..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

always something new under the sun

my good friend, richard sachs, has been building bicycle frames for around 45 years, probably having built more than he cares to remember. on his website he states "The fascination I (once) had with perfection has lately become an interest in elegance. Defining it. Channeling it. Embracing it. I think about how to bring back the elegance because I don't feel enough of it around in daily life.". if you've ever taken a good long look at richard's instagram pages or perhaps his previous flickr pages, you will find more than just a few images detailing his daily process of putting together arguably the finest steel bicycle frames in the world.

it would be easy to class him as a luddite; after all, here's a man still brazing lugged steel frames in his workshop, when the rest of the world is mightily obsessed with the black stuff. how out of touch can mr sachs possibly be? yet, there's still the matter of the lengthy waiting list. a lot of people still want handmade craftsmanship in these days of cookie cutter carbon. to once more quote richard "Bicycle frames were once made. Now, like almost everything else, they're manufactured."

the in-thing nowadays, though the lustre may have tarnished just a smidgeon, is the ubiquitous bike-fit, a habit that's perhaps not all it's cracked up to be. i undertook one of those several years ago from london's premier practitioners and i'd find it hard to deny the beneficial results. however, a more recent bike fit, undertaken at the behest of a bicycle manufacturer, seemed a lot less useful. having checked my every velocipedinal dimension, the bike subsequently sent for review was setup nowhere near the specifications they had provided.

"To this day, there are those who think you need a fitting, have to spend hours in front of a fitter while you're sweating on a stationary bicycle in some fit studio, and do it all while listening to Olivia Newton John through the earbuds. I listen to other things."

granted, my quoting of richard sachs is a tad disingenuous, for were we all to realise the error of our ways, there's not a chance in connecticut that the man could supply us all with bicycles on which to undertake the sunday morning ride. and despite that much hyped waiting list, mr sachs has hardly been his finest public relations manager, insisting that nowadays, he can see no good reason to order a custom frame unless you're very tall or very small. the bicycles i currently own fit me just fine thank you very much, yet there's probably nothing i'd like more in the bike shed, than a richard sachs bicycle.

the upside - or downside, depending on your point of view - is that ordering a bicycle frame from richard entails a few necessitous measurements and payment of the required deposit. the bicycle you'll eventually receive is the bicycle, based on those 45 years of experience, that richard is prepared to build, as near as dammit, the same as the one that preceded it. there's no point in asking for a slew of custom features.

after all, who knows best?

of course, bicycles were being built long before richard sachs learned to use a brazing torch, each constructed for the purpose to which it would ultimately be suited. no sense in building race geometry into a bicycle that will eventually have a wicker basket on the front, cossetting a small, short-haired terrier. however, no matter the skills possessed by the experts, the majority of whom will provide features that distinguish their wares from the manufactured majority, the wide variety of machinery currently commercially available seems to have pretty much every base covered. from mountain bikes with their three differing wheel sizes, full-suspension, hardtails and rigid, through cyclocross and so-called gravel bikes, to commuting cycles with flat bars and eventually onto drop bar road bikes with their sporting pretensions. and that's to say nothing of electric bikes.

so why, therefore, has a cycle company based in southern england, spent two years of research and development accompanied by twelve months of listening to customer feedback in order to produce their latest adventure bike? is the bicycle world really that impenetrable?

richard sachs

monday 29 october 2018

prendas/santini peugeot bp inverted long-sleeve jersey

i have, once before, broached the oddities of percussion-related sponsorship, where those favoured by the drum companies are said to be endorsers, giving the impression that those and such as those have given their blessings, rather than the other way round. so where peter sagan is sponsored by bora hansgrohe, were he a drummer of note, he would endorse bora hansgrohe. same thing, different nomenclature.

where there's a distinct similarity (of sorts) is in the proffering of special editions. though they've probably all sold out by now, it is possible, subject to having substantial amounts of the folding stuff, to acquire a peter sagan edition specialized sworks venge or tarmac. while it might be worth taking out a mortgage to purchase either if they promised the bike handling and speed of the slovakian rider, i tend to think those are unavailable optional extras.

