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every october since goodness knows when, scotland holds its national mòd, a celebration of the gaelic language through song, poetry and prose. it's an annual competition that moves location each year, with last year's mòd held in fort william and this year's in glasgow. islay has had a gaelic centre on the outskirts of bowmore village for at least two decades along with a gaelic immersion unit within bowmore primary school. nonetheless, the island is far from harbouring a majority gaelic speaking population. in fact, it's possible that less than ten percent of islay residents have any meaningful interaction with the language.

nonetheless, not only did the island's gaelic choir, comprising many who can sing to the required standard, but without even minimal comprehension, win one of the mòd's major rural choir competitions, but one of their male members took top position in the silver pendant competition, one rung below the renowned gold medal (which requires a minimum standard of gaelic fluency). even individuals who won a gold medal in the 1950s, are still referred to as gold medal winners over sixty years later.

a mòd gold medal winner is required to act as a gaelic ambassador throughout the following year, including trips to north america. last year's winning choir and silver pendant winner have made several appearances at local events on islay, and will soon perform at the annual glasgow-islay gathering in glasgow next month. in so doing, they ensure that the profile bestowed upon them by winning at the national mòd is maintained throughout the following year. otherwise, what would be the point?

in professional world tour cycling, the equivalent, of sorts, would be the annual world championships held at the end of september each year. unfortunately, its place in the calendar after all three grand tours, tends to ensure that several riders who might be seen as ideal candidates to win the uci's rainbow colours, opt not to ride the race. there's also the obvious iniquity that riders who generally excel in the pyrenees, the alps and the dolomites, are at something of a disadvantage, given that the traditional world championship parcours, are generally bereft of high mountains. such an argument has been tabled several times, highlighting that, despite being billed as an event that will crown the best racing cyclist in the world, that would surely only prove to be true if all the world's best cyclists participated?

however, irrespective of your views on that particular aspect, whoever takes the rainbow jersey is quite likely to be seen clad in its colourful hoops during at least one of the season's final classics, such as paris-tours or the tour of lombardy. paying due respect to the jersey and the honour bestowed upon its wearer. cycling fans worldwide often clamour to gain sight of the rainbow hoops passing their roadside stance.

and then there's cyclocross.

winner of the women's 2024/25 world championship race, visma lease-a-bike rider, fem van empel, unfortunately suffered psychological problems after only a few races into the 25/26 season and withdrew from racing for the remainder of the season. currently she is considering her future during a sabbatical from cyclocross racing, but ultimately meaning that the women's rainbow jersey was scarcely seen at this season's events.

men's winner of the world championship jersey for the past few seasons has been mathieu van der poel, with few, if any, disputing that he is not only a worthy winner of the jersey, but each subsequent season, a fine representative of the ideals behind the competition. however, mvdp has a far more lucrative career on the road, seemingly more intent on collecting eight world cyclocross championships, one more than previous record holder, eric de vlaeminck, than immediately honouring the jersey. as became clear after his win in 2025, van der poel has no interest in participating in the five races that take place following the world championship.

thus cyclocross fans have no opportunity to see the jersey in action until november or december of that selfsame year. i can understand that van der poel has bigger fish to fry in the spring classics over the next few months, but surely he is aware of the responsibilities that arrive with winning the jersey? women's world champion, lucinda brand, took to the start of yesterday's x2o badkamers event in lille, taking second place while racing in her championship jersey and winning the x2o series overall. the final race of the series takes place next sunday, and it's likely that brand will be on the startline for that.

having taken a record number of world cup wins and championship jerseys, van der poel has not yet confirmed that he will incorporate cyclocross in his winter programme later this year, so there exists the possibility that the cyclocross world championship jersey will not be seen until after the 2027 championship race.

and it's likely true that apportioning blame to van der poel is a smidgeon disingenuous, since the rider in second place, tibor del grosso, and third place, thibau nys, are also conspicuous by their absence from this weekend's two events and the midweek exact series event. they too have more lucrative road careers, and should one of them have taken the championship win in hulst, it's more than likely the rainbow jersey would have remained under wraps till next winter.

and that's very disappointing.

