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the extra mile - rapha editions softback. 395pp. illus. £35
as mentioned occasionally, when it seems a relevant point to make, my formal education ended in aberdeen, studying graphic design. though to no extent does this confer a verifiable critique of my design skills, it does allow me to officially declare myself to be a graphic designer. these skills, such as they are, have been used occasionally to good effect, but what i believe i possess, is an ability to appreciate good design, wherever it deigns to turn up. so before i begin to review the contents of rapha's 'the extra mile', i really must comment on the impressive design to be seen on the cover. this features a single image which wraps across the front, the extra thick spine and the back cover. the only immediate text to be seen, consists of seven block characters: rapha.cc.
the clever bit, other than the epitome of grit and determination portrayed in ben ingham's closely cropped monochrome image of a rapha capped rider, is the rapha logo embossed into the front cover. sat on a book shelf, you might not even know it's there (you can't see it in the image above, but it's there). the alternative might have been to overprint the logo in rapha pink, possibly what i might have done. but the way this branding has been carried out, while risky, shows the same innate understanding of its intended customer as did those adverts appearing on the inside cover of early issues of rouleur: the peanut butter spanner and the leather brogues with red look cleats on the sole. published by bluetrain publishing for rapha editions, the book's design was carried out by former rapha designer, ultan coyle, alongside tim tauschek.
whatever you might think of rapha, it would be hard to deny that, even after twenty years, they still understand the market.
for yours truly, this substantial and beautifully produced book offered a ride down memory lane, mostly to perren street in which imperial works, a former piano factory, sat solidly in london's kentish town. there's the iconic pink sofa on which i sat examining the prototype of the first rapha backpack, imperial works' first venture into luggage and which, in true rapha style, had already been in development for almost a year. and there's the wall of pain which bordered rapha founder, simon mottram's desk. of course, that's all gone now, the cycling apparel purveyor having moved twice since departing perren street in 2014.
and a bike ride down memory lane is, to a great extent, the very raison d'etre behind the extra mile. for all rapha's considerable successes that have populated the intervening twenty years, getting the first jersey over the start line took a great deal of hard work, tenacity and quite literally pain and suffering.
in his introduction, simon mottram offers the first of many insights and admissions."...I make no apologies for this book having some of the characteristics of rapha itself: it's quite complex, sprawling, an outpouring, passionate and done differently. [...] The book is part archive, part memoir, part design exercise. It's not designed to be read from the first page to the last."
for those less than in thrall to the characteristics exhibited by imperial works, those words will probably not offer any persuasions contrary to their currently held opinions, but it would be foolish to deny the contribution made by rapha to road-cycling in the past 20 years. but convincing investors to put their money where simon's cycling enthusiasms lay, was hardly a ride in the park. there's no denying that cycle clothing in 2004 was hardly what might be termed 'state of the art', but there's also no denying that cycling was also the very nichest of niche sports, and quite probably not viewed as a portion of industry in which a decent return on investment might be realised.
"In 2003, I was still raising funds for the business and we had not yet designed any products in detail."
when i first engaged with rapha, there was simon mottram, luke scheybeler ("a talented designer and a friend and colleague") and claire wilson, shortly followed by rene groot, all occupying half of one floor in imperial works. on my first visit, guy andrews had joined the party as editor of rouleur; his idea, and published by rapha. i believe clothing technology specialist, simon huntsman, was also working away in the background. i have since visited one or two other cycle clothing companies, and i think it safe to say that, in the perren street days at least, none of them resembled the way rapha worked.
simon has admitted in years gone by, that there is still a core of cyclists who believe that rapha is simply a 'marketing exercise' and not really a clothing company at all. his contention that, if that were true, they'd deserve an award for keeping the charade going for twenty years, is surely answered in the extra mile. it is a book that features comment from many of those who were involved from the beginning, or who have joined in one way or the other, as the years rolled by. this is anything but a founder's monologue with no supporting evidence, even stretching to admitting where mistakes might have been made. perhaps the greatest testament to simon having pushed his vision with singular intent comes from former north american manager, slate olson. "I've worked for some amazing humans. Simon Mottram's probably up there as number one. I had the hardest time beating Simon on both sides of the brain. It was a fun challenge for me, because I'm a bulshitter too. He was a great marketer and also a trained certified accountant so you just couldn't fuck with him on business either."