the same can be said in the world of the drummer, where signature edition snare drums and cymbals abound. thus, if you happen to number yourself amongst neil peart's many acolytes, i believe there are three different drum workshop snare drums which, thankfully, have no chance of making you sound anything like rush's canadian drummer. sadly, i fear the same could be said about dave weckl's double-snare wire drum from yamaha, or any other so-called special edition. in pixelated print, it's easy to see the fallacy of fawning over such hardware; were i to percuss upon a tama bill bruford signature snare drum, i seriously doubt anyone would notice the difference.

the latter percussive instruments do, to be honest, bear a signature, though rarely individually handwritten on the inner shell. yet, it's a marketing feature that has infiltrated more than simply the snare drum shelf; steve gadd has a signature cowbell (yes, really) and i believe ludwig produced a buddy rich signature drumset to commemorate what would have been his 100th birthday in september last year. and should it truly be an instrument with at least a facsimile of a signature you're after, might i recommend istanbul cymbals' mel lewis signature series, where each does have the great man's name clearly scrawled near the logo stamp.

but then we bring ourselves nicely to the world of cycle jerseys, where none of us would ever dream of wearing a signature edition. for everyone, other than complete newbies, knows full well that the wearing of yellow, pink, red or rainbow is a faux pas from which it will take a long time to recover, usually resulting a lengthy period of riding alone, every sunday morning. that is, of course, unless you choose to wear my very own signature jersey.

and though i'm likely to suffer the slings and arrows of potential narcissism, this particular long-sleeve jersey is a special edition of a special edition on account of its inverted nature. by this, i do not refer to a need to wear it upside down or inside out, but simply that this is a black version of a white jersey. other than possibly eddy's molteni jersey (also available from prendas), the peugeot checkerboard must surely be the highest profile retro jersey in the history of velocipedinism. painting it black (just the way charlie watts would have liked it), was a stroke of genius.

but from whence, i hear you ask, does the signature part arise?

well, obviously by way of tribute to the fact that thewashingmachinepost simply refuses to lie down and roll over, andy storey had santini feature the initials bp on each sleeve. what a guy. aside from such attribution, this long-sleeve jersey fulfils all the promise offered by its opposite number: the three capacious rear pockets are joined by a zipped fourth version, the white collar is of well-judged height and the fleecy lining was more than welcome when riding in three degrees of windchill. aside from which, it looks utterly ginger peachy whether riding or supping froth.

the only embarrassing part is in admitting that i was riding neither peugeot nor michelin. but it's got my name on it (sort of). i can only apologise for obscuring the jersey's white collar with a richard sachs buff, but it was cold and there are limits as to how much of your art for which i'm willing to suffer.

the prendas/santini retro peugeot, long-sleeve jersey is available in either white or black in a huge range of sizes ranging from xs to an incredible 8xl. retail price is £79.99. | prendas/santini l/s retro jersey

sunday 28 october 2018

rapha's world tour education

earlier this year, a friend of mine successfully negotiated a contract to supply goods to a customer with quite possibly greater requirements than the majority of her current clients. there were one or two more hoops to jump through than would usually be the case and a somewhat procrastinated approval process, but i was assured that the rewards could well be worth her trouble. it wasn't long, however, before some of the lustre began to disappear when it transpired that, while this new customer had been informed of all the supply constraints, they either hadn't listened, or didn't actually care.

suffice it to say that the customer has now terminated the agreement, not because my friend was dilatory on her side of the bargain, but entirely because the client failed to pay heed to the necessary care instructions. though continuation of the contract may have potentially led to increased turnover and profits, the last time we spoke, she was happy it was all over and done with. "definitely more bother than it was worth", would be a close approximation of her relieved summary.

when rapha ended their sponsorship arrangement with team sky some two years ago, rumour had it that they'd found it an exercise they'd prefer not to repeat. though the beginning of the arrangement had allegedly been peppered with one or two supply problems, diving in at the deep end with one of the world's top cycling teams was almost bound to be a baptism of fire; while you and i might forgive the occasional minor garment tribulation, a world tour professional is far less likely to be so forgiving. however, over the course of the partnership, there's no doubt the profile of imperial works was more than adequately bolstered.

but rather than having retired to lick their wounds, resolving never to enter the fray ever again, came the recent announcement that rapha would partner with jonathan vaughters' 'education first' (ef) team for the 2019 season. ef will now become the title sponsors after drapac decided to end their partnership at the end of this year. if the rumours of rapha having become disillusioned with their first foray into the world tour, i asked rapha ceo, simon mottram, what's different this time round?

