..........................................................................................................................................................................................................
good grief charlie brown (part 131)
i have, for many a long year, castigated the modern level of punditry associated with present day cycle sport. i love watching the tour, the giro and the vuelta, purely for the racing itself. i'm largely unconcerned about the peripherals, and find myself particularly irritated when the live coverage is shown split-screen, continuing alongside a pre-race interview, asking primoz roglic what his plans were for the stage we happen to be watching. granted, with the stage already underway, any strategy to which he might allude will probably be a fait accompli by the time we learn of the interview. but, at the risk of being bombarded with vitriol, who really cares? remove the talking heads and just get on with the racing.
you would, however, be totally correct to advise that, if punditry is not my wheelhouse, then i should simply avoid it altogether. that is advice that i have faithfully followed for several seasons, but yesterday, sunday 8 september, having retrieved my drumset from a local hostelry where i practised my percussion skills on friday and saturday eve, i made myself a cup of tea and a coffee for mrs washingmachinepost, turned on the tellybox, navigated to the discovery+ app and sat down to watch the final time-trial of this year's vuelta into madrid.
unfortunately (for me) the racing had not commenced, and i found myself with little else to do but watch eurosport's bizarrely dressed dolly-bird introduce the breakaway preview show from a computer generated studio that must surely have been left over from an episode of thunderbirds. and obviously, the money spent on this architectural pretence has been substantial, evidence for which can be demonstrated by a complete lack of chairs for the two pundits joining orla chennoui.
for those who also watched on discovery+, i need hardly reprise the complete drivel that followed, but should you have joined the live coverage late, or watched a highlights programme, i might tautologically point out that, just as was originated in bbc's grandstand in the 1970s, everyone provided more than just a few words describing that which we have all loyally watched across the past three weeks, and truthfully didn't need to have it all trailed out once again. then came the prediction part of the process, with the alleged experts giving us the benefit of their expertise. obviously enough, there is no way of accurately predicting the subsequent turn of events, but it seems that contemporary punditry ignores that salient fact every bit as much as did those on grandstand in the last century.
robert millar did once tell me never to forget that it's all entertainment, but i struggle to recognise any sign of entertainment within eurosport's breakaway programme and nor do i comprehend the point in employing the mystical talents of orla chennoui. no disrespect to the woman, but...
though i'm probably airing an incorrect assumption, i would tend to figure that those of us who watch eurosport's live coverage of cycle racing, whether on tv or via the discovery+ app, are reasonably well-informed as to that which takes place in front of us. i cannot reasonably imagine viewers accidentally watching an event that could potentially occupy their viewing time for a period of three weeks; i realise everyone has to make a living, but surely, for the majority, the punditry is very much surplus to requirements.
eventually, having watched robbie mcewen demonstrate that he has the technical ability to impose a firework display upon his australian zoom call, we were thankfully moved on to hear carlton kirby and sean kelly introduce the first riders off the ramp in the vuelta's final time-trial.
you will forgive me, i hope, that i adjudged that to be way too early in proceedings to occupy broadcast time, so i switched over to watch re-runs of columbo, before returning to discovery+ closer to podium time. at least this season's effectively pundit-free cyclocross season begins on 10 october with the exact trophee event in beringen, when sanity will prevail and hopefully orla will be on holiday.
fun fact for those who enjoy pub quizzes: in 2024 all three major tours have been won by slovenian riders.
monday 9 september 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................virtually the same
wwe have discussed at length the recognised incompatibility of the bicycle industry, particularly related to componentry. in the days before shimano's invention of the indexed gear system, the only visible incompatibility between the various available freewheels, was the method of removal, to which i can provide testament via the large collection of (now obsolete) freewheel removers that once hung on the tool board. oddly enough, everybody's freewheels featured a standard thread, meaning they all fitted everyone's wheelsets. in a sane world, given that shimano were first to provide a freehub and cassette, those which followed (and i'm pointing the finger at you, campagnolo) would have adopted the same set of freehub splines (as did sram), but for reasons best known to the italians, that didn't happen. but, as i have pointed out to the point of boredom, campagnolo rarely offer compatibility even between their own groupsets.
the virtual world, despite my continued disparagement, look as if it might not follow suit, though i reserve the right to persist with my disparagement (more of that later).
