Thinking, about cycling. "Anybody whose mind is proud enough not to breed true secretly carries a bomb at the back of his brain; and so I suggest, just for the fun of the thing, taking that private bomb and carefully dropping it upon the model city of commonsense." (This blog began as an archive of DYNAMITE!, the newsletter of London Dynamo cycling club, which you can still access via "DYNAMITE! filed" in the list below on the left.)
During the past few weeks, I have set aside my disinterest in all things coffee-related so that I can, in my own small way, aid the delivery of something useful to the caffeinista community. That thing is a book which encourages you – yes, YOU (or maybe not you. We barely know each other. And what do I know anyway?) – to quit your nine-to-five and turn your dream project into a reality, using a table in any Wi-Fi-enabled coffee shop as your new workspace.
Out of Office is written by my friend and yours (if you happen to be an original member of London Dynamo), mister Chris Ward.
Chris asked me to help him knock his words into shape, and he has kindly thanked me on page 188 of his compact, 198-page tome…
…which, as book publishing high points go, is almost as exciting as the time my patience was graciously acknowledged in the credits of the 2007 Rouleur annual.
This isn’t all about me, though. Well, it is, because this is my blog. But let’s focus on the other Chris for a second. I’m not terrifically keen on the possibility that cafés could be overrun with wannabe entrepreneurs, or the clunky portmanteau ‘coffice’, but Chris has some insightful things to say about social media, the use of technology and implementing ideas. He’s the fella who brought Friends Reunited to the masses and he’s worked on Red Nose Day, which means he knows what he’s talking about. So even if you don’t walk out of your job and straight into whatever trendy coffee shop everyone is banging on about these days, armed with only a laptop and a dream, you’ll still find something of interest in Chris’s book as long as you have an inquisitive mind.
Out of Office fits in the pocket of your cycling jersey and costs a tenner. It will be on sale in coffee shops and some other outlets, which are listed here. I’m going to read it again. With a tea.
The answer to the above question, judging by what I saw during my Surrey Hills ride this week, is possibly not.
I don’t usually ride on Sundays, but I made an exception this week so I could greet the belated arrival of Spring by displaying my bare legs and arms in Lycra. I’m sure Spring appreciated the gesture. Many bicyclepeople had a similar idea, judging by the herds lolling around at the top of Box Hill where I witnessed the full panoply of questionable jerseys on display, from Sky replica kit to those who chose to dress ironically – and, I’m sure you’ll agree, totally hilariously – as a tub of Marmite.
What intrigued me most, however, was spotting the famous blue tops of the US Postal cycling team. They say two is a coincidence, three is a trend; in that sense, the riders I saw wearing USPS jerseys – one in Richmond Park, the other (pictured above) on Box Hill – hardly constitute a resurgence of the once-ubiquitous blue-and-white kit. For some, though, it’s two too many: who would still want to associate themselves with the most duplicitous team in Tour de France history, whose star rider is now commonly prefaced with the word ‘disgraced’?
The answer is, maybe, they don’t. Believe it or not, you can wear a jersey solely for the purpose of riding, rather than using it as a tool to fit in with a group of strangers, expressing your brand loyalty or attempting to look completely amazing (which, naturally, I always do when I’m wearing my black-on-white Rock Racing kit). It was the first warm weekend of the year. They wanted to enjoy it. So they reached into their wardrobe and pulled out the first, or only, cycling-specific clothing they laid their hands on. And off they went. Sometimes a jersey is just a jersey.
Check your brakes for wear. Remove bits of detritus that may have become lodged in your tyres. Always wear a helmet. And remember: examine the key to your trusty Abus Steel-O-Flex, because it may have inexplicably developed a crack which will result in the sodding thing lodging itself firmly in the lock.
I would probably add that last directive to my checklist following a baffling experience on Tuesday, when I unlocked my Langster outside the HSBC on Shepherds Bush Green and the key snapped, rendering the lock unusable. No prior issues – it just broke. Earlier today, my local locksmiths gave up trying to remove the broken key. So it’s time to purchase a new lock, then. Harrumph!
Any theories as to how a solid key can split in two without warning would be greatly appreciated. Or do I just not know my own strength?
Does your life revolve around bicycle-related activities, such as blaming yourself for not riding as fast as you would like, or squinting for hours at shonky feeds of obscure European races? Then congratulations – the essence of your character and the sense of perspective you once had on your life have been forever warped by the ever-spinning world of Planet Bicycle.