rapha's spread across the world would surely demonstrate that they have an entrenched customer/fan base, many of whom are probably unaware of the company's origins. in truth, that really doesn't matter; you can appreciate the quality of a jersey without knowing how it came to be delivered to your door. this might appear to be a rather roundabout and potentially expensive means of finding out, but there is a wealth of information in here, some admittedly more relevant than others, stretching from the clothing sponsorship of team sky, to the emergence of north america's rapha continental. the journey, however, is surely every bit as interesting and enticing to those who are relatively new to rapha, as it is to folks like me who were already aware of at least the majority of the story, predominantly because rapha has always been a brilliant storyteller.
yet, as i stated in my opening paragraph, i like good design, as indeed, do the folks at rapha, something we obviously both share with guy and taz at bluetrain publishing who have produced an excellent and often intriguing testament to - love them or loathe them - an innovative strand of present-day velocipedinal life.
the extra mile is also available in hardback at a cost of £55.
monday 4 november 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................kings of pain. anniversary edition. rapha editions hardback 240pp illus. £45
yesterday's monologue ended with the question why? relating to our predilection for riding drop bar road bikes with (relatively) skinny wheels, even though so doing stared pragatism in the face and said "no thanks". asking why, might have appeared as a rhetorical question, but that's not really the case. for in a wholly uncommon strategic ploy, i already had the answer on the arm of my comfy chair.
2024 has already been celebrated as the 20th anniversary of rapha cycle clothing, with a birthday party held recently in london to which i was invited, but sadly unable to attend. and while i have been slightly disparaging recently of additions to the company's range of cycle clothing, in point of fact, there is much to celebrate and be thankful for.
to commemorate such an important birthday, rapha commissioned two books from guy andrews' and taz darling's bluetrain publishing, issued under the rapha editions banner. one is entitled 'the extra mile' a review of which will follow in a day or two, while the other is under consideration today: kings of pain - the anniversary edition. its size, heft and production quality would generally take it into the category of 'coffee table book', though in this case, place a wooden leg on each corner and you'd have yourself a very fine coffee table. but this edition of kings of pain is much too important to leave lying strategically in the sitting room, advertising to visitors, the intellectual quality of your velocipedinal persuasions.
it may cost all your pocket-money to buy, but buy it you must.
i recently broached the subject of the definition of cycling and how that varied between even members of the selfsame peloton. but if i make the not altogether unlikely assumption that we're all prisoners of the same obsession, and that we have even minimal acquaintance with 'cycling's rich heritage', then there's the equivalent of the matrix that effectively binds us altogether, whether we realise it or not. the original kings of pain was titled differently; produced by philippe brunel, as le tour de france intimes, it was a book presented to rapha founder, simon mottram, as a present, a copy of which he subsequently handed to photographer, ben ingham, as a means of informing how he wanted rapha's image to be portrayed. as simon mentions in the extra mile:
"First of all, there were almost no photographs of bikes, it's simply the most fantastic portrait of a dozen or so of the best riders from the 1950s to the 1990s. The author [...] realised that cycling is an intensely human sport..."
the original renaming of brunel's book as kings of pain was published by rapha just over ten years ago. this anniversary edition features updated imagery along with writing by the best of the best; paul fournel, herbie sykes, isabel best, andy mcgrath, marco pastonesi, colin o'brien, and guy andrews. there can be few situations where the above writers are outshone, but with the greatest of respect to all, outshone they are by the beautifully reproduced images throughout the 240 pages. if ever you need to answer the question, why you ride a hopelessly impractical road bike, you need only send your interlocutor(s) in the direction of this substantial volume. as i stated in my review of the original volume, 'this might not be how we roll, but it's almost certainly why.'
though there are any number of reasons why you need (not want) a copy of kings of pain, in my humble but probably seriously prejudiced opinion, the black and white photo which spreads itself across pages 50 and 51, is alone worth the price of admission. it depicts a lean but confident fausto coppi, wearing round dark glasses, almost touching elbows with his great rival, gino bartali at the start of stage 11 of the 1949 tour de france. by the end of the same day, coppi would go on to become the first winner of both the giro d'italia and le tour de france in the same year. perhaps quite apposite in the light of pogacar's repeating the feat in 2024.
for those new to the sport, and for whom very little of this appears to make sense in the era of disc brakes, carbon wheels and electronic groupsets, kings of pain succinctly encapsulates cycle-sport's much vaunted great heritage. it might not make a huge practical difference to the sunday ride, but it might join a few dots, and explain why it is that certain inexplicable etiquettes are still observed. essentially it is cycling's equivalent of darwin's theory of evolution, featuring as it does anquetil, poulidor, balmamion, zilioli, bobet and many other important riders from the past. call it nostalgia if you wish, but it paints an imperious picture of the realities once experienced by our heroes.
