Encore le Tour et le caffeine!

A little misleading perhaps, as this post is simply about my Tour de France Espresso freebie. On the most enjoyable Champs Elysees day, I was given a goodie bag, courtesy of the Procycling team which contained a pack of cards (profiling all the riders), a bidon, and this splendid cup and saucer set - just right for the perfect espresso! 

Alas, for two years, in my house there has been no facility to make the 'perfect espresso' though - until now.

Amazon is a devil isn't it? Gently browsing the other evening I came across a Gaggia Coffee maker less than 50% of the list price - the time was right, the cups had been languishing in the cupboard for far too long, and there has been a significant amount of evidence in the cycling press that a good shot of caffeine before a ride increases ones endurance on the road.

Commonsense and logic determined the outcome and the machine duly arrived - an early Christmas present! Early evidence suggests that this is going to be a fabulous addition to the kitchen, and to my cycling equipment. Beautiful wife Jo thinks so too!

Are you going t' Tour?

Yorkshire for the Tour de France! Well, that's grand news 'int it? Starting in Leeds, heading into the North York Moors, possibly through the Yorkshire Dales and then off down to the London area - bargain!

The route's to be confirmed next month but ... who do we have to thank for this?  Bradley Wiggins just has to be mentioned in dispatches. He's been in the news ever since winning the Dauphine Libere, going on to win the Tour de France, storming the Olympic Time Trial ONLY after burying himself into the Box Hill tarmac trying to aid Mark Cavendish win the Road Race three days before. Remarkable!

 But it was a great day, and a sign that the Brits do love their cycling. They'll undoubtedly tip out in their thousands onto the Moors, Dales and the Mall. Good choices made there Monsieur Prudhomme!

And no surprise that Bradley won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Trophy!

 

I've yet to ride Box Hill but I gather from the route profile and stats that it's not too different to riding our very own Col de Cranham on the edge of the Cotswolds.

Bradley leads Team GB on the first of nine ascents of Box Hill.


Sunday morning saw me heading off up the Col, the day sunny and crisp, the roads quiet and dry and the fitness level and pace summed up by this ........

.......  if I'd reduced speed I'd have been walking! However, after the debacle of the Summer virus, I've come back a different rider. A slower one. And one who's comfortable (for the time being) enjoying the scenery, instead of racing through it .............actually, I never raced through it ........ but I did suffer at my level .... and on this particular Sunday I decided not to.

Just around this corner there's a sharp left to Cranham and then you come across the loveliest piece of tarmac in Gloucestershire. Here it is .........



 ..... winding its way quietly through the ancient Beech trees of Cranham Woods. After a few minutes of gentle ascent you crest the top and after a short distance are rewarded with  an expansive view of the Severn Vale.

 



Sunday riding, in the Cotswolds, at it's best.

Urban Cyclist

There's not a great deal going on right now. Beautiful Wife Jo and I rode into town this morning, minus four degrees registering on the thermometer. She took a bit of persuading!

But it was great! A little tricky at a couple of junctions, but crisp - a little nip on the nose and ears perhaps, but then we stayed in town for three and a half hours - at least five pounds on the parking meter - so a good saving, enabling us to have a marvellous coffee and mince pie, followed by a lunch of Spicy Tomato soup with a Granary Roll to mop it all up.

Is 'Soup and a roll' a British thing? Random wonderings such as this often spring to mind. However, not for long, as I then set about reading 'Urban Cyclist' - issue 2 of a brand new magazine - aimed at the urban cyclist.

So I ended up wondering - am I an Urban Cyclist? Is Jo? Or are we Roadies? I have friends who make a big thing about eschewing carbon over steel, others who wouldn't be seen dead in lycra, and still more that think anybody on two wheels needs their head examining, followed by a lobotomy. I have two feet only, and I want to manouvre them into all camps!

Looking at Urban Cyclist, I want to be one. They're just dead cool. The bikes are cool. The clothes are uber cool. But I'm too old, and most definitely not cool. I still think the 'Star Wars' Christmas joke is the funniest ever - that's how uncool I am.

