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bert was ok with it

i mentioned previously, my exasperation with the meteorological community's habit of anthropomorphising sturdy weather fronts by appending personal names, as if doing so makes any real difference to their effect. i have lived in the hebrides for nearly forty years and, climate change notwithstanding, the weather has remained pretty consistent; billy connolly's contention that scotland has two seasons (august and winter) has yet to be proved false, though this past august scarcely differentiated itself from its bracketed partner. providing names for so-called storms simply plays into their hands, aggrandising wind and rain, providing it with a false sense of importance. so doing seems also to predicate the cancellation of ferries, perhaps without closer scrutiny of the potential effects thereof. there's little doubt that ferries once sailed in the same conditions that now have them cancelled, and at one time, the ship's master was wont to wait until a matter of hours before departure time, before coming to a decision as to whether to set sail.

this weekend's storm was given the name 'bert', a more colloquial rendering of 'herbert', which was the name of my grandfather. it was preceded by ashley, the weather front that caused unnecessary grief for the sunday peloton back in october, when we heeded the surrounding negative publicity, and cancelled the ride. as it transpired, the weather over the period of the usual sunday parcours (10am - 13:30pm) was virtually benign; warm and sunny with only light winds. as mentioned above, the emergence of a named storm had already cancelled the sunday morning ferry, despite it have resulted in weather conditions more than amenable for sailing. i therefore resolved to ignore the portents of impending doom, by simply looking out the window in the morning and adjudging whether cycling might safely take place.

of course, it is prudent to also check the forecast, lest those morning winds promise to suddenly increase without prior warning. i will admit that i remained at home all-day saturday, when the winds during the morning hours were most definitely outwith my ability to pedal. they did ameliorate come the afternoon, but by that time i was deeply engrossed in watching urban cyclocross from kortrijk, aware that my evening would be occupied until the wee, small hours, practising my percussive skills at a local hostelry. bearing in mind that bedtime would thus be delayed in advance of a (relatively) early rise to participate in the sunday morning ride, discretion seemed the better part of valour.

so, with winds forecast to increase shortly after mid-day, i headed out to ride the first half of the parcours, intent on obscuring the second section in favour of riding straight to debbie's for an earlier than advertised coffee and a toastie. pretty sure that the rest of the sunday peloton would wimp out (i was 100% correct), i chose my cyclocross bike, affording the opportunity to ride the grass at uiskentuie strand and prevent any unfotunate tarmac incidents on what is always the least sheltered portion of the ride. as it transpired, this was a sane decision; on the return trip, the crosswind made forward motion only just possible, but at least partnered on both sides by cushioning grass, should the wind get the better of me.

just to place this in some sort of perspective, the windspeeds hovered around 80kph, though they may have edged upwards just a smidgeon by the time i returned.

i won't deny that there is a certain degree of obstinacy in setting out in winds of this strength, and i wouldn't necessarily recommend that you do so at home. but as pointed out above, i've lived here for almost four decades, and experience has taught me in which conditions i can ride and in which i should remain indoors. that experience has also taught me and my fellow hebridean velocipedinists how to safely ride in those windspeeds. but there's also a degree of tenacity that doesn't want to say 'no', this early in the winter season.

i asked bert, and he was ok with it.

monday 25 november 2024

whatever happened to epic?

you may recall a week or so past, i reviewed two books published by rapha editions - bluetrain publishing intent on celebrating twenty-years of raph.cc, and reminding us of the influence brought to bear from their small beginnings in imperial works, perren street, in london's kentish town. by way of a minor example, and attributable to both rapha and their nascent publication rouleur, during a visit to imperial works, offering the opportunity to sit on that pink sofa, original rouleur editor, guy andrews, recommended a small book by photographer, stefan vanfleteren, featuring monochrome images of flandrian racers, landmarks and cycling, embodying everything that the past twenty years have taught us is wrapped up in belgian cycling lore.

this was, if you like, kings of pain in miniature. though bereft of the commentary offered in the latter volume, that black and white imagery contained within the pages of both, conferred the very kernel of pain and suffering that rapha had encouraged us to believe, was part and parcel of even the sunday morning ride. of course, there's a world of difference between riding paris-roubaix or de ronde van vlaanderen in the worst of weather, and riding from bowmore to debbie's by way of kilchoman distillery. but while the distance and effort of the latter is undoubtedly several hundred levels below the former, round these here parts at least, the weather conditions are so similar as to be indistinguishable. not for nothing was i in the habit of stating that hebrideans were 'the flandriens of the west' (though more for effect than accuracy).

