live-cycle

Do you remember learning to ride a bike? For some time I suspected that I had always been able to ride a bike, that I was born with the ability, or that it was a quite natural part of growing up. But then I had a flashback: an eight or nine-year-old, in a back garden in Johannesburg, a large lawn ringed by fruit trees.  I remember an older boy visiting, someone from the church choir, too old to be my friend. Probably had a romantic interest in my eldest sister. Glen was his name, I think.

Well, he had arrived on his bike - a black Raleigh, as they all were in those days. I had asked him to teach me to ride, but the bike was too big for me. So while he and my sisters sat on the lawn talking, I began scooting around, standing on the left pedal. After a while I put my right foot under the crossbar and started pedalling - suddenly, quite unconventially, I was riding a bike.

That Christmas my parents gave me and my two older sisters a bike to share - a girl’s bike, black Raleigh, with a simple pedal-back brake. We fought over who could ride it when, but it was the first feeling of freedom that cycling has given me ever since. A girl’s bike? Friends jeered and mocked, but I couldn’t care less.

Thinking about it, Iwas quite lucky. We didn’t have much money, so it took a few more years before we each got our own bike. But we had a bike, we had friends with bikes, we had space to learn to ride them, and to fall off (I got into trouble when my second sister fell off and chipped a tooth, even though I was nowhere near).

I see that this week the Government launched a new strategy to teach children at school to ride bikes. It is called Active Travel, but somehow it has not yet managed to hit the national newspapers - I think they are all too concerned with talk of bullying in the Westminster playground. I became aware of it only through an email from the Halfords press office, welcoming the initiative. Of course, as a bike seller, Halfords has a vested interest, but that does not mean we should ignore the move, which could lead to a healthier, happier nation. Without initiatives like this, the propapagation of cycling would be stuck in a ditch. And where would that get us when the petrol pumps dry up?

After my rant about cycle paths, it is probably time for a bit of a ramble … Anger and angst about urban cycling will always be churning through the dark recesses of my mind, so I am sure I will return to the topic, but now it is time to change tack, to take a slow ramble through the byways and backroads of my brain.

Take yesterday’s ride - a ride under icy clear blue skies.  It occurred to me that the Cape Epic starts in a mere four weeks’ time. At this stage last year I was fitter than I had been in ages, but I’m glad that I’m not riding the Epic this year, not having to train in the snowy, icy miserable conditions that we’ve endured. But as I pedalled along yesterday, on the roadside there were signs of better things to come: amid the frost and frozen puddles I came across a bank of blossoming snowdrops, a sure sign that spring is not far off. Over the years that I have run or cycled past this patch, it has always been ahead of the rest of nature, always the first place to see crocuses, daffodils and bluebells.

For me there is no Epic this year, but there will be other adventures. First up is the Tour of Flanders, well, 100 miles of it, which Paul and I ride on Easter Saturday. But during my meanderings yesterday it struck me that it is ten years since I last did some serious running, ten years since I last did the Comrades marathon. So I have decided to run a marathon this year. I don’t want to do London or a big race like that. Instead, I think I have found the ideal course: Loch Ness marathon, on October 3.

So there you have it, in writing, my aim, my pledge for the year. I will run the monster marathon. And the great thing is that all the training will be in the summer. Which only goes to show that Lance Armstrong was right: it’s not all about the bike. Or is it??

Sometimes you can’t avoid a blog posting: it is something that just happens. At first you just see it in the distance - you know it is there, and you just cannot avoid it. Rather like the pothole that buckles your rim when you’re sqeezing between the bus and a brand new Merc, with no room for manoeuvre. Or like the protruding root on the muddy downhill, sneakily sticking out on a corner, half-hidden by dappled shadow.
You know you are going to come into sudden contact with whatever it is, and you don’t know how it will pan out.
This gaping hole that lies straight ahead of me is a rant. Specifically a rant about cycle paths, and even more so about those who design them. For the past few weeks my experiences and observations of cycling through London have been building up to this rant, and suddenly, when I no longer commute (don’t ask) I now have the time to write about it.
So, where do I start? With this sign, I think.
Now, we have all seen these signs, and they seem to breeding at an exponential rate. There must be a few that are actually necessary, but most are planted in the most inane places, where no cyclist would consider getting off his or her mount and pushing.
Take where I live, for example, just off the A20, where there is a cycle lane in both directions. When cyclists leave the busy road for our estate, they are ordered to dismount. Why? Do the road designers seriously expect them to hop off and push through a residential area?
Come on! These people are paid good money to use their noggins.
My guess is that they work on a quota system - they are told how many dismount signs are needed per square kilomtre in urban and rural areas. Either that, or they bought a job lot and have to justify the purchase by disseminating them. They aren’t that expensive - a mere £29 each from Equip4Work, and something off for buying bulk.
As cycling gathers momentum as a sport, pastime and means of transport, there will be a proliferation of signs affecting cyclists. Let’s just hope that that the signs of the times are pointing in the right direction.
Next: a proliferation of potholes

