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.)
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.
5 UP The Pedal Pub
It’s a common scenario for the amateur cyclist: your club’s alcohol-based social event is drawing to a close, and you’re faced with the decision to either go home or continue the revelry elsewhere. Well, worry no longer, because everyone can now do both thanks to a bit of Dutch ingenuity. Boasting speeds of up to – gasp! – 5mph, the Pedal Pub is a steel 10-seater bicycle equipped with a barrel, a beer tap, cup holders and a sound system. What could possibly go wrong? The only drawback is a possible increase in membership fees to cover costs, as each Pedal Pub costs a sobering £26,000.
4 DOWN Riding through London at street level
Blah blah double the number of cyclists in London blah blah blah £913million investment blah blah blah safety measures blah blah blah cycle lane on the Westway blah bl… hold on – we’re going to be able to go up in the air and cycle above the streets? Like E.T.? WHY IS EVERYONE NOT TOTALLY EXCITED BY THIS?!
3 UP Robot police bikes
Another overlooked yet totally mind-blowing feature of London mayor Boris Johnson’s 10-year vision for cycling in the capital is a plan to give police electric bikes that can climb stairs. That’s got to be one cop chase we’d all love to see. Especially the bit where the officer says, “Go go gadget legs!” and a pair of telescopic limbs sprouts from the cranks.
2 UP Geoffrey Soupe
The Paris-Nice prologue proved to be a magnifique day for the French, who took half the positions in the top ten, including a surprise victory courtesy of Europcar’s Damien Gaudin. France’s domination was augured by Geoffrey Soupe of FDJ taking an early lead, although it was obvious he was unlikely to win. Soupe’s just for starters.
1 UP The organisers of Milan-San Remo
Tom Boonen angrily quit, Robbie Hunter’s eyeball froze, and Gerald Ciolek took a surprise win for his Pro Continental wildcard team MTN Qhubeka. But the truly remarkable aspect of La Primavera’s snow-smothered 104th edition was that it went ahead at all. Packing the riders into their team buses, skipping the Turchino and La Manie and resuming the race 54km from the finish ensured we got to witness a truly historic race – so, ultimately, it was Mauro Vegni and his fellow race officials from RCS who turned out to be the real heroes of the day. Well done, you lot!
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.
5 UP The Pope
God moves in mysterious ways – so it could have been divine inspiration that prompted an inquisitive journalist to ask Marcel Kittel, “Did the Pope’s resignation give you extra motivation?” following the young German’s victory in the opening stage of the Tour of Oman. Commentator Matt Keenan reports that the question “was met with bemused silence”. Maybe the heat had got to the unnamed hack – or he thought the relatively little-known early season race was called The Tour Of Amen. It’s an easy mistake to make.
4 UP Osen
This little-known Rapha rip-off, spotted by former Perren Streeter Luke Scheybeler, could do with a viral marketing campaign if they want to make their Korean brand a No.1 hit in the UK. How about a pop video of a dapper loon doing an exuberant dance which mimics riding a bike with one hand? Chaingang-nam style. Over to you, Luke. Op, op, op!
3 DOWN Cycling to school
“It would be a national scandal if a school situated within view of the 2012 Box Hill Olympic cycling race introduced a policy that forces pupils into cars.” Well, it should be a scandal, but apparently it isn’t, despite concerned parent James Harvey’s eloquent summation of the decision by North Downs Primary School to ban pupils cycling or walking to two of its sites because of the perceived danger. Memo to Surrey County Council: if the roads really are that dangerous, then maybe you should be targeting motorists instead.
2 DOWN The Guardian
Taking up the cause of his chums in the US who are, like, totally pissed that Lance Armstrong is now using Strava, the Guardian’s Matt Seaton writes: “Of any segment of the American public, this is probably the community that is best-informed, cares most about clean cycling, and feels most betrayed by Armstrong’s cheating.” To which non-Stravistas might respond to the adoptive American’s buddies: relax, er, ‘dudes’. He won’t be using any of Dr Ferrari’s Special Sauce this time. Strava is the one ‘race’ Armstrong can win without doping and, in a just world, he should have been sequestered to it a long time ago. If he doesn’t end up in chokey, getting mired in an online willy-waving ‘King of the Mountains’ purgatory could be the next best thing…
1 UP Sean Yates
Meanwhile, back in Matt’s homeland, an altogether more tolerant attitude to the EPO era was on display when an alleged friend of the infamous Motoman decided to slum it in the lowly 3rd cat race at the penultimate fixture of the Hillingdon Winter Series. Sean Yates (yes, that’s him above on the Team Sky Pinarello, and there are more pics here) was given a warm welcome, which is more than can be said for Eurosport’s Tony Gibb, who was ejected from the series for bollocking his fellow competitors. First Lance, now Tony – who can we believe in anymore?
