..........................................................................................................................................................................................................
a brief moment in time
leave your kit out the evening before. that way, on arising in the morning, it's very much a case of 'no ifs, no buts, no coconuts'. if memory serves correctly, it was former guardian columnist and author, matt seaton who told me that (not the bit about coconuts, however), meaning that irrespective of the weather conditions outdoors, you're already two thirds of the way to getting out the door. that said, i cannot deny that yesterday morning, rain on the bathroom window was quite hard to ignore. nevertheless, i forged ahead, descending the stairs for my breakfast of porridge topped with blueberries, ahead of a coffee for the still sleeping mrs washingmachinepost and those necessary pre-ride ablutions. but sitting in the kitchen, about to put on my giro footwear, there was a brief moment when sanity almost prevailed.
despite a bright and breezy saturday, sunday morning featured driving rain and winds around the 55kph mark. in such conditions, i was pretty sure that none of my pelotoneers would be likely to join me at the springbank rendezvous point (an assumption that proved 100% correct), so for a moment or two, i was moved to consider whether it was really worth it? my neighbour's trees were blowing hither and thither, while the rain was now being battered off the kitchen window, driven by a south westerly gale. but we've not yet reached the end of august, a month that most of us in the northern hemisphere would consider to be part of summer. if i can't get out for the sunday morning ride at this time of year, what chance will i have when november, december and january happen along?
so in spite of the prediction that i'd probably be riding alone, and the certain knowledge that the first eight kilometres would be directly into that sturdy headwind, stupidity combined with blind tenacity, had me continue to lace up my footwear, don a pair of neoprene overshoes and put my arms into the sleeves of my winter goretex jacket. thankfully, i was spared the ignominy of encountering my next door neighbour who was sure to inform me that i appeared to be missing a substantial portion of grey matter.
skin is waterproof isn't it?
it's hard not to notice that passing cars have little concern for the hapless idiot on a bicycle, as they fly through substantial quantities of surface water, providing me with a several cold showers. given that it was sunday on islay, when little is open and there's nothing happening in a hurry, i do seriously wonder why it is they find it necessary to drive at such speeds? i may already be drenched through (goretex isn't everything you'd hope it to be), but passing at more sedate speeds would have been very much appreciated.
the more usual sunday parcours would usually include a circuit of loch gorm on islay's west coast, a route that takes me past kilchoman distillery. however, as i headed in the direction of uiskentuie at the top of the strand, the lack of shelter entailed an increased battering from wind and rain. at this point, a momentary influx of sanity convinced me to exclude the loch gorm part of the route and head directly to debbie's, encouraged by mental images of a cheese and tomato toastie and a soya latte. as i've mentioned on more than a single occasion, uiskentuie strand is a part of the island where you're wide open to the elements, and where it's possible to note a drop in temperature of a couple of degrees celcius.
at this point, i have to apologise to aileen at debbie's for creating a small swimming pool 'neath my chair, as i wolfed down the toastie accompanied by a cosy coffee. i'd removed the goretex jacket in the porch as i entered, but my neoprene overshoes, which had done nothing whatsoever to prevent wet feet, seemed intent on disgorging as much of the rain they had acquired, before i once again headed outdoors to collect more precipitation. thankfully, despite the apparent insanity of having gone cycling in these conditions in the first place, i'd had the presence of mind to stash a spare pair of long-fingered gloves in a jersey pocket. there's nothing less encouraging than having to put on a soaking wet pair of gloves for the ride home.
as i headed out of bruichladdich village with an appreciable tailwind to help me back up the strand, it occurred to me that my possible insanity still had one more statement to make. despite being as wet as it was possible to be, i was still to be seen making every effort to avoid the puddles.