I was browsing through some photos that came in on the news wires last week and was struck by this inventive chap in India.
I thought his idea was quite novel, but a search on Google shows that bamboo bikes are not all that new or original. In fact, you can get them custom built with carbon or alloy joints, but the most amazing one that I came across was put together with epoxy and hemp fibre. The makers all rave about how eco-friendly they are, and how cheap and readily available the raw product is. But looking at the price of them, though, I reckon the manufacturers are being a bit disingenuous. The raw material may be cheap, but I don’t see them as being a source of inexpensive transport in poor countries.
Apparently the ride is good, with great ability to absorb vibration. The bikes themselves look super as a fashion accessory, and are perhaps great for the road … but for a big off-road downhill, I’m not so sure.

AS a cyclist, it is great to be noticed - it means that people know we are there, that they are aware of our presence. But I suppose that being noticed can also makes us easy targets. Take a couple of articles in the press over the past two days, for example. Yesterday The Sunday Times carried an article that shouted Cycle rage: tyranny on two wheels. I call it an article but, really, it was a rant by one Matt Rudd about the Lycra louts who ride on pavements and ignore the Highway Code.
Now we all know that there are those who ignore the norms, and give us a bad name, but this article tarred every cyclist with that same brush, and damned us for daring to claim our place on the roads.
Rudd manages to dredge up three cases where pedestrians have been killed by cyclists. No mention of the number of cyclists killed or maimed by motorists, nor even those injured when colliding with pedestrians who cross roads without looking (in my book, the most persistent danger).
The second article was in The Times today, entitled Council enforcers to put Lycra louts on straight and narrow. There we have it, those Lycra louts again. It appears that Westminster council is to deploy enforcers to hunt down errant cyclists and issue penalty enforcement notices. Angela Harvey of Westminster council says: “We’re always getting little old ladies who are knocked down and abused by a cyclist who leaves them on the ground as they ride away.” ALWAYS, I ask you? And if we go by her quote, it is always the same cyclist. Naughty bugger.
But at least there is some fairness in this article - it even quotes the number of cyclists killed or seriously injured. And the clincher is Tom Bogdanowicz, of the London Cycling Campaign, who says that enforcement of regulations is vital for all road users. And he adds: “It is vital that local authorities address road danger to cycle users by improving the very conditions that force some cyclists to seek the refuge of pavements. Where road design improvements have been made, offending falls significantly.”
Actually, I don’t mind if there is a crackdown on offending cyclists. If it makes the badly behaved ones behave, I will support that. But what we need to see at the same time is a crackdown motorists who block cycle lanes, endanger cyclists, stop in the advanced stopping zones.
But what offends me most of all is people who make unsubstantiated accusations against whole groups of people without any evidence, nor any right of reply. There should be a penalty for that.

“I’m going for a ride on my bike.”
Words that pass a cyclist’s lips almost every day. Yes, we go for a ride on our bike, but how many people can say: “I’m going for a ride on MY bike”? MY bike that I made, that has my name on it?
What prompts these thoughts was a little soiree on Monday night held by Halfords and Boardman bikes, quite fittingly at the Transport Museum in Covent Garden. It was an evening to keep in touch with the press, really, and to introduce the Boardman Limited edition (1,250 bikes, special decals, signed and numbered, and almost sold out). Chris Boardman was there, obviously, along with his production team, some Halfords staff and a fair sprinkling of PR people, plus a bright array of their bicycles for us to spill our beer over.
But it made me wonder: how many people can truly say that they are riding their bike. The Eponymous Cycle Club must be quite an exclusive band: there is, of course, Boardman, and others that spring immediately to mind are Gary Fisher, Greg Lemond and Eddie Merckx. After a bit more thinking, I came up with Ernesto Colnago (who was employed as a mechanic on Merckx’s Molteni team), and Fausto Pinarello. Then there is Dr Alex Moulton, who pioneered the small-wheeled bicycle revolution nearly 50 years ago, and William Pashley, a First World War dispatch rider who set up Pashley Cycles in 1926.
Someone who comes close, but is not quite a full member, I think, is Tom Ritchie, who rides some of his very stylish and expensive bicycle parts but, to my knowledge, does not have a frame with his name on it.
I decided to dig a little further, and my librarian, Google, took me to Baron von Drais, a German inventor, who is probably the most eminent member, because although he does not have a bicycle brand named after him, he was one of the people who invented the bicycle, although his eponymous draisine has rusted away from our vocabulary over the years.
But my favourite club member is Major Nichols. During the Second World War he served in the Navy as a Gyroscopic Compass Technician, leaving as Petty Officer. Major, it turns out, was his Christian name. He went into bike building, in his home town of West Bromwich, and died in 2005.
I know that you’ll probably come up with dozens of names that I have overlooked, and I will be happy to hear from you.
But before I finish, I have just one question: Who is Claude Butler?

