Author Archives: Admin

That whole leg shaving thing

If there’s one question that appears to fascinate and confuse non-cyclists, it’s the leg shaving thing. Take, for example, this clip from the most excellent QI


Why Do Racing Cyclists Shave Their Legs? – QI… by TotalBBC

Yep. Aerodynamics ain’t it. There’s no discernable aerodynamic advantage, and if there was we’d not be leaving the chin stubble intact either. Or the arms, come to that.

In fact, there are a large number of reasons cited, some of which are listed on the wikipedia article “Leg Shaving”. But we’ll get to that in a moment. Continue Reading →

All of this is true

Thanks for sharing, Norbs.

Injuries

Rocky Trail Shimano GP, Stromlo, 2013

Found via Carbon Addiction, this interesting post from the NY times takes a helicopter view of cycling safety and injury rates. Overall, it paints a cautiously positive picture of the kind of dangers the average cyclist will face.

For my part, I could see a lot of my own cycling history in the post. As the article notes, many cycling injuries go unreported. I’ve never yet been to hospital, or even a GP, for a cycling-related injury, though I’ve had many. In my former life, before taking over a decade away from the bike, I was largely injury-free, with cuts and bruises being pretty much the limit of what I picked up. Low speed crashes in icy conditions spring immediately to mind as a hazard of riding year-round in Britain. Usually, the bike would be worse off than me – I’ve pretzeled a couple of mountain bike wheels in crashes that left me personally unscathed. The worst I can think of is a black eye picked up when I put a pedal on the ground in a corner and went face first into a kerb. I was pretty lucky. Continue Reading →

My new toy

So I woke up this morning one year older, and as it turns out, one bike up. Thank you Esther for organising that little surprise.

methanol_at_home

That’s my new XT/Reba/Magura-equipped 2013 Bianchi Methanol SL, which I’d put a deposit down on a month or so back but didn’t expect to be paying off for a while, since the budget that would have paid for it was spent on new wheels when I crashed the road bike at the start of October.

Turns out that Esther does sneaky things with the budget. Very sneaky.

It’s currently in the workshop having the seatmast cut to size and a few minor tweaks done before I chuck in work for the day and head out to try and find a trail that’s not on fire. Its first competitive outing is unconfirmed, but might be the Highland Fling in November. I’m not 100% sure whether the dual-sus machine might be a better choice for that particular race, but no doubt I’ll figure it out once I’ve put a few kms on the new one.

Full report on the bike to follow. And big thanks to Atelier De Velo for going along with Esther’s little plan. Sneaky.

I’m hoping Yellomundee survives the bushfires OK

Yellomundee, in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, is my MTB club’s track. It’s currently closed due to the fires raging in the Springwood area, partly because of fire danger and partly because the heavy helicopter traffic in the area is likely to cause falling branches and downwash. I’ve got my fingers crossed that it’ll survive the fires without too much damage, because a little later in the summer, I’m hoping to race in this

I don’t rate my chances of victory too highly – Yellomundee might be my club’s track but I don’t ride there all that much – but I think the series will be a great set of races. There’s a lower profile than the Chocolate Foot and Rocky Trail events I’ve been racing so far this year, so there should be an even more casual feel – though I don’t doubt there’ll be some guns smashing out hot laps too.

Hope to see you there…

Spend two minutes with your jaw hanging open. Go on.

Here’s Kelly McGarry at the 2013 Red Bull Rampage, scaring me to death

And you can find third-person of the backflip over the gap here

Calling time on that whole “bell” thing

“Bike coming through. Keep to the left please”

I called out in a bright cheerful voice this morning

The reply came back

“Where’s your bell?”

That exchange happened this morning as I rode down the Cooks River Cycleway on my circuitous but somewhat pleasant commute to work.

Now before I get to the meat of the post, I’d like to first address the unspeakable stupidity of that response.

In no possible universe does “ding ding” convey more safety-related information than a bright and cheerful “keep to the left please”. “Ding ding” does not convey, for a start, that the right thing to do is to move to the left. “ding ding” is, in fact, considerably less safe, and less polite, than a cheerful “keep to the left please”. You’d have to be breathtakingly dense to think that was the case. One certainly does not need a PhD in Information Theory to understand that “ding ding” is a low information density phenomenon, whereas verbal communication of the “keep to the left please” variety conveys an order of magnitude more.  Ten thousand years into the future, when this blog post is retrieved by some far-distant digital archaeologist, people will be seen to remark “Fuck me, that was a really stupid response. People were sure thick back in the 2010s, eh?”. The kind of person who would make that response would be incapable of thinking his or her way out of a wet paper bag if that wet paper bag was open at both ends and clearly marked with the words “exit here or here“. The person who said it probably believes that she is a crusading figurehead for pedestrians’ rights, standing up to an evil, law-breaking cyclist. What she actually is, is a moron.

That pleasant little rant out of the way, let’s address why I do not and will not fit my bike with a bell. Continue Reading →

Kanangra Classic 2013 Cancelled

At the 2012 Kanangra Classic

At the 2012 Kanangra Classic

Last year, I rode my first 100km mountain bike race since getting back on the bike, at the 2012 Kanangra Classic. It’s a good introductory XCM, mainly on firetrails, with no excessively hard or technical riding, with a high potential average speed and scope for some tactical group riding, and I was very much looking forward to a return visit this year.

Sadly, due to the current bushfire threat, the 2013 race has been cancelled. At this late stage, with money committed and so much prep already done, there are no refunds. Any leftover funds are going to the Rural Fire Service, which is fine with me.

Personally, I’m a bit gutted. I was targeting a podium or category win in the vets classification, which I’m sure I could achieve on current fitness – but I completely understand why it’s been done. There’s a fire burning a few kms west of the trails themselves, and yesterday there was a report of an uncontrolled outbreak a mere 4km from the event centre, at the southern extremity of the actual race circuit. Mountain Sports have released an email outlining the cancellation and should be updating the event website soon.

Next race: the 2013 Camelbak Highland Fling in November

Recent Goings On, And Some New Gear

So I feel the need to drop in an update. I’m nine days into the Great Cycling Challenge, and I’m currently a few km behind my scheduled target. I should be on at least 450km by the end of today. With today’s evening ride to go, I’m on about 390km. There’s a reason for this slight lag in the curve.

On Friday night just past, the fourth day of the challenge month, I came something of a cropper. Continue Reading →

October 2013 is Great Cycle Challenge Month

Just a quick post to remind everyone that this month is The Great Cycle Challenge, and I’m riding 1500km in aid of children’s cancer research.

This is a bit more than my normal training volume, but it’s a very worthy cause. If you support this, sponsor me here.

I’ll be posting semi-regular updates on my challenge page, and will be trying to exceed 50km each day of the month, in order to get nicely ahead of the curve. I’m racing a 100km XCM at Kanangra on the 20th, so I’ll have to tailor a taper programme around that, so ideally I want to be well into the upper range of the 1500km before then. Today’s weather isn’t looking helpful, but them’s the breaks in cycling.