Category Archives: culture

comments on cycling culture

Bigorexia

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Taking the train into and out of London I noticed how many men wearing Levis are advertising (or at least giving away) that they have gone “oversquare”. That is, their waist measurement has surpassed their inside leg measurement. I can, after many years of struggling, now claim to be square. Comfortably so. One of the reasons I have had to wear oversquare jeans for many years has been the difficulty of fitting my cycling thighs into normal cut jeans.

Then, while reading an article on Chinese cyberwarfare in the Washington Time I spotted an article in their sidebar on Steroids in Hollywood. Really?

The article went on to discuss a new phenomenon suffered by teenage and growing lads in the States, called bigorexia. I can see why. Pictures of Zac Effron skateboarding with his top off in magazines like Heat probably don’t help these impressionable youth. But I, fat boy that I am, am immune. I don’t get hung up about these steroid and workout freaks. Because have you seen Zac Effrons legs?. He’s got the physique of a lollipop. He might have a six pack where I have a Watneys Party Seven, but his scrawny stick thin legs look out of all proportion. The man is a spindly legged freak. Bigorexia? Take a look at the malformed proportions of these so-called hunks and get over it boys.

Redneck ride
Suck it in fat boy

As it happens it turns out I have the BMI of a hollywood star, just distributed rather differently.

Chain Pup

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Chain Pup
Chain pup. And other stuff

I had been looking for an image of a Chain Pup in a product review stylee – well lit, white background – to accompany my recent posts which mentioned snapped chains. Amazingly I couldn’t find any.

So here’s my contribution to the web. I did find people slagging them off as “too small to be of any use” which, frankly, is bollocks. I’ll admit that the 4/5/6mm allen keys they came with were shonky – and you’ll notice they are missing from the image above due to breakage. Seeing as I always carry a decent set of allen keys on my rides anyway*, which includes a 4mm key with decent length, a Chain Pup is well up to the job of fixing chains.

Or indeed installing them. As was the case tonight when I used it to replace the worn out PC-7 with a brand new, and mightily weighty KMC.

* the free set from MTB Pro if you’re asking. I know there are many such sets still out there

2012. What would you do?

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“The Olympic Games is the priority [compared to the Tour] next year”

Brailsford still doesn’t get it.

“He’s done the gold medal thing. [The tour] should be more important for him.”

Boardman does.

We’ve had Olympic success on the track going back past Boardman and Queally and others. Track success has captured the imagination of enough young British talent that we can now put together a team as good as Team Sky Pro Cycling.

The next stage is to get the results in the Tour De France to inspire even more young riders, and to introduce the great unwashed to the joys of the Giro, the Vuelta, and the one-day classics.

Repeating the victories of the past, even on home turf, just doesn’t have that inspiration.

This year we saw Cav finally cross the finish line in green. How long before we can do the double of green and yellow?

FFS

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2011 brings a new twist to the Polaris. We have noticed many riders new to the sport, using trail centers and pre-marked routes, do not enjoy, or may not have the experience for a full mountain navigation course.

Polaris website
So not only can’t middle aged IT managers who have spunked their wad on a £3 grand bike not ride the effing things they can’t find their arse with both hands and a map way around the countryside with a GPS and a map.


Sad nick just heard about the dickheads doing Polaris these days

Increasingly I am the sad hipster looking at the people taking up moutain biking these days.

Oi, j0n. No.

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Oh. My. God.

Link to larger version of this image
This makes my brain hurt

dR j0n has finally becomes *exactly* as anal about gears as some of us feared. That’s why we need him to stick to singlespeeds. And this comes from someone that used to ride with a table of the gear inches for his particular crankset/sprocket combo taped to their stem so they could make best use of inner and outer cogs to reduce the difference between succesive gear changes.

Niche wanky singlespeed

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I can’t get used to the lack of mountain bikers down South. Until yesterday when I saw several I’d only seen three, and of those only one off road. He had initially snubbed me as I held a gate open. As Tom pointed out I was “riding some kinda wanky singlespeed though. You deserved to be snubbed.”

Which is fair enough. Because I’m not just riding a wanky singlespeed, but a niche wanky singlespeed at that. Curvy tubes. Deep section rims. Understated paint job. Actually the combination of painted rims and skinny tubed flat black frame instead probably looks a lot cheaper than the fat garishly painted aluminium frames of the fat (yes, I know), middle-aged (yes, I know that too) blokes I saw out yesterday. Maybe that’s why I was snubbed.

Got a nod from the bloke in all-black lycra on the Cannondale tho.

A weight off my back*

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Just placed an order with Epic Eric, or as he’s known since Specialized lawyers went all unnecessarily heavy handed, Revelate Designs.

Kit Check
No more KIMM sack

I did eventually get a smaller sleeping mat so that even the tent fits inside the KIMM. My niece is doing Duke of Edinburgh award soon and has been told she “needs” a 65 litre rucksack for a three hour walk to her overnight campsite. What the hell are they carrying in there?! She was horrified when I told her that (with limbs suitably dismembered) I could fit my wife into a 65 litre rucksack.

Anyway, away from the gore, with a sling for sleeping kit (in suitable dry bag), the tent back under the top-tube, and the rest in a Viscacha will do wonders for the state of my back on long rides.

* About 13lbs

That’s not a whip

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Whip!
this is a whip

According to better informed cycling culture watchers hipsters, if we may still use the word, are now referring to their bikes as whips.

At which point, if I may swear, for fucks sake, if you’re going to steal equine terminology at least steal it correctly.

That above is a whip. Strictly speaking, that’s actually a crop. Whips are more flexible. To add to the confusion that there crop is being carried by a whip. Not all people who carry a crop are whips, but it’s fair to say that all whips carry crops. Never whips. Non-whips may carry whips. Further muddying the waters a crop is the thing growing in the fields that you ride round, never through.

The thing you ride is called your ride or mount, or if it’s a stallion, you may call it a steed. As bicycles are usually lacking in the testicular department, let’s not bother with steed. If you have more than one of them you have a string, abso-fucking-lutely not ever, no never a stable. A stable is where you keep your ride (or rides) when you’re not riding it (or them).

Speaking of equine history, while scanning through the last issue of The Ride Journal I found this advert from Brooks a little strange, especially for a company founded by a loriner and using images of it’s founder Boultbee Brooks out hunting on the heritage section of their site.

So what British tradition does apply to Brooks then, hunting or sabbing? I’m confused. To be honest when it comes to saddles I’ve always preferred Stübben to anything coming out of Walsall.

Mercury*

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Windrider by Gijs Bakker
Windrider by Gijs Bakker

Hopefully these will help me fly round the night laps at Mayhem.

* or Hermes if you’re of Greek origin.