In sport, focus is everything: it is what takes athletes to the top of their field, and what keeps them there.
Vision is something completely different: it is for athletes who, after years at the top, wish to put something back into their sport.
Focus helped Team GB to win its record clutch of cycling golds in Beijing last year. After Beijing, when many riders suffered post-Olympic blues, one rider kept focus: Nicole Cooke, who went on to achieve the remarkable double of Olympic and world road-racing champion in the same year.
Few can maintain focus and vision at the same time. Lance Armstrong manages both, but he has huge commercial and logistical backing.
After her phenomenal year Nicole set out to put something back by creating Vision 1, a women’s road racing team. The dream did not endure - she blames the credit crisis, but there was an element of chauvinism. A week ago I interviewed Nicole for The Times and she spoke at length on her dreams for Vision 1, her disillusionment at the lack of sponsorship, her hopes for the future.
Nicole has put her vision aside for now, and her focus is back on producing the results that made her queen of the road.
You can read the interview in full at Times Online.

I think it was Lance Armstrong who started the charity wristband-wagon rolling with his yellow Livestrong bracelet. But we don’t have to send our hard-earned pounds abroad to support cancer charities that have a bicycling bent.
We have our own Geoff Thomas Foundation, set up in 2007 by the former footballer who hopes to raise £20 million to fund a pioneering integrated network of blood cancer drug trials at six centres across the UK.
Geoff has linked up with cyclestore.co.uk who are developing a GTF line of merchandise. What is more, customers can donate directly to the foundation at the online check-out.
Geoff is the former Crewe Alexander, Crystal Palace, Wolves, Nottingham Forest and England footballer who was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia in 2003. His life was saved by a bone marrow transplant from his sister. Two years after being diagnosed, Geoff got the cycling bug and started a fundraising campaign to help fellow cancer sufferers, raising £800,000 by sponsored rides including the 2005 and 2007 Tour de France routes. For more information on the GTF please visit geoffthomasfoundation.
I know that Lance’s venture is a worthy cause, but remember, charity begins at home.

It is back, looking tougher than ever, and with a new twist to the format. It, of course, is the Absa Cape Epic, and the 2010 edition promises to be as challenging as ever before.
Once again the route is a demanding eight-day ride, covering 722km and climbing 14,600m in the process over regions previously untouched by the race.
There will be no prologue for riders to ease into the race, but instead, after booking in at Cape Town’s Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, riders will set off from Diemersfontein on March 21 on a 117km trek over Bainskloof Pass to Ceres.
The race will spend three nights in Ceres, two in Worcester and two in Oak Valley, before heading back to Lourensford, scene of the finish this year. The last three days will look familiar to riders of the 2009 event but for me, two of those three days were the most gruelling and demoralising I have ever undertaken on two wheels, and I am still trying to erase them from my memory.
The twist in 2010 is that there is no prologue, but a time-trial on day five, through the foothills of the Brandwacht to the west of Worcester. At only 27km some riders might consider it a rest day, but with 860m of climbing they will be well advised to treat it seriously. Full details of the ride can be seen on the Cape Epic site.

The Lance question
There have been frenzied rumours that Lance Armstrong will be taking part in the 2010 Cape Epic, and even Kevin Vermaak, the Epic founder and organiser, has hinted to this blog that he is hopeful of such a coup. Well, that speculation will not be stifled by the news that Lance will be in South Africa at the beginning of March to give his backing to the Jag Foundation, the charity supported by the Cape Epic and many of its leading riders.
My take, personally, is that the Epic is too soon before the Tour de France, where Lance will be riding with his new team Caddyshack - sorry, I mean RadioShack. I reckon he will be recce’ing the Epic in the expectation of riding it in 2011 or 2012. But then, what do I know? Lance, any clues?

Those South Africans are crazy. Never content with a challenge, they always seem to come up with something that little bit harder, little bit tougher.
For some years now the Absa Cape Epic has been South Africa’s ultimate test in mountainbike riding. Having ridden it twice, I know just how hard it is and, after completing it this year, I swore that I would never do it again. I have since had a change of heart, but it would be with some trepidation that I would wheel my bike to another Epic start line.
But for some, that isn’t enough. Last night the organisers of the three-day Sani2C announced a new challenge, a nine-day 830km ride from Johannesburg to Scottburgh on the Kwazulu/Natal south coast.
The joBerg2c starts on April 23, 2010, and will take riders from southern Jo’burg, through the Free State and down the Drakensberg escarpment where the last three days will cover the Sani2c ride.
It might not yet be a serious challenge to the Absa Cape Epic, which is backed by big riders and big money, but one thing is certain, it will be a wonderful test and a great adventure that will be sold out before you can say “granny ring”.

On a separate note, a big word of congratulation to Gary Perkin. His fantastic picture of two riders casting long shadows across a dirt road brought gasps of wonder when it was first shown to competitors at the Epic earlier this year.
Since then it has graced the covers of numerous mtb magazines. Now Perkin has been awarded top honours at the Velo Arto competition at Mont-Sainte-Anne in Quebec.
Check out what Gary had to say about the picture.