monday 9 february 2026

obvious?

i apologise in advance if today's monologue sounds depressingly familiar, but at the risk of proving just how little i understand about commerce and the bicycle industry, the outcome is surely one that many of us, with a similar lack of comprehension as yours truly, could have seen coming from quite some distance. it has parallels with the headlong need for expansion as exhibited by businesses within and outwith the industry. to be vaguely relevant, in the early 1990s, i travelled from my westernmost outpost all the way to london town to attend a cycle show at olympia, where i had arranged to meet the folks from muddy fox bicycles, a marque whose bicycles i rode (at the time), and also sold.

having travelled such a long and tiring way, incurring more expense than was truly prudent at the time, you can imagine my disappointment to find the centrally positioned stand apportioned to the vanguard mountain bike company, completely empty. telephoning their head office, i finally managed to get hold of my usual contact who apologised and said there had been a delay in receiving the bicycles intended for the stand, but they expected them to arrive the following day. that didn't happen. it transpired that, flushed with commercial success in the uk, they had expanded into europe, financially over-reached themseleves, and effectively gone bust.

this search for endless expansion is one that has tripped up several within the industry, including, to an extent, the likes of rapha. a few years after their appearance on the market, they sponsored their own domestic racing team in co-operation with condor cycles, fostered the publication of the one-time utterly desirable rouleur magazine and opened a pop-up store in london, before consolidating that with an rcc clubhouse in a central london occasion.

the wheels sort of came off when they opted to become an international velocipedinal clothier, with clubhouses all across the world, sponsorship of world tour teams including team sky and moving home three times in the past twenty years. endless expansion for any marque of any flavour is probably a practical impossibility. at some point, fortunes will change and success will come back to bite them. rapha hasn't made a profit for years; in fact, it has made substantial recurring financial losses, meaning recent retrenchment with a streamlined product range, the closing of several clubhouse, closure of their custom clothing division, closure of their excellent and much-vaunted travel offering and every indication that it's sort of lost its way. perhaps if they'd remained true to their original concept and remained satisfied with success in the uk and parts of europe, life would be a lot different.

but for some reason, the insatiable desire for expansion and the possible acquisition of greater profits has proved too enticing for several, often to the exclusion of common sense.

and then covid arrived; bicycle sales went through the roof, with cycle stores across the world selling everything they could get hold of when the highlighted safety of cycling to and from work became almost too good to be true. the fact that bicycle shops became a protected species, allowed to remain open when the majority of retail suffered compulsory closure only added to the coffers and the optimism.

on saturday, i rode to debbie's for my lunch in the face of a contunuing easterly wind, showing three degrees on my garmin but below zero with windchill. on the journey home, it began raining. you will be unsurprised to learn that i witnessed not one other cyclist in either direction. and that was always going to be the case particularly after lockdown ended. while many industry analysts contended thast the bicycle's time had finally arrived, i remember writing in these very pixels, "...just wait until the first rain and cold of autumn and winter". cycling on relatively traffic-free roads through the summer months was always going to seem blissful to the unbelievers, but when lockdown was suspended, roads once again returned to normal (and then some) when the weather became cold and wet, the novelty was always going to wear off, and very quickly.

we've discussed this on many an occasion, but how come those with years of experience in the cycle industry did not see that coming? it appears many of those who really ought to have known better, simply placed at least double the usual annual orders with taiwan to satisfy the perceived demand, which was already evaporating as the laser printers churned out the lengthy lists of requirements. on arrival, those extra bicycles had to be stored, often necessitating the leasing of additional warehousing, to say nothing of paying for the extra stock. the fact that no-one was buying only compounded the problem.

let's face it; most of those pandemic cycle sales were to folks who would struggle to identify as 'cyclists' in the way that you and i probably do. having bought a new bike during covid, which is probably now collecting dust in a garage or bikeshed, they were in no hurry to buy again. and given the subsequent cost of living crisis, even the cognoscenti thought twice before paying the likes of near £14,000 on a colnago. add to all of the above, mr trump's indiscriminate application of international tariffs in 2025, and you have a perfect storm, some of which could have surely have been foreseen? it's a storm that has seen some smaller manufacturers pull the plug. i recently brought to your attention the plight in which canyon currently finds itself, but now it appears that one of the world's largest bicycle manufacturers, trek, is experiencing similar troubles.