"We had a great learning experience with Team Sky. We had the opportunity to prove the technical prowess of our kit and work with a multiple Grand Tour winning team. The sponsorship changed our business profoundly. People on the team remain our friends. It was amazing to be part of the sport at the top level. We've always had a mission to help cycling become more popular, so this time around we want to focus on the characters and heroes of the team to elevate cycling as a sport, globally.
After Sky, we took our time to do some involved research on the state of the sport and the resulting study has helped shaped our return to the men's World Tour. We want to help improve the sport and to reach a new audience. We are so pleased to be back in the men's World Tour with EF."

if i might briefly return to the friend mentioned in my opening paragraphs, if nothing else, her recent experience has given her the confidence just to say "no" in future, if the prospect of a new client threatens to ruffle the laid-back manner in which she usually operates. though i'm not attempting to compare her circumstances with that of rapha, it does seem more than likely that rapha will have learned a great deal from the first time round. is that likely to have them better prepared to work with jonathan vaughters in 2019?

"We know now, how a World Tour team operates, what their needs are, and what specifically we can provide kit to a very high calibre. We have lots of product innovation we can bring to the team. On the content side, EF have been incredibly open-minded to our suggestions and helped us take a different approach to this partnership."

the further up the food chain you go, in almost any industry you care to mention, the longer it seems to take to push through any new development. if i decide tomorrow morning that i'd like a change from publishing all this on a yellow background, it's a simple matter of changing the rgb code in the stylesheet. had i managed to reach the heady heights of corporate consolidation, there would no doubt be a slew of meetings to be held, focus groups, teams of consultants and a number of iterations of website design that might be deemed corporately appropriate. line all this against an apparent reluctance to to be the one who makes the final decision and, improving communication speeds notwithstanding, it's no wonder things take a long time to happen.

i therefore asked simon if the partnership was a recent development, or had they all been working behind the scenes for years? "Two years ago, Rapha commissioned a study to examine the problems with cycling as a professional sport. This largely found that the racing calendar is broken, sponsorship needs modernisation and cycling's fan base is small, fractured and not remotely reaching its potential in terms of global interest. So, we knew that when and if we re-entered professional cycling, it would have to be through a sponsorship arrangement with a difference and not just another kit deal.

"There are so many extraordinary bike races that deserve a wider audience, but the current World Tour calendar is confusing and congested. We're hoping that, by focusing our content on personalities and key races, we will help the sport become more engaging to a new audience. Fundamentally, the sport needs to be more exciting, reach more fans and become more valuable. We think a fresh calendar of mixed discipline races and a focus on characters and heroes will bring some excitement back.
"Before we worked with Sky, people asked me who I'd like to sponsor if we ever entered the World Tour. My natural answer tended to be Slipstream (now EF). So when I got a call from Philip Hult at Education First to ask if we wanted to form a partnership, and they were open to trying to change the sport from within, it was obvious that this was the moment to do it. So it's been in discussion for a while.

along with many aficionados of contemporary cycling, it has always seemed odd, to say the least, that those providing kit, components, or bicycles to the world's top cycling teams, are required to pay for the privilege. though i'm sure few of us have need of million dollar budgets to help finance our weekend bike rides, we'd mostly give our left cleat for some free stuff, happy to tell all and sundry just how utterly amazing it all is. but while sponsorship, is sponsorship, is sponsorship, not every arrangement is the same as its neighbour. is a 'partnership' simply sponsorship by another name? rapha will apparently become education first's kit and media partner, so what on earth does that mean?

"Rapha is well known for creating great content. In the last 14 years we've released around 300 films. Our storytelling credentials are second to none in the industry. So it makes sense that, off the back of the study, which found that the sport needs more interest and more fans worldwide, we would want to think about how we could change that across various media. With our media sponsorship of EF, we're bringing to the WorldTour, our talents in creating content.
"We'll be embedded with the team, capturing film and photographic content and highlighting the heroes and characters of EF. This is one of the amazing things about the partnership, that we'll be given full access to the team to tell the personal stories, the side of racing that a lot of people never see."

you can pretty much see what education first are getting from the deal, but what about rapha? there are only so many kudos to be garnered from having your logo seen adorning several brightly coloured jerseys in the professional peloton and few of those are bankable. so is simon viewing the partnership as a means of aiding and abetting rapha's continual development at the cutting-edge of cycling apparel?