monday 26 august 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................firmware update
one of my holiday jobs, when i was a student, was working for hertz-rent-a-car, mostly keeping the cars clean inside and out, as well as delivering vehicles to corporate customers. during that time, a gentleman approached the desk to ask if we might be able to assist. having returned from vacation in the usa, he had apparently lost the door key for his car, and wondered if we might have some means of opening the vehicle. as luck would have it, the car was a citroen, the very same model as my own, at the time. even luckier, though perhaps slightly concerning, my car door key opened his car door with no difficulty whatsoever, very much to his joy, and not just a little to my own consternation.
the mechanic who worked for avis car rental, occupying the booth next to that of hertz, was a dab hand at getting into pretty much any make of car you care to mention, making excellent use of a straightened coat hook that he kept under the desk. it seems unlikely that his rudimentary methods would be pertinent nowadays, with so many electronics involved. life has potentially been complicated by the disappearance of an actual key, replaced by a wireless, electronic fob that not only remotely opens the car doors, but often only has to be in reasonable proximity for the vehicle to start.
the latter technology proved inadvertently awkward for a work colleague a few years ago, when she owned a particular make of motor car. living on a farm, she was in the habit of parking the vehicle outside the back door of the farmhouse, but having driven around 30km to work, on leaving at the end of the day, discovered that she was not in possession of the key fob and thus unable to enter or start her car.
it transpired that the fob was in a the pocket of a coat hanging just inside the back door, close enough to allow starting of the car, but now too far distant to repeat the process in the village. that alone serves to underline the saying 'technology is great until it isn't'.
for a number of years, the police and motoring organisations have been warning motorists to be vigilant in car parks, where it was proved possible, with relatively cheap technology, to intercept the wireless signal when the car was locked on departure, allowing those undertaking the interception to subsequently open the vehicle while the owner went shopping or dining. i believe manufacturers have since undermined this electronic deceit, by enabling the key fob to emit random wireless codes, meaning the code utilised to lock the car is not the same as that required to subsequently unlock it. but, as has often been said, the minute something becomes foolproof, there emerges a better class of fool.
in respect of the above, it has often been possible for the velocipedinally inclined to appear slightly smug, as we clamp our bicycles to a nearby lamp post or iron railing with a reputedly angle-grinder resistant d-lock. no amount of electronic trickery is likely to remove one of those in a hurry. but, recently reported by wired magazine, the increasing amount of wireless technology appearing on contemporary carbon fibre, has opened up the pelotonese to the hacking community.
following recent research by scientists at uc san diego and northeastern university, it has proved possible to intercept the wireless signals emitted by shimano's di2 levers and force them to change gear without any action from the rider. it is reported that such interceptions can lock the rider out of his or her own bicycle, meaning that shifting the chain into the smallest sprocket and the big ring (for example), just as they begin to ascend, cannot be remedied from the saddle. as wired pointed out, it's fairly unlikely that any of us are likely to suffer such computational ignominy on the sunday ride, but given that the technology able to effect gear changes as described above, can do so from as far away as ten metres and with equipment that can easily be small enough to fit in a pocket, means it's all theoretically possible for a spot of industrial espionage.
though you would hope that those professionally involved at the top of the sport would scarcely consider enacting such methods against rival teams, there's no doubt that should they do so, it would be very difficult to identify the guilty party. in the report, the researchers point out that modern bicycles are cyber-physical systems, and thus theoretically prone to computer viruses and intentional hacking. shimano have reportedly made a firmware update available for professional teams, though there is no information as to how the update negates hacking, for obvious security reasons. (the update should be available to individual shimano customers by the end of the month.)
the researchers indicated that potential hacking of wireless electronic gear systems is not exclusive to shimano, but research was carried out solely on di2, purely on the basis of its ubiquity within both professional and amateur circles. certain sram and campagnolo users should refrain from portraying smug grins in public.
the words 'firmware' and 'bicycle' ought not to be found in the same sentence. that's what we're trying to ride away from.