That said, I did ride a singlespeed road bike for a while, and that's just one step away from being a Fixie rider. So close .... but not quite there. Shucks.

But looking at other cycling magazines I want to be a modern roadie too, and I do ride a lovely carbon Specialized Roubaix, and wear lycra and white road shoes and a heart rate monitor. I don't shave my legs ..... and wont. Draw the line somewhere.

And then I want to be classic and retro - my into town bike has a Brooks saddle and a big 'ding dong' bell - and I enjoy copenhagencyclechic as a blog . There are times when I just want to be Danish.

But then I think about the Pashley Sovereign - and I'm glad that I'm British. I don't own one, but I will - one day.

So, as I cyclist, it would seem that I want to be everything. It's expensive - so many magazines.

Cheltenham Cycles (1)

A couple of very tasty cycles spotted in the town centre on Saturday afternoon. Both ladies, a Creme and a Bobbin.

A random fellow and I spent some time admiring the Brooks saddle on the Creme, and discussing whether the saddle bag was a Brooks product also - we decided it wasn't. Meanwhile his wife stood alongside with a bemused look on her face. How can a saddle be a topic of five minutes discussion? Actually, I could have talked about Brooks saddles for much longer than that! See my first Brooks saddle story here.

'I'd happily run him over'

Cyclist who took part in controversial BBC documentary is inundated with hate and death threats

This headline shows the  inflammatory nature of the BBC programme 'War on Britain's roads'. Was it a programme with an agenda? Difficult to know, but as a supposedly objective programme, there are small but significant things that bothered me.

Whilst the main protagonists were interviewed, the camera angle was set so that they were speaking down into the camera - inevitably, they look aggressive.

The cyclists were filmed in cycling attire, the drivers in regular clothing - already, within minutes they were setting an 'Us v Them', feel to the programme.

Guy Willams is not like any cyclist I know. He is aggressive. He is a little over the top. But he does have a point when he says, on the subject of a war on the roads,  

"I wouldn’t say it was cyclists vs motorists though, more good road users vs bad road users."

Did we hear from any of the good road users? The savvy lorry driver and veteran taxi driver spent most of the time driving around pointing out careless cyclists.

Any interviews with the cyclist that give clear signals of intent? Or those that give a thumbs up when they see drivers making room for them as they drive past? Not one. Not a single clip, save one perhaps, where the friendly policeman cycles up to a cyclist at a junction to congratulate him for not jumping a red light!

So now, after an investigative programme from the BBC, we have people tweeting abuse about Guy Williams.
  
"This cyclist with glasses on BBC Panorama actually deseves to be knocked off his bike and die!!! Arrogant little .......!"

Another comment ..........

'I am a cyclist, but that first t**** in the glasses deserves to be run over.'

Ian Austin, the joint chairman of the Parliamentary Cycling Group and Labour MP foe Dudley North described the programme as 'stupid, sensationalist, simplistic, irresponsible nonsense.


I'm not usually inclined to side with politicians ...... but on this occasion, a disappointing effort from the BBC!

Sensational Broadcasting

So ...... last nights’  BBC programme, The War on Britain’s Roads. A riveting viewing experience, and on many levels, an unedifying one.

The Cyclists ...... enraged, downtrodden, smug, passionate, healthy, holier than thou,  compassionate and outrageous.

The Motorists ...... angry, irritated, sensible, uninformed, skilful, or completely lacking in skill and compassion, experienced, sure of their rights to own the road, bemused, frustrated and, also outrageous.

The roads ..... too crowded,  inappropriate, lacking cycling infrastructure, medieval in layout, the battleground.

The bereaved Mother and Grandfather – upstanding, compassionate, measured, moving forward and willing to see both sides. The genuine article in this programme. The answer, if only people will listen.

There were people just going about their daily lives,  and then there were thugs with an agenda.
The programme didn’t really offer answers.  It just sensationally magnified the issues.

Then, finally, there was law enforcement. Policeman on bicycles giving chase through the city streets, attempting to keep the traffic flowing and relatively sane. It seemed to me that they were almost the cause of several accidents themselves.