"...the Stations of the Cross only had 14 stages, whereas ours has 15" [...] "the day would come when (Henri) Desgrange (would) put lead in their pockets on the pretext that God had made man too light." - Henri Pelissier.
if you want to know where you're going, it's best you know form whence you came.
if £45 is perceived as a tad on the expensive side, ask a well-meaning aunt if she'd get you a copy for christmas. alternatively, starve yourself of the daily starbucks. either way, it will be money very well spent.
kings of pain - anniversary edition
sunday 3 november 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................once upon a time in the west
i paid my first visit to portland, oregon in 2009, very much at the behest of acquaintances met via these black and yellow pixels, and keen for me to witness at first hand, what a proper cycling community looked like. granted, it would possibly have been less expensive and certainly quicker to travel to either amsterdam or copenhagen (one hour from glasgow to amsterdam and a further ten hours to portland counts as a long journey for me). my guides and hosts in 2009 and again in 2012, were slate olson (at that time, rapha's north american manager) and chris king marketing supremo, the inimitable chris distefano, who took me round a substantial proportion of the city's framebuilders.
on the second visit, i took in an edition of the north american handbuilt bicycle show (nahbs) in california's capital city sacramento.
though rapha's avowed intention was to make road cycling (as in road racing) the world's most popular sport (sadly, probably an unclimbable mountain) the aspirations of portland's cycling culture was heading more in the direction of lightweight utility. though cyclocross had taken hold of the sporting side of things, builders such as tony pereira, sacha white, ira ryan, jordan hufnagel et al, were using the ethos of lightweight road bikes to create bicycles that could offer a turn of speed when asked, but were predominantly geared (pun intended) towards pragmatism. to an extent, that was the over-arching inspiration behind nahbs, subsequently apportioned by bespoked bristol.
bicycles with porteur front racks, usb charging hubs and clearance not only for wider tyres than usual, but fenders too. in fact, though sadly un-ridden for too many years, i still possess a steel chris king cielo outfitted with a pair of full wood fenders. it's hard to deny that velocipedinal practicality makes a great deal of sense, but probably more so in a confirmed cycling city, such as portland, than in cycle agnostic britain. that's not to disparage bespoked bristol which displayed a quality of work and inspirational design every bit the equal of north america. edinburgh's late-lamented, original shand cycles had considerable success with remarkably practical steel-framed bicycles that pre-empted the current gravel cult.
but, if you'll pardon an unsolicited pun, trends tend to go in cycles; unless there's a eureka moment espoused by the great unwashed, many never quite achieve escape velocity, and are swallowed up by the first big thing that simply watched from afar, awaiting the opportunity to resume its rightful position. i might cite the punk revolution of the 1970s, intent on undermining the progressive behemoths which the punks regarded as dinosaurs. at the risk of inciting outrage, prog band, genesis performed their final tour recently, with no sign of similar grand outings from either the sex pistols, stranglers, or souxsie soux. a quick recce of youtube will reveal that american prog rockers, styx, are still playing sold out stadium tours, while the ramones are conspicuous by their absence.
cycling has, more or less, reverted to the archetypal road bike; that's where all the technology has headed in recent years, with electronic gears, hydraulic discs, carbon wheels - in fact, carbon everything. take a look at the shop floor of the average branch of halfords or evans; aside from trek, cannondale and specialized road and mountain bikes, practical bikes look little different than they did when i was a teenager. everything else has a battery.