according to a report by the escape collective, trek has leased so many warehouses to store the extra stock that no-one seems to want, they've had to borrow substantially to finance the outlay. trek also bought over many bike shops and turned them into a network of directly-owned stores. and nobody's buying.

as pointed out above, and worth underlining here, i have very little understanding of the intricacies of commerce, so throwaway remarks such as i've continually made are unlikely to make me too many friends. however, i still find it very hard to comprehend that so many with years of industry experience worked on the apparent assumption that the pandemic would last for ever, and that bicycle sales were at the foot of an ever-increasing future trajectory. though islay is a very poor example to use, there are actually fewer folk cycling now than there were during the pandemic. and given the weather we've experienced since new year's day, i don't see that changing for the better anytime soon. it would surprise me not if our situation were reflected in other parts of the uk.

if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

sunday 8 february 2026

differentiation

in glasgow's buchanan street sits argyll arcade, a small shopping precinct leading off the main thoroughfare. according to its website, it is "widely regarded as the diamond jewellery centre of the north" and home to more than 30 jewellers and diamond merchants under one roof. the sign above the entrance informs that the arcade was opened in 1827, meaning that it is only one year distant from its 200th anniversary. the surroundings will have changed almost unrecognisably over the two centuries, but its very existence is one that proves it to be the exception to the rule.

imagine for a moment, that as a would-be velocipedinal entrepreneur, you harbour plans to open your own bike shop, with two options as to where this will take place. hypothetically, if the following two constituted those options, which would you be likely to choose? a street or town already populated with several bike shops, or a street or town which features none whatsoever? it is eminently possible that the latter is simply because there is no local market for bicycles whatsoever, or the former because it is slap bang in the middle of a large local population that has repeatedly demonstrated a predilection for bicycles over motor cars. at this point, you may have to rely on those hard won entrepreneurial skills.

however, nine times out of ten, you'd be inclined to choose the location with, effectively, no competition, rather than the one with already established and presumably commercially successful bike shops. doing so might barely skim the surface of that entrepreneurial nous; i think we'd all be inclined to agree, even if the retail industry was hardly the cornerstone of our expert knowledge. for starters, you'd likely have carte blanche in your choice of brands, with no other stockists likely to undermine the supplier's desire for exclusivity. and secondly, you probably wouldn't have to replicate the tesco/aldi, paradigm, where the former seems hellbent on matching its prices to the latter.

i am aware that the principal competition to bricks and mortar these days is the online retailer, but for the purpoises of this monologue, we'll discount that aspect, as it would only complicate matters.

in 2011, former professional racer, yanto barker, at one time a stagiare for the hardly snappily named, mbk-oktos-saint-quentin team, founded le col cycle clothing, reviews of which featured several times in these very pixels. offering quality, well-designed products, le col perhaps had the misfortune to arrive seven years after rapha had opened in perren street, london, having altered the paradigm for cycle clothing for at least the following decade and a bit beyond. or, perhaps yanto had chosen to do so in the light of rapha's phenomenal success.

but in this market, there was already the aforementioned rapha, preceded almost a decade previously by scotland's endura, plus there were the perennials: assos, castelli and santini. and also fancying a portion of the same market, was the short-lived swiss upstart, cervo rosso, then north of england's shutt velo rapide, currently the owner of prendas ciclismo, yet another cycling apparel company, but one concentrating on the retro market and able to carve out a niche of their very own. there was also the now sadly defunct velobici, and a number of others, one of which, from the other side of the pond, had purchased several rapha jerseys, before returning them within the limited time period for a full refund, then releasing their very own, almost identical sportwool cycle jerseys.

they didn't last long.

