“I was ready to take on the world until I saw the most marvellous little bookstore.”

 I’m not sure where I obtained this little quote, but I love it. Because there’s nothing Jo and I love more than dropping into a bookshop for a browse. If it has a coffee shop buried within we love it still more.

In Cheltenham there is one of significance,  the mighty Waterstones, and buried within, Costa Coffee. Our Tuesday morning destination, here we have wiled away many happy hours, caffeinating, browsing excellent books and whittling away an hour.  The cycling books are on the top floor, the art books on the bottom. Grab a few, and onto the middle floor for the coffee, free WiFi and a browse. It’s dangerous – I have browsed and fallen for so many books here. It’s where I choose my Christmas presents, and compile my wishlist. So that I don’t forget, I take a photograph – all praise my HTC One S smartphone camera (8 megapixels!)

I've found the time!

So.  No blogposts since December. And yet there has been a rich seam of events and  stories to write about and stuff to muse over.  No explanations needed for the break – sometimes it just happens.

However, lately I’ve been thinking about ...

1.       Lance Armstrong and his confessions (really?) I got up extraordinarily early to witness his remorse and hear his apologies. The most honest moment of the morning was when I told Beautiful wife Jo that I’d already had a bowl of Crunchy Nut cornflakes when I sat down later for ‘real’breakfast. They’re just so crunchy! And I’m not the only one to think so ... take a look at this excellent advertisement!

Crunchy Nut Dinosaur  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-9j0avaoPA

I don’t have a great deal to say about Lance. I’ve always wanted to have a positive blog,  so the best I can say is .... I’m glad I never took the time to read any of his books, therefore I had no illusions to be shattered. Move on all concerned – although I know there’ll be loads of news in the coming months about law suits, reclaimation of prize money, et al. Ho hum.

A cheap bit of symbolism from Paris 2010

2.       Coffee ... generally. And particularly with regard to my Baby Gaggia Coffee maker. Two months later and it’s proving to be a life changer. No need to leave the home to have a quality coffee – more on this later.

3.      Excellent subscriptions for Christmas for me and my boys  – many thanks from us three lads to you Auntie Rachel (boys),  Lovely Sister in Law (me).  Body transformations imminent!

 A year's worth of 6 pack ABS advice - but no cocaine problems to solve!

Beautiful Wife has started reading the ladies equivalent! Fitness abounding in our house!

4.       Starting up a peleton.  Last Tuesday, six school chums and I cycled out from school to Tewkesbury Costa for coffee and cake – it was the first ride out for the DC Peleton, numbers are growing on the staff and in a small Common Room of just over thirty staff we could (in theory) raise eleven roadies. More rides to follow – and perhaps a team shirt?

     L - R. Junior Forms, Husband of English, English, Geography, Science and Geography. Photo taken by IT!

5.       Snow!  Enough of it to close the school down, creating a long weekend and plenty of sculptures. I was amused by the notion put out by the Environmental Agency that we should all build an ‘Army of Snowmen’ in order to slow down the risk of flooding. Can you imagine how many snowmen we would need to cover our school field? And how long it would take?

Vehicles going nowhere!

Anyway, that lead nicely to The Turbo. Inevitably the snow leads to indoor riding and I’ve been having some quality times on the bike in the office. Movies, music, a view of the Cotswolds through the window....it’s not the road, but it’s still pretty good - Jo thinks so too – she doesn’t like me out on the road in the foul conditions – but it's good to keep the limbs spinning. I downloaded a training programme called Sufferfest from Sufferfest.com. It's called 'A Very Dark Place'. Important to have some variety on the turbo - we'll see how it goes.

Finally, a picture of Jo and our dear friends Suze and Nige, cycling near Chedworth in our glorious Cotswolds. Taken this last Sunday, a beautiful ride taking in some vigorous hill climbs, culminating in an obscenely large half a  roast chicken dinner in the Mill at Withington - a traditionally quaint Cotswold hostelry.

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!