction and pressing the shutter, until i returned home later that same day, i had no idea of the imagery captured. thankfully, out of around 200 images, there were sufficient for the newspaper's purposes. but that hardly allows for the humorous failed images. for instance, the central portion of the main field was given over to horse events, and though i had the camera set on burst mode, there were more than a few images completely devoid of any sign of a horse.

can you imagine the horror of sending me as a photographer to the tour de france?

thankfully, those provided with the necessary accreditation and a bib for the three weeks in july, are generally a tad more expert than yours truly. i may have moaned about the brightness of an august islay sun, but i hardly think it compares with the conditions featured at this year's tour, when squinting at the the back of a hefty dslr under race conditions, makes my scrabblings around a grassy field behind islay house, seem positively pathetic by comparison. though i have no idea how many photographers followed this year's event, one who most certainly not only knows what he's doing, but has an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time, is edinburgh's scott mitchell.

formerly the photographer with team sky and currently with dimension data, scott once described himself as "not a cycling photographer", which, despite his current entrenchment in the world tour, may be factually correct. buddy rich was once quoted as telling would-be drummers, to learn their trade, to become drummers in a general sense, rather than decide to be jazz, country, pop or metal drummers, thus narrowing their horizons. scott may well have filled the majority of his recent portfolios with folks on bikes, but first and foremost, he's a photographer, pure and simple.

as an example to aid this latter contention, i would point you in the direction of the image displayed at the top of the page. i am not disputing that the photo features this year's yellow jersey winner, geraint thomas, aboard a yellow badged pinarello, thus fulfilling the definition of a cycling photograph, but consider the immediate moment captured by scott. "It's 4km down from the summit where Nibali crashed. I saw the flares and ran to the spot, as I knew it would be pretty atmospheric. There was a lot of drunk people about but it's often like that on the big climbs."

though i frequently carry a camera with me in a jersey back pocket, should any demanding scene feature on the ride, by the time i figure it might be worth taking the camera from its case, the moment will almost certainly have passed. granted, i have no need of earning my living behind the lens, but i sure as heck don't possess the wherewithal to anticipate an image that would result in a signed print. and should you wish to avail yourself of a limited edition, signed copy of scott's perspicacity, you may still be in time. (i've posted an e-mail address and telephone number to call at the foot of this piece.)

and though 'tis now a matter of history that geraint thomas won this year's tour de france, resulting in a welcome home parade in wales and an appropriate renaming of the welsh national velodrome at newport, until the last few stages, g's place atop the podium was not entirely guaranteed. thus, were this particular image the sole product of scott's time on the mountain, not only might this article not exist, but there'd hardly be a british clamouring for signed prints. "I got a better snap of Romain (Bardet) but he didn't win." simply put, you need not only have skill with a camera, but ensure that you have your wits about you at all times.

that's why scott mitchell does what he does, and we just read about it.

signed prints of geraint thomas (as shown at the top of this feature) are available in A3+ for £185 each or A2 at £225 inclusive of vat and secure postage in the uk. to purchase, please contact hamish@altered_images.com or telephone 0131 554 7128.

saturday 18 august 2018

sadly, a gig too far

i am under no illusion as to the underpinnings of my extremely limited fame and fortune in the world of jazz. those of you who are aficionados of this genre of music will likely be aghast that i find it even worthy of mention at all, but mention it i feel i must. it may even be a bit of a stretch to consider myself a jazz musician, based solely on one gig per year for the past few years. however, if i were to point out that the quickest way to end a conversation on islay is to bring up the subject of either jazz or opera, that may place it in a more explicable perspective. but each and every time the islay jazz festival has rolled into town in mid-september, i have had possibly the best seat in the house: behind a drumset.

thus, through being both an islay resident and a reasonably competent drummist, this year's festival will be my 20th. in other words, i've played every single edition, a feat not accomplished by any other musician across the two decades of the festival's existence. of course, please bear in mind my explanation as to why that's the case. still, i can happily live with one more year in the best seat.