as we have discussed on many a cheerless occasion, the world of cycling is tiny in comparison to the likes of golf, tennis, football and several other sports, so while we all probably know a lot of cyclists, it's quite possible that we know more golfers, even if refraining from the hobby ourselves. and within that niche world, the number who think of themselves as refugees from the peloton is even smaller, unfortunately the very part of the equation at which many of the above brands are aiming their product ranges. when there's very little to choose from in design and quality between rapha, le col, shutt, endura, assos, castelli, santini, velobici and the rest, you have to wonder whether there is enough profit to keep them all afloat according to their means?

however, many of you will be aware that yanto recently called time-out on le col, leaving to follow other pursuits following several years of financial losses, economic headwinds faced by many others, including rapha and endura. the company has now been purchased, lock, stock and barrel, by austria's head group, perhaps better known as the manufacturer of tennis rackets. no doubt they have the financial wherewithal to provide le col with a decent home, but so doing hardly makes the problem go away. it's still eminently possible that there are simply too many apparel companies chasing the same set of dollars and pound notes, with little to choose between them.

video and dvd rental company, blockbuster, was founded in 1985, renowned for its large and comprehensive selection of products for rent or purchase. however, when streaming became the default means of watching the latest films and listening to music, it failed to adapt, and ultimately went bankrupt in 2010, leaving only a single representation in bend, oregon. however, prior to entering administration, the owners attempted to sell the company as a going concern, a somewhat disingenuous proposition, given the reason for its eventual failure.

is head about to find that out the hard way?

saturday 7 february 2026

driven

i'm pretty sure i've mentioned this before, but given the timescale, it might well be worth repeating in shorter form in the light of its pertinence to today's monologue.

in around 1989, only a couple of years after moving to the hebrides, i penned an article for the local newspaper, investigating how practical it might be to dispense with the car, buy a family-sized fleet of bicycles and move about while in the saddle, instead of driving the relatively or unbelievably short distances that form the mainstay of the majority of island residents. the savings highlighted by doing so, and including purchase of quality waterproofs for the nuclear family of four, left plenty of scope to hire a vehicle for holidays, the occasional trip to the mainland, or for those trips on the island that simply could not be accomplished by motor car.

it will not surprise you in the least that my article had all the impact of a rice-krispie on a croissant. in fact, rather than the situation improving, it has become manifestly worse, with many islanders driving as little as a few metres each day to get to work or to the shops. the island's two main villages harbour a population of around 1,000 each, leaving the remaining 1,200 spread amongst the smaller villages and the more remote areas of islay. however, on an island that is only 34km long, by around 30km wide, there are very few locations completely out of reach of even a bicycle. the mitigating factor, however, might well be the inclement weather that pervades pretty much all year round.

public transport is effectively pointless. it commences around 7am and ends at 6pm, and is constrained solely to the main roads. if you live off the beaten track, you will have to be self-sufficient in that respect. there are three distilleries unreachable by bus, and there's no bus service on sundays, even to meet the ferries or the aeroplane from glasgow. you can perhaps understand why you'd need to be of a stoic mindset to opt for a bicycle rather than a motor car. however, there's no doubting that, in very many mainland locations, transport problems are considerably less onerous, yet huge numbers still opt to drive.

for instance, as a one-time periodic visitor to london town, i cannot fathom why anyone would want to drive. there is a more than comprehensive taxi infrastructure, there are frequent trains to the suburbs, you can hardly cross the streets without having to avoid a constant stream of red buses, and the undergound travels to places i've never even heard of, and in many cases, about every ten minutes. why on earth would anyone want to drive the clogged roadways and then have to find somewhere to park? yet all the congestion that is an integral part of any major city, tends to be caused by the number of cars on the road.

when i had cause to travel to my mother's house on scotland's west coast, i took the bus from buchanan bus station, one which travelled directly to my destination without stopping, save for a few stops in glasgow city centre. yet the slowest part of the journey, if leaving after 4pm, was the few kilometres on the motorway exiting glasgow and heading south west. and while i sat there listening to jazz on my ipod, i could watch streams of slow moving cars on the neighbouring lanes, mostly occupied by one person, attempting the same journey as yours truly.