sunday 25 august 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................incomprehension
ours is a complex sport, with few examples that undermine that contention. following thursday's stage of la vuelta, i took a cursory look at the various classifications, initially to comprehend the vastness of the lead presented to stage winner, brendan o'connor. in the process of finding that for which i searched, i clicked upon the green jersey points classification, led, following the completion of thursday, by wout van aert, ahead of alpecin's kaden groves. however, the former languished in 98th place on the general classification, despite two stage wins, having worn the leader's jersey and subsequently grabbing second place a couple of days later. you probably already know how difficult it is to explain to non-believers how on earth that works.
then there's the notable difference between road and track events at the recently ended paris olympics. on the track, the 4000m pursuit event, contested by a team of four, was won by australia, each member of which was presented with a gold medal. yet in the olympic road race, teams could consist of as few as a single rider (biniam girmay, for instance) or a maximum of four. britain's entry featured the maximum of four, as did the winners, belgium. but though classed as an event competed for by national teams, when remco crossed the line in first place, despite tiesj benoot having pulled hard on the front of the peloton for an unenviable number of kilometres to aid his team-mates, and wout van aert sitting on any apparent chase (notably by mathieu van der poel), the only belgian rider who went home with a gold medal, was remco.
how does that make any sense?
then there's the notoriously complicated madison track event, featuring fifteen national teams of two riders, all hoping to gain a lap on the competition to vastly increase their points tally, before sprinting for the line every ten laps. and while one rider from each team puts in the effort, the other simply circles the track, awaiting the hand-sling that would see the roles reversed. following austria's sneaky early lap gain, later in the event they were to be seen circling the infield, apparently having dropped out of the competition after leading in the early stages. quite how the commissaires follow all this is beyond conventional knowledge, but it's an event that effectively denies explanation to the girls in the office (were they even vaguely interested in the first place).
i have heard it queried on more than a single occasion, why the so-called sprint stages of the grand tours comprise such lengthy distances? aside from the perpetually doomed breakaway, pretty much nothing is guaranteed to happen until the last fifteen or twenty kilometres. why not, goes the question, simply start the race twenty kilometres out from the finish line and concentrate the excitement into a considerably less tedious viewing timeline?
consider what it is we're up against. in athletics, track events are often over in seconds, and there's very little complexity involved. swimming's the same, as is rowing, long jump, high jump, javelin etc. whoever crosses the line in first place, jumps the longest or highest, or throws the farthest is rarely in doubt, and you don't have to be a specialist to understand, even when it comes to tennis. i mean, how come the keirin track event sees a group of cyclists riding behind a tiny motorbike? why is the bloke on the derny never presented with a medal?
apparently the grand tours have become highly popular broadcast events, even across three weeks, not so much for the cycle racing, which, as i've pointed out, probably takes too much effort to understand by those bereft of a velocipedinal predisposition. but many switch on for the dramatic scenery that acts as a backdrop for even those lengthy and often tedious (even for the aficionados) sprint stages, but particularly in the mountains of italy, france and spain. and there's always the possibility that the audience's fascination might get the better of them; came for the scenery, stayed for the competition.
unfortunately, that's where you and i come in. in order to make more sense of that which they have witnessed on the tellybox, there are a large number of unanswered questions, some of which i've highlighted above. like how come wout van aert is leading the green jersey competition, has won two stages, come second in two and third in another, yet he's in 98th place overall? and if it's a cycle race, why are there so many cars and motorbikes involved?
see, i told you; too complicated.
saturday 24 august 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................not my department
the stretch of road joining the town in which i grew up with the adjacent, but larger town, featured an endless number of car dealerships. or at least, that's the way it seemed when in my early teens. as a youngster who had acquired an attraction to the mechanical aspect of motor cars (engines, transmissions etc.), several weekends and many school holidays were spent trawling those car sales outlets in the company of one or two school chums, looking at new cars, opening the doors and sitting inside, and, if feeling particularly dangerous, opening the bonnet (hood) and trying to impress each other by identifying the various parts of the engine. there is a high likelihood, however, that none of us actually understood that of which we spoke.