the revolution that never quite made it is still represented however, with the recent showing of germany's bespoked dresden, with corporate presence replaced by one-man booths featuring some highly innovative, hand-built bicycles that closely echo those of portland and bristol. i'm sure few of us would care for being compared to the motoring community, but in essence, we're not that different. way too many motorists drive hopelessly impractical cars, vehicles that offer acceleration that will never be used, seats that will be rarely sat in, and a top speed that's only legal at silverstone and monza. i ride to debbie's on alternate friday afternoons wearing a large rapha backpack filled with sales copies of the lates issue of the community newspaper. and i do so on a ritchey logic road bike outfitted with a campagnolo record, twelve-speed groupset and 28mm tyres on a pair of handbuilt wheels with campagnolo record hubs.
a tony pereira steel frame with dynamo lighting system, 650b wheels sporting 38mm tyres and a porteur front rack would make a great deal more sense. but for reasons none of us truly understand, we're on the sort of machinery that wouldn't look altogether out of place in a club criterium or even one of the spring classics. to make matters worse, we're all dressed to kill in rapha, endura, le col, assos or castelli.
why?
saturday 2 november 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................worse
microsoft word is a very well-known word processor which could, i daresay, be described as an industry standard, given its ubiquity across the world. further evidence for that claim would surely be bolstered by apple's pages word processor which not only opens word documents, but exports to that particular file format. the fact that word does not reciprocate would tend to suggest that seattle does not consider it worthwhile. that is surely underlined by statistics available from february of this year, showing the number of windows installed operating systems to dwarf apple's by 72% to a meagre 15%. however, the early editions of word were considerably less replete with features than the present day version.
as a slight, yet relevant digression, adobe's lightroom when first released to public beta, was considerably less complex than the version you may have downloaded as part of your monthly adobe subscription. originally intended as a means for photographers to catalogue each photography session and apply keywords to large numbers of images simultaneously, it has subsequently displaced photoshop in many photographers' workflow, having had many of its sibling's features added over the years. along with word and countless other software programmes, the purveyors seemingly find it necessary to continually add features that no-one actually asked for, in order to justify the monthly subscription charges. for those long-time users, that's probably not much of a problem; they only have to accommodate the minor updates into their already extensive skills.
for the new kids on the block, the learning curve just gets steeper and steeper.
i have broached this particular subject on previous occasions, though probably from a different angle. as a drummer who hopes to have his paradiddles on the pulse, though currently less than enthralled by electronic drums, i like to appraise each new release, just to see/hear if the sounds have become any more usable than i currently find them to be (though i still harbour doubts over the research and development dollars being spent to have electronic pads sound like real drums that can be purchased for a fraction of the cost).
but the overall problem with all of the above, is a pressing need to understand an ever-increasing number of available parameters. if my acoustic drums don't sound right to me, or feature a tuning that plainly doesn't match with the musical genre in which i'm expected to play, i have a simple drum key that i carry with me at all times, and with which it is fairly easy to effect a change. electronics, on the other hand, seemingly require the user to click through an endless number of screens to effect even minor changes. but worst of all, many of those adjustable parameters seem entirely unnecessary. from what i've heard of drummers employing either acoustic or electronic drumsets, there's a fashionable overall sound that the majority have chosen, rendering everything else an expensive panoply of redundancy.
the same goes for microsoft word; the majority will simply type documents and correspondence in the default 12pt arial typeface, before saving, attaching to an e-mail and sending. the fact that the content could simply have been typed into the body of an e-mail in the first place, is simply a triumph of marketing over function. bicycling too, is actually supposed to be a simple activity: sit in the saddle and pedal. yes, there will be those who require more from a bike ride than the majority; the need for gps, heart-rate numbers, power meters et al are of use to some, but probably not all of those who possess them. how many upload their rides to strava out of habit, or do so in order to gain the equivalent of likes on x or facebook, despite knowing full well that liking something online has become a socially acceptable response, effectively devoid of meaning?
experiencing a highly enjoyable bike ride, need not be followed by detailed examination of wattage, speed or distance, other than by the few for whom riding fast is a career move. and multiplying the navigation of panels/pages and identification of salient numbers has apparently become a necessity when considering the iniquities of virtual-riding indoors. following the announcement that training peaks had purchased the one-man-band indie velo and snappily renamed it training peaks virtual, subsequently watching a video presenting the reputed points of interest contained within the software, reminded me of nothing more than the formatting panel of microsoft word or any one of a number of electronic drumset control panels. instead of simply climbing onto the saddle and pedalling along with virtual partners, having witnessed the amount of information to be devoured, and aware of considerably more waiting in the wings, suddenly, we're not in kansas anymore.