Not so the policewoman above, cheerfully keeping cyclist and pedestrians happy on Box Hill, Surrey, the day of the Olympic Road Race.
 

War on the roads

It's not easy being a British cyclist. First off, there's the weather. Now .... I know that we're not the only nation to suffer precipitation difficulties - but we do seem to get rather a lot of it. Witness this photograph below. Halfway across the Pennines on the Coast to Coast ride, Beautiful Wife Jo, sons Jonny and Ollie,  and multiple friends had to abandon their bicycles and make like penguins behind a drystone wall. A common occurence on that particular trip.

However, this is a mere inconvenience compared to the seemingly impossible fusion of users on our roads. Very sadly, an elderly cyclist was knocked off his bike last night in our town, circumstances as yet unknown - but another example of the constant battle between bike and car on our transport network. Such a moot point that, this evening, the BBC are airing a programme entitled 'War on Britain's Roads'.

Cyclists immediately want to blame the motorist, and it's true to say that over 75% of bicycle/car related accidents are the fault of the Britain's drivers, and in some cases the animosity shown by them towards cyclists. But I do wonder if we are truly helping the situation.

On my bike this evening in the rush hour traffic - very cool cyclist in front of me - wearing all black - I barely saw him. Students cycling home from the local college, no lights.

On the other hand, last week a motorist deliberately pulling across to the kerb at the lights to stop me making my way into the 'bike box' in front of him. At the moment it all seems to be a bit of a mess.

This evenings' programme relies heavily on footage from cyclists' head cameras. It promises to be interesting.

Turbo and tons of cash

 Well, it's been a cold weekend, the temperatures struggling to reach 3 degrees celsius. A crisp white frost covered the morning fields and my car kept telling me, "Beware, slippery roads" - it's fairly new and I didn't know it could do that!

However, that meant that after school on Saturday the turbo seemed the best bet for a ride. Here's my set up - foreign (in this case French) movie subtitled on the TV, a fan (on setting one - no need to freeze inside!), and the headphones linked up to workout tracks on my computer. A steady ten miles covered in 34 mins 38 and then carrying on to finish the hour at 17 miles. A few single leg revolutions along the way, out of the saddle for a couple of sprints and then quickly into the shower before watching England beat the All Blacks! A mighty performance (by England, not me)

 

It was dismayed earlier in the week to read that more cyclists have been killed on British roads this year than in the previous high of 2007. So it's always quality to find a front page cycling headline - and particularly one offering tons of cash to improve cycling infrastructure. We shall see, but £1bn is a sizable leap. We need some of it in the provinces!

 

I posted this picture on my twitter (also Cotswoldcyclist) to get the response "I didn't know you had a thing about Mariella!"

 

Jo and I then pored over the article to check out the new rules. I was particularly thrilled to read, 'clubbing is most definitely forbidden' and 'Dad dancing' is frowned upon also, even at weddings!

Finally, unto town, there to spot the fact that cycling is now so much in vogue, that enlightened companies are even using it as an aspirational advertising lever. Oasis, truly on the trend. No helmets on those cyclists though - or hair!

A great bicycle joke!

I have always loved this joke. I first read it in French

A man walks into a bakers shop and says, "I'd like a loaf of bread please."

And the lovely girl behind the counter replies, "Certainly Sir, would you like brown or white?

And the man says, "Oh it doesn't matter. I've got my bike outside!"

So there it is. Funny isn't it!

Memories of the Tour (1)

                                          Alberto temporarily wins the Tour de France 2010

 

Whilst the intention is for Cotswoldcyclist to be  a repository of thoughts and happening ... I also want to place cherished memories here too....
 

...... one of which is the final day of the 2010 Tour de France on the Champs Elysees. In life it is so often a case of who you know ... and I knew someone who very kindly invited me to spend the final day in Paris, courtesy of one of the Tour Procycling teams. So as close to the finish as you can get.
 

So I saw Mark Cavendish take his fifth win of the Tour....

 

 

.... Bradley Wiggins round off his disappointing first French outing with Sky.....

 

.....and Lance Armstrong wind up his Tour de France career .... before it was comprehensively wound up a few short years later .......