the impressive part of this regular activity was not so much the cars themselves, but the consistent fact that the sales personnel rarely, if ever, prevented us from doing any of the above. in fact, one or two of them became very helpful acquaintances, happy to answer each and every one of our probably stupid questions. in retrospect, it's possible that we were simply folliwing in their own teenage footsteps, and that they recognised passive enthusiasm when they saw it. it's been many a long year since i visited the inside of a car showroom, but i'm strongly of the opinion that our junior behaviour would no longer be tolerated nowadays. i would not be at all surprised if showroom cars were kept locked, and i'm none too sure whether, in these days of the interweb, car manufacturers still print colour brochures that could be collected by nomadic schoolboys, carried off in ford or vauxhall branded carrier bags.
however, aside from our periodic interventions, the job of a car showroom and attendant sales people, is, tautologically, to sell cars. judging by the motor association figures, currently, it seems that they're making a reasonable fist of their chosen career path. taking a test-drive in the vehicle of your aspirations is as much a part of the fabric of the motor car industry as it has ever been. even purchasers of used vehicles are more than likely to ask for a test drive before transferring their hard-earned to the dealer's or seller's bank account. that, amongst other things, is one of the principal differences between the cycle market and the car market. though i've never enquired, i'd think it unlikely that entering a branch of evans cycles and asking to try out the trek madone in the window would result in the answer 'sure - i'll just remove the price tag.'
in the case of both bicycles and motor cars, however, there is the option of occasionally comprehensive reviews from their respective media outlets. it was the latter state of affairs that first prompted thewashingmachinepost to feature bicycle reviews; if i was about to spend several thousand on carbon fibre, i'd want to know absolutely everything about it. that particular offering was very much a result of the knowledge that bicycle test drives are remarkably thin on the ground. of course, cars are built to a one-size-fits-all standard, while bicycles, depending on the manufacturer, are available in a variety of sizes. that's at least one reason why bicycle test drives are very thin on the ground.
but were a local bike shop to offer the extraordinary option of hiring a new bike in order to assist with the choice of purchase, would they be rewarded with an orderly queue stretching round the corner? though we're not necessarily talking road bikes here (spoiler alert - we're not talking about road bikes at all), it seems that what appears at first light to be a particularly wizard wheeze, is really not.
whyte mountain bikes opened three uk bike hire and experience centres, having originally saved bedgebury forest-based quench cycles from closure. whyte then purchased two similar forest outlets to offer a further hire-and-ride opportunities. however, for whatever reason, whyte have now decided to withdraw from all three, citing them not to have been "...supportive of the company's core business." considering the company's core business is presumably to sell mountain bikes, one can only conclude that the opportunity to ride them in advance of a prospective purchase didn't result in money in the till.
i'm sure that there are some cycle dealers across the uk and abroad with whom it is possible to arrange in advance, a test-ride of a model featured on the shop floor. but it seems that the 'hire-and-ride' idea, while possibly popular with the hire customers, was not necessarily viewed by them in the same manner as the management at whyte mountain bikes. according to whyte, "it remains fully committed to demos of its [...] bikes and e-bikes through its independent bicycle dealer demo bike programmes, indicating that the forest strategy might not have been presented to its best effect.
as bicycles (and we're including road bikes once again) become ever more expensive, the lack of opportunity to ride before purchase could become more of a perceived problem. had i set my sights on a colnago costing near £15,000, i think i'd want some degree of reassurance that i was spending my money on a bike that would suit my requirements. a good friend of mine bought a specialized peter sagan model for north of £11,000, and after a week or two, told me that it was a bit on the stiff/rigid side. though i'm sure i could have informed him of that salient fact ahead of such an expensive purchase, had he had the opportunity to spend a day or two with the bicycle before money changed hands, he may have chosen more wisely.
whyte's experience, however, creates something of a conundrum. i own two bicycles that were originally received as review models; riding them in order to write a review easily convinced me that ownership would be an astute choice.
