Bike Culture

You probably know that I’m a big fan of Rick Smith’s daily comic strip, Yehuda Moon. It’s the story of daily life in a bike shop, owned by ex-commercial property developer and idealist Yehuda Moon, and staffed by racer-turned-wrench Joe King and Thistle Gin - a hot, tech-savvy woman with a degree in engineering. ANYWAY. Thanks...
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Watch this - the more observant amongst you will probably notice that the rider’s not wearing a h*lmet and makes the fool mistake of riding alongside a lorry that’s waiting to turn off. But see if you can spot the other, less obvious feature of his riding:
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For those of you who’ve been asking to see the Frankenbike in action, here’s a short clip: The paint arrived for it last Friday, so over the next few days I’ll be stripping it back to the frame and painting it scarlet!
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The plan was simplicity in itself: Tall Robbie and I would get the train across to Whitehaven on Friday evening, B&B overnight, and then cycle back on Saturday. Somewhere between 130 and 140 miles, with around 10,000ft of climbing in the last days of winter. What could possibly go wrong? Seeing as the plan was to...
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Welcome to Friday! This week we’ve a lovely retro photo for you to caption, but before we get to that, there’s the small matter of last week’s winner. There was some pretty stiff competition for our prize, and Tom came pretty close to winning. But the prospect of seeing him in one of those bib-shorts...
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I was at a friends house recently, and she produced this book which had belonged to her children: Mrs Armitage On Wheels by Quentin Blake is just the sort of story I used to read to Daughter. It’s about a woman riding a Very Sensible Bike that always needs to have just one extra thing...
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FutureCycles posted this video from the Brompton factory today: As it happens, I’m a bit of a factory nerd, so I love this sort of thing. It got me thinking - what other bicycle factory footage could I find? The obvious answer is from Brooks Saddles: My professional opinion on the above two films? Well, I can...
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Last Friday the weather was fine, and the winds light, so I knocked off early to head up to Ashington to collect the Frankenbike. At around 3m long, it won’t fit into the car, so the only option was to ride it home. And that’s just what I did - I rode there on the...
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You should try the Australian version. Note the fine physique of the presenters, and their completely fair & accurate reporting: Still, it’s good to see that they take safety seriously, and are pioneering the use of driver’s helmets. Shame the chin strap’s not done up (REALLY TIGHT), but at least it’s a start.
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Before we come to that though, three cheers to everyone who entered last week’s contest. The clear winner was Katja Leyendecker, who correctly identified the London cyclist as a Boris Bike Braveheart escapee with the caption: “It’s all for nothing if you don’t have your freedom” This week we continue in this theme of the foreign...
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