and honestly, how many of you have spent time programming your di2 levers to do anything meaningful?
friday 1 november 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................weekend warriors
today's heading took a substantial degree of disguised enthusiasm to employ, given that, just like my scarcely concealed distaste for celtic folk-rock, it's a concept for which i have, in the past, offered substantial disparagement. when the velo club rendezvous for the start of the sunday bike ride, while the weekend part of the equation is entirely accurate, i harbour grave doubts that anything that follows could be likened to the behaviour of even an apprentice warrior. yet despite long having been the appellation apportioned to those of us who either like, or have to undertake something close to strenuous activity on either saturday or sunday, (or possibly both), weekend warriors hardly seems an equitable designation.
as a result, i invented the word 'pelotonese', partially to offset my distaste at the 'warrior' thingy, but principally to create a designation more in keeping with what i saw as the aspirational nature of our velocipedinal outings. i can but admit i also secretly hoped it was a noun that would find itself employed by other members of the cycling media; but apart from one dubious observation, that has remained an unfulfilled ambition. however, i think it fair to assume that pelotonese (including the velo club) all across the nation found themselves to be the target of rapha's pain and suffering dictum, arguably strengthening the case for the warrior bit. i have, however, opted to discount that possibility.
we have previously discussed the less than constitutional nature of the velo club; if we actually possessed a rule book, it would feature a single rule stating 'there are no rules'. the only bona-fide event for which we have found ourselves responsible in the last two decades, has been the 'ride of the falling rain', a ride for which the organisational labours pale into insignificance by comparison with even this week's 2025 tour de france route presentation, never mind the grand tour itself. but then, we are of disparate daily strategies; a quality control operative, a village store proprietor, a further education tutor, maths teacher and a dentist, amongst others.
you may recognise from the foregoing, that none of us are likely to be causing tadej or jonas any trouble in the foreseeable future, and you might also note that the above mentioned professions are the sort which occupy the weekly hours of daylight, though i do recognise there are cycle clubs all across the world, interspersing their weekend warriorship with midweek chain-gangs, hill-climbs or time-trials. however, most of us are of an age where we simply want to put on a cardigan and a pair of slippers after work and either type up the following day's cycling blog, or watch reruns of last of the summer wine. add to that the fact that nightfall seems to bring out the coterie of apprentice drivers in their formula one astras, polos anad honda civics. having witnessed the speed at which the majority think it impressive to drive, we collectively find it safer to remain indoors.
that just leaves us the weekends in which to impose pain and suffering upon ourselves and the pot ale tanker drivers who invariably have to struggle in our wake as we sprint for the nearest passing place. and concerning the restrictive nature of our cycling opportunities, more than one has queried the effectiveness of saturday and sunday warriorship. other than an ideal means of rounding off the week, before everything starts once again on monday morning, can such periodically frenetic activity be found to offer consummate gains? in other words, from a health point of view, are our weekend outings doomed to failure by the five days of relative inactivity that separate them?
questions such as those are scarcely confined to the ranks of the pelotonese. many a swimmer and runner has undoubtedly posed the selfsame query, and probably more than once. one of the unfortunate aspects of this conundrum, is an almost wholesale lack of qualification to answer any of the above. thankfully, qualified people have had the decency and perspicacity to seek out the truths before passing on the news that (spoiler alert) in essence, we're definitely not wasting our time. in fact, it transpires that our widely spaced approach to fitness may well confer benefits of which more regular exercisers find themselves bereft.
a study emanating from massachusetts general hospital has learned that those who fit a week's worth of exercise into one or two days, not only have a lower risk of developing a wide-range of diseases, but may possibly accumulate benefits for the brain. and though the study featured no categories of research into which type of bicycle might prove most beneficial, whether there really is any point to a gravel bike, or if sportwool has proven any better than plain polyester, they did claim that 13% of mild dementia cases would be eliminated if all middle-aged adults were to exercise at least once or twice a week.
for the benefit of the latter, we'll be leaving from springbank at 10am sharp on sunday morning.
thursday 31 october 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................so soon, vidal?