zwift may now find themselves in a similar position to that of goretex. the latter, still ostensibly the market leader in breathable waterproofs, has not suffered as much in the past 27 years as we might have expected, considering that 1997 was the year in which their original patent expired. this has meant that the technology to produce a waterproof, breathable membrane has been available to any manufacturer who wished to adopt it, without the need for expensive licences or royalties to gore ltd. but to return to zwift's predicament, tadej pogacar stood atop the podiums in rome and nice, sporting a mywhoosh logo on the back of his shorts, while there are a number of other alternatives for those who prefer to sample their cycling while sat in a pain cave or the sitting room in front of the tellybox.
i am decidedly not one of the above, and therefore my knowledge of each is severely limited, and certainly not extensive enough to have learned of any potential incompatibilities. yet the recent release of zwift's smart frame, has brough to the fore the possibility that matching devices from different manufacturers might still be something to bear in mind. invariably, the only means of imposing an industry-wide standard, is either by way of altruism, whereby a purveyor provides the necessary specifications as open-source, or a dominant manufacturer makes it obligatory to follow in their thread patterns.
in the case of zwift's smart frame, it's a utensil that still requires to be coupled with a smart trainer, but in order to provide a seamless riding experience, certain factors need to align. the first of those is the so-called zwift cog, followed by the requirement for a zwift ready turbo trainer. trainer manufacturers can adopt the zwift-ready programme, ensuring that their products are fully compatible with that of the zwift frame bringing compatibility to anything from eight-speed to twelve-speed, thanks to the adoption of virtual shifting. which brings me to a reprise of my potential disparagement (not that anyone cares).
personally, i am not someone who enjoys participation in games, whether on a playstation, gameboy, nintendo, online, or even board games such as cluedo or monopoly. though i'd scarcely wish to position myself as overly lethargic, in truth, i can rarely be bothered to comprehend the attendant instructions. it's a conversation that filled a portion of my saturday lunchtime at debbie's, extending as far as the latest developments in electronic drumsets. on my acoustic kits, if something doesn't sound quite right, it's a simple matter of applying a drum key to several tension bolts on the offending drum. but when it comes to electronica, the number of parameters that are available for adjustment often seem more favourable to those with an honours degree in physics. and since, for the majority of drummers of my acquaint, the joy is in hitting stuff, seriously, who can be bothered tweaking the adsr curve (attack, decay, sustain, release) of each individual drum, along with the pitch, the wide variety of virtual woods and far too many alternative features.
the same (for me at least) goes for bike riding. i can extract the bicycle from the bikeshed, attach front and rear lights, clip in and head off into the sunset (or wind driven rain). the thought of having to ensure that my zwift ride smart frame is adjusted to the correct height, before customising the gear shifting parameters thoughtfully provided by the people at zwift (incidentally, it would appear that those simulate only shimano and sram; campagnolo is apparently persona non-grata).
but then comes perhaps an inadvertent divergence from the one true path. if zwift's advertising is to be believed, the online platform, coupled with smart turbos, are the tools of choice for current or aspiring professional riders. we are encouraged to believe that the majority hone their riding skills in the comfort of their own homes, based entirely on the 'reality' of the experience. if that is truly the case, why do zwift insist on referring to it as a 'game'?
have we been misled over the importance of the competitive milieu?
sunday 8 september 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................hoist by my own petard
in my days as an art student, the band in which i played was fortunate (so it seemed), to grab a gig at a well-known hostelry in the town of montrose. arriving mid-afternoon, we duly setup the drumset, backline and pa system, held a brief soundcheck before taking an appropriate length of break to enjoy a healthy repast. when time came to begin playing, we were slightly dismayed to note that our audience was somewhat on the minimal side. however, it transpired that the usual suspects had attended a football match between glasgow rangers and (glasgow) celtic, and had yet to return from their away day. on their arrival, we rapidly learned that the safest place to be was on the stage, as both sets of supporters spent the majority of the evening glowering at each other before, later in the evening, one or two tussles broke out.