however, one of the unique selling points of the islay jazz festival is the wide range of venues employed over the course of its three-day visit. sponsored as it is by lagavulin distillery, it's probably not unusual that the opening gig generally takes place in their malt mill, a building that recently benefited from the installation of a bar. for reasons best known to organisers, jazz scotland, i always end up at the gaelic centre in bowmore, a venue with a superb acoustic, but i really wouldn't mind making a noise sonewhere else, just for a change. yet, after bemoaning what i perceived as a dearth of major artists in recent islay jazz festivals, this year's programme promises to be a humdinger.

my only regret is that i'll miss one of the best bits and not just because i ride a bicycle.

with so many artists to feature over the course of three days, a bit like the tour of spain and the tour of britain, there is an overlap. or, to be more accurate, there are several overlaps. and one of those overlaps concerns the timing of my own gig and that of soweto kinch, described as "one of the most exciting and versatile young musicians in both the british jazz and hip hop scenes." while i will be managing a less than passable imitation of max roach in bowmore's gaelic college, mr kinch will be 'exciting and versatile" some twelve miles distant at lagavulin distillery.

my only consolation is that, had i the use of even a fast motor vehicle, i'd be lucky to make the encore. but, just to add a silver lining to this particular cloud, i discovered only yesterday that tommy smith will indeed be bringing his quartet to islay for a bowmore-based gig on the sunday. given that the venue is but a mere 2km from the croft, i need not state which particular drummist will be pedalling an orange and green specialized crux elite to nab a front seat.

and that sort of brings me to the rather well-disguised point of my narrative. while cogitating my velocipedinally related concert options for this year's festival, it dawned on me that any pedalling jazz aficionados might realistically consider undertaking the 2018 islay jazz festival by bicycle. far be it from me to suggest a suitable itinerary; that's why i've posted a link to the programme below. you know it makes triplet-based sense.

islay jazz festival 14-16 september

friday 17 august 2018

why not?

i'm writing this several hours ahead of time, because the meeting of which i'm about to refer had not taken place as i tickled the keys of my macbook air. francesca osowska o.b.e. is currently on secondment from her role as director for the scotland office, heading up scottish natural heritage as their chief executive officer, replacing ian jardine. as part of her relatively new role, one that she assumed in october last year, as a keen triathlete (nobody's perfect), she has decided to ride her bicycle over 1300 miles across scotland, ostensibly to visit the outposts of the organisation she now finds herself in charge.

she expects to meet up with staff in the offices at fort william, oban, lochgilphead and, only a matter of metres from the croft, that of bowmore. the press release announcing this velocipedinal extravaganza tacitly invited members of the press as well as snh employees to join in if they want to. were it not for the pressures of work, i think i'd be inclined to undertake a few kilometres on the bicycle by way of accompaniment, but sadly, the arranged meeting earlier today at the bowmore snh office, was undertaken by the local newspaper editor and a student journalist.

not me at all.

in replying to the invite for interview and photocall, in the absence of the editor late last week, i made it plain that, were it to be me carrying out press duties, i'd be far more likely to talk bicycles, than interrogate ms osowksa as to the strategic workings of the collaborative action for the natural network project to conserve the peat moss on islay. i'd find it far more interesting to learn why her lightspeed ghisallo appears to feature campagnolo record componentry as opposed to the more usual triathlete's choice of either shimano or sram. if the bicycle did not arrive in this fashion, it demonstrates an appreciation for the finer things in life, not normally associated with triathlon.

leaving aside, however, all thoughts of peat conservation and choice of bicycle componentry, ms osowska is paid a handsome salary in excess of of £110,000. admittedly, this level of remuneration pales by comparison with the alleged average salary paid to the chief executives of ftse 100 companies. according to a news report yesterday, those top £3.9 million, some 67 times the salary of their average employee. however, aside from those employed in the world tour as professional cyclists, who do you know receiving in excess of £100,000, is given leave to take a month off and cycle about the country willy nilly, without having their pay docked?

