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layers

obviously enough, and your kilometrage may vary depending on your region of domicile, but, as we head inexorably towards the end of british summertime (somewhat of a meteorologist's prank this year), it becomes a dangerous time of year, with exaggerated pertinence on the study of velocipedinal apparel. my colleague on the sunday morning ride (only two of us this week) was clad in only two layers of clothing, admittedly of a pragmatic nature, but generally insufficient for the six degrees of celcius through which we were riding. i, on the other hand wore a baselayer, sportwool jersey, and softshell jacket with an outer layer of stowaway goretex, more for windproofing than waterproofing, though on the latter count, it was put to good use on the homeward journey.

i cannot deny that, personally, i may have been slightly overdressed for riding, but of course, there's always the off-chance that riding may be interrupted for all manner of reasons. only a few weekends past, i suffered a puncture between coull farm and kilchoman distillery, and some inadvertent faffing with the electric pump meant that the stoppage was a tad lengthier than intended. fortunately, the weather was particularly benign at the time, so the delay had no untoward collateral. that would most certainly not have been the case, had the situation been repeated yesterday.

it may be that your own perambulations keep you within shouting distance of so-called civilisation, or perhaps the weather conditions are highly favourable, in which case, the following advice may be considered a smidgeon over-wrought. in my own circumstances, however, the sunday parcours takes me quite literally within a stone's throw of the north atlantic, an ocean not renowned for its tranquil behaviour. in my second year of rapha's festive 500, over-confident in the extreme, i opted to perambulate loch gorm midst galeforce winds, conjoined with frequent hailshowers. only a few metres from saligo bay, i was blown off my bicycle, experiencing a soft-landing in a ditch.

i suffered no ill effects; there was no damage to the bicycle, and i was able to continue my bike ride unhindered. but had any of the aforementioned taken place, were i to be found wanting in the clothing department, i was 23km from home in a sparsely populated part of the island in december, when there were very few visitors to be met. that's a long walk home in inclement weather conditions, particularly if not dressed for the occasion. so, while you'd like to hope there would be a predictable curve leading to a demonstrable change in the weather, the world doesn't quite work like that.

i cannot deny that i was pre-informed by my brief saturday ride, where the goretex jacket was of considerably more use midst heavy showers and galeforce winds. it wasn't particularly warm on saturday, but a few degrees colder on sunday. quite a change from more moderate conditions experienced on friday. the worst part is not learning of such lowered temperatures until already out on the bike, by which point, it's quite probably too late. to that extent, it makes a great deal of sense to check the weather forecasts, however unreliable you think them to be. that might require a change of habit; the common rejoinder around these here parts is that 'you're going to get, what you're going to get'; an undeniably accurate statement. but only the pros race in short sleeves and bibshorts in the temperatures described above, safe in the knowledge that there's probably a team car not too far back.

you and i rarely enjoy such luxuries.

the layering of clothing has been common knowledge for many a long year; its practicality resides in the knowledge that, up to a point, layers can be removed or added depending on the outlying conditions. for such purposes, there are short and long-sleeve baselayers, polypropylene or merino and of differing thicknesses and heat retention properties. similarly, you can cover the latter with varying types and styles of jersey; short sleeves with armwarmers, straightforward long-sleeve jerseys and heavier, winter weight versions. there are almost as many outer jackets available as there are cyclists - something with water-resistant properties is to be recommended; if you divest yourself of a stowaway jacket due to overheating, it's always a bonus if you can stay dry should it subsequently rain.

the hebrides is renowned for its strong, cold winds from now until march, so the majority of us are well-conditioned to own and wear a final, windproof outer. though many contemporary offerings are generally thinner than a kleenex tissue, never underestimate the benefits to be gained from covering everything with one of those. and, if i learned one thing from my ten years of festive 500 experiences, it's to make sure you carry a spare pair of gloves. there's nothing worse than having to put on a wet pair of gloves after coffee and a toastie before heading back out into the cold and wet for the homeward ride.

i'm well aware that many of you will be completly au fait with everything i have said, but knowing it and acting on it are not always the same thing. and since i learned the hard way, in relatively unforgiving conditions, if it helps, it helps. and remember, even on windless days, for a cyclist, that means even a lightweight headwind in every direction. at this time of year, windchill should never be underestimated.