as many of you will be aware, a certain minority of so-called football fans, are apt to engage in battles of varying severity with supporters of other teams, particularly if their team was on the losing side. it's a set of circumstances with which a) i have no favour and b) i fail to comprehend. surely, i have naively argued, it's possible for the supporters of one team to appreciate the dexterity and skill of the opposition, even if it entails a losing score at full time. it is, i'd imagine, rather disappointing to be a confirmed fan of the losing team, but surely that's the very point of sport in the first place: there inevitably has to be a winner?
i have frequently congratulated myself on favouring no-one in particular. from my lofty viewpoint, whoever scored the most goals, or whoever crossed the line first, in the majority of cases, deserved to win. surely as much enjoyment can be gained from watching whatever event is under discussion without the day, week, year, being ruined because the team, athlete or cyclist whom you held in greatest esteem, failed to take the final honours? in the days when the euskatel euskadi cycle team from the basque country participated in the tour de france, come the stages held in pyrenees, close to their region, though the euskatel supporters were to be seen out in force, brandishing large basque flags and setting off orange flares, they cheered each and every rider who passed, whether they were beating their favourites or not. that is what i regard as sportsmanship.
so come the major events of the season, though i might think it nice that a particular rider for whom i have great respect, finish atop the podium, were he or she not to do so, i'm certainly not going to display my disappointment by attacking or haranguing someone sporting the jersey of the victorious rider. cycling, in such instances, is, after all, a sport, one that cannot always be won by one rider in particular (unless, of course, you're tadej pogacar). however, with regard to the vuelta espana, nearing its final weekend, perhaps i don't know myself as well as i'd thought.
many years ago, a young wout van aert began gathering cyclocross victories in belgium, the netherlands and france with, what simon mottram would undoubtedly term, panache. i have followed his career for several years, and enjoyed his joie de vivre when time comes to engage with the press, whether victorious or otherwise. in my humble opinion, he tends to come across as a more affable fellow than his cyclocross nemesis, mathieu van der poel. about the latter, it was said that he had to win the world road championship before van aert, such is the rivalry between the two. i cannot deny that i was a tad disappointed last year when mvdp won paris-roubaix following van aert suffering a puncture in the closing stages, but up till that point, it had been an enjoyable and well fought battle. however, i continued to indulge in self-congratulation that i was still indifferent as to who won, provided the race had been enjoyable to watch.
in the 2024 vuelta, i have thoroughly enjoyed watching van aert take on kaden groves in the points competition, winning three stages and leading the australian by over 100 points. then to discover that van aert had also acquired the king of the mountains jersey too, brought a greater smile to my face. indeed, it was excellent to see ben o'connor continuing in the red jersey, despite the best efforts of roglic to relieve him of it, but that was his own fault for allowing o'connor to gain such a substantial lead in the first place. there, in one race, were two differing strands to retain my interest, hopeful that, after a somewhat disappointing season due to injury, van aert might reach madrid, still in possession of the two jerseys and perhaps with one or two more stage wins.
then it dawned on me that, were groves to excel and take the green jersey away from wout, or jay vine do likewise with the polka dot jersey, disappointment would be writ large. i find myself already unenthusiastic about pogacar's apparently easy victories in the giro and le tour, whereas i know very well i'd be exceptionally pleased had wout done so instead. so it would appear that i'm not so sportingly indifferent after all. and following van aert crashing out of the vuelta only a few days from its culmination, still in possession of both jerseys, i now harbour considerably less interest in who turns out as the winner come sunday.
does that make me a bad person?
photo: bbc
saturday 7 september 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................carless and bible black*
on my saturday cycle expeditions, instead of opting for bowmore's main street as my path to enlightenment, i am in the habit of opting to turn left towards the secondary school, before traversing school street and passing the distillery and leisure centre as my route to shore street and an exit from the bustling metropolis. as my father would have informed me "it seems a bit of a long way for a shortcut", a truth which i cannot deny. however, i have deemed my extended perambulations a necessity, in order to maintain health and safety.
on saturday mornings, many motorists are intent on visiting the village averagemarket either for newspapers, food, or a combination of the two. apparently, with their minds concentrated on either of the above, they have scarce brain capacity left to deal with an itinerant cylist descending in freewheel fashion towards the corner linking main street with shore street. it is possible to roll in that direction and reach speeds of near 28kph, though i confess to embracing a degree of circumspection and refraining from reaching that particular terminal velocity. there are folks crossing the street oblivious to their potential two-wheeled doom, while others are apt to fling open car doors without concern for any approaching bicycles.