i bear no shame in admitting that my annual salary is several orders of magnitude lower than francesca's. in fact, she probably pays more in tax than i earn in a year. but, always willing to suffer for someone else's art, i'd be more than happy to continue at my current level of recompense, if it included periods of thirty days or more where i was paid to ride my bike. and i truly believe there are many others who would be more than willing to accept similar strictures.

though i have no real idea as to whether japanese industry continues to begin the working day with corporate tai chi, given that such a mode of exercise is not one naturally occurring in the uk, perhaps offering just such a paid cycling sabbatical to employees deemed worthy, could be introduced into the british working psyche? as evidence of my willingness to be the forerunner of what i assume will initially be a pilot scheme, i'm more than happy to act as a guinea pig between now and late september.

as such, i will be visiting each of you individually, so if you could have a double-espresso and lemon drizzle cake ready and waiting, i'd be more than happy to discuss peat conservation as part of the deal.

thursday 16 august 2018

rose-tinted

the older i get, the more i find myself making unfettered referral to 'the good old days', sadly, often without realising i've done so. i remember both my parents and grandparents doing likewise and thinking at the time that they needed to embrace modernity and all it reputedly had to offer. present-day modernity is a great deal more complex than it was in the days to which i now refer when mentioning 'the good old days'. and oddly enough, i'm not necessarily referring to the invasion of electronica: apps, phones, texts, facebooky type stuff. i'm sure you know precisely to which i refer?

in actual fact, pertaining to the current discussion, i'm thinking more of transport issues and the apparent reluctance of the present generation (and their parents on many occasions) to make any effort other than switching on the car ignition. several years past, i was provided with a sturmey three-speed equipped sit-up-and-beg bicycle in an attempt to recreate the daily journey made by mrs washingmachinepost's grandfather in the early years of last century. those were the days when motor cars were the preserve of the wealthy and travelling to work in scotland's more rural locations was mostly undertaken by bicycle, over roads that would make paris-roubaix look like a motorway.

his daily journey for six days of the week, involved riding from his home on the oa peninsula to the now derelict dairy at gruinart, a trip of around twenty miles each way, through all the weather conditions that islay can provide. to add just a soupcon of character, his working day commenced at 6:30am. my own reproduction of this trip was probably a darned sight easier than his ever were and i did not suffer the potential agony of needing to ride the last ten miles on my return.

conversely, the young lady who lives directly across from the croft, works in an office but a few metres from my own place of work, yet she drives there and back each day. another woman living only a few doors distant, does precisely the same. and as the schools returned yesterday after their ridiculously long summer break, the number of kids being driven, despite living in a village that is only one mile end to end, was enough to have me fear for the future of civilisation.

so where, amongst all this, do the halcyon days of yore figure?

well, only a matter of days past, i came across a story of a 95 year-old couple, who have been happily married for 71 years and spent pretty much their entire married lives, riding a tandem together. unfortunately, due to disintegrating road surfaces, ever-increasing traffic, accompanied by 'disrespectful drivers', they have had to give up their joint cycling life because they no longer feel safe. though a somewhat soul-destroying story for any long-term active cyclist, it was not this part of the narrative that caught my eye.

during the war, the gentleman was serving aboard a navy destroyer, which had collided with another boat while covering the d-day landings. thus on leave for his 21st birthday, he rode his bicycle to collect his brother's tandem, then rode solo to collect his sweetheart from her work at 2pm. they both rode on to attend a tea party before returning at 10pm after which he had to ride his own bicycle home. this single trip provided 70 miles of cycling for his wife and a total of 140 for him.

i wouldn't need even a single finger on which to count the number of islanders who would even consider such a trip nowadays. and, as if this were scarcely sufficient to commend a pair of rose-tinted glasses, at the age of 74, they completed a 124 mile journey aboard their beloved tandem, visiting 53 churches in one day. i have an overwhelming desire to make this known to the young lady who lives across the road.