"In short, yes. The constant demands of World Tour racing and training on kit, means that we'll constantly be gathering information for R&D and feeding this back into our main range of products. Our work with Team Sky informed many of our advancements in the Pro Team Collection, specifically with Aero and Shadow (our bad weather performance fabric)."

at the end of last century - twenty years ago, to be precise - the islay jazz festival landed on our shores with a title sponsor drawn, unsurprisingly, from the whisky world. this particular sponsorship lasted for several years before the agreement came to an end, by which time the festival had begun to stake its claim on the international stage. the current sponsor also has distillery affiliations and there's no doubt that they are reaping some of the rewards paid for by the original sponsor. many of us wonder why the first incumbent relinquished their hard-won spoils, just as they appeared to be about to mature?

it's a situation that seems to frequent cycling's world tour and many of the lower levels on an annual basis. simon will be already well-aware of this potential conundrum, so is the rapha/education first partnership and open-ended arrangement, or is there a fixed contract in place? "For now the agreement is for three years, which can be extended if we would like to continue beyond that."

i've yet to see the results of the initial team kit designs, doubtless being kept under wraps until the 2019 season begins in january down-under, but on the face of it, this promises to be a partnership to keep us all potentially interested and enthused for the next three years at least.

saturday 27 october 2018

peaky climbers. paul mcintosh with anna hughes. brown dog books paperback. 158pp illus. £10

imagine, if only for a moment, that you, me and some other riding colleagues have decided to undertake the ride of the century. after a year and a half's worth of training and strict nutritional observance occupying every waking minute and several more while we're asleep, the intention is to take ourselves lock, stock and barrel to the continent and commit ourselves to a purgatorial route across the most mountainous terrain we could find.

at the moment, you're thinking 'so what?', based entirely on the knowledge that there are similarly deluded individuals doing this sort of thing, year in, year out. but wait for just a minute; rather than all this being in the name of narcissism and self-aggrandisement, we're going to do it to raise as much money for charity as possible. at which point, you'll no doubt point me in the direction of that initial thought...

'so what? after all, there are people who do this sort of thing all the time and not just on bicycles.

but let's suppose that, alongside all of the above, i let you know that the entire undertaking will be documented in both words and photographs to end up as a self-published book, which will also be sold to raise even more money for the, as yet, un-named charities. running true to form, that strikes me as hardly the best idea any of us have had, particularly the book bit at the end. that, to be quite blunt, sounds terrible.

but the real thing, sitting on the arm of my armchair as i write, is very far from terrible. in fact, not to pre-empt my review, 'peaky climbers' is quite brilliant.

though something of a sweeping generalisation, self-published books rarely compete with what we might, for the time being at least, refer to as the professional product. but sit this next to one of the latter, and you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference.

the book is subtitled, 'how eight amateur cyclists became kings of the mountains', from which you might reasonably derive that the object of their charitable velocipedinal attentions, was a selection of tour de france mountian tops. quite probably every road cyclist harbours dreams of ascending the alps and pyrenees to add to their palmares. but in those visions, we're most likely imitating the grimpeurship of the professionals. in other words, we climb like gods.

reality isn't like that, a fact that our eight, considerably less than deluded heroes discovered en-route to a successful conclusion to their challenge. but first things first; before enjoying a well-written, concise and smartly paced narrative, the reader is met with a dedication to the memory of maisie norton and valerie mcintosh, the deaths of whom inspired this seemingly eccentric undertaking. proceeds from the sale of every copy of peaky climbers are being donated to the 'caring cancer trust' and the 'british lung foundation'. if my review stopped here, that would surely be reason enough to purchase.

chapter one introduces the eight protagonists, setting the tone for the often whimsically self-deprecatory text. "Graham Cherrill, the most capable cyclist of us all. [...] essentially riding to help the rest of us out - there's no point in making it any easier on him than it needs to be." over a period of seven days, yet eighteen months in the making and beginning with the 1520 metres of the hautacam, the octet of cyclists rode up one mountain, descended the other side and immediately started on the next. this undertaking in excess included the three ascents (and descents) of mont ventoux. just for good measure.

the blame, should any need to be apportioned, for subjecting eight pairs of legs to quite so much climbing - including one rider who suffered from vertigo - lies squarely at the pedals of author paul mcintosh.