my alternative route is therefore predicated on survival.
however, in something of a surprise move, argyll & bute council has opted to resurface the full length of shore street, round the corner and all the way up main street to the round church and beyond. and just for good measure, they've included flora street, a component part of my saturday route. resurfacing, to you and i, would usually consist of a series of vehicles geared towards filling an agglomeration of potholes, before covering them in an impressively thick and smooth layer of tarmac, offering joy to cyclists and motorists alike for the foreseeable future. the council, however, and in common with many others across the country, finds itself strapped for cash, meaning that this particular resurfacing project has opted for a more affordable alternative.
on wednesday of this past week, a particularly large low-loader arrived off the noon-day ferry, carrying a roadcraft vehicle, the origins of which seemed rooted in science fiction, ready and willing to scrape the top layer of tarmac from the roads described above. this was accompanied by a flotilla of large tipper trucks, drawn principally from local contractors. the process, featured on one or two of the island's single track roads in recent years, involves taking that scraped surface, processing it into a tarmac mulch, then layering it over the raw road surface to restore it to its once driveable glory. according to the schedule, scraping the surface will take until saturday afternoon, but then another three or four weeks to re-lay it all and provide us with smoothness once again.
as you can imagine, this incurs certain logistical problems; in common with almost every human conurbation across the country, main street usually features wall-to-wall parking on both sides of the street from morning till night, predominantly because no-one seems capable of walking even the shortest distances these days. shore street, a smidgeon more narrow than main street, allows (legal) parking on one side only, a not altogether satisfactory state of affairs due to the road's curvature; this means that vehicles entering shore street from the village end, are unable to see vehicles approaching from the other end. given that there is barely sufficient space to allow side-by-side motoring, due to an endless snake of parked cars, attempts to give way tend not to work as you'd hope.
according to several signs placed on the village pavements, in order for roadworks to be carried out with scheduled alacrity, all parking has been prohibited in both shore street and main street. this has led to the almost never seen vision outlined in the image atop this article; with tongue firmly planted in cheek, i was moved to send a copy to a local councillor, asking if we might petition the council to transform bowmore into a permanent traffic-free village? having mentioned that to several individuals who were insufficiently quick to keep out of my way, i received no dissension from such an idea. cyclists arriving off today's ferries were afforded the luxury of descending or ascending main street, fearless of any opening car doors, or vehicles moving into their path without so much as a hand signal.
there are many old monochrome photos of bowmore village from the middle of last century, where there are no parked cars to be seen. at one time, cattle were driven along these roads to the old dairy half-way along flora street, with no concerns of holding up the all but non-existent traffic in the process. cars have ruined this village, and virtually all the others across the island; the number of vehicles per household seems to have increased exponentially within the last two decades, and fewer and fewer are inclined to walk anywhere in a small township that extends only one mile from end to end.
on my way to the office earlier this week, i watched two primary pupils riding their bicycles to school, but forced to do so on the pavement because of the preponderance of cars heading to the selfsame school and the adjacent secondary school. i realise that this is a common sight/problem in towns and cities throughout the country, but bowmore is a village comprising only 1000 residents, no more nor less than lived here over half a century ago. in my opinion, children ought to be able to cycle to and from school on the road, without danger from unnecessary car use. there are three teachers of my acquaint who live less than 300 metres from either educational establishment, yet who drive there five days per week, throughout the school year. but over-protective and largely misguided health and safety concerns itself with the potential health hazard of nursery children licking the flour on their play-do.
come the revolution.
