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colour is the new black

some of you might recall when apple computer and chip producers intel were locked in daily battle over who sported the fastest processors (notwithstanding the fact that, at the time, apple's processors were manufactured by lance's one-time sponsor, motorola). whatever the reality of the situation, greatly depending on quite what you required your computer to do (really fast processors scarcely make a lot of difference if the main task is using microsoft word), there's little doubt that apple offered the most creative advertising to persuade its users that they held the technological high-ground.

of course, all is now moot, with the erstwhile occupants of infinite-loop having moved lock stock and barrel to intel, anyway.

this form of comparison is no longer the thrust of computer technology advertising, preferring nowadays, to concentrate on the quality of the screen resolution. even the maximum amount of memory that can be squeezed into the computer's innards seems no longer of concern, and with solid-state hard-disk capacity at its lowest price ever, pointing to several terabytes of storage is so last year.

and witness the current presentation of mobile phones. though the all but unpronounceable huawei is hardly flavour of the month with either donald trump, or those keen to engender the much-vaunted 5g connectivity, you would perhaps be forgiven for thinking their principle raison d'etre, was deeply entrenched in the world of photography, rather than communication. similarly, the world of the motor car; where once the central attraction revolved around the acceleration figures (0-60mph), economy and environmental concerns have diluted that to the point of non-existence.

it's quite some time since i visited a cycle-show, but it the cynic in me found it hard to accept the advertised uniqueness of each brand, when, in many cases, the fields of carbon fibre on display, seemed to be differentiated principally by means of the large lettering featured on the downtubes. we've been through the latter many times before, where i have pointed out that if the principal manufacturers are all entrusting their bicycle designs to that of their software packages, it's of little wonder that ubiquity begins to rule the roost.

which brings me onto the subject of cycling apparel, or, at least, the annual ranges presented for our garmentage pleasure. over the past decade and a half, there has been a notable explosion in the technological advances brought to bear on our behalf, where it is well nigh impossible to gain a thorough soaking, as in the old days, when breathable equated to the waterproofing qualities of a sieve. blue we are now well-adorned with odourless, wicking baselayers, worn under technical outer fabrics designed to transport any perspiration to the surrounding atmosphere. there are bibtights and bibshorts with impressive compression qualities, adding veneer to those hard-won chiselled thigh and calf muscles.

a long way from woolly jumpers dragging on the rear tyre when wet, and shorts that kept their shape only until the first wash.

but, in the same manner that continued economic growth is rather obviously unsustainable, any cycling apparel provider worth their salt, can hardly continue to add technological advancements to the wardrobe indefinitely. though i'd scarcely contend that the waterproof/breathability conundrum has been completely solved, it would be naive to consider that progress could continue at an unfettered pace. but those economics i mentioned only a few sentences past, pretty much demand that new stuff be made continuously available to an eager velocipedinal public, a state of affairs that seems now to rest on colour.

my inbox, though hardly saturated, has recently received more than its fair share of garment related press releases, many of which offer the same jersey/jacket/shorts/tights as were flavour of the month last year, but ought now be considered new and innovative because the colour has changed. it's a feature that has been seen on bicycles for many a long year.

colour may thus be not only the new black, it might even be the new technology.

friday 24 may 2019

tour de islay, stage two

four years ago, almost to the day, i joined three chaps from the edinburgh-based scotch malt whisky society, on the inaugural tour de islay, an all-day bike ride incorporating all (then) eight distilleries on the island. they had brought with them not only a stills (pardon the pun) photographer and a fellow with a movie camera, but a set of rubber stamps (one for each distillery) and brevet cards, ultimately intended to allow cycle visitors to each, to have their cards stamped as a record of having visited, if not necessarily toured, each distillery.

that original ride was notable for two distinct reasons. firstly, in the manner of every cycling photographer with whom i have ever worked, it was never enough to have cycled up an extremely short, but steep incline (bunnahabhain and caol ila in particular) only once. the catchphrase for the day was always "could you just do that once more?" add a film-maker and the number of repetitions grew exponentially.

secondly, having visited the three southernmost distilleries of ardbeg, lagavulin and laphroaig, i persuaded my accomplices to ride the more attractive route north, via the glen road to ballygrant, thence onward to caol ila. unfortunately, those in the support van were not party to this discussion and took the more obvious route via bowmore and bridgend. as we languished by the pier at caol ila, frantic telephone calls were being made to find out just where the bicyclists actually were, since the support crew had not passed us on the way. this engendered a longer than necessary stop at caol ila, while we waited for their arrival.

