One for the missus

nicked from the immense jjjjound

Crane

Shimano's first ever dura-ace derailleur apparently..one of their other range was called "shimano pecker", epic.





going to clean it up as best as I can and just keep as an ornament.

ola hipster

Tour of Britain - Rochdale 2010

Went to the start in Rochdale. Pissed it down but the organisers did an ace job. It's always great to be able to walk around the team buses and get in with all the carbon and oiled legs.

Coffee

bench grinder = beer

Sparks are flying down my cellar

The worst smells in cycling #2 - Fish & Chips

Friday evening.

Out of work early and determined to ride. If only to keep yourself out of the pub for a couple of hours. This requires focus, mustn’t get sidetracked. You burst through the front door, bag down, shirt off. Two slices of bread in the toaster and fish your bibs out of the washing basket (see #1)

Already your phone is beeping, must ignore. “swifty?” “quick pint?” “you boozing tonight?.” Must ignore.

Quick blast on the track pump and you’re back out of the door with a mouthful of toast. Just a couple of pedal turns and last week is already out of your system. This is invigorating. Friday night and you’re out getting the miles in, nipping through the weekend hometime traffic. Racing out to the hills.

The vinegar hits first followed, seconds later, by the heady aroma of fresh batter. Beef drip batter as well. You’re still 200 yards away and already you can make out every subtle nuance in aroma. The cars abandoned at each side of the road are testament to the fish-fryers art. You feel a pang in your stomach, even your internal organs know that it is Friday night.

All at once your mind races through the logistics. You probably have just enough cash in your saddlebag for a chip butty but no more. Ride to a cash point? You could get the works then; fish, chips, peas and a can of dandelion and burdock. Might as well sit inside for it, don’t want to be sliding around on the tiled floor in your cleats. What then though, you won’t fancy riding home after all that. You could always get one of your mates to pick you up, stick the bike in the back. They could bring you some clothes and drop you straight at the pub, buy them a pint to say thanks.

But it’s too late; your stupid legs have carried you past the danger. The smells recede. You turn your attentions back to the matter at hand. The road ahead of you begins to rise almost imperceptibly.

You feel the first few dots of rain.

Bell Hall's Man on the Mountain reports back

Yorkie was working out at the TDF as a modern day Willy Voet drug mule.. he took some time out from spinning Larry's white blood cells to take a few snaps.



Looks like Dave Brailsford needs to up his marginal gains programme .. maybe if he stopped them wearing those stupid "magical bracelets".. or perhaps Wiggo's dream-catcher was tangled or his homeopathic bidon was under diluted? drop the mumbo jumbo and up the meds Sky.



Pretty good tour all in all, pretty rough on the riders which is good. I'd have preferred Schleck to have beaten Bertie but I don't buy all this whinging about mechanicals. Cuddles lost me £300 but who's counting.

Next year should be even better, Lance will be busy paying Landis off, Cancellara will be on the same bike as Valentino Rossi, and Renshaw will be wearing the UFC belt..

photos all from yorkies flickr

The worst smells in cycling #1 - Kit

A week and a half ago you climbed off your bike. 35 miles in the saddle. You had spent the last 26 promising yourself two things, the second you got home you would raise your seatpost a couple of centremetres and the instant you’d put the allen key back in the fruitbowl you would stick your kit, ALL of your kit, on a boil wash.
You have promised yourself these two things on every ride for the last two years.
It is now 9am on Sunday morning; you are in the shed in your socks. You dig through the still-damp lycra sending mould spores billowing into the air. The bike leans dejectedly where you abandoned it.
You kid yourself that it doesn’t smell too bad.
It smells terrible, like a carrier bag in a long-forgotten school locker. A testament to human endeavour. Not one natural fibre. Generations of scientific study. NASA research. All to ensure that every odour molecule your underarms have ever produced is captured, stored, and magnified for future generations to behold. It smells like someone has covered a dog turd in blue cheese and human hair, set it on fire and then extinguished the flames with a pile of damp pensioners’ clothes
You put it on and swing your leg over the bike.
Your front tyre is flat.

Cav's Tour de Temper

Photograph: Bogdan Cristel/Reuters

Ned Boulting's Piece in the Telegraph

"I have to confess to feeling a little relieved. There are elements of my work which I wouldn’t swap with anyone at any price. But there are others which I’d happily swerve, given the choice. Chasing after Mark Cavendish when he’s blown his chances of a stage win falls firmly into that category.
Even from a distance of many thousands of miles, and through the filter of a TV replay lens, I could instantly identify all the hallmarks of a seriously miffed Manxman. The way his shoulders briefly slumped as he knew Petacchi had got the better of him, before he sat up, his teeth set in an agonised grimace of frustration. Even though he was no longer sprinting flat out, he still probably crossed the line at 35 mph.

In that instant, I thought of my colleagues on the finish line, covering the Tour for ITV. Intuitively they would have set off in chase: a reporter wielding a microphone, a sound engineer with a weighty mixer strapped round his waist cabled to a cameraman lugging a 25lb camera on his shoulders. Dodging team cars, fans and other TV crews, not to mention the other 190+ members of the peloton all streaming past, they would be in a comic, lumbering, flat-out sprint for the HTC Columbia Team bus, which might easily have been situated a kilometre away. All for the big prize: The Soundbite.

They caught the briefest of glimpses of Mark Cavendish, by all accounts, entering the side door of the bus in what has been described to me by my friend and colleague Matt Rendell, as an “aero-tuck” which enabled him to escape the clutches of the media at a speed he hadn’t been able to replicate in the closing 100m of the sprint. Shortly after that a hemlet flew through the air, and landed on the ground at their feet. They waited for some time in the heat of the afternoon for a comment, before giving up and going off in hunt of easier prey.

Cav and Matt have a little history, it must be said. Not that that had anything to do with it on this occasion. Indeed, Cav devotes the best part of a chapter of his autobiography to dissecting a post-stage interview from the 2008 Tour which Matt had the misfortune to conduct. It’s probably best for all concerned if we don’t pick away at old wounds by re-printing it here (you’ll just have to buy his book, “Boy Racer”). The questions, for the record, were perfectly reasonable. The answers, though terse, were perfectly reasonable too. It’s just in the nature of an Alpha-male like Cav that he doesn’t enjoy talking for long about failure. Fair enough, too. He’s an athlete, for God’s sake. Not a philosopher.

But, it was a sobering performance yesterday, for sure. OK, his lead-out train has been diminished by the absence of both Kim Kirchen and George Hincapie, but there wasn’t much wrong with the work of Grabsch and Renshaw et al. In fact, he was beaten fair and square. And comfortably, too. Not since his maiden Tour of 2007 has he finished so far off the pace of a bunch sprint. Something’s very definitely wrong. We may look for answers everywhere: his winter dental problems, his dimished team, his feud with Andre Greipel, his fractured relationship with a section of the peloton. He may not even know the answers himself.

Still, I hope he starts winning in time for my re-insertion on the Tour (I join the race on Tuesday). Otherwise, I might have to start interviewing Robbie Hunter as a potential stage winner. Now there’s a man who once signalled through the window of a bus that he’d like to cut my throat. But that’s another story, for another day."