*with apologies to king crimson
friday 6 september 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................fear of missing out
a few years ago, in their annual budget, argyll and bute council, which oversees administration and services applicable to the islands of islay and jura, disbanded its road safety department as a cost-cutting exercise. more than just yours truly thought this to be a backward step, given the continuing increase in the number of cars and large articulated trucks frequenting islay's roads. every morning, as i arrive for work, a 40ft pot-ale tanker fresh from collecting the latter liquid from bowmore distillery, turns from flora street into main street, a tight, 90 degree turn. as it does so, some of the kids heading to school a tad on the early side are waiting to cross the road.
at certain times of year, the primary school, sited at the opposite end of flora street, holds a cycle-to-school week, at which time pupils in the older classes pedal often mechanically unsound bicycles along the same route as plied by the aforementioned tanker. with currently ten working distilleries, one of which is slap bang in the middle of bowmore village, deliveries to and from those distilleries have become increasingly frequent, to say nothing of the school buses which arrive at the adjacent secondary school as both primary and secondary pupils are arriving.
we are extremely fortunate that the truck drivers on islay are amongst the very best in the country, exhibiting a level of courtesy that would not seem readily applicable anywhere else. i'm fairly sure that's why, to date, there have been few, if any, incidents involving either islay's buses or trucks. that, to be quite frank, is extremely fortunate, because the demise of the road safety department has resulted in none of islay's four primary schools providing cycle proficiency training.
argyll and bute council was one of only two councils in scotland which opted to carry out its own programme of cycle training, choosing not to sign-up to the national bikeability scheme. following the disbandment of the road safety department, i contacted the folks at bikeability to ask whether islay's schools could sign up, either collectively or individually. the reply indicated that it could be achieved either way, so i e-mailed the respective head teachers informing them of this opportunity. but, of course, none of them, as far as i'm aware, has done so, meaning that islay's youngest children can freely cycle the roads through each of the villages without any road safety training whatsoever.
aside from the glaring potential for incident, a lack of cycling inclusion at an early age, is unlikely to lead to future enthusiasm for the most environmentally sound and healthy means of transport on the planet. recent reports would tend to indicate that, in this sense, islay's schools are well outside a trend that has apparently seen more of scotland's children undertaking instruction within the bikeability scheme.
no doubt the absence of any need to spend time teaching road safety skills allied to how to safely ride a bicycle on islay's increasingly busy roads, has meant more time to educate the pupils on science, technology, english and maths (stem). unfortunately, real life does not adhere to contrived aconyms.
saturday 31 august 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................told you so
thankfully, the covid years seem like a distant memory, and certainly not a memory that many of us would wish to retain. particularly from the point of view of apprehension and anxiety over possibly contracting the one-time deadly virus. however, on the flip side of that contention were the many good things that arose as a result of lockdown, creating situations that proved favourable, in certain ways, for those fortunate enough to have safely reached the other side.
on the island, velocipedinal life returned to a state probably last seen in the 1930s or 40s, with little in the way of vehicle traffic on the roads, held at bay by the imposition of a true 'lifeline service' on the ferries. this consisted of a single return sailing per day, reputedly restricted to residents and those who qualified as essential services. there was no service whatsoever on a sunday. additionally, the government's dictate that any outdoor exercise ought to be confined to one's immediate locale, was interpreted by certain members of the sunday peloton to mean the island of islay, allowing us to continue our regular cycling practices unabated.
so doing appeared to have received official blessing, since any meeting with police vehicles only ever entailed a flash of headlights and a cheery wave. but just to be certain, we all agreed to cycle individually, as per british cycling's recommendation.
any uptick in those cycling on the island was minimal at best, but the situation in mainland towns and cities was reportedly considerably different. the lack of motor traffic in city centres and large urban conurbations reputedly led to a notable decrease in pollution levels, leading many city leaders to contend that they would strive to maintain such levels when the virus' effect had largely subsided and lockdowns had been repealed.
newspaper stories were rife of cycle shops selling everything on the shop floor and struggling to obtain replacement stock, as habitual users of public transport strove to utilise safer alternatives. polls carried out during this period gave the impression that many who had taken to the saddle as a pragmatic means of personal transport, had every intention of continuing to do so, even when lockdown restrictions were eventually lifted. i do not deny that i harbour a heightened level of cynicism, but given that many of those surveys were condcted during the summer months, i was amongst many who found it hard to have any faith in such responses. disappointingly, the cycle industry seemed to have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.
though i'm very rarely right about anything, it seems i was pretty much on-target with my cynicism. in the uk at least, the place of the motor car at the top of the food chain was never really in any doubt. i recall saying to anyone within earshot, that it would take only the arrival of the first showers and winds of a british autumn, and the enthusiasms of lockdown would evaporate more quickly than had the stock levels at halfords. unfortunately, i was proved correct.