You’re not alone, though, because there is another group of people who are completely immersed in cycling. They’re called professional cyclists. And I think their greatest skill is disguising how weird cycling has made them – until, that is, their weirdness finds a means of expressing itself at an inopportune moment, such as the podium of the Ronde van Vlaanderen on Sunday.
Peter Sagan is a 23-year-old man who believes crossing the finishing line first is the most important thing he can do with his life. It isn’t – not for him, nor for any human being – but that’s what every podium contender conditions themselves to think, otherwise the job becomes impossible to do. A consequence of single-mindedness is leaving more important areas of your personality under-developed; in Sagan’s case, it’s the part that tells you goosing a stranger’s arse, especially doing it so publically, shows about as much respect as urinating against the leg of the host town’s dignitary.
Hived off in the cycle of training and competition, sports stars are paid an awful lot of money to not be normal, yet we criticise them when they don’t behave like regular, well-adjusted human beings. I’m fairly certain I would never deliver an unsolicited grope to a stranger’s arse, and I think you would say much the same thing. But we’re cycling fans – in each of our own ways we’re all a bit odd, so we can surely empathise with oddness. We did it with Cadel, and once all the hoo-ha dies down, I think we’ll do it with Sagan.
And it’s adorned with a reference to the director of Blade Runner.
So basically it’s a robot bicycle from the future. A Tron bike. A carbon fibre Terminator. An X-Wing on wheels. The Ridley brand is steeped in the heritage of Belgian cycling, but this looks like the sort of bicycle Kraftwerk’s robotic doppelgangers would ride (if they didn’t have aluminium poles for legs).
I’ve been interested in this particular Ridley Excalibur since Pearson Cycles tweeted a photo a couple of months ago. There are a few reasons why I decided to buy one: the price tag is quite attractive; I wanted to reward myself for being a very good boy money-wise throughout this financial year; and I wanted to try a carbon bike, especially one crafted in the traditional way – by anonymous factory workers in the Far East. More importantly, The Green Machine looks like it couldn’t give an anodised nipple what I or anyone else thinks of it, and that appeals to the obstinate side of my nature.
As a new owner in the first flush of joy, you’re not going to get anything remotely objective out of me at this stage. You may recall that bit in the Alan Partridge Christmas special, where he repeatedly presses the eject button on a CD player in a branch of Tandy (overseas readers: Tandy is, or was, Radioshack) and marvels: “Nice action… very nice action… that is a very nice action.”
Well, that’s basically me dicking around with Shimano Ultegra Di2 during the past couple of days. Changing gears electronically has its own peculiar fun, mainly because it’s so… soft. Light. Gentle. I’m enjoying it immensely, although it will probably be only a matter of time before I yearn for the manly clunk of the 2006 Chorus groupset on my Merlin Cyrene.
I rode up the small climb in Richmond Park against a headwind, and it feels noticeably zippier and more responsive than the Merlin. My emotionless android bicycle does not fear bad weather – but sadly, being human, I do. So I won’t be taking the Excalibur out if it snows or pisses down this weekend. You’ll just have to wait until next week to see it.
I have many terrible ideas. Whenever I think of a terrible idea, I write it down in my notebook. The DYNAMITE! Notebook Of Terrible Ideas.
The words that slide haphazardly out of my pen at odd hours of the night are usually notes for things to post on here, but I never get round to writing them up because I find them far too dull. Some of my scribbles concern non-writing projects, and invariably they go nowhere – so you’ll be surprised as I was to discover that the fruits of one such mind doodle is actually going to be implemented, and it will affect a few hundred people. Yes, really!
The idea I had is a way of reducing the number of members in London Dynamo without being a total douche about it. Last year numbers peaked at a record of 563, and that figure could head further north as the Cult of Wiggo continues to attract more converts. Maintaining decent, safe standards of riding with so many members, particularly newbies, would be hard. Conversely, Dynamo has always experienced difficulty attracting enough volunteers to help out at races, which every club must do to avoid being blackballed by race organisers.
So how do we keep membership numbers at a manageable level and ensure we have enough ’Mos to marshall? The new approach, as outlined in Dynamo’s latest newsletter, explains how:
When we are hosting a race or event, and we find ourselves short of volunteers, the committee will randomly pick names from the membership list and request help.
