Hmmm… I fear that I may have given you too much to look at last week. So you all got distracted, and seemed to provide captions for whichever photo took your choice. Naturally this made judging in a completely fair & unbiased manner rather difficult. In the end we chose the winner by scratching your answers...
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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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…but this is very funny, and quite well done. If you’re watching at work, your boss will be particularly impressed (in a way that could significantly change your pay) if you could turn the sound RIGHT UP before pressing play:
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I met this woman in Whitely Bay today: See that behind the double-buggy? It’s the obvious alternative to a buggy board. I’ve always puzzled about buggy boards, which leave the parent walking along stretched out like some demented time trial cyclist who wants to spend every spare minute practising “getting really aero”. Apparently it’s called a...
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This was happening: Wouldn’t you just know it - I spend ages messing on with my lights and get them working just as spring and lots of daylight are just around the corner!
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Yesterday, Mikael from Copenhagenize.com posted this Tweet: The thing is, I don’t think he’s right on this. The War On The Motorist is a pretty one-sided affair, and anyone who’d not been through basic training in the guerilla warfare it entails is likely to end up a statistic. Where the problem lies in in promoting Vee-hicular...
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I thought you might want a bit more information on the headlamp upgrade I built for my Pashley’s hub-dynamo driven front light. You probably don’t, as you’d have to be the same sort of geek that I am to enjoy this, but what the heck - here they are anyway: First up, the circuit diagram...
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From my bimble around Co Durham, Gateshead and Newcastle last Friday: I saw a cycle lane in Chester le Street… that you’re not allowed to use once it re-joins the road: I saw the latest in Gateshead Council’s continued efforts to build the world’s first nanometre scale cycle lane: (Surely this one is worthy of the Warrington...
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Things you See When Riding A Bike: The sunrise, flowers, seagulls flying alongside you, clouds, lambs in the fields, snowflakes, snowdrops, many different road surfaces, people, cars, frustrated drivers, buildings, great architecture, failed town planning from the 60s, 70s and 80s, familiar faces, that man feeding the birds on his usual bench, newspapers in the street, smiling...
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Before we start, I’d like to thank everyone who contributed to last week’s caption contest. It was so good to see you all raising the tone of the debate. Sadly, there can be only one winner. This week our panel of judges decided that Dr C’s entry made us laugh hardest, as it was...
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How’s about this for a story: One really very good reason that we should absolutely not be campaigning for a proper standard of cycle infrastructure in the UK is that it will RUIN (yes, literally RUIN) our sports cycling. In the Netherlands, their cycle teams actually have to train abroad, as they are NOT ALLOWED to train...
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Number fourteen in our series: An early spring evening and a bike with saddle springs: As I came out onto the sea front next to Beaches & Cream in Cullercoats, I saw this lady ride past. I caught her up a hundred yards or so down the road and complemented her on her bike… Sensible (I...
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