with the opening of ardnahoe distillery a matter of weeks ago, we now have a ninth box to be ticked off the list. however, given that the latter has a rather fine café, i hope to have us first visit bunnahabhain at the end of the road, and pop into ardnahoe on the return trip, for a spot of lunch. two birds with one stone, so to speak. munching will, of necessity, be accompanied by at least one double-espresso to aid the climb of the particularly steep ascent, but a matter of metres from ardnahoe's doorstep.

i have been promised a better-fitting jersey for this year's expedition, one apparently advertising one of the smws exclusive bottlings, rather than the event itself (see above illustration).

on leaving ardnahoe, we'll head south west to kilchoman distillery (or rather, they will; i'm more likely to make excuses and nip into debbie's at bruichladdich for yet more coffee and cake, before they return and we all ride through the gates at bruichladdich. at that point, that will leave us only the distillery that lives a few hundred metres from the croft in bowmore. the majority of the peloton will then depart for their overnight lodgings at islay house hotel in bridgend, while i will lie down in a darkened room for what remains of the day.

though this is not an advertised event as such, and does not form an official part of the 2019 islay whisky festival, if you happen to be in the vicinity with a bicycle, you are more than welcome to join us for all of, or part of, the trip. to be on the safe side, you'll need to be at ardbeg distillery for 09:30 on saturday 25 may and take a few pence with you for food at ardnahoe.

see you there.

thursday 23 may 2019

look at it this way...

very surprisingly, i got a puncture on saturday. i say, 'surprisingly', because, despite the decrepit state of islay's roads, my tyres appear to be quite happy to remain inflated for the bulk of my velocipedinal activities. granted, a pair of tyres lasts a demonstrably shorter period of time than was the case in the past, but i very much doubt that's a state of affairs peculiar to myself. the reason for the puncture is really neither here nor there and as i was carrying the necessary items to effect repair, it was very much a case of 'all's well that ends well'.

unlike broken gear or brake cables, or dead batteries on an electronic setup, punctures are an intrinsic part of cycling, the only surefire means of avoiding them entirely would be to fit a pair of solid tyres. the latter are an invention that seems to struggle big time to gain any real traction (if you'll pardon the pun), one that resurfaces every now and again, purporting to be a panacea to all our ills. the only reason that i can think is working against this becoming the case is an inability to vary the pressure.

though it's more common in competitive cyclocross, choosing the correct pressure for the road and/or weather conditions is a luxury exercised by many a professional team, though i'm none too sure i see its application in the more mundane world of day to day cycling. raise your hand if you've ever increased or decreased your tyre pressures for meteorological reasons, or the road surfaces you expect to encounter en-route? i thought not. in fact, even when i'm playing at being sven nys or jeremy powers, i rarely, if ever, alter my tyre pressures.

so why would i cite this as a reason for the limited take-up of solid bicycle tyres (in every colour under the sun)? in my defence, only a matter of days ago, i made mention of the technology now intent on making power meters, if not quite obsolete, certainly less necessitous than is currently the case. and during that discussion, i was keen to point out that many a rank amateur has acquired a power meter of some description, predominantly because the professionals use them. and all this despite a complete inability to comprehend the information delivered.

though i'm baseing my assumption on no empirical evidence whatsoever, it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to assume that if world-tour riders began using peppa-pig pink, or 'kermit-the-frog green' solid tyres, there would be a great clamour outside the nation's bike shops to emulate their apparent innovative professionalism.

however, in the absence of the above flight of fancy as part of our real world, punctures will remain a potential interruption to the sunday morning bike ride for many a year to come. but, at the risk of going all 'philosophical', maybe there's a better way of living with infrequent deflation.

as the years roll by, the velo club's attitude towards islay's weather has morphed from despising every last raindrop and moaning about every increase along the beaufort scale, to gradually resigning ourselves to the permanence of its existence. where once i would peer through the sitting room window on a sunday morning, loath to go out in the rain and wind, i began to accept a gale driven dousing as part of cycling's fabric. it took not a great deal longer to care a lot less than i probably should, quite happy to go riding no matter the density of rain or the strength of the wind. i should point out that this insouciance has not permeated the entire velo club peloton as yet, but it's definitely getting there.