Should the member be unable to assist, he/she will be at the top of the list for the next event where we require help.
This would be repeated three times, and should the member be unable to proffer an acceptable excuse, they will be unable to renew their membership.
By making this clear to all renewing members (in 2014) and to new joiners from now on, we hope to retain and attract the right calibre of people to London Dynamo. And frankly, deter those with less generous tendencies – which may of course have an effect on membership numbers. We will be carefully monitoring the effects through the year.
And that, essentially, is the idea I scribbled down nine months ago and subsequently shaped into a proposal to show the committee. I wanted us to avoid actively excluding people, which would be a bit ‘golf club’ and against the inclusive spirit on which Dynamo was founded almost a decade ago, so I thought of introducing an element of obligation which might deter the sort of person who simply wants to ride in a Dynamo jersey without having any real involvement in the club. It also seems obvious that pricing hasn’t worked – the club used to offer a £10 reduction in membership fees if you marshalled, so most people simply bought themselves out of the deal by paying the extra tenner – and a recent short-lived scheme to offer small prizes for marshalling also had no effect. I think in both instances there was an incorrect assumption that the club was giving something of value, but it is fairer to say that what members actually value is membership in itself – the rides, the racing, the forum, the networks of friends and cyclists. Make this the reward, create this virtuous circle, and you should have a willing pool of helpers.
That’s the theory, anyway. Regardless of what happens, though, I will at least have proved to myself that by having lots of terrible ideas, you eventually come up with a pretty decent and usable one.
A cycling magazine was launched this week. Yes, another one! It’s like watching the Tour caravan crawl past, isn’t it? But I’ve warmed to this particular charabanc, because I’m surprised no one has already done something like it.
The bleak, monochrome fetishism of European cycling culture that we’ve come to expect from independent cycling titles are wholly absent from its pages. Like the world road race champion from whom the magazine takes its name, Simpson is identifiably British. It’s about the passions and peculiarities of cycling fans: the pro teams you’ve ridden for (but only in your head), the spur-of-the-moment trips abroad to see a bike race, the tribulations of your long-suffering non-cycling partner – the sort of things we can all relate and chuckle along to. It’s fun without being dumb. Which, as a reader of this blog, is exactly what you’re after, right? Right.
To my untrained eye, the design has a sort of whimsical, handmade elegance that reminds me of The Idler, The Oldie and the Chap. Simpson’s compact shape looks nice on my kitchen table, and I’m sure it would be equally pleasing resting on your dining surface. The mag will be published thrice-yearly and costs £6, which is only a quid more than Procycling – and let’s face it, you’re more intrigued by this little beauty, aren’t you? So go on – satisfy your curiosity by buying a copy.
A reporter at the newspaper I work for once asked me if Mark Cavendish had a nickname. Cav had just won the BBC Sports Personality Of The Year award, and my journalist chum wanted a catchy handle to pep up his report of the event. So I told him, yes, Mark Cavendish does indeed have a nickname. It is the Manx Missile.
“Really?” said the reporter.
“Yes, really,” I said.
“That is BRILLIANT! Thank you!”
His cycling knowledge is negligible and he was up against a deadline, so he was grateful I had helped to fill a small hole in his copy. And he realised that most of his readers, even though they may have very little interest in cycling, would like Cav’s nickname too. It’s got pizazz. It’s leavened with humour. It sticks in the mind.
Sadly, The Manx Missile is one of cycling’s few memorable current nicknames. Off the top of my head, I can only think of three others that are similarly energised: Tornado Tom, El Pistolero and Spartacus. And this is a sport that, once upon a time, effortlessly produced stacks of classic calling cards such as The Cannibal, The Heron, The Angel of the Mountains, and The Eagle of Toledo. Where oh where have all the good names gone?
To remedy this paucity, I am now starting this alphabetical list of professional cyclists’ nicknames, each of which I have made up (except for Edvald Boassen Hagen’s, which Mrs Dynamite will have to answer for). I’ll add more as I think of them. No rider is too obscure, nor any moniker too daft, so please feel free to email me any further suggestions to dancehippocleides at mac dot com or leave a comment below.
Let the sobriquet-fest begin!