though it has become almost standard fare for transport surveys to return the public response that, if better cycling infrastructure were to be realised, hordes of the public would clamber aboard their bicycles in droves. i'm less than inclined to believe such answers, if principally on the basis that the british weather, combined with the curated convenience of the motor car, will almost always mitigate against an unheralded increase in the number of folks taking to the bicycle for perosnal transport, whether acoustic or electric.
according to recent government data (admittedly confined to england), while the population is walking more than it was; 5% more than in the pre-covid days of 2019. the same figures, however, portray the covid-era cycling boom continuing to 'fizzle away'. embarrassingly, while journeys on foot averaged 225 miles (362km) per year, the average annual distance cycled is a mere 47 miles (76km). if you take note of the fact that the average member of the sunday peloton rides around 3,000 miles (4800km), it's reasonably easy to envisage just how small a percentage of england's population actually rides a bike with any sort of regularity. 2024's figures are 17% less than those covered in 2022.
according to michael solomon williams from campaign for better transport, "...the plateau of cycling figures suggests more needs to be done to improve our cycle network..." at the risk of disparagement from on high, i rather doubt it would make much difference. but making car usage less convenient might help.
wales has admitted that there has been no major increase in either cycling or walking.
friday 30 august 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................it's not just them
i have frequently written of the trials and tribulations of the island being visited by a large number of holidaymakers arriving by motor car. however, despite organised tours that will provide accommodation and take you to as many distilleries as it's possible to cram into a long weekend, and a 25 minute scheduled twice-daily flight from glasgow, the principal mode of arrival remains the motor car. in tandem with the impressive amount of freight brought to and from the island, vehicle traffic is the very reason that we await two, not one new vehicle ferry in the foreseeable future.
but, while the large majority of britain's car drivers are necessarily experienced negotiating the inner sanctums of towns and cities the length and breadth of the land, it seems that small, singletrack roads, are the veritable providers of confusion and ignorance. though observed more rarely this past summer, the arrival of the motorhome as not only a means of transport, but featured accommodation, brought a scaled-up version of the previously advised conditions. it has also brought tenable humour; it was all i could do to maintain a stoic visage when watching a visiting motorhome attempt to reverse into a passing place when confronted with a local fuel tanker en-route to carnduncan.
predominantly on the basis that the sunday morning peloton is merely riding in circles before heading home for a shower, there really is little to lose by pulling into the nearest passing place to allow local and visiting traffic to pass unhindered. allied to that is the hope that we potentially improve the reputation of cyclists in general, while continuing the apprehension that islay's resident population is amongst the friendliest on the west coast of scotland. of course, it's likely true that we'll talk about you when you've left.
in a good year, when the weather is better predisposed towards cycling in the great outdoors, we would usually come into contact with more visiting cyclists than has been the case in 2024. freindly to the last, we have been known to welcome those visitors to join us of a sunday morning, even occasionally buying their coffees. we're good like that. whether cycle touring has suffered at the hands of the weather would be hard to say for sure, but nowadays we seem more likely to encounter youthful visitors on hired e-bikes, demonstrating to eager-to-pass traffic, that their posteriors had not sat on a saddle since primary school.
it hardly seems worthy of mention that the aforementioned e-bikers would be highly unlikely to join our happy throng, and to be honest, we'd be fairly unlikely to ask.
however, though it is traditional cyclists' conversation fodder to drag on motorists, it seems it may be a situation that offers mirroring possibilities. as i perambulate the highways and byways, i am in the habit of encouraging oncoming vehicles to continue their trajectory, even if they pull into a passing place as have i. i confess to being impressed that any car chooses to pull over to allow yours truly to pass, but if i have already done likewise, i have found myself in the habit of beckoning them forward.
i'm nice like that.
however, signing in at the secondary school last week, to continue with my weekly drumset tutoring, the school secretary asked my advice, concerned that she may have actioned a transportational faux pas. having pulled over for an oncoming vehicle near kilchoman distillery, she noted a following cyclist and courteously chose to remain stationary until he passed (you'll doubtless not be surprised at how rarely that happens). however, apparently the aforesaid cyclist, though continuing to pedal, beckoned for her to resume her journey. for those inexperienced with island single track roads, let me inform you that there is insufficient space for a motor vehicle and bicycle to safely occupy the same space on the road.