this friday, opting to be different from the usual duopoly of saturday and sunday cyclocross events, sees the start of the x2o badkammers trophy series with the much anticipated
the parcours is available on the event's website, along with details for spectators and those who need to park their cars in advance of viewing. happily, for those of us in thrall to cyclocross, even to the point of putting up with the road races that intervene between each successive october start to the cyclocross year, eurosport/discovery+ provide excellent coverage, with the two english language commentators being occasionally joined by former usa national champion jeremy powers, former british champion, ian field, and previous british women's champion, helen wyman. for the time being at least, gone are the days of searching out non geo-restricted european feeds, when being a cyclocross fan was frequently enhanced by incomprehensible flemish commentary, but somewhat restricted by appearing in a postage stamp-sized window in the middle of a web browser, regularly interrupted by inscrutable adverts that usually persisted through the most exciting parts of the race.
we are, so far, a mere five races into the season, having experienced three rounds of the exact series and two from the telenet superprestige series. as mentioned above, koppenbergcross will start the x20 badkammers trofee. the uci world cup series doesn't begin its mud trip until 24 november in antwerp. probably no-one will be suprised that none of the above mentioned cyclocross series were previewed in the media with a grand parade of lifeless packaging; they simply took place midst anticipation from remarkably well-informed cyclocross fans.
those less than interested in this particular branch of cycle sport are probably missing out on a style of racing that is frequently a deal more intense than all but the last few kilometres of any given road race, but even so, i think we're all in the position of knowing that the road season grand tours commence in may with the giro d'italia, the tour de france during those three weeks in july, and ending with la vuelta espana in august. the routes of both men's and women's giro d'italia are due to be revealed in rome on 12 november, yet oddly, the comparable routes of next year's tour were unveiled yesterday, offering sufficient fodder for wholesale frothing at the mouth by an entire peloton of punditry.
i do understand that it's necessary to preview the route for the benefit of the participating teams and press, all of whom have to research the logistics of transporting the hordes around france, including accommodation, bicycle and staffing requirements and adding up the not insignificant amount of money it's all likely to cost. for those keen to follow the event or simply spectate specific stages, prior knowledge is undoubtedly a prerequisite, but is it really necessary to prolong the fuss perpetrated during this year's event, by over-analysing every previewed twist and turn, nine months ahead of the grand départ. it's not even hallowe'en yet and the media already has jonas and tadej battling for top spot on the podium in paris. if nothing else, that must be a smidgeon disappointing for those who had perhaps harboured victory aspirations of their own. wouldn't it just be cheaper and less complicated to have the two protagonists race each other up the ventoux, winner takes all?
i enjoy the tour de france, and i'll be very sorry to see coverage disappear from itv4, but, at the risk of being on the receiving end of the slings and arrows of discontent, it's only a bike race. can't we just wait until lille on saturday 5 july and watch what happens?
at least in the meantime, there's cyclocross.
wednesday 30 october 2024
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................d.i.y.
britain's transport infrastructure is guided by many differing factors, not all of which are pulling in the same direction, and not all of which are as equitabe as you'd like to think. there are as many different reasons for this predicament as there are transport schemes, and even those which appeared once to have had the full backing of government, can find that something of a moving target as the years roll by and opinions and ministers change. the highest profile case that arguably proves my point, is the severely curtailed rail-project, hs2. at one time purported to provide speedier connections between the country's capital and the relative austerity of the north-east and, at one time, even expected to head to scotland's capital city, there's now serious conjecture that it might not even reach central london.
preparing for this national transport project has resulted in a great number of compulsory purchase orders for land and buildings standing in the way of progress. sadly, citing the 'greater need' as justification for destroying swathes of the engish countryside, often meant that protests against this progress resulted in arrests and detentions, despite several destroyed habitats now no longer required as a result of changes in plans and finances. i believe that britain is one of the few european countries in which the railway system is not in national ownership, creating an occasionally fractious rail network that doesn't always fulfil the desires of either the travelling public, or the government that seeks to encourage that particular mode of travel.
in the light of often dramatic climate and environmental change, present day governments are almost honour-bound to pay at least lip service to more rudimentary means of transport, such as cycling and walking, traditionally two modes that have received scarce attention from either westminster and holyrood. and though transport is a devolved activity, meaning scotland has responsibility for ensuring its subjects can travel as easily and environmentally soundly as possible, while westminster has the same responsibility to those south of the border. so far, so good, but there are iniquities to behold.