NAME: Edvald Boasson Hagen
NICKNAME: Boobs-And-Hard-On
WHY: Some say “BWA-son Hagen”, others say “Bo-AH-son Hagen”, whereas Mrs Dynamite prefers to say “Boobs-And-Hard-On”. Or “Boobs” for short. Yes, it’s a bit rude, but then so are the sort of films you would stereotypically associate with the Scandinavian’s home region, so at least it’s appropriate in that sense. Besides, we can go back to calling him The Boss when he actually gets round to winning big.
NAME: Enrico Gasparotto
NICKNAME: The Poacher
WHY: The finishing line will not grace the crest of the Cauberg for the Amstel Gold in April, so this particular nickname is a means of drawing attention to 2012’s thrilling hilltop climax at a race that is often overshadowed by its Belgian one-day counterparts. Oscar Freire, alone at the front with less than one kilometre to go, looked like he might just take the win. Then Philippe Gilbert leapt out of the bunch to get within touching distance of the fading Spaniard – victory, surely, was soon to be his. But suddenly Peter Sagan, one of the three men who Gilbert had taken with him, now appeared to have the edge… only for a lesser-celebrated rider from Astana to pass the Slovak as Jelle Vanendert banged his handlebars in frustration. Hardy Classics veterans and young up-and-commers were both denied. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you poach a win.
NAME: José Rujano
NICKNAME: The Merlin of Merida
WHY: Giro high-flyer Rujano and Robert Gesink have both been referred to as The Condor, thereby contravening the fundamental nickname rule that all appellations should be as individual as the riders to whom they are assigned. Thankfully, Merlins can be found flying at high altitude in the compact climber’s home state of Merida, so the little Venezuelan need never be confused with a lanky Dutchman ever again.
NAME: Ian Stannard
NICKNAME: The Iron Man
WHY: This one is based on a Dutch commentator’s mispronunciation of the GB hardman’s name, which he rendered as “Iron Stannard” over the tannoy at the 2012 World Road Race Championships in the Netherlands. And what better name than Iron Man to express the doughty domestique’s indefatigability? Like the titular character in Ted Hughes’ children’s story, he’s quite a tall fella and, as the shredded legs of his rivals can surely attest, he too leaves a trail of destruction in his wake.
NAME: Geraint Thomas
NICKNAME: G-Force
WHY: Speaking to Cycling magazine last month, Team Sky’s coaching guru Shane Sutton said of the young Welshman: “‘G’ has got it all. He can climb, time trial and last the distance.” In short, he’s a future Tour contender. He’s a force to be reckoned with. He is… G-Force.
NAME: Thomas Voeckler
NICKNAME: Le Mighty Bouche
WHY: The man with the quintessentially Gallic gob-shape is awarded a nickname which alludes to Britain’s most theatrical comedy act. He licks his supposedly dehydrated lips en route to taking the yellow jersey, he frowns as he toils up a mountain, and he beams on the podium like a delighted kid. Yes, in cycling, the legs do the talking – but in Voeckler’s case, so does his mouth.
I found her when I wasn’t looking. “Where are you from?” I asked. “Lots of different places,” she replied. She was mimicking Christopher Lambert’s response, and indeterminately European accent, from the film Highlander. I didn’t get the joke, but I somehow managed to get her number that night.
A few months after we met, we moved in together. One evening, as we walked home from a curry house, slightly drunk, I found the perfect pair of spectacle frames – black, square and narrow – looking up at me from the pavement with its arms folded back. I had my prescription fitted and wore those glasses until the sweat of successive summers turned the plastic a whitish grey. By that time we’d moved to a nicer part of town and I’d got a better job, through which I received an invitation to visit Belgium; a place called Zolder was on the itinerary. I accepted on a whim and saw Mario Cipollini become world champion. I never asked to be skinny or fit, but that’s what happened not long after.
These incidents that have shaped and defined parts of my identity happened by accident. So by the time I decided to find a bike that would last me many years, I knew the sensible procedure of establishing performance criteria and comparing the aesthetics of various components wasn’t going to happen. To put it simply, I never chose my bike; I gave in to chance and let the bike choose me.
The first time I saw it was on a deluged club run in the spring of 2003. The owner, one of only five members who had braved the downpour, was taking the bike out for its debut ride. He disappeared up the first hill and that was the last we saw of him that day. Three years later, I bought that bike in its essence: frame (Merlin Cyrene), fork (Reynolds Ouzo Pro) and a Royce bottom bracket. I had no idea how I wanted to complete the bike. Why did I end up choosing Ksyrium SLs? Because I knew someone who had inadvertently tested their durability by crashing into a tree (the front wheel, and the rider, survived more or less intact). Chorus for the groupset, because Record felt like an extravagance. I left it to a mechanic friend to decide the rest and build up the bike for me.