fortunately, she had the good sense to stay where she was, but told me that the cyclist passed by with a disapproving look on his face. she was, as i mentioned, concerned that she had broken some unwritten and hitherto unknown rule of the road.
she hadn't.
though i fear i may be guilty of teaching my granny to suck eggs, it is courteous to signal approbation for any acts of courtesy that pass between cyclists and motorists, particularly if the latter has eased the passage of the former; that applies even if you think the motorist to be dramatically over-cautious in their actions.
so doing will help encourage a nation of shining, happy people.
thursday 29 august 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................firefly
though i'm a black belt in adobe photoshop and only a belt or two behind when it comes to the page layout programme, adobe indesign, my skills in adobe illustrator have been left to rest on their laurels. prior to covid, i was in the habit of garnering a comfortable level of freelance graphic work, but on the arrival of the virus the majority of that work disappeared like snow off a drystone wall. since a lot of that work concerned logo design, i was in the habit of using adobe illustrator to counteract the fact that the majority of clients have yet to decide how or where said logo will ultimately be employed. for those not in the know, illustrator is what is commonly known as a producer of vector artwork. by way of comparison, photoshop produces bitmaps - images comprised of individual pixels. enlarge the average photograph to the size of a gable wall and it would look similar to a mosaic, because all that's happened is that the pixels have been made a lot bigger.
vector art is mathematically based; draw a rectangle, for instance, and the code simply tells the software to define a series of lines of a specific length and thickness. enlarge one of those to the size of a gable wall, and the code simply dictates lines of greater length. in short, create artwork in illustrator and the resulting image can be emlarged to any size your heart desires, crucially without losing quality.
hopefully that is a comprehensible explanation.
however, with the advent of so-called artificial intelligence, adobe has introduced its firefly technology, providing the user with a text input field to describe an effect or desired image. this technology is obviously still in its infancy, for my experience of implementing it in photoshop has met with less success than i'd been hoping for. for instance, opening an image with a darker than required foreground, i typed 'lighten foreground'. humorously but rather unhelpfully, firefly added a lantern to the frontmost portion of the image.
however, yesterday, charged with creating a label for lemon tea, i opted to make a half-drop repeat pattern consisting of rows of lemons that i might use as a background. on opening the latest version of adobe illustrator, i was presented once again, with a text input field, into which i simply typed 'lemon'. illustrator then created three separate and effectively realistic images of a lemon, with and without leaves. had none been satisfactory, the option remained to ask it to repeat the process, or adjust the input request. those three lemon images were all created with editable vectors, meaning i had every opportunity to edit the artwork to suit my requirements, including altering the colouring and many other parameters.
this technology has effectively rendered the skilled vector artist all but redundant. in previous versions of adobe illustrator, i would have had either to draw a lemon from scratch, or import a bitmap image from photoshop and used illustrator to trace and create a vector image (the latter features a considerably smaller file size). but as i pointed out above, the technology isn't perfect; it may require a smidgeon of research to settle on the ideal text command, or some technical ability to refine the image. but i'd imagine that, in time, things will improve and the technology will be accepted in the same way as was automatic trapping when it was first implemented in illustrator, or layer masking in photoshop.
the one time existence of the north american handbuilt bicycle show (nahbs) and britain's bespoked give well justified credence to the existence of skilled bicycle framebuilders on both sides of the atlantic. currently, should you desire or require a custom built bicycle, an appointment can be made with your chosen framebuilder to acquire appropriate measurements from which he or she will then construct a frame to your individual requirements. though predominantly constricted to steel tubing, there are those who offer to custom build in carbon fibre.
but, as we are all well aware from previous discussions, technology has expressed a singular desire to progress without hindrance, a desire that has been predicted to accelerate at the behest of our new friend, artificial intelligence. given the almost unhindered development of e-bike transmissions and our anguish-riven conversations about wireless gear hacking, who would bet against a.i. providing the wherewithal to produce a 3d printed custom bicycle of any genre within a matter of hours? and given the speed at which technology upgrades, this could happen within the foreseeable future.