monday 14 october 2024

kop van de westrijd

at the risk of showing my true colours, saturday 12 october once again introduced the dilemma that i'd much prefer to leave at the side of the road. every alternate saturday morning provides me with the opportunity to stay in bed considerably longer than is usually the case. since i'm hardly getting any younger, and even as brian smith alluded during his commentary on il lombardia, it's not just the riding of the bike that improves or maintains a level of fitness, but the time spent in rest and recuperation. granted, i'm hardly at a level where the latter can be put to particularly good use, but if the principle has proved effective for the likes of tadej and remco, who am i to argue? but so doing does create a potential problem.

throughout the year, irrespective of which time i arise from my saturday slumber, i am likely to cover between 50 and 65km on the solo saturday ride aboard my cyclocross bike. should there be stages of the giro, tour or vuelta, or possibly a one day classic taking place on a saturday, i'm likely to make do with watching either edited highlights, or a recap of the event later than same evening. cyclocross, however, is different. though my discovery+ subscription allows unfettered viewing of pretty much every event available (the tour of chongming island, for example), either live or on demand, i prefer my cyclocross to be in the moment as it were, meaning the likely curtailment of the saturday ride.

you would imagine the same could be said of the regular sunday morning ride, but the latter conveniently allows arrival at the croft prior to the start of any 'cross event taking place on sunday afternoon. the obvious adjustment would be to leave the croft on saturday morning at the same time as is common for sundays, but, for all sorts of reasons (laziness masquerading as rest and recuperation), that rarely happens. taking into a ccount the dearth of anything worth watching on saturday evenings on the tellybox, you would imagine that watching a one hour recording of the day's event(s) would fit the bill just nicely, but once again, idiosyncracy rules the moment.

so saturday was, in effect, a training day for the remainder of the season, by way of il lombardia. with regard to the latter, i was moved to post on twitter that it is somewhat disappointing to learn that the butler did it some 50km from the end of the race, but the same could be said of the tour, the giro and the world championship road race. granted, it is not cyclocross, but the broadcast was live, so i cut my saturday ride a tad shorter than usual (in 80kph winds, heavy showers and freezing temperatures), nipped down the street to get my saturday newspaper, and returned to the comfort of my armchair to watch, in sequence, the latter stages of lombardia, the last couple of laps of the women's cyclocross race, and finally, the whole of the first round of the exact series of 'cross events.

in retrospect, it would seem that i have answered my own question; which is more important - an actual bike ride, or watching cyclocross? does wearing my uci big bobble hat provide a clue?

sunday 13 october 2024

intelligence

earlier this year, i attended a half-day course on the potential benefits of artificial intelligence for business, intended to demonstrate how various different strands of the technology could reputedly make my life easier. though much of which was demonstrated was quite impressive, most of which i had been previously unaware, if you'll pardon the tautological reference, much of it seemed, well, artificial. i was brought to recall an exercise carried out by the newspaper's relief editor, who published an article 'written' by chatgpt in response to his request for a feature highlighting the various attractions of islay to potential visitors. the article was published without a specific byline, but accompanied below, by an explanation of how it was achieved, asking readers if they had found it perfectly believable on having read it?

i must confess, it elicited fewer comments than either he or i had expected, but strangely none appear to have noted that at least two of the conferred highlights were actually present on a completely different island. the moral of the story, which formed at least a part of his intention, was that while making use of artificial intelligence might relieve some of the heavy-lifting, the prudent instigator would surely have the foresight to check the purported end result. that in itself, prompted recollections of douglas adams' hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy which famously framed the answer to 'the meaning of life, the universe, and everything' as 42. such an incomprehensible answer all but demonstrated that the original inquisitors had not fully understood the question they'd asked.

the current versions of adobe indesign, photoshop and illustrator include adobe's 'firefly' technology, allowing for text to image queries. on opening the first edition of photoshop to include such technology, i was presented with an image featuring a cottage atop a steep cliff. a text field below the image invited me to have photoshop make changes to the image, initially by asking it to alter the style and type of domicile pictured in the image. however, with the foreground being a tad darker than i would have liked, i asked the software to "lighten the foreground", in response to which it added a bedroom lamp, front and (lower) centre. rephrasing my query several times did little to remedy the semantic error.

despite many media articles and books prophesying the end of humanity when robots powered by artificial intelligence arise and take over the world, current incarnations seem remarkably trivial and superficial by comparison.