If you want to know whether or not your bike is truly suited to you, then sleep with it by your bed. Go to sleep late, wake up too early, and look at it as soon as you get up. Does it make you want to ride, even if your body is telling you not to bother? Then congratulations, you have chosen a great bicycle. For years I kept the Merlin next to our bed (yes, our bed – I managed to keep the girl) alongside an aluminium Merckx and a stickerless steel Glider, and it still inspires me to ride more than its two companions. Gleaming, naked titanium, white bar tape and white Fizik Aliante saddle: it looks indomitable, enduring, immortal, even though I’m no Christopher Lambert. The chunkier and more functional Campag gets, the more elegant my 2006 cranks look. And the Ksyriums, originally chosen out of practicality, please me with the simplicity of their thick spokes; when a child draws a pair of bicycle wheels, they draw SLs or something like them.
Performance-wise, it rides smoothly with just enough bite to get me over the sharpest bits of the Monte Grappa, the Barbotto or the Bwlch. But above all, what I like most about it is its arbitrary nature: an American frame, an Italian groupset, conjured into being through serendipity and indecision, via a workshop in Surrey. A bike from lots of different places.
The Dynamo club championships: racers and non-racers, united. And not arguing.
You know me, reader. You know the sort of person I am. I’m an honest man, and I will always endeavour to give you the unvarnished truth. So I feel I can tell you that London Dynamo hasn’t been travelling a smooth road lately.
Behind the walled city of our members-only forum, a few ’Mos have loudly complained that the club has lost its focus. Dynamo finished a mere sixth in the Surrey League last year – please, hold back your tears – and some of our more experienced racers feel the club’s racing culture has been eroded as more sportive riders have flooded in.
Despite my fondness for a good old ding-dong, I’m not too bothered by this contretemps. A lot of our big Surrey League point-scorers stopped racing for the club because they moved out of London or had kids. But a healthy number of newer members are going to Hillingdon to try out racing at the Imperial Winter Series, and more riders will make the transition from sportives to road racing. You’ve just got to give it time.
Nevertheless, the issue of how to handle the club’s ever-expanding size is likely to provide animated discussion at this year’s AGM, which takes place tomorrow. Some disillusioned members might not come along to join in with the arguments because they have decided not to renew their memberships. But it is notable that many more haven’t already left. Veteran club cyclist Tim Hilton, in his charming, freewheeling cultural history One More Kilometre And We’re In The Showers, observed that any cycling club’s maximum number of members was usually around 100. “The history of British cycling tells us that defections will occur, or a formal split, if this number is exceeded.” London Dynamo reached Hilton’s benchmark within 12 months, and by the end of 2012 – its ninth year – there were 560 paid-up members.
And these days there isn’t an imperative to join a cycling club in the first place. With GPS devices, newcomers to the sport can easily discover and navigate training rides themselves. Personal trainers can provide you with a training plan, or you can filch knowledge from books, magazines and the internet to create your own. You could even learn the basics of roadcraft from YouTube.
In this context, London Dynamo and other large clubs should be the HMVs of the cycling world, lumbering beasts struggling to adapt to the digital age. But instead of facing extinction or decline, membership numbers in most large clubs I know of are rising or remain high. Strava’s virtual club runs haven’t made a dent in the popularity of our rides, and the Rapha Rendezvous app, which aimed to connect users looking for others to ride with them, quietly disappeared some time during the past year.
So why are cycling clubs doing so well? I think the fundamental reason is that cycling can be bloody miserable. Before reaching the sunlit uplands of peak fitness, you must endure scores of desultory, rain-soaked miles, so it helps if you can be among a large group of people offering each other moral support along the way. The other key reason is the randomness: you can turn up week after week for a club run and never know exactly who you’re going to meet. A big club like ours can be a new club, or at least a slightly different one, every time you turn up for a ride.
But you can’t have amity without enmity, which is why I value the sometimes vociferous debates that take place within Dynamo, and the wide differences between members’ participation in the sport. The club will never be just a load of stats and info on a screen; we’re a living entity, and arguments are a sign of life, however ugly.
The DYNAMITE! Files 