amongst the many, islay's particular problem is the one best known to thewashingmachinepost. as frequently highlighted, the island is in thrall to the malt whisky distillery, with ten currently in production and a further three in the pipeline. due to the slings and arrows of economics, though islay reputedly has sufficient stores of peat to last for around 1,500 years, not every distillery harvests its requirements locally. and islay is incapable of growing a sufficient amount of barley to supply the number of distilleries mentioned above. in fact, the only part of the single malt recipe that can be accessed at source, is water. all the other products have to be imported from scotland and, ultimately, sent in the other direction. for an island, that means ferries.
in order to cope with current and projected distillery output, to say nothing of the day-to-day needs of the island's inhabitants, there are two new, larger ferries under construction in turkiye, total cost for which is around £105 million. but those ferries, aside from transporting the necessities for the distilling process, will also bring an increased number of whisky tourists, the spending power upon which many of the island accommodation providers rely. it doesn't take a traffic analyst or genius to realise that all of the above places a substantial strain on the island's road network. from heavy trucks to an endless stream of cars, with many of those roads constructed on soggy peat, making them liable to continuous subsidence. almost all are struggling to take the strain.
there will be several amongst you who have already come to the same conclusion as the more astute residents. if all this is the result of distillery activity, should they not be made to pay? it's a theory with verifiable merit, but since the majority are owned by multinationals, levying proportional and equitable charges could prove particularly challenging, if actually legal. the treasury receives (to july 2024), £3.95 billion in annual duty from the scotch whisky industry, a portion of which emanates from this particular hebridean isle. perhaps if we could access a portion of that money to effect road repairs and upgrades, all would be well with the world. but, as pointed out above, transport and roads is devolved to holyrood, while the whisky duty goes to wesminster.
i'm sure you can see the problem.
situations such as the above are probably played out all across the nation, and in many, progress is likely stymied by political disparity. it's hard to argue against our being prisoners of the system, unless that system and our demands happen to coincide. from purely cursory observation, that doesn't seem a likely situation. so when a coalition of five of the largest cycle-to-work scheme providers decides to present parliament with a series of demands entitled a manifesto for cycle commuting, you have to wonder if it's something to categorise under the heading: 'well, we tried.'
i believe i may have asked the question before, but why is it that everything appears to be the responsibility of government? yes, i am undeniably politically naive, a fact that has been pointed out by many over the years; sadly, it's a situation that is unlikely to change anytime soon. but the manifesto described above, in order that it be fulfilled, requires government to include the needs of cyclists in its new road safety review, to provide long-term funding to build cycling routes, to have them expand the cycle-to-work-scheme, including low-income earners and the self-employed, and (surprise, surprise) to promote th use of e-bikes. naturally, this wish list is backed up by survey statistics, which contend that 45% of potential cyclists are deterred from commuting by bike due to safety concerns. we have discussed statistics such as this on previous occasions; while it is beyond doubt that there is some truth buried in those numbers, what exactly is meant by potential cyclists?
much as it is seen as socially irresponsible to express any reservations over holyrood's continued funding of the gaelic language, despite bord na gaidhlig advising that, despite decades of throwing money at it, gaelic isn't in the finest of health, many individuals are hesitant to admit that, no matter how many kilometres of cycle routes are built, there's zero chance that they'll ever be seen aboard a bicycle. perhaps on a bright, sunny summer's day, but in the depths of winter? are you kidding?
i'll willingly admit that i do not have any solution. i have no idea as to how to get more folks on bicycles, but i'm not entirely sure that simply building cycle paths is the way forward. when the new town of stevenage was built in the 1950s, it featured a substantial cycling network that provided acess to every corner of the new town. after only a couple of years, virtually no-one had used the cycle network, for the simple reason that the town's architects had made it every bit as simple to get about by car. in the words of the hypothetical actor, "where's my motivation?" for those who don't already cycle because they want to, there surely needs to be some incentive? if it was easier to get about by bicycle, there's always a likelihood that the advantage would be seized upon by some, if not all.
but meantime, if we, or the cycle industry (which obviously has its own economic agenda) want to get more bums on saddles, should we not address the problem ourselves in ways that do not involve governmental assistance, if only to achieve proof of concept before approaching either westminster or holyrood with the results? work on the basis that government doesn't actually care. because, to be honest, that's often what it looks like.
tuesday 29 october 2024
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