we have reached the time of year when farmers are readying the fields for next season. though the barley was harvested over two months ago, the barley straw remains in the ground, and at some point, will need to be ploughed in anticipation of next year's harvest. such concentrated agricultural activity brings tractors to the fore in herds; if my point made yesterday about pickups being needlessly oversized, then i'd venture that the same happened to tractors over a decade past. and if the tractors are bigger and more powerful, they're able to pull larger and heavier trailers filled with goodness knows what. yet though the pertinent activity takes place in the fields, identifiably large mud-tracks are part and parcel of getting to and from those selfsame fields, providing often skittish obstacles in the way of the unwary. not for the first time have i considered leaving the ritchey in the bikeshed and perambulating the estates on my 'cross bike for the winter.

but these are conditions confined to specific locations. inner city cyclists are unlikely to find dollops of mud en-route to the cafe stop. and for a time, if you've read rapha's the extra mile, perren street made a concerted effort to relate trouble and strife in the belgian hinterlands with negotiating the side streets of london, edinburgh, portland and new york. and a reasonable job they made of it too, with a valiant portion of commuting cyclists buying into the pain and suffering meme, along with those of us regularly doused with rain hail and wind as we skirted the north atlantic. even during the ubiquitous festive 500, images of californians in shorts and short sleeve jerseys on boxing day, suggested that they believed their own endeavours to fit neatly into the same category.

of course, matters have changed considerably in the past twenty years; a recent e-mail from portland, oregon gave testimony that their own particular halcyon days of yore, when the town was a veritable mecca for cyclists, have sadly passed. and far from any thoughts of north america reviving the rapha continental, in point of fact, having transferred the head office from portland, oregon to bentonville, arkansas, they've now closed it for good. i doubt it would be the same anymore anyway; as the shampoo commercial used to point out "you never get a second chance to make a first impression." the continental was innovative, exciting and quite literally breaking new ground. but nowadays we call it gravel, the uci produced rules to quieten the rebels, and mathieu van der poel won the gravel stripes. to all intens and purposes, gravel has become the velocipedinal equivalent of marks & spencers.

whatever happened to 'epic'?

sunday 24 november 2024

big

bowmore main street is on a steep slope, either leading upwards from the harbour to the round church, or, if leveraging the effects of gravity, the opposite direction. it's a road i avoid on saturdays, preferring to take a detour via the school and down school street past the distillery, because too many earnest saturday morning shoppers are likely to exit their cars without looking, and i'd rather not be crashing into folks crossing the road, or being car doored as i freewheel to the corner. however, earlier this week, as is frequently the case, i'd to pop down to the post box to deliver the office mail to the slot in the top.

as i reached the pavement on the far side of the road, i passed the tailgate of a ford ranger pickup, and found myself rather surprised to note that the upper point of the bodywork was more or less at eye-level. as pointed out in my opening paragraph, main street is on a slope, so i justified the height of this vehicle, examples of which are remarkably common in an agricultural island such as this, as the result of my having crossed at a point that placed me a smidgeon lower than the vehicle. so, on the return travail back to the office, i resolved to check my perception. unfortunately, my initial apprehension proved to be correct. standing adjacent to the ford's tailgate proved that it was indeed, pretty much the same height as yours truly.

that was the point at which i had to ask the rhetorical question, "why?"

checking the imagery on ford's website (and i'm only mentioning this brand because it's the vehicle of which i have personal experience. there's no doubt that others do likewise, so perhaps you can share the blame on my behalf?) i note that the front end appears a few centimetres higher than that on which i almost bumped my head. while this fact could easily prove of great dismay to the pedestrian population, it does give immediate cause for concern for those of us on bicycles. the late lord carlos of mercian owned a volkswagen caddy pickup, a pragmatically-sized utility vehicle which could carry a sizeable amount of stuff in its rearmost portion, the height of which was closer to my waist than to my head. even in a rural, agricultural region such as this, i do query just why anyone needs a five-seater pickup, the height of which is exaggerated by its elevated height above the wheels. rarely have i seen such vehicles driven across ploughed fields, arguably justifying such tyre clearance, perhaps suggesting that the ford ranger's resemblance to the even larger examples populating north american roads is geared more towards the owner's self-aggrandisement, than any notion of pragmatism.

the design of such vehicles may well be to brutally enhance the safety of the driver and passengers, but at what cost to more vulnerable road users such as you and i? were the situation to end there, we could perhaps compartmentalise the situation and agree amongst ourselves, that over-sized, double-cab pickups are actually of some inherent value within the farming community, but sadly, it doesn't end there.