All this after being wined and dined in one of the finest hotels in Paris!

Earlier in the summer we'd watched the Tour pass through the Alps ... more photographic memories to follow ......

 

 

Carrot Cake again - the bad news

So, having written about my lifelong carrot cake survey, later that morning I found myself  sharing a slice in Costa Coffee with Beautiful Wife Jo.

"Look up how many calories per slice, " she suggests.
Smartphone out... a quick check ..... and there it is ..... 491calories!

Once home I look up previous rides to find out how long that would take to ride off. And the answer is roughly 52 minutes at an average speed of 15mph, equating to a ride of about 13 miles.

Fortunately, we'd shared the slice, so only 245.5 calories to take care of on the turbo - it's far too cold to ride outside right now  - just touching 2 degrees Celsius!

Great things about cycling

Carrot Cake! And the ability to eat it, guilt free, because one had been out riding. 



But not only that. Cycling burns calories, and with a heart rate monitor, you can work out exactly how many calories you've expended. Fancy that piece of cake? Eat it! Then go out and ride for half an hour. Job done, your a little fitter and no fatter. Hurrah! 

Ok ... I know it's a little more complicated than that .... but we all need the odd treat in life so ....

 

At the moment I'm conducting a lifelong survey on the best providers of carrot cake to be found across the British Isles.

Top contenders so far..

• Electric Mountain Visitors Centre Cafe in Llanberis, North Wales. Huge and moist.
• Pete's Eats, also in Llanberis (more about this place another time). Gigantic, with quality icing.
• The Jane Austen Centre, Bath. Shown above, great care taken in the presentation! 

Wandering along Watery Bottom

After two days of continuous rain, Sunday morning presented a sunny disposition, so we decided to take our lovely French friend Sylvie for coffee in the Cotswolds.  Boots on, we strolled up Cleeve Hill ...... 

.....and descended down into Watery Bottom, a narrow ravine dropping down  to the The Washpool – a sheep dip built in 1897, and an enigmatic relic of the sheep farming industry once dominant in the Cotswolds.

Trangia boiling merrily, we sat on the hillside watching the mountain bikers contemplate the steep descent down into the valley. To a man they adopted caution and contoured down the gentle sheep trails instead. Shame - I wanted a Youtube clip!

Coffee made, the Chocolate Brownies eaten and back to the car - another mini adventure.

 

 

It's not a good look but .......

So, out on the road yesterday for the first time in a good while, sporting my Mo Bro moustache. November is the month were fellows across the globe sport interesting facial growth in the aid of Movember and Sons. The official reasoning goes like this..

OVERVIEW OF MOVEMBER

During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces in the UK and around the world. The aim of which is to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and testicular cancer.

There's more to be found on the excellent website .. http://uk.movember.com/?home

This is mine. It's uncomfortable and I don't like it. Strictly speaking, it's not following the rules either, but as a member of a Common Room with plenty of active participants - I didn't want to feel 'left out'. All I need now is a Tweed Suit to wear for the last week! 

The tache was of no help ascending Cleeve Hill mind. The climb to the 'Col de Cleeve' is a regular feature in the Cotswoldcyclist retinue. As a fitness marker, three minutes off the pace is a poor performance. Considering the PB is 9 minutes 59 seconds, it's a bit of a climbdown. On a positive note, it was blowy, fresh and fun.

When graffiti works!

Ok. I live in a school, and as a consequence, all my IT activities take place behind a Firewall of the most prudent kind. Blogging has been frustrating, as all attempts at photography and design has been thwarted. However ........ all now seems to be working! Hurrah!  But we shall see .............

In the meantime .. here's a photograph taken on an old railway bridge, now part of the Honeybourne Path, a pleasant meander through Cheltenham along a converted railway line. A perfect example of the right kind of graffiti, complemented by nature itself.

A first attempt to load a photograph

 

Cotswoldcyclist Steve and Beautiful Wife Jo on the Coast 2 Coast

Enforced downtime!

Well .... it's not been the most classic cycling period of my life of late. Here's a bullet point summary.