one of the more usable technologies demonstrated by the enthisiastic presenter of the previously mentioned ai course, was chatgpt's ability to summarise a lengthy report into manageable chunks, made even more relevant by denoting which particular results were being sought. so doing is hardly something that could not be undertaken by a diligent human being, but it's unlikely that he or she could read a forty-three page document and produce a targeted summary in a matter of seconds. however, as advised as part of my opening gambit, it might be worth checking the end result for both relevance and accuracy, perhaps undermining a portion of the avowed speed of return.

it is, of course, worth asking quite what relevance the foregoing has to velocipedinal activity. are the world's groupset manufacturers working on augmenting their wireless gearchanging facilities with an intelligence that might either suggest prudent gear selection, or obviate any requirement for human intervention, and simply actuate the change independently? it would be a confident individual who'd bet against that being the case. however, artificial intervention at user level is already here at the behest of strava, available to premium subscribers. in keeping with their habit of referring to each and every user as athletes, strava's so-called athlete intelligence (see what they did there?) promises to perform immediate analysis of user-uploaded metrics. it can surely only be a matter of time before athlete intelligence can undertake the uploading on your behalf.

of course, similar to virgin internet's dial-up offer to subscribers of 15gb of pointless webspace, strava's offer really only makes sense if you've been in the habit of trying to make sense of the data recorded during the sunday morning ride. quite how many of us have ever expressed a desire to be on the receiving end of knowing our fastest pace, longest distance, highest relative effort and biggest climb before we climb into the shower, is anyone's guess. additionally, users are promised analytical trends culled from pace, heart-rate, elevation, power and relative effort. and are we convinced that with athlete intelligence, strava is implementing the latest technologies to help reduce friction in the user's active journey? i would suggest, only if you have the faintest idea what that actually means.

it's a great time to be alive.

saturday 12 october 2024

italian bread

partly through the auspices of the unione cycliste internationale (uci), cycle sport's governing body, cycle sport has arguably become less euro-centric and more of a worldwide property. of course, aigle cannot take all the credit; the almost wholesale transfer of cycle manufacturing to the far east, and the rise of several african cycling missionaries, have brought the athletic possibilities of riding a bicycle in competition to several populations hitherto unaware of its inherent joys. yet despite the undeniable veracity of the above mentioned, there is still a kernel of road-cycling heritage that keeps it centred on the european continent. for starters, despite the rise and rise of arabic regions, the far east and the antipodes, along with the undoubted financial wherewithal they possess, no international events have emerged that seem even close to challenging the superiority of le tour, il giro and la vuelta.

but cycling heritage seemingly persists with greater tenacity than does that of several other international sports, quite possibly due to associations with ancillary forces. for instance, while america may be congratulating itself for having invented gravel, no matter the mondialisation of the latter, there will always be cyclocross (the 24/25 season commencing this saturday), a sport that, despite having infiltrated across the pond, continues to command unbridled enthusiasm over here. evidence would be the existence and persistence of scotland's big bobble hats, the wearing of which veers perilously close to mandatory at badkamers, exact, superprestige and world cup events.

but remaining true to tarmac, and, for the time being, ignoring frites and mayo, for reasons that can often be hard to fathom, italy retains its title of unofficial capital of road cycling (if only from the viewpoint of style), despite the majority of its iconic cycle brands having their carbon produced in taiwan, and the ownership of colnago now residing in the arab emirates. knowledge of the latter can be compared, i believe, to the pretence that islay whisky is matured in oak casks, mere centimetres from loch indaal. to an informed majority, colnago is italian through and through. and then, of course, there is coffee.

coffee is reckoned to have been first discovered by a goat herder in ethiopa, noticing that his goats appeared to have increased energy after muching their way through more than a handful of beans. after reporting this observation to the abbot of a local monastery, a drink was made from the beans, reputedly discovered to maintain alertness through the wee small hours. following the spread of bean knowledge, by the 1600s, coffee was being cultivated in yemeni, arabia, and only a century later, in persia, egypt, syria, and turkey. however, though true, that hardly helps with my contention that coffee is singularly identified with italy. and that's where the espresso kicks in.

credited to an italian by the name of luigi bezzera, one truly has to wonder why this is hardly common knowledge nowadays, particularly within the pelotonese (we all know that columbus discovered america and captain cook, australia). for reasons about which i am unsure, signor bezzera was reputedly the first to use steam pressure to push water through finely ground coffee beans. a bit like the invention of the linotype machine, i do wonder from where such inspiration arose? the name, espresso however, is easier to derive: 'caffé espresso' literally translates as 'pressed out coffee', a double-shot of which is said to contain up to 185g of caffeine in a very small cup.