in my humble opinion, the problem is one of personal attitude, and the fact that the motor car is generously favoured over the majority of alternatives. it's much easier, though considerably more expensive to drive a car; and while a number are happy to pay lip service to the alternatives, fully comprehending of the benefits for humanity and the environment if they left the car at home, or opted not to have one in the first place. but invariably the conversation closes with endless reasons why others should adopt a car-free lifestyle, but a wide selection of reasons as to why it could never work on a personal level. i'm sure many of you have conversed with those who spent more energy on finding excuses than on finding solutions.

and while i might be tempted to agree that i seem to be preaching to the converted, there's a body of evidence to demonstrate that several of those who own state-of-the-art carbon fibre, also own a performance car. for them, the bicycle is part status symbol, part means of one-upmanship in the fitness stakes and very rarely considered as a means of transport. as you would expect, i mostly blame zwift and strava. it's also undeniable that car ownership is closely allied to one's status in society. if transport were the controlling issue, everyone would be driving a fiat 500.

there's a strong likelihood that, if the country's governments were truly invested in active travel, there's plenty that could be done to make it happen. so that change of attitude, as mentioned above, applies not only to us as individuals, but to those in the seats of power. we can look forward to the day when the bicycle ascends to its rightful position in the transportational hierarchy, but i fear it won't be in any of our lifetimes.

2050 may be the target for net-zero (2045 in scotland), but the word we're all looking for is 'unlikely'.

friday 6 february 2026

deception

there appears to be, from cursory investigation, an unwritten rule at play even within the remnants of the sunday morning peloton, that the precursor to any deliberate mention or discussion of either zwift, strava or both, is to invite yours truly to place my hands over my ears, or, in more extreme cases, hum a jazz tune. the latter is a strong indicator that, even amongst the cognoscenti, jazz remains incomprehensibe to otherwise intellectual riders. however, while they disdain the music of miles davis, art blakey, buddy rich and john coltrane, i have long reciprocated by having cultivated a similar dislike for the two activity apps mentioned above.

despite whichever bicycle is the velo du jour, i will admit to having a garmin gps device mounted on a compatible, bar-mounted bracket. however, as previously outlined, this is purely due to my predilection for riding bereft of a wristwatch. any data recorded during my velocipedinal outings is summarily deleted on return to the croft. personally, i have no desire to have those activities displayed for all to see and comment on, and nor am i willing to forgo the joys of riding in the great (and free) outdoors, whatever the weather.

do not mistake my enthusiastic endorsement of the manifesto of ned ludd for disparagement of the pecadillos of others; for now at least, it's a free world, and if my colleagues continue to be completely wrong in their approach to cycling, then i am willing to let them accumulate such errors. but i am unable to disavow the fact that spending inordinate numbers of hours aboard a stationary bicycle, watching cartoon cycle courses on an ipad, has seemingly improved the power outputs of several of the sunday peloton; it's just not for me.

however, for those less inclined to accept the oft-times extreme weather conditions in the hebrides, it is noted that they seem to appreciate the ability to remain within a centrally-heated sitting room or garage, while pedalling for wll they're worth. there's no doubt that it works, but it categorically isn't cycling. but neither zwift nor strava are ego free, even though the original concepts behind both had perhaps not countenanced such an aberration from the outset.

strava, for those not in the know, features many sections designated within each locale, for which someone currently holds the fastest time. the ego part arises when achievement of the latter is broadcast to all and sundry on the strava home pages. what may have originated as a training tool, has ended up as a digital means of being 'king of the castle'. and how do you reach the physical status that enables such status? why, zwift of course. and, in a noticeable parallel to the iniquities of facebook, avatars of those in far-flung corners of the world, suddenly become categorised as friends, even though that friendship mostly consists of having observed the training goals and outcomes of distant others, and perhaps typed a message or two during virtual competition.

however, as highlighted above, in many cases, it does seem to work, improving power and fitness, but rarely bike handling and puncture repair. and if we're willing to accept that zwift is the stepping stone to strava, surely any en-route deception fools no-one but the practitioner (unless, of course, you never actually cycle outdoors). and it appears that the good folks at strava headquarters have finally cottoned on to the level of subterfuge being practised on their digital platform.