every tuesday afternoon, i provide my percussive services to the islay schools windband, an ensemble conducted by the high school's instrumental instructor. last may, he drove me from bowmore to ardbeg distillery with components of my drumset for a band concert in the distillery's old kiln café. listening to and feeling every bump rattle and pothole, i was convinced that his ageing vehicle would never reach ardbeg, and almost certainly wouldn't make it back again. however, at the beginning of this week, as i returned from my morning walk, he stopped in his car for a brief chat, only this time he had become the presumably proud owner of a black mercedes suv, the size of which was all too clear as i conversed beside the driver's door.

the velocipedinist in me is wont to ask myself why one man needed quite such a large vehicle in which to transport himself, but it did tangibly make clear that, by and large, cars are certainly not getting any smaller, despite the alleged drive towards carbon neutral and similar environmental niceties. during the consultation process ahead of the commissioning of the two new calmac ferries for the islay route, the question was asked whether the available deck space was adequate for the ever-increasing size of britain's car traffic. according to the gent responsible for answering such queries, car ferries worldwide, use standardised parametrics to make such calculations. an additional question, and one which remained unanswered, was whether those parametrics were based on current realities, given that the selfsame measurements are reputedly used to define parking spaces?

personally, i'm inclined to blame the mini, now manufactured by bmw. when first introduced in 1959, alec issigonis' mini was actually a small car, an achievement made possible by fitting a transverse engine and gearbox with front-wheel-drive. the only thing mini about the current version is the name on the bootlid. i know not whether the visibly increasing size of contemporary vehicles is due to a similar increase in the size of the humans who drive or ride in them; after all, we are continually reminded that the world is in the grip of an obesity crisis. but despite incrementally improving safety features imposed upon the motor industry, why do these rarely, if ever, seem to take account of the effect on those not inside the vehicle?

though i do possess a driver's licence, i prefer not to drive at all, because i believe that, when doing so, i am not only a danger to myself, but to all other motorists oblivious of the incompetence that moves amongst them. conversely, i think it more than likely that i am a particularly over-confident cyclist, quite happy to stake my claim to what i believe is my piece of the road; that may be something that comes back to bite me. but i base this unsupported confidence on attempts to demonstrate to other road users that i exist and i'd really prefer that they take my presence into account when trying to make it to the 11am tour at laphroaig distillery. that confidence, however, may currently be sorely misplaced, following my (almost) close interaction with the tailgate of a ford ranger, double-cab pickup.

saturday 23 november 2024

air source heating

there can be few portions of scotland that have not recently experienced the onset of a winter-freeze, even out here on the western edge of civilisation, where sub-zero temperatures are rarely to be found. make no mistake, last weekend was cold, aided and abetted on saturday by a sufferable breeze. but since then, while the daily temperatures have been above zero, the so-called real-feel has projected apprehensions of below zero. i can confirm those projections to be darned nearly correct. thankfully, for the bulk of the week, sitting in a relatively warm office has allowed observation of hailstones on the window and a frosting of white on the pavements.

that state of affairs persisted until last night, when i attended a meeting in the gaelic centre on the outskirts of bowmore. this concerned the possibility of having to change the date of the annual agricultural show in the warmer days of august, due to its coinciding with the return of school pupils at the end of the summer holiday. the show has always adhered to a fixed date of the second thursday in august, but due to the above clash, a meeting was called to explore alternative possibilities. a neighbour, also intending to attend, had offered to give me a lift to and from the venue, a means of travel that, under the meteorological circumstances, i considered most welcome. however, a last minute decision on their part to travel to the mainland on thursday, removed that option in one fell swoop.

this immediately provided an opportunity for yours truly to be a martyr to the velocipedinal cause, by cycling the 3km round trip in the freezing cold.

it transpires however, that, irrespective of the ambient temperature, we personally exude heat even in the face of adversity, heat that the fine folks at strava appear to have the ability to approximate, even if few of us comprehend how that happens. aggregating the data uploaded by their acolytes (or athletes as they are wont to refer) provides information demonstrating just how many individuals perambulate the selfsame route to and from all manner of locations. i'd be inclined to imagine that a strava map of islay after the hours of darkness might easily be referred to as 'sparse'. and that, to a certain extent, could be seen as a problem.