"...I was approaching my 50s, and I needed to do something momentous." roping in seven colleagues to go climb some french mountains was apparently seen as a more fitting means of satisfying his mid-life crisis than buying a porsche. the sadly motivating reason for the undertaking, was the premature death of his mother from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and the equally premature demise of maisie smith from cancer at the age of only 17. "If I could raise a substantial amount of money for the British Lung Foundation and increase awareness of the disease..." monies are also being donated to the cancer caring trust in memory of maisie.

however, if you're of similar mind to yours truly, the prospect of reading 158 pages about eight, well-meaning amateurs riding up and down whacking great mountains, is not one that might fill you with glee. at which point, it gives me great pleasure to eat humble pie, because on more than one occasion, i found myself reading much larger chunks of the book, at one sitting, than i'd intended, completely engrossed throughout. the narrative makes repeated reference to the trials and tribulations incurred while preparing for those days in french france, intertwined with the agonies of climbing such big hills in such short order.

"Each day we fall behind schedule, and it is often dark as we roll into our B&B"

the fact that the peaky climbers raised a substantial amount of money for charity while wearing out both of paul mcintosh's knees, and that the proceeds of the book's sales are designed to bolster that amount even further, could be seen as reason enough to buy a copy for yourself and one for everyone you know in the peloton as a christmas present. (they set out to raise £30,000. at the time of writing, they'd raised £61,088). the added bonus is that it's a story well worth reading in and of itself.

truly, we are not worthy.

peaky climbers - the book

friday 26 october 2018

the english cyclist

i have, stored on the macbook air we discussed yesterday, a mocked up photograph of a large stone on which is inscribed 'welcome to scotland. sorry for all the sh*** you had to driver through to get here'. i kept it because i thought it was quite humorous, even though it is manifestly untrue. i've no doubt there are parts south of the border that would scarcely merit being described as picturesque and i know from personal experience that there are train journeys in central london that i'd prefer not to have made, but by and large, england is every bit as attractive as scotland. to pretend otherwise would be a tad naive at best and somewhat discriminatory at worst. even when the border between the two countries is crossed, there's no actual line on the ground; england is still the same bit of ground that was scotland and vice versa.

so, on receiving an e-mail from a gent operating under the nome de plume the english cyclist, i am every bit as interested as i would be if there was a counterpart known as the scottish cyclist. or the welsh cyclist for that matter. as it turns out, rob, (for that is his real name), has amassed a particularly impressive portfolio of cycling stuff in which i think most of us will be interested.

no matter your enthusiasm or obsession with the way of the bike, there are only so many hours in the day or days in the week that can be spent in the saddle, meaning a lot of downtime spent thinking about cycling. that's probably a sport in its own right, in the way that golf isn't. and in much the same way that meditation can be highly effective when concentrating upon a specific object or thought, surrounding yourself (or the café in which you live) with directly related ephemera could obviously be considered good for the soul.

rob's got your back.

he's also got a darned good eye for an attractive poster and graphic, which is where the surrounding ephemera mentioned above arises. my velocipedinal eye was particularly attracted to an a3 sized poster featuring the team or national jersey of every tour de france winner between 1903 and 2018. yes, even geraint features in the bottom row, five jerseys in from the left.

as with many such cycling-based collections, it would be possible to seriously trouble that flexible-friend, for no sooner had i drooled over the above poster, than my typographic senses were enticed by a series entitled elongated sans, headed up as 'type created by father, posters created by son'. i have always had affection for family based industry, especially when it looks this good and specifically related to cycling.

but the pice de resistance, i have saved to last. when i was a student at art college and, as you might expect, drummer in an art school band, the fellow who played bass guitar was studying marine engineering at the local technical college. part of his course entailed learning the phonetic alphabet; alpha, bravo, charlie, delta etc. that he may have been slightly slow off the mark can be demonstrated by the fact that he would often visit the art college at lunchtimes, during which i would test him on his knowledge of the subject. suffice it to say, i learned the entire alphabet quicker than did he.

a phonetic alphabet serving the purposes of mariners, the aerospace industry and the emergency services is all very well, but what of the hapless velocipedinist? should there not be a similarly curious variation in the manner of velominati's rules? thankfully, appearing at a3 size and printed on 260gsm satin finish photo paper is the very alphabet that has been missing from the peloton for too many years. rather delightfully, a is for aero, b for bottle, c for crank and v for velodrome. and quaintly enough, z is for zip-tie. i couldn't have fabricated it better myself. for a mere £25, it could hang on a coffee shop wall near you.