but why, you may ask, stop at an italian espresso? if we're heading off down that particular rabbit hole, how about something intrinsically italian to accompany that miniature cup of strong coffee. foccacia for example. the last time i consumed probably the finest slice of the latter in existence, was from the beaverton bakery concession in portland international airport (pdx). i can still mentally picture that pacific western slice of focaccia, despite its consumption over a dozen years ago. historians are divided as to whether focaccia originated in the ovens of the etruscans living in northern italy prior to the rise of the roman empire, or many years before in ancient greece. if true, the latter would irretrievably disrupt my proposed association with italy, so we'll discount the greek influence for now. support for my favoured option can be gained, however, from the name focaccia, derived as it is from the roman, 'panis focacius', meaning hearth bread.

i recall writing in these very pixels, that the bakery round the corner had begun producing its own version of 'hearth bread', but then disappointingly ceased doing so every bit as suddenly as it had begun. the bakery closed down over a year past. since then, i have found the strongest of double-espressos in bowmore's celtic house, but my life has remained disappointingly bereft of focaccia. i'm led to believe that jura's island bakehouse produces a highly commended focaccia loaf, but in very limited quantities that appear to remain steadfastly a short ferry sailing to the other side of the sound of islay.

but earlier this week, unannounced and definitely unheralded, one of my office colleagues discovered small, round, sun-dried tomato encrusted, individual focaccia in the bakery section of the local averagemarket. combine the imminent start of the european cyclocross season with il lombardia and the opportunity to acquire a daily portion of focaccia, and you will probably agree that october is, indeed, the month to trounce all months.

thank you italy.

friday 11 october 2024

insulting

i would find it hard to pinpoint the exact year when the practice began, but observing price tags ending in .99 have been with us for an appreciable length of time. the idea, is one leaning heavily upon psychology; if an item is priced at £4.99, not only can the manufacturer legitimately proclaim that it 'costs less than a fiver', but the lack of the all-important number '5' on the label convinces us, so the story goes, that it is below an arbitrary target price. whether folks are still taken in by this transparent strategy is wide open to debate. if evidence were required that such a practice is all but endemic in modern retail, you need only take a quick gander at the road bikes web page of evans cycles, where bicycles are priced at £2999.99, £799 and £1,799.99 (reduced from £2,999.99). is being handed one pence in change really going to convince anyone that their new bike hasn't removed almost every last vestige of £3,000 from the bank account?

it's marketing jim, and exactly as we know it, yet possibly one of the few convincing arguments for retaining the one pence coin.

however, as a marketing strategy it has some way to go to compete with the latest onslaught from specialized, the californian bicycle manufacturer that seemingly has a pedal in every pie, from mountain bikes, to gravel, to road, commuting and more recently, electric varieties of almost all of those. yet regarding the latter, it seems that mike sinyard's company may have paraphrased the title of a genesis track from the 'and then there were three' album. while phil collins was singing "say it's alright joe", the slogan accompanying the latest specialized carbon vado sl2 would prefer joe to 'say it ain't so'. despite having added new machinery to the electric vado range, the website claims that "calling it an e-bike is an insult.", oddly capitalising the word insult for no valid reason of which i can think.

following the invitation to 'shop now' presents the potential customer with illustrations and specifications for two bicycles, to wit: the turbo vado sl2 carbon ltd, priced at a tidy £7,500, and the less pricey (£5,500) and less snappily named, turbo vado sl2 6.0 eq carbon. both machines sport a short stem and flat bars, though only the cheaper of the two features a rear rack, perhaps suggesting that they are aimed squarely at the commuter market. clicking either image achieves a reiteration of the above mentioned (and contradictory) slogan, completely undermined by specialized appending an e-bike system classification. presumably it is only our nomenclature that can be considered insulting?