though strava's description of these maps is preceded by the word 'heat', in point of fact, they seem to be utilising a variant definition. as far as i can figure, the so-called 'heat' is, in fact, simply represented by the number of journeys taken along any specific route. in this case, increased heat is represented by an increased number of journeys; the more of the latter, the greater the former. however, irrespective the generated 'heat', the purpose of the maps is to illustrate which might be the more safe routes to take after the hours of darkness.

but these new heatmaps are a tad more versatile than simply alerting athletes how to potentially remain safer during an evening's commute or training ride. aside from that already mentioned, there's a weekly edition, providing an overview of the latest weekly data, should you wish to be alerted to seasonal changes or unexpected closures. these augment the existing heatmaps which, rather pointlessly i would have thought, include a global edition showing the most popular routes worldwide. perhaps handy if conducting surveys, or completing a homework dissertation, but of little use to those of us in the hebrides should we learn that central dakar seems inordinately quiet on thursday evenings (for example). there's also a personal heatmap, a feature that has been around for a while, though why anyone would wish to ruminate over everywhere they've ever been since becoming an athlete, is beyond my ken.

while i, as a non-strava athlete, would hasten to disparage these arguably gratuitous gps augmentations, i fear that it this yet another datastream apparently invading what used to be an escape from endless data experienced across the humdrum day-to-day. professional riders may or may not be trapped by the need to consume any amount of data pertinent to their chosen vocation. it's a bit like the necessity for yours truly to keep abreast of calmac's ferry operations. however, i can assure you that, when i venture out of a weekend, the last thing that concerns me is whether the ferry is en-route to port ellen, or has been diverted to port askaig. it appears that strava has fallen into the trap expounded by almost all software providers, of attempting to justify the subscription fees by continually adding new features, whether asked for or not.

friday 22 november 2024

oh my giddy aunt

somewhere in the depths of thewashingmachinepost wardrobe, lies a sadly forgotten t-shirt with the legend 'steel is real' emblazoned across the front. memory has not yet reconciled me with the garment's colour, nor, indeed, any surety of it still being there, but it bears a sentiment that i still, at least until yesterday, spout as one of my long held ideals. if you're of a certain age, as i am, your first bicycle will almost certainly have been made from steel of some description; perhaps straightforward plain gauge, or possibly even of reynolds 531, the iconic decal which added inestimable value to any road bike, and certainly more well-known than either of its stablemates: 653 and 753. my second, third and fourth bicycles were all cast from the plain gauge shelf, before a little bit of knowledge brought me to the joys of 531 and subsquently 653. those were the halcyon days of yore.

it is, as you will soon see, quite topical and pertinent, that my first super-duper road bike featured columbus brain tubing, the angles of which comprised my first venture into road bike luxury by way of an impressively named, colnago superissimo. i do also possess one of the latter's siblings in the shape of a colnago master x-light, decorated in merckx molteni colours, but breaking with traditions in sporting a carbon fibre b-stay rear triangle. the front end, however, redeems itself by featuring a chromed precisa steel fork. but it's many a long year since colnago provided the professional classes with steel on which to ride. in fact, 1994, was the year in which they successfully translated the geometry and tubing parameters from the master frameset to that of the infamous c40, so named in recognition of colnago's forty years as a premier italian frambuilder.

i do also possess one of the original style c40s, resplendent in blue art decor, but i'm afraid to say that it languishes unused in the bikeshed, currently for want of a suitable wheelset, an important accessory that i have always intended to get around to acquiring.

however, since colnago's first steps into carbon fibre, they have scarcely looked back. there are still the handbuilt in italy c68 variants, augmented, or perhaps superseded by tadej's more favoured set of numbers in the shape of the v4rs. the master frameset is also still alive and well and retailing at around £2500, something of a bargain compared to the v4rs at double the price. and while we're discussing prices, cambiago released a special edition of the latter carbon, sold as a complete bicycle and painted to reflect tadej's impressive palmares. that, however, retailed at almost £17,000.

the latter, if required, would surely provide a pertinent answer to a recent gcn youtube video which asked, "has cycling become a rich kids sport?"

but on the occasion of colnago's seventieth anniversary, rather than carbon, they have opted to return to ernesto's roots, releasing the all steel, handcrafted and limited to only 70 worldwide, yet ineptly named, steelnovo. according to the announcement it is "...where past and present converge with every pedal stroke." despite its limited availability, i am somewhat at a loss to understand how one of the most basic of elements used in bicycle frames can be built to an eyewatering price tag of £17,000. (though priced in euros, previous colnago bicycles have more or less replicated that price in sterling when push came to shove.) granted, the componentry, sourced from their italian brethren at campagnolo, features the wireless version of super-record and associated vicenza branded items, simply adding to both the expense and exclusivity.

