4 spoke

Another couple of weeks of all quiet on the Western Front around here. Reason being a trip back to the UK to pick up some 4 spokes. Oh, and to visit the family, go to a wedding in Venice and other such distractions. But the primary reason for the trip was of course to pick these bad boys up. After my last Reine du Nord post it would seem I am defiantly keeping to the mantra of 'you can never have too many bike wheels'. Now, the only issue with these wheels is that the rear is actually a fixed gear track wheel (these were a bit of a drunk eBay surprise bid win for very little $$$). I had thought I would be able to swap it over to a geared freehub from a spare rear Corima hub I have, but now I've taken them out of the box it seems not. This leaves me with a bit of dilemna- do I convert my TT bike to a fixed TT bike / try to adapt an old school screw on cassette and go 5/6/7 speed at the back / buy a disc wheel?. Or do I ship back my track bike from the UK a try to justify them for that?!? Either way, the wife will probably kill me when she realises how many wheels / bikes I now have in the flat. "But they're good enough for Chris Hoy darling, so they must be good enough for me!"

Dolan Forza

If I had a few spare thousand pounds knocking about and lived next to a velodrome I'd be pretty tempted by this- a very nice track machine. Incidentally, Terry Dolan was trained by Harry Quinn RIP and has provided many bikes to the likes of Chris Boardman and Chris Hoy over the years.
http://www.velodrome.org.uk/dolanforza.html

Bike Bookcase

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just finished Richard Moore's book on Chris Hoy, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Rather than saying any more about this book I thought I'd put together a little list of what I consider to be a cyclist's bookcase essentials. A by no means exhaustive list (one always needs books to read) but a selection of some of the better bike books I've read. I've also added the list to the blog content just above the 'bike links' section.

A Dog in a Hat

Flying Scotsman

Heroes, Villains and Velodromes

In Search of Robert Millar

It's Not About the Bike

Put Me Back on My Bike

Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape

The Rider

The Great Road Climbs of the Pyrenees

Tour De France: The History, The Legend, The Riders 

Tomorrow, We Ride

Style Icon: Chris Hoy

It's been a while since I posted a 'style icon'. I originally started drafted this posting around the time of this post but unfortunately my hopes of meeting Chris and getting beaten by him on the boards of Laoshan in aid of promoting breakfast cereal now lie in tatters... For which I don't blame Chris, and which doesn't stand in the way of him being an undisuted 'style icon'. I've always thought he was 'cool' but what must classify him as super cool is that the UK public think so also. He's the first cyclist to win sports_personality_of_the_year since Tommy Simpson, which is an era of overpaid football star obsession is seriously impressive. You can blame / credit the recession (and his PR crew) but Chris has evidently become a symbol of hard work and dedication. He's also made wearing skin tight lycra more socially acceptable! None of us wear that sh*t beacuse it looks good (well maybe some) but because it works well and when you're 5hrs into a ride the last thing you want to be thinking about is a chaffing arse. So thank you Chris, if one less driver shouts at me outside of a window then that's a job well done. He also epitomises a certain Scottishness and this image sums that up just nicely.
http://data.map.london2012.com/points.php?id=443

Kelloggs

Best advert I've seen in a long time. More to come on this I hope...