i have ridden more than a single example of an e-bike, including models from specialized and, in common with many, i have painfully experienced that their weight is frequently greater than any of the acoustic bicycles in my possession. yet the accompanying text classes the vado sl2 as '...a premium performance machine, carefully engineered to make fitness fun, and your commute electric, though apparently no insult was intended by the copywriter, who effectively and correctly implied that it is an e-bike. the specification denotes its weight as 14.9kg (33lbs), almost exactly double the weight of their acoustic crux pro, a bicycle simultaneously classified as both gravel and cyclocross despite being sold with uci illegal tyres of 38mm width (cyclocross tyres are capped at 33mm). i have chosen this particular bike, since it's reasonably close in price to the vado (£7,000) and, if used as a cyclocross bike, one that is likely to be frequently carried.

should you query my motives further, you might want to watch the video linked below, demonstrating the possible lifestyle use to which the bicycle we should refrain from insulting, might be put. and within that video, it is interesting to view several occasions on which the vado is seen to be carried both up and down stairs by the riders. an all up weight, excluding any luggage or cargo, of 14.9kg is not one to be sniffed at, and preferably not one to be carried up and down stairs too often. there are, i'm sure, any number of occasions on which it becomes necessary to carry any bicycle, including those we should refrain from prefixing with the letter 'e', but if i were specialized, i think i would have stayed away from depicting the task in a video.

on the plus side, there is the option to make use of specialized's range finder, adding a further 160wh to the main battery's 520wh. the vado also features system lock, a means of digitally locking the bicycle via the smartphone app that you just knew was eventually going to be mentioned. if the bike is moved when locked it can trigger an alarm or lights.

returning briefly to the advice not to refer to it as an e-bike, it seems that manufacturers are beginning to prefer the alternate description of two-wheeled ev, though i confess it's a strategy i find simultaneously both confusing and self-aggrandising. however, irrespective of how they or we choose to refer to the carbon encapsulated electrons, it would appear that one world is soon about to become two increasingly divided worlds which, in the long term, may be no bad thing.

specialized vado sl2 carbon

thursday 10 october 2024

illusions

in the ways of zwift i am but a naive onlooker; one of those annoying little voices that pokes fun at members of the velo club who have allowed themselves to become enthralled with the practice of riding in front of an ipad. from my point of view, they are intelligent individuals who have been unwittingly sucked into that which zwift headquarters would have them believe is perfectly acceptable in modern-day velocipedinal society. of course, judging by the percentage of the peloton who may ostensibly fit the above description, there's a greater than evens chance that it is i who is the odd one out (possibly in more ways than one).

though i will have no truck with indoor trainers, simply because i find them to be the spawn of the devil, my inital apprehensions were of a means of continuing to exercise during inclement weather, or, vary rarely, during an international pandemic that looked unfavourably upon extended outdoor displays of athleticism. i was given to understand that the highways and byways of watopia were the veritable oyster of the free man (or woman), unfettered by the strictures and structures of organised competition or recreational activity. that may still be the case, should you opt for the fourteen-day free trial, but i believe the psychology of paying the annual subscription tends to enforce the notion that a level of achievement is demanded, bringing many kicking and screaming to a start-line.

there are of course, free alternatives, if all you really want to do is while away the hours staring forlornly at the aforementioned ipad, convincing yourself that it seems not to have done tadej any harm. but a bit like my use of the name ipad as a uniform reference for any form of digital tablet, or hoover to mean a vacuum cleaner, zwift has, through ubiquity and clever marketing, become the common reference point for the online cycling experience. it's an experience it is more than keen to reinforce by the continual addition of so-called enhancements designed to attract the easily led (a statement qualified in the manner of my framebuilding hero - according to my opinion).

the latest augmentation is very specifically aimed at the aspiring or confirmed racer, apparently, according to hearsay, addressing a long-term problem. suspend reality long enough for me to hypothesise that i have just signed up for an annual zwift subscription, having acquired a smart turbo trainer and borrowed mrs washingmachinepost's ipad pro. i am now ready and allegedly willing to demonstrate my athletic prowess in the saddle, keen to leave all others trailing in my pixelated wake. however quickly i may (or may not) be able to ascend the col du rspb in real life, there is no denying that i have little in the way of racing experience, real or virtual. so how do i know that the online group i have been coerced to join, is not comprised solely of cat 1 riders and against whom i am but a candle in the wind?

how will i ever progress or, perhaps more pertinently, survive?

the advent of zwift racing score (zrs) promises to insert me into company with which i may have kilometres in common. zrs will, according to the nice folks in ocean boulevard "...improve the accessibility of racing by making it easier than ever to find the right race category." so far, so helpful, but it's the enticement included in that last statement that is cunningly designed to suck the freewheeler into the competitive milieu, while he or she still thinks they're 'just getting a bit of exercise'. i mean, what harm could it possibly do?