maybe mountain bikers are just different.
friday 23 august 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................money for something
the so-called col du rspb is a short, but relatively short hill that passes the royal society for the protection of birds visitor centre at aoradh farm (pronounced oo-rig), forming an anticipated part of the sunday morning parcours. the anticipation part can be either eager or distraught, depending on the strength and direction of the wind, and how one happens to be feeling at that particular point in time. many were the years when i would romp up the col ahead of my compatriots, subsequently enjoying the sensation of rolling to a breathless halt to await the ascendancy of my fellow pelotoneers. this simply goes to show that my memory is intact; the ability to achieve the latter faded from view many years ago. nowadays, the best i can manage is an upward crawl while breathing through my ears.
currently, the end result usually consists of my emitting the phrase "i'm getting too old for this crap." or more sarcastically "there has to be an easier way to make a living." the implied humour of the latter is obviously based on the fact that our sunday morning perambulations receive no financial recompense.
leaving aside the annual competitions based in the online world, where it appears possible to win a professional contract by racing imaginary people from the comfort of your living room, would not it be a cheering prospect to potentially find a pay-cheque on the kitchen worktop when returning from the sunday ride? though probably the result of becoming delirious, but following the eight days of the annual festive 500, i have openly mentioned the possibility of asking my employers simply to continue paying my salary while i ride my bicycle. (negotiations are not going well.)
in retrospect, it's probably more confounding that no-one has thought of this before, rather than the fact that someone has done so now, but one of those infernal smartphone apps has made an appearance to benefit the entire nation of cyclists (or at least, those in possession of a smartphone). the impressive sounding imatra app promises to translate cycled kilometres into currency, though not quite the currency available at the local branch of your bank. simone toccafondi, currently an executive with bmc bicycles already has the app available in 31 countries, on both apple's ios platform and android. download is free.
it works by calculating the kilometres ridden, assuming you remembered to launch the app on your phone in the first place. at the end of the ride, clicking 'stop' ends the activity and validates the route. the app then calculates the number of kilometres and converts them into imatra coins. for every 25 km, the user receives 1 imatra coin worth between one-half and four euros depending on the product listed on the imatra website. available for purchase is an extensive range of premium and luxury cycling products. a quick perusal of the brands available at imatra.com shows a list of over 70 well-known marques, including assos, brooks, colnago and dtswiss.
reputedly the app will show the co2 savings that have been made by not using a car, though that would seem a tad pointless for you and i, who are probably out riding for the sake of it, and not necessarily participating in greenhouse gas reduction. there's also an emphasis on the healthy lifestyle aspect, despite the possible danger of preaching to the converted. and i believe that it's worth pointing out that you're reading about this in a cycling blog, while i learned of it through the cycle trade media. hopefully there has been some pertinent mention to the civilian population.
the associated youtube video (linked below), clearly shows the app recording a bike ride responsible for generating imatra coins, information of which imatra (just like strava), will naturally take possession. presumably the ability to monetise such information would explain why there is no charge for use of the imatra app, or for handing out free (imatra) money. but given the amount of personal data owned by all manner of public and private agencies, i daresay one more won't make too much difference.
it's the modern-day equivalent of the carrot and stick.
thursday 22 august 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................and not before time
at one time, and i'd imagine you'll find this hard to believe, but i was the local 'go to guy' for advice about apple macs. of course, those were the days when the mac operating system had yet to become the unix-based osx, which i still use but tend to be a smidgeon less capable when it comes to tracking software glitches or malfunctions. however, when successfully getting those who had approached for advice up and running again, lest i forgot how i accomplished such trickery, i stored the information in a rudimentary database. like a help-centre, but without the individual booths.