• A viral infection of the most sinister and secretive kind. I've had antibiotics chasing it around all over the place - it eluded two doses. As a consequence cycling was a minimalist activity over the summer, much missed.
• That said - it did give me plenty of time to enjoy a fabulous summer of sport, starting with Bradley at the Tour and continuing with the Olympics.
• Autumn has now arrived and I'm tentatively back on the turbo, seeing how it goes and biding my time before heading out on the road again.
• I've fallen madly in love with Echinacea and sleep!
• My brother in law has kicked my butt in the annual mileage competition by a country mile!

Of course a lot more has happened in the meantime and I have enjoyed my cycling vicariously through magazines, books, the TV and Twitter. However, it's now time to pick up where I left off.

The Exmoor Beauty .......... just another Beast

So ........the Exmoor Beauty, a newer, more relaxed kind of cycle event. Enough of the gut wrenching, spirit sapping, masochism of the burgeoning cyclosportive, characterised by the Exmoor Beast. A return to the era of 'a nice cycle out on the beautiful British countryside with mates'. Or so the preride blurb suggested,
Well ........this was no 'Beauty' that I was riding.  And neither were those swearing, panting, grinding, fellow cyclists suffering all around me. This was the Bonkers Beauty, the Hailstorm Beauty, the 22% gradient beauty, a beauty that was so puncture ridden that I had to give a fellow Beautician a spare inner tube and a loan of my pump after he suffered his third deflation. This ride was puncture carnage! Riders crouched behind bushes and hidden in secret countryhome driveways, ashamed that they'd spent too little, and weren't running bombproof Continental GP 4000's. Learn a lesson cheapskates!
So ..... the Exmoor 'Spring' Beast then. £27 spent to be out in the wet, wind and hailstones. Bizarrely. and despite all, a really great day out on the bike and one of a pair of annual 'must do' events - the 'autumnal' Exmoor Beast and Exmoor 'Spring' Beast. 'Nice cycles out in the countrside with mates?' The moor the merrier!

 

A close encounter with a Buzzard.

Out in the hills yesterday and I was amazed by the amount of road kill on the tarmac. A Buzzard! How did he go down? And what a mess! Then a pheasant, followed by a squirrel. Poor fellow buzzard was clearly being attended to by some carrion predator, so I stopped just around the corner to view the return of the lazy feeders. After thirty seconds I couldn't be bothered so rode on, musing on a galleried photographic exhibition of Road Kill Portraits. Why? Because all the heads of the poor victims were completely intact and really quite beautiful - as if they were sleeping. And how often do you get to see a Buzzard close up? Watch this space.

One out, one in!

The Specialized Langster is no more! One bounce in the Cornish surf, a skewed knee and suddenly the Singlespeed world doesn't seem such an attractive place. But lo ......... five hours on Facebook, the bikes sold and the next day the replacement moves in .... a Specialized Tricross, 52cm frame 'Freeroad' bicycle. Specialized describe it as....


'the perfect do-it-all bike for anything from trails to commuting to touring, with rack/fender mounts, wide-range gearing, and secondary brake levers.'


Yesterday Jo and I set out on the road for a test ride. Is it as fast as the Roubaix? Well, that's not possible..but it's no slouch and it feels planted on the road, its wide, borough cross tyres soaking up the rugosities (potholes) kindly left lying around the local County Council. It's not as light as the Langster, the extra weight amply experienced on the climb out of the car park at Cheltenham Racecourse, but its dripping with gears, so no real problem.


The best thing is its potential. Too frequently have I taken the Roubaix out for a ramble, and glanced  down tantalising bridleways and remote tracks too difficult for slicks. Not any more! The Tricross is going to be my explorers bike, my winter hack, my ambling along machine, and my wet weather steed, . Because it's got fenders!  * That'll be mudguards to us British fellows and they look fine ............. I'd rather they weren't there, but will be happy to have a dry rear on cold wet days ............ no fine weather cyclists in our house! So, we'll see how we go. After 22 miles I'm happy, and thrilled with the thought of how the Roubaix will feel after weeks spent on a heavier machine - bring on the Exmoor Beauty!

* One week later I took the fenders off.