so, if we're willing to accept the latter, even though there is an applicable learning curve, could we not simply embrace the puncture as an integral part of a bike ride? could we not accept that the odd deflationary malfeasance is exactly what it is, something to be welcomed every bit as much as coffee and carrot cake at debbie's? i have long advised touring riders that relying on the archetypal puncture repair kit, is a rather naive stance to adopt. imagine standing at the side of uiskentuie strand in a wet november gale, trying manfully or womanfully to locate the tiny pinhole in the tube that brought about this far from unique set of circumstances. no, me neither; pop a new inner tube under the tyre and fix the other one later, in your accommodation or tent.

provided you carry a quality mini-pump, at least one suitably-sized inner tube and a couple of tyre levers, what's to worry about? a part of my genuine reticence to remain indoors while armageddon blows outside, is the knowledge that i possess more than one set of quality waterproofs. not to make use of them during such inclemency, would surely be tantamount to insolence? how is my tried and tested ability to deal with a puncture any different?

wednesday 22 may 2019

today is the tomorrow we talked about yesterday

whatever i think about the apparently endless march of technology, it's hard not to be impressed with the ingenuity of those providing for our personal velocipedinal benefit. look back to the early 1990s and witness the change of bicycle frame construction from round, variable gauge steel tubing, via a brief dalliance with aluminium to the carbon fibre that is the delight of many in the present day. reasons such as the ending of the cold war and the need for manufacturers to find alternative markets have been much discussed, but when you consider that the humble bicycle was chosen as the repository for these space-age technologies, i no longer feel quite as disparaged as some drivers attempt to make me feel.

though the same could be said about many inventions or transmogrifications, the fact that someone, somewhere figured that rolling resin-impregnated plastic matting into tube shapes and cooking it for an hour or two, is what i believe would be referred to as 'lateral thinking'. and then some. morphing that once again to place the plastic matting into two sides of a mold to allow a never-ending variation of shapes is probably written into the book of evolution. in the place of varying the butting inside the metal tubing, changing the layup and direction of the plastic matting and the density of resin proved yet another step forward.

so, while the boffins in aigle steadfastly maintain a minimum bicycle weight that was originated for aluminium, taiwan can produce framesets that could be blown away with a good sneeze. and yet, those developments have not rested with carbon fibre frames; composites are every bit as much a part of bicycle componentry these days, as they are of carbon aero forks. we have electronic gear systems that reduce the considerable effort formerly employed in pushing levers, hydraulic disc brakes that make suntour pedersen's warning about not fitting their cantilevers to front wheels, seem a tad overkill and now thru-axles to mitigate the tendency for the application of disc-braking to force the wheels from their dropouts.

that rotund and trapezioid shaped carbon fibre has not only been flattened, dimpled and foam-filled to provide wheels that threaten to fly in a stiff breeze, but some are even constructed with kevlar/carbon spokes, tensioned to emulate a star-trek force-field. in short, the bikes we could ride today, if we wanted to, would scarcely have looked out of place in an episode of battlestar galactica. but every now and again, you wonder whether it might be a wizard wheeze to take a brief step back in time?

i have come across one or two youtube videos, keen to investigate how the steel bicycles of yesteryear, compare to the fighter jets of today. granted, in my guise as an investigative journalist of note and famous member of the cycling media, i should probably have watched at least one or two of these videos, but in the quest for impartiality (and the fact that i don't really care), i have not done so.

but the state bicycle company of the united states of america has gone a stage further than spending their spare time watching youtube videos. they have eschewed pretty much every alleged advance, outlined above and introduced their 4130 road bike, the first machine to depart their sales floors with a derailleur gear. and in a move that would surely delight adherents of the annual eroica bike rides, the 4130 round steel downtube, features a single gear lever to shift the aluminium sunrace derailleur across its set of eight sprockets.

the chain on this road bicycle need negotiate only a single 44 tooth,, cnc chainring attached to a similarly manufactured chainset and matched with a 28 tooth large sprocket to the rear. underlining its commuting propensities, and avoiding any thoughts of competitive outings, the wheels can accommodate a set of cyclocross-width tyres, though direct from the factory floor, the 4130 arrives with 28c tyres. those support an admittedly non-featherweight, 10kg frame, available in five sizes and in two colour combinations. the only thing missing, as far as i'm concerned, is the lamentable omission of brake cables exiting the top of the levers.

a scrabble about the state bicycle co. website would seem to indicate that the $550 bicycle is currently only available to cyclists across the pond, but with an established uk presence, it should surely be only a matter of time before the intrepid uk cycling community can spend their sterling in this direction.

i know you're laughing at me. i can see you.

state bicycle company 4130 road bicycle

tuesday 21 may 2019