thus, when i came across a recurring problem, i could pass on my remedy. you will appreciate that this was in the days before a publicly available internet, which would have allowed me to post all this information online, or e-mailed the downtrodden. computers and software have become considerably more complex since those halcyon days of yore, and while i can still often bail myself out of encountered difficulties, i'd be very wary of attempting to advise others, lest i ruin someone's not inexpensive mac desktop or laptop. perhaps if i'd had an appropriate level of foresight, i could have transferred my rudimentary repair skills to those concerning the bicycle. had i done so, i would surely now possess a veritable cornucopia of remedies, many of which would undoubtedly now be completely outdated by the cycle industry's proclivity for messing up that which had proved to be perfectly serviceable and functional.
i'm aware that i have iterated some of the following on previous, possibly separate occasions, but given their relevance to that which will eventually follow, i express no reticence in reprising their appearance below. as elicited with unfailing regularity, my ritchey logic road bicycle sports a rather marvellous campagnolo record 12-speed mechanical groupset, which, in italian tradition, features a double ring chainset comprised of a 52 tooth outer ring and a 36 tooth inner. in the process of attempting to locate one of those bicycle noises that inevitably appeared to emanate from the bottom bracket region, i replaced the bottom bracket bearings. in choosing those bearings, there really is, thankfully, no room in which to manouevre; they're either designed for a campagnolo crank arm, or they're not.
replacing the bearings did indeed cure a few of the irritating decibels, but didn't remove them entirely, leaving behind the vestiges of irritation which i traced to a worn inner chainring. those of you who are as in thrall to vicenza as am i, will presumably be well-acquainted with the cost of ownership that inevitably follows. in short, a 36 tooth record chainring was a tad pricier than i had hoped. on enquiring of a friend, who is more acquaint with campagnolo than anyone i know, whether i might choose a less pricey chorus inner ring, i was despondent to learn that the the bolt circle diameters of both cranksets differ, rendering my option moot.
not everyone, however, has access to an expert particularly learned in the arcane and frequently incompatible standards that pervade the industry. and though i wish no ill, bike shop staff are not always as well aware of that pertaining to the bicycles displayed on the shop floor as they possibly could be. in an ideal world, there would be the velocipedinal equivalent of the joint photographic experts group (jpeg) whose job it is to define and maintain the latter standard, ensuring that any camera manufacturer or digital imaging software purveyor varies not in their individual interpretation.
when digital cameras first appeared, it was often necessary to employ the supplied software not only to recognise the stored images, but to download them to a computer. there was often no point in sending kodak images to a nikon user because the image formats were often proprietary.
though the cycle industry predates that of digital imaging by almost a century, in the early years it was likely that national standards evolved with no knowledge of adjacent national standards. that would explain the majority of that which frustrates us nowadays. however, you'd have thought with the rise of the interweb, codified reparations could have been engineered. after all, the motor car trails invention of the bicycle by only a few years, yet there exists an enormous database of parts availability and compatibility for virtually any vehicle you care to name. if you need a new exhaust for a 1983 ford escort, your garage of choice should have no real difficulty identifying not only the correct part, but its unique order number, from where it might be sourced and at what cost.
as the bicycle and its attendant componentry become ever more complex, particularly if you factor in the entire e-bike universe, with each update providing yet another 'standard', it's a real shame that the same facility isn't available to the local bike shop. but perhaps that's something already to be seen on the horizon. having won an award at this year's eurobike expo, parts compatibility specialists bike matrix, have recently succeeded in raising investment of almost £1 million.
the bike matrix database allows the selection of a particular bike to see what fits, simplifying matters for online stores, retail stores, workshops and many others involved in keeping the wheels rolling. the system currently has over 80 component brands providing product information, and agreements with major bicycle brands. addition of products to the database is free.
my understanding is that the present system is restricted to the business-to-business sector (b2b), but hopefully, if everything runs as smoothly as expected, it might soon be available to those of us who either prefer or have to carry out our own cycle maintenance. perhaps the singularity is closer than we'd originally thought?