imagine the bike shop of the near future: instead of a shop floor resplendent with a restricted number of bicycle frame sizes and options, replace those with a large 3d printer. this would allow text input from the shop staff or customer to produce a custom version of a bicycle identified from an online catalogue, featuring models from the major manufacturers (text input:build me a 55cm trek madone in lime green) or the option to input specific measurements and a choice of available styles.
following printing, the bike shop would add the componentry and wheels, as per your specification.
i will admit to a liking for science fiction, but the part of the above scenario that has me (and doubtless many others) concerned, is the near certainty that the word 'fiction' might already be redundant.
wednesday 28 august 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................are friends electric? (part 17)
though matters couldn't be more different nowadays, in my early twenties i possessed an uncanny skill for predicting the success of pop singles about which others had barely heard. though i'd now be hard-pressed to recall precisely which songs i'm referring to, one that does spring to mind is that by gary numan's tubeway army, entitled are friends electric? ironically, though achieving four weeks at number one in the charts in may 1979, it was the last single released prior to the break-up of tubeway army. one of its claims to fame was considerable use of the ascendant moog synthesiser, stridently differentiating it from its competing peers in the second quarter of 1979.
whether better informed than my holiday job workmates, or simply in possession of greater commercial nous when it came to musical appreciation, i know not, but i had purchased the recording well in advance of its meteoric rise up the charts. as is often the case with those who issue prophecies (even those as trivial as the projected success of a pop single), my championing of the recording fell largely on deaf ears, until several days after it reached number one, when i was asked by one or two colleagues if i had heard are friends electric? i'm sure that, in one set of circumstances or another, we've all been there.
the disparity between then and now could not have been more clearly illustrated during a recent percussive interlude at a local wedding. as i packed up my drumset, the dj was playing what i can only assume were contemporary dance recordings, none of which i had previously come across. yet those on the dance floor seemed not only able to sing along with each and every one, but were acutely aware of the accompanying dance moves.
it is, of course, eminently possible that gary numan demonstrated a similar ability for prediction, some twenty or thirty years ahead of his time. an extract from a book by ai expert, yuval noah harari featured in saturday's edition of the guardian newspaper highlighted the negative possibilities that might result from widespread implementation of so-called artificial intelligence, either without implementing proper safeguards, or on behalf of a harmful agent. (nexus: a brief history of information networks from the stone age to ai). his narrative almost incidentally gives credence to humanity's obsession with, and reliance on, computing networks that are already responsible for swallowing substantial amounts of civilisation's generated electricity, whether renewable or otherwise.
there are few, if any, exceptions to this state of affairs, and which the cycle industry is no more immune than any others. only a few days past, i brought to your attention (via wired magazine) the knowledge that wireless gear shifters, completely ubiquitous within the professional peloton, and only marginally less so in the civilian world, are ripe for hacking by those without faith in fair and equitable competition. it seems quite redundant to point out that those of us still in thrall to the mechanical variant are happily immune from such a possibility.
and then there is the parallel world of the e-bike, promoted at each and every turn, positioned as a solution to problems we have yet to discover, and a technology ripe for exploitation by those with previously no investment in the velocipedinal realm. but while many of the claims for the advantages provided by battery power are undoubtedly true under certain circumstances, it appears that, presently, there may be a comparable downside. to give some indication of the size and importance of this dark-side to the e-bike, you need only observe just how many constituents are involved in a new campaign designed to restore (possibly hypothetical) customer confidence in the genre. industry trade bodies, leading e-bike brands, local bike shops and national charities have combined to boost e-bike battery safety knowledge, inform more potential customers of the benefits of e-cycling (really?) hopefully encouraging them to buy with confidence.
one does have to wonder, however, if the e-bike is as desirable as we are given to understand, why so many have found it necessary to band together in the name of persuasion?
it appears that concerns within the industry surround recent negative headlines related to e-bike battery fires and poorly performing diy e-bike kits. though it is true that these principally concern items or devices purchased through less than reputable online channels, the campaign is designed to educate the average consumer as to how to distinguish between high-quality, legal e-bike products and those which may endanger lives.
the worry, of course, is that the genie may already have strayed just a smidgeon too far from the bottle. i'm not sure that gary numan wants to hear the honest answer to his question.
tuesday 27 august 2024
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