mere mortals presumably need not apply, but were apparently thrown a few breadcrumbs by way of a clothing capsule that would hopefully lessen the disappointment of being refused an appropriate mortgage by your bank manager. however, while i'm actually teasing you, colnago are teasing the while darned lot of us. wearing a black t-shirt which features a small, gold ace of clubs logo might well be the sort of chic we italian fanboys and girls desire to wear. whether we'd be quite so keen on learning it to cost £74 is a debate we have yet to hold. disappoitingly it gets considerably worse. (or exclusive as i'm sure cambiago would prefer it to be phrased).

feast your credit card upon the following: short-sleeve cotton polo shirt - £120, black round-neck sweatshirt - £413, black reversible vest - £413 black cashmere short-sleeve polo - £505, black hoodie - £505, (it gets much worse); black cashmere long-sleeve polo - £688, navy blue field jacket - £1,468, black 'varsity' jacket £1,651, and the final nail in the bank manager's desk, a navy blue trench coat - £2,018.

no wonder tadej needs a salary of eight million euros.

thursday 21 november 2024

reality check

i would hope that very few of you are unaware of my stance on e-sports and online cycling, disparaging though it may be. a friend of mine was astute enough to recognise that, far from resembling indoor cycling, it more correctly resembled indoor training. any comparison with the act of 'real' cycling is likely only to be accidental. though i have little doubt that there is a concerted definition of the word cycling, it's likely that the actuality is a great deal more wide-ranging than a dictionary's specificity.

though i like to believe every other sunday morning bike ride consists of similar aims and joys to that of the velo club outings, in truth i have indulged in mere guesswork. our 65km ride retraces its tyre tracks over only about 5km, taking us along many a single-track road, through verdant farmland, up and over a selection of short and sharp ascents and descents, within hailing distance of the north atlantic ocean, close to three of the island's ten working distilleries, around the perimeter of a loch, across several cattle grids, and into the cosy corner of our favoured coffee stop. for all of us, that's the very definition of cycling; it benefits those who may be training for 'external events' and offers several moments of sheer desperation for those of us who abhor the word 'training'.

what it definitely isn't, is an hour or two in a sitting room, garage or bikeshed, sweating buckets in front of an ipad or large screen tv depicting a verisimilitude of nowhere any of us have actually visited. fresh air it certainly isn't.

however, despite my facetiousness, i do recognise the value for a certain portion of the velocipedinally inclined, particularly those who may inhabit the realm of the so-called 'time-poor', allowing implementation of strategic training aims for one of those 'external events'. as graeme obree makes mention in his idiosyncratic training manual, indoor training is the ideal and possibly only means of making valid comparisons between rides, without weather conditions interjecting. you can ride the same parcours day in day out in the vain hope of seeing improvement, only to be foiled by a change of wind direction and strength, variations in traffic density, or even the occasional mechanical malfeasance. in the (not so) great indoors, those are unlikely interventions.

taken at face value, you would be forgiven for questioning my perpetual disparagement, and then this happens.

at the recent rouleur classic in london, ineos bike supplier, pinarello displayed a version of the dogma beautifully painted in zwift colours, that intriguing melange of orange and pink, augmented by a white zwift logo on the top tube. as you would perhaps expect, framesets such as this are not for the downtrodden, reserved only for the fortunate fifty who have the financial wherewithal to acquire such decorous carbon (£5,500). i can but hope that the purchasers find their way out the front door, for it would surely be a travesty were the above to remain indoors throughout its working life. yet, the tie-in with zwift, surely the paragons of online cycling, would tend to preclude choice of the great outdoors, given zwift's corporate aim to increase the population of watopia.

of course, there is a sting in the tail. those who acquire just such machinery and are inexorably drawn to ride it other than in the sitting room, garage or bikeshed, will be blessed with the opportunity to ride a similarly decorated avatar bicycle when engaged in battle within that ipad. i think it unlikely that prospective owners will outfit their brightly coloured dogmas with the least of the available groupsets, meaning acquisition of dura-ace, super-record wireless, or sram red. in any case, we're probably looking at an additional £3,500, plus an appropriate wheelset of around £2,000 and an allowance of a further, less than generous £1,500 for bars, stem, saddle etc. thi all equates to projected minimum spend of around £12,500. of course, it's eminently possible to spend considerably more. and all this before placing it carefully and possibly permanently, to a smart indoor trainer.

is it just me, or is that a bit weird?

wednesday 20 november 2024