wednesday 15 august 2018

cycling the way of the roses; coast to coast across lancashire and yorkshire. rachel crolla. cicerone press paperback. 169pp illus. £11.95

i have no statistical evidence to confirm my contention that the majority of bike rides seem to go up and down, rather than across. lands end to john o'groats, london to paris, manchester to london, london to brighton, londonderry to cork; i think you know what i mean. i'm sure i will now receive a deluge of e-mails pointing out the fallacy of my statement, but i have never been afraid of misapprehension, so we'll live with it for the time being. however, at the risk of stating the glaringly obvious, sometimes cycle routes run east to west or west to east, depending on how eager you are to catch the prevailing wind.

having said that, with the rise and rise of yorkshire in the velocipedinal firmament, fitting that particular county into any forthcoming bike ride, before it becomes a mere footnote in the uci's policy of mondialisation, strikes me as a particularly smart idea. which is why the arrival of rachel crolla's 'way of the roses', is remarkably timely, even for those who have no summer holiday leave left for 2018. adhering to the local mantra that winter starts the day after the islay annual show, held on the second thursday of august each year, by this weekend, we'll all be clad in winter tights, thermal jackets and overshoes before next monday happens along.

this is the ideal time to plan next summer's cycling excursions, prior to the world road race championships paying a visit to yorkshire at the end of september 2019 (22-29). however, planting all your eggs in one basket (if you'll excuse the mangled metaphor) would be to create favouritism amongst the northern english counties. therefore, it seems only right and proper that this particular coast-to-coast either begin or end in the neighbouring principality of lancashire. 'spread the love' so to speak.

the author, who admits that her conversion to road cycling inhabits the 'slow and steady' approach, has devised a 170 mile route that, assuming, fitness, tenacity and sleek carbon fibre, could be undertaken in a single day. however, even those possessed of all of the above, could ease up for a few days and spread their eagerness over two, three, or five days, or chill out completely over six. in her introduction to the finely illustrated pages that follow, crolla asks the question "why do the way of the roses?". the answer, she replies, is that it's "...more road-bike friendly, has fewer sections on busy roads and more consistent signage.", than any other comparable uk coast to coast route.

in this particular cicerone guide, the cycle route begins on the west coast seaside town of morecambe, ending 170 miles (247km) later at bridlington, having passed through ripon and york en-route. it transpires that three of the one-day routes that come as an added extra, depart from the above route, taking the avid cyclist through the surrounds of skipton and otley. with approximately 2500 metres of climbing along the way, the author contends that, based on experience, splitting the way of the roses into a three day extravaganza is the option likely to offer the most favourable of rewards. however, as always, you pays your £11.95 and you takes your choice.

naturally enough, honed athletes that we are, splitting 247 kilometres into three portions, equals around 80(ish) per day. mere bagatelle for anyone who can watch an entire stage of the tour de france in a single sitting. however averaging about 25kph, would leave several hours per day in which to appreciate the many delights the region has to offer. who amongst us would forgo the opportunity to mimic the eric morecambe statue prior to departure, or to admire morecambe's seafront art deco midland hotel? to briefly return to a subject discussed but a few days ago, there's the cathedral at ripon to be visited along with the rather impressive priory at bridlington when the day is done (so to speak).

my only advice, not mentioned in the book, would be to arrange any prospective trip prior to the latter part of september 2019. rumour has it that peter sagan sprints for every speed sign along the way and that's bound to get tired real quick.

cycling the way of the roses

tuesday 14 august 2018

tell them we sent you

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

club headquarters at 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.

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

port mòr bistro. now that the original debbie's is run by her mum, aileen, debbie has taken over the catering franchise at port charlotte's port mòr centre, where you can have some of deb's famously wonderful coffee as well as a wide range of foodtsuffs. highly recommended.

braehouse gallery, portnahaven. sited at the entrance to portnahaven village, the gallery also offers takeway coffees and a range of cakes. there's also quite a wide range of photos, islay souvenirs and other desirable odds and bits. though you can't sit in for coffee and cake, there is a table and chairs outside along with an adjacent bicycle rack for parking.

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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