naturally enough, my small print ought best to state your mileage may vary. for perhaps, amongst this veritable cornucopia of artistic cycling paraphernalia, there will be items that suit your own preferences and which you may prefer to choose rather than the items above described. the english cyclist, to give him his sunday name, has created a virtual playground for the pelotonese, one that offers a lengthy period of meditation.

until it's time to go out cycling again.

the english cyclist

thursday 25 october 2018

rapha for apple macbook 13" sleeve

the adoption of a pain and suffering persona when cycling, talking about cycling or merely thinking about cycling, can, with a bit of practice, become a default characteristic. though cycling is often characterised as the 'toughest sport in the world', it's an epithet more readily associated with the competitive milieu, rather than a sunday morning perambulation of the neighbourhood. do not mistake my targetting; there will be often lengthy sections of that weekly ride where the intrepid rider might develop the ability to breathe through the ears, but there will also be kilometres where cheery banter between fellow velocipedinists, distracts from the professed hardship.

staving off the inevitable switch from bibshorts to winter bibtights for as long as possible and refusing to wrest a rain cape from a back pocket on the basis that "it's only a shower", will doubtless gain an excess of brownie points. and for those of the male persuasion, keen to defy fausto's mandate to be clean shaven at point of departure, by avoiding the small black tin of ventous inspired shaving foam, such a carefull curated persona might possibly acquire an impressive gravitas.

or maybe not.

but no matter your stance on any or all of the above, other than those who have published biographies with the words 'shut up' and 'legs' in the title, or are intent on riding paris-roubaix at the age of 52, few of us truly know the meaning of 'ex duris gloria'. our cycling wardrobes are likely full of cossetry, apparel and garmentage that will ease any potential discomfort while in the saddle. and be honest, when was the last time you saw the participants of liege-bastogne-liege stopping midway along the parcours for a bout of froth-supping, augmented with freshly made pancakes?

exactly.

were i sufficiently well-versed in the finer points of latin, i'd have an heraldic crest embroidered on my jersey's leftmost rear pocket proclaiming 'comfort and joy'. and were my wimpishness ever in doubt, there's simply no way i'm heading out to debbie's of a sunday morning, without dispensing with any overnight vestiges of hirsuteness. yet even though the world's purveyors of cycling garmentage pay lip service to that 'ex duris...' stuff with one hand, with the other, they're handing us waterproofing, windproofing, insulation, and chamois comfort the likes of which has never been previously experienced this side of easter island.

when that particular realisation finally dawns - and at some point it most certainly will - it is one ready and willing to pervade each and every nook and cranny of cycling life and life itself. which means even that part of the venn diagram that subsects the little bit of remaining civilian. that's why, in direct contravention of rule #22, the cool kids wear casquettes at any time of day or night. it's also why you have a 'mycampy' app on your smartphone. though the latter device may have overtaken the desktop or laptop computer in the daily quest for internet access, there are still some software applications far too onerous to require any less than intel inside.

which is precisely why that 13" apple macbook air deserves to become part of the family, cosily and safely ensconced in a rapha padded sleeve.

many, over the years, have pointed out similarities between the outpourings from one, infinite loop and those of london's imperial works. there is the same obsessive attention to detail, a similar design ethic and the same uncanny knack of providing items that we were previously unaware we needed at reassuringly expensive prices. and now, though previously only available via the apple store, items such as this macbook sleeve can be ordered direct from rapha.cc. its purpose in life may be a simple one, but it's one that it performs admirably.

the sleeve, available in three different colourways, is constructed from a tough, water-repellent outer fabric, with pockets of down padding to keep it safe. the latter feature is assisted by an incredibly close fit. in fact, so tight was the fit on first use, i wondered if i had been sent the smaller 12" sleeve. however, the fabric has a modest smattering of stretch and impressionable padding that: it does fit, and very well at that. the sturdy, full-width zip is, according to rapha, splashproof, but more accurately resembles those featured on the front of some of their finest waterproofs.

comforting.

i'm loath to admit that my daily commute is pretty much always on foot, but velocipedinal pride demands not only that my macbook air experiences rapha's cossetting, but that it is contained within a brooks pickwick cotton backpack, as befits my style-icon status (just like brian smith). there's also a small internal pocket capable of storing a one terabyte backup disk and accompanying usb cable; one can never be too careful with one's valuable data.

