The context: 20,000 cyclists will descend into the West Midlands again next May for the second edition of “Velo Birmingham”. Aside from the lure of closed roads, there is obviously a big appetite for organised long distance cycling in the area. While closed road is an undeniable pull and no doubt the event will be…
Super Randonneur is a lifetime award gained by completing a randonneur series of 200, 300, 400 and 600 km validated Brevets in the same year. With a few 200 to choose from and having completed the Heart of England 300 and London Wales London 400 within the previous four weeks, I was now down to…
London Wales London is the creation of Willesden Cycling Club and now run by Liam Fitzpatrick. A well established Randonneurs challenge that starts in Chalfont St. Peter, just outside the M25 in Buckinghamshire, goes to Chepstow crossing the Cotswolds and the Forest of Dean and then turns back via the old Severn Bridge and the…
Still to this day, in an age of widespread and freely available knowledge, I keep reading a load of “tosh” about something as simple as a bicycle wheel. Of course, for a complete lowdown, you should read the excellent book by Jobs Brandt, but if you are time crunched, I will hereby try to explain…
Broadly speaking, midlife crises are of three types: affairs, fast cars and sport challenges, I got stung by the latter bug, of the pedalling kind. I have never been blessed with the agile limbs of a cheetah or the lungs of a sledge dog, therefore I am not a fast cyclist and my fascination is…
I suppose I can say I was a pioneer of disc brakes on road bikes, having bought the first one in December 2009. Ok, it was sold as a cyclocross bike, but the knobbly tyres got immediately replaced with slicks, so it was in practice a road bike. It came with some dreadful Shimano BR…
The obsession for speed is not a new thing in amateur cycling, the obsession for power is, since devices to measure power output have been available on the market for just over a decade. This brief and not at all comprehensive article hopefully will clarify some mysteries around power and speed and how to use…
The takeaway message of this season of UCI races is that as rims go, deeper is no longer better: for years the trend was for ever growing rim depths, to the point that even in hugely mountainous stages of the Giro d’Italia, Rigoberto Uran was spotted riding 60 mm deep rims, in the face of…
Tubeless is slowly but steadily taking over in the road wheel market. While only a small minority of road cyclists use tubeless tyres, virtually every new wheel and rim offering on the market come as tubeless ready or tubeless compatible. Some rims are even certified with a Universal Standard for Tubeless (UST) logo. What it…
Well, I didn’t see that one coming. When we signed up for the Fred Whitton Challenge back in January, we kind of bought out in the idea of torrential rain and high winds. We would have cashed in, if anyone promised ten degrees and grey skies, so when a forecast of twenty plus materialised, we…
Disc brakes have invaded the road bike market over the past three years. Unlike the high tech mountain bike equivalents, most road bikes are fitted with undersized 140-160 mm rotors and cable operated calipers. Hydraulic systems are now available from both SRAM and Shimano, but they are very expensive and typically fitted on high end…
The last time I posted an article, I was in the process of entering the Fred Whitton Challenge and trying to get back in my pants. I am pleased to announce progress on both fronts: I have indeed won the lottery and got a place in the Fred and I have indeed dropped 16 pounds,…