but therein lies the killer punch; assignation to a particular category relies entirely on recent fitness data, statistics that even the least self-respecting newbie will undoubtedly be keen to procure. and how does one gain such data? "entering more races will allow new racers to build their racing score gradually." note the strategic use of the word 'gradually' inferring that acquisition is likely to be a less than onerous affair; the sort of thing that can be knocked off before a full scottish breakfast. 501 west ocean boulevard would have you believe that, with the accumulation of finishing points, 'every race can provide motivation and reward'.

but before you hastily click over to zwift.com, just think about what you're doing. is this really what you intend to sign up for? will your self-esteem in the office be in any way enhanced by quoting your zwift racing score? will anyone, including family members (and me), be even remotely impressed? there is a great outdoors ready and waiting to accept you and your bicycle without any prejudicial judgment over your performance (or lack of). and, just as is the case with yours truly, when sunday morning conversation moves to the twists and turns of pixelated activity, you can cheerfully drift off the back and pay closer regard to the world around you, safe in the knowledge that you're still completely in charge of your own destiny, no matter what the inmates of long beach try to tell you.

wednesday 9 october 2024

inflationary pressure

on the rather forlorn and admittedly rarely ridden chris king cielo that sits towards the rear of thewashingmachinepost bikeshed, there is a frame-fit pump, one created by park tool to fit a wide range of frame sizes. it has been many years since the cielo has seen daylight, a fact of which i am less than proud, but it is what it is, but when last ridden, an adjustable frame-fit pump could confidently be filed under the heading new innovations, a sub-folder of that headed inflation. i know well the embarrassment that could be brought to bear on those who ordered a standard frame-fit device, only to discover that the item delivered was either too large or too small for the frame in question. you can but imagine the smugness i used to lord over my fellow pelotonese when demonstrating the adjustability of the park tool pump. however, following admonishment from a bicycle distributor to whose review model i had fitted (and allegedly marked) said pump, i opted to carry, first a co2 mini-pump, which failed more often than it worked and ultimately a direct-fit regulation mini-pump that comfortably fitted in a jersey rear pocket.

until the recent arrival of the oft-reviewed and tiny cycplus electronic bicycle tyre inflator, that mini-pump has provided sterling service. a bit like helmets and insurance, it's an accessory that you fervently hope rarely, if ever, to use. currently (pun intended), i am the only one amongst the velo club peloton to have resorted to electrons for tyre inflation, but i'm sure that, as time progresses, the others will join the merry throng.

or will they?

though these small electronic pumps have been in existence for a year or two already, with muc-off having recently joined the party, it's quite possible that their minimal and aspirational dominance might be over before it has truly begun. to support my contention, i might cite the collaboration between world tour race team, visma lease-a-bike and gravaa, whose success rate may have been enhanced only a matter of days past when the system reputedly assisted visma's marianne vos to victory in the women's world gravel championship. an apparent lack of any real gravel notwithstanding, vos reputedly inflated and deflated her tyres utilising the gravaa system to cope with differing terrain. it will be interesting to witness whether the system will be put to good use during the forthcoming cyclocross season, where tyre treads and pressures form a major part of the conversation. 'cross riders have frequently changed bikes even half-way through a lap in order to make use of differing pressures on a spare bike, as conditions change throughout an event.

it almost goes without saying that, combined with the theory behind tubeless tyres - that they will immediately stem any air loss - the opportunity to restore any momentary loss of pressure might be of invaluable assistance to riders on any terrain.

according to reports following saturday's women's gravel race, the wireless system (of course it is) can add one bar of pressure per kilometre to a 40mm tyre (cyclocross tyres are capped at a maximum 33mm), accomplished via technology contained within a proprietary bicycle hub, and using the wheel's kinetic energy to operate the pump. the only physical downside so far, would appear to be the additional 450g weight. of course, the gravaa system is not alone, with team dsm firmenich having experimented with a similar system at this years paris-roubaix. there might also be a financial downside, in that the gravaa website currently offers the opportunity to order a set of suitably equipped dtswiss wheels for just shy of 4,500 euros (£3,700).

in other words, probably not for mere mortals just yet.

tuesday 8 october 2024

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as always, if you have any comments, please feel free to e-mail and thanks for reading.

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