i didn't know i needed one of these, but now it might be hard to do without. (windows users need not apply).

rapha's apple macbook padded sleeve is available to fit 12", 13" and 15" apple laptops at a retail price of £55. it can be purchased in fluorescent yellow/grey, black/grey and a brevet inspired dark navy/pink. |rapha for apple macbook sleeve

wednesday 24 october 2018

assos mille gt hashoogi winter jacket

there have been moans.

and the reason i know there have been moans, is because i am one of those responsible for moaning. the targets of this untrammeled disaffectation, are the spring classics and, more recently, the current european cyclocross season. as with the majority of moans, these are of superficial countenance; there is little, if anything, wrong with the racing or those tasked with participating. more specifically, the problem is with the weather, or rather, the lack of it. for instance, who amongst our seried ranks can recall the last time it rained at paris-roubaix?

the hell of the north gained much of its reputation based on finish-line images of muddied riders with fresh skin only visible where their googles/eyewear had been, during the preceding fraught and cobbled battle. more recently, we have been treated to riders in shorts and short-sleeve jerseys all but invisible midst clouds of dust thrown up by the camera motorbikes, team cars and mavic neutral-service bikes. i daresay, from the point of view of the riders, it's still hell, but for the spectators?

now you know from whence the moaning arises.

and exactly the same is applicable to the most recent cyclocross races, both uci world cup and super prestige events. in my cycling book library in the spare bedroom, there is a hardback entitled 'dirty pictures' featuring a superb array of cyclocross images originating from portland, oregon. the overwhelming memory as the last page is turned, is one of gloopy mud. that, quite frankly, is what we signed up for.

the quizzical part of this conundrum, one that we conveniently manage to ignore, is that while purgatory may be all very well for the pros, it would be much appreciated if none of it was visited upon our goodselves. when sunday morning arises from the gloom of night, it would be really appreciated if that gloom didn't continue to pervade the hours of daylight. but if it does, we'd really like garmentage that doubles as a force-field against the elements. oh, and could it look particularly stylish into the bargain?

though i'm in fear of pronouncing out loud, the name on the left sleeve (hashoogi) lest folks think i have a sneezing cold, the assos mille gt winter jacket looks every bit as if it might fit the bill. effectively a three-layer thermal softshell, i do remain slightly questioning of the swiss company's logic behind painting it predominantly black. according to assos this has "...proven a wise choise to combat dirty winter roads". i'm not altogether sure that's a theory borne out in real life, at least, not this far west, but with a brightly coloured back (red, in this case) and lower arms, its not entirely invisible in crappy weather.

what isn't arguable, is the jacket's eminent fitness for purpose. the fit is the exemplary and legendary assos race-fit, offering a professional look to honed misfits such as yours truly. the outer fabric offers a level of water resistance that was substantially better than i'd expected. even an hour or so into sporadic heavy rain displayed those adorable water baubles on the jacket's surface. also very much in its favour, is a decent level of breathability; no cycle jacket ever seems as breathable as the cyclist inside would demand, but the hashoogi comes pretty darned close.

and i confess, i'd forgotten just how good a high collar can be.

as to the professed warmth on offer (it is a winter-jacket after all), having taken assos' advice and paired it with a long-sleeve base layer the faithless cynic within had me add a thermal gilet underneath. i was scarcely but a few kilometres into the sunday morning ride, when i'd to embarrassingly stop to remove it. and having done so, there was never any question that those flexibly voluminous rear pockets would swallow it whole, along with a mini-pump, a compact digital camera, spare gloves (you can never be too careful - it's a jungle out there) and, even more embarrassingly, a stowaway rain jacket.

on subsequent rides my faith has been restored.

so, while there's very little likelihood of my moaning about the classics and 'cross ending anytime soon (unless the climate changes for the worse) at least when the crap heads in my direction, the shields are up, to use a star trek metaphor. if stylish weather protection is a box on your own list that has yet to be ticked, i may have the very solution.

the assos mille gt hashoogi winter jacket is available in red, blue and black, in sizes ranging from xs to xl plus the 'tir' fit for the larger fellow. retail cost is £215. | assos mille gt winter jacket

tuesday 23 october 2018