according to the men in lycra white coats, through the ministrations of artificial intelligence tools, they have removed a very large amount of ride data that it considers to have been uploaded from e-bikes, while concealing that particular fact from unsuspecting observers. i have said on many occasions that the relative visual anonymity of users of both platforms, surely made it a simple matter to fasten an e-bike to a smart trainer, or onto the nearest road, and ease onto the leaderboards without breaking sweat. and on that score, it occurs that dispensing with leaderboards would likely disincentivise potential cheating of this nature. if there's nothing to be gained, there wouldn't be much point.

jazz rules ok.

thursday 5 february 2026

the only way is down

it has long been a matter of (velocipedinal) public knowledge, that it is the aim of rapha founder, simon mottram, to make cycling the most popular sport in the world. simon is a very clever and astute man, so i don't doubt for a single moment, that he is unaware of the enormity and, ultimately, total futility of achieving that aim. in some instances it has been contracted to apply solely to road racing, but that would surely limit the aim, rather than make it more likely to succeed.

perhaps many of us, innately tired of the national fervour surrounding the game of football, not a problem solely applicable to the uk. when every terrestrial tv channel sports at least four digital channels, many of which are employed in the odd business of showing constant repeats, why is it that football succeeds in occupying inordinate numbers of hours on the flagship channels? though now a lost subscription cause, when itv broadcast the tour de france, it did so on itv 4, leaving those in thrall to coronation street and emmerdale, untroubled by those three weeks in july. yet relatively unimportant (even by soccer standards) midweek matches appear on bbc one, itv one or channel five with impunity. placing those matches on the 'lesser' channels would be highly unlikely to reduce their audiences.

so those of us with a cycling obsession are remaindered to the high cost subscription service of tnt sports, with its £30.99 per month price of admission. yet they at least have unflinchingly supported one of cycling's lesser known genres, week in, week out, with superb coverage and expert commentary that culminated, over the past weekend, with the cyclocross world championships in hulst, in the netherlands. friday's team relay race, men's and women's junior races, men's and women's under 23 events, and la crème de la crème, the men's and women's elite championship races, which brought dutch riders, lucinda brand and mathieu van der poel a matching pair of rainbow hooped jerseys.

for van der poel, it was the culmination of an almost perfect cyclocross season, winning every race he entered, suprassing not only the record number of world cup victories of the legendary sven nys, but gathering more rainbow jerseys than eric de vlaeminck, yet another record. now i have already framed this monologue by highlighting the niche aspect of cyclocross as a niche corner of the already acknowledged, niche aspect of cycling in the grand panoply of sporting endeavour. against the weekend's onslaught of endless soccer and australian tennis, a group of elite cyclists doing battle in the mud, grass, steps and planks arranged around the town of hulst, perhaps holds considerably less allure to the majority, despite sunday afternoon's attendance in hulst reputedly topping 50,000.

however, come monday morning, there would surely be lip service paid in the sports pages of at least the guardian newspaper? after all, they have often employed the services of the fotheringhams, two of the sport's finest exponents of velocipedinally inclined wordage. yet, close examination of the so-called sports section's twelve pages, elicited only the results of the european track championships from turkiye. not. a. single. mention. of. cyclocross. in what other sport can you remain undefeated across eleven events, in the process surpassing a long-lived historical record, then win your eighth world championship, breaking another record in the process, yet apparently deserve not even a footnote in a national, quality newspaper?

however, i do realise that i have perhaps given the impression that this has come as a surprise; far from it. grame obree, perhaps tongue in cheek, once told me that he rather liked the fact that he was involved in a sport than had not achieved escape velocity and world renown, though in truth that's something highly unlikely to be seen in our lifetimes, and perhaps we ought to be careful what we wish for. but it would be nice to believe that the free press of a national democracy would see fit to make space for all sports, irrespective of their measured popularity. it's simply adding insult to injury to take up almost half the guardian's front page with a photograph of a tennis player lying flat on his back, arguably contributing little to his headline victory.

if they'd cropped out his tennis racket lying a few metres away, there would have been room for van der poel, brand and a smattering of results. i presume mr mottram is every bit as disappointed, given that the united states team were clothed by rapha. at least the bbc provided an albeit brief report on their website.

image: skoda

tuesday 3 february 2026