wednesday 21 august 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................two words
there's an intriguing separation between the cycling that occupies our immediate attention, and that which engages the attention of the cycle industry. ours is, to a certain extent, more immediate; many were entranced by last week's tour de femmes, with its summit finish on alpe d'huez, an interest that may have been hi-jacked by the third of the season's grand tours now almost four stages into its existence. a portion of the pelotonese, perhaps comparable to the swifties who feature regularly in the columns of the daily newspapers, have their eyes affixed to the transfer rumour mill, eager to learn who amongst the professionals might soon be seen wearing a different jersey.
though it would be naive to think the cycle industry has no interest in such matters, their thinking is decidedly different than ours. from a velocipedinal point of view, we are bereft of deadlines, yes, i had to negotiate the broadcast schedule of discovery+ last night in order to watch at least a portion of la vuelta's third stage, perferably before bedtime, but that is hardly comparable to industry deadlines. a bit like weather forecasters, it is incumbent on at least several within the marketing departments and senior management, to identify cycling trends, decide whether they are worth following, and how long it might take to gather meaningful inventory, if the intent is to satisfy those prospective trends.
it is eminently possible that there exists a cycling trend of which you and i are blissfully oblivious, but which the industry is preparing to anticipate coinciding with when you and i eventually learn of its existence.
a comparable state of affairs might be said to exist within the single malt whisky industry. one of the major players in that particular industry is, even as we speak, preparing a planning application to build yet another distillery on islay's shores. there's no telling when such an application might eventually receive approval (or rejection), but if we assume the former, there then begins satisfying the logistics of actually constructing said distillery; in this case that means several million pounds worth of investigations into a water-supply, road construction and building of the distillery itself.
if we might assume, purely for the purposes of discussion, that the latter will occupy a three-year period, it will likely be 2027 before the distillery begins producing spirit. legally, that spirit cannot be described as whisky until it is three years old, and, based on the release strategy of the distillery at ardnahoe, the first bottle will not arrive on off-licence shelves till the product is five years old. more realistically, we're looking at ten years' of maturation before equitable return can begin.
identification of a new cycle trend will take considerably less time than a bottle of whisky, but will still involve initial drawings, prototypes, testing, final production (probably in the far east) then delivery to western shores. therefore, if i bring into play this year's april fool prospect of a grass bike, given that i mentioned this only five months ago, we'd probably be reaching only the prototyping stage at the moment. but unless that purported new trend promises untold riches, it might make more commercial sense to persist with current trends until we're demanding something new from our bike shops.
the persistence part is the phase in which we are currently entrenched, for better or worse. following a quick perusal of the trade press earlieer this week, i can offer evidence for my contention by way of the following headlines:
'genesis update gravel and adventure range.'
'bmc upgrades gravel range.'
'parlee's all-new gravel bike may have arrived late to eurobike.'
'giant shares insight into its e-bike technology.'
'intra-drive gd8 power-train set for pilot production.'
this is not to imply that the road bike market, along with mountain bikes, has necessarily fallen off a cliff, but currently (pardon the pun), the bicycle makers in the world have difficulty seeing past gravel or electric, and if you can combine the two into an e-gravel bike, so much the better. for those who are similarly inclined, this may be considered a golden period, though we live with the danger that bicycles or componentry are outdated before you've completed that first bikepacking adventure.
i'm eternally hopeful that there are still departments within the major manufacturers which not only recognise the difference between bona-fide cyclocross bikes and the gravel usurper, and that the exact, badkammers and prestige trophies do not find themselves prefixing the word gravelcross. already there are those producing gravel frames for supply to their contracted 'cross riders, but given the latter's 100 year history, one wonders why the priorty is not reversed? and hopefully there are folks still obsessed with human-powered road bikes too.
all too often i find myself trying to develop a subterfuge that might make road cycling appear to be the new kid on the block. i like to think of it as persuasion. and is it really acceptable to use the words best and e-gravel bikes in the same sentence? aren't they mutually exclusive?
tuesday 20 august 2024
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