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.
“That’s for running, not cycling. There is a difference.”
Oh dear. The large, blokey manager of CycleSurgery in Shepherd’s Bush is staring at the tub of energy drink I’m holding. It’s a small bucket of Torq. Natural Orange flavour, since you ask. I give him a meek smile, which nevertheless conveys I am ill-equipped to engage in any science-based chat, and scurry to the counter.
Every so often I pop into a CycleSurgery store to buy Natural Orange flavour Torq, or indeed one of Torq’s many other delicious varieties, because most other bike shops don’t stock them. And technically, neither does CycleSurgery: Torq is kept in the Runners Need section, which operates as a separate business – hence the store manager’s friendly yet emphatic advice to this naive cyclist who has seemingly wandered into the wrong part of the shop. I could’ve got away with it if I’d only taken off my helmet and left my bicycle outside. And not worn a pair of shorts with “quickerbybike” written across the arse area.
It’s an unusual encounter, but not a surprising one, because I’ve found that CycleSurgery stores are odd environments anyway. The bijou Fulham Road branch, where a helpful lady sold me a nifty USB rechargeable front light called Moon Comet this week, has a steep-ish steel staircase (see above) which is difficult enough to negotiate when you’re clattering down it in your cleats, and presumably even more so if you’re taking your bike down to the basement workshop. At the Lower Thames Street shop, I have to pay for my Torq minibucket at the Runners Need till, then go to the main till if I’m buying other stuff, which is a bit like shopping at Foyles in the 1980s. But it’s the Shepherd’s Bush store which fascinates me the most, because it has a glass cabinet where, like a museum exhibit reminding us of a crueller and altogether unbelievable age, a pair of unsellable Lance Armstrong-branded Oakleys stares out at you. The Jawbone of a terrible dinosaur.
CycleSurgerys have been springing up everywhere lately. They have a whopping range of stuff, stocking everything from kids’ bikes to the type of helmets that adorn the bonces of Team Sky, and their website has a handy function which tells you which store has your desired item in stock. They should be identikit stores like any other chain, but each one I’ve used has its idiosyncratic touches, which I find endearing, despite the minor frustrations. Just don’t go in there to buy the ‘wrong’ type of powdered drink without doing your homework.
Maybe, for the benefit of all us CycleSurgery shoppers, I should write a blogpost examining which energy drinks are better suited to cycling. And call it Performance Enhancing Glugs.
5 DOWN Assos winter kit
From the Swiss outfitters who gave you The Homoerotic Mandroid comes another unique way of celebrating the male body: a pair of winter leggings that will turn your balls blue. Isn’t that what they’re supposed to prevent, guys? Cycling Weekly, which photographed The Assos Circle Of Cyan on a dummy’s gentleman’s area at the Cycle Show, has failed to provide a photograph of the garment’s rear view. Which is probably just as well.
4 UP The Urban Cyclist
In the ever-competitive world of cycling magazines, plucky newcomer The Urban Cyclist makes a strong bid for Most Fanciful Upgrade Suggestion: a £649 five-spoke carbon front wheel for the sort of bike you would normally use to get to work or go down the shops. Apparently the BLB Notorious 05 is “a serious bit of kit”, so no pointing and laughing if you see one, OK?
3 UP Rapha
The fashionable literary genre of S&M appears to have infiltrated one of the mini-stories that Rapha famously sews into its garments. New Sky signing Ian Boswell spotted the intriguing tale of a soigneur climbing into a shower to get his hands on bruised and battered Richie Porte – but how does the steamy story end? James Fairbank, Rapha’s head of marketing, suggests you will need to buy all 11 variations of the new Sky jerseys to find out. Just in case he isn’t joking, here’s a suggestion for a title: 50 Shades Of Gains (Marginal).
2. UP Pinarello
To sneers and groans of disappointment, Halfords has announced it will stock Pinarellos. Who would have thought that a proud, Italian, Tour-winning marque could be sold alongside car stereos and bottles of anti-freeze? Well, for a start, anyone who has been to Pinarello’s hometown of Treviso, where the brand’s name adorns anything from kids’ bikes to sturdy shoppers – the sort of bicycles you would expect to find in, er, Halfords.
1. DOWN Lance and Oprah
Amid the fallout from Doprah, spare a thought for the hitherto unexamined effect on the caffeineistas of Old Street. Popular cyclists’ cafe Look Mum No Hands! announced it would screen Armstrong’s confession and give away coffee every time he shed “crocodile tears” – only for the shameless cheat to avoid delivering a Kleenex moment during the first night of the two-part interview. So no free brews. It’s always the fans who suffer, isn’t it?
The DYNAMITE! Files 