the post

book reviews

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mere detail

there's a very poignant editorial in this month's singletrack from editor chipps chippendale about having received a letter from a one-off customer who enjoyed the mgazine but wouldn't be re-purchasing because he didn't find it necessary to spend several thousand pounds on a bike or bikes to enjoy whichever aspect of mountain biking in which he had a particular interest.

and as chipps says, no you don't have to spend ludicrous amounts of money to enjoy, but if cycling is your life, and i have gradually come to the conclusion that this applies to me as much as it does to chipps and doubtless thousands of others, then poor as i am, it's not the money that really matters. and in that same context, it's not 'showing-off' that really comes into it either. i know i harp on about being the proud owner of a colnago c40hp, but on this little island which doesn't really care about cycling, owning such a seriously expensive piece of kit really means nowt. in fact those that do know roughly how much these things cost figure that i am completely off my trolley (an accusation i'm having some difficulty disputing).

sure, if i thought i'd get away with it, i'd have a campag carbon chainset and rear mech, it's only momentary notions of sanity that prevent me from contacting mike at maestro and having them in the post by end of the working day. after all, there's not a chance that i'd get from a to b (or even z) any quicker, and i could save more grams by getting a decent haircut, but they would look soooooo cool. in fact it almost seems a shame to attach such bike jewellery to the colnago now that winter is about to set in - maybe sit them on the mantelpiece.

but i have just returned from my customary lunchtime walk to the newsagent of a thursday and am more than concerned that the comic hasn't come in. and since i'm off to cowal with the pipe band tomorrow, that means that i will have to make a beeline for a newsagent the minute we hit glasgow on friday afternoon to avail myself of a copy.

i have tried valiantly to affect a 'devil may care' attitude to this more frequent than i'd like situation. no doubt mainland readers of the post will find it inconceivable that the comic is not in a newsagent's by thursday lunchtime, but all it takes is for a connection to be missed somewhere between london and islay and it's friday before cool calm and collected is resumed. unfortunately, as advertised by the comic in years gone by, 'when thursday comes' is a major milestone in the week, and if missed, concentration may as well be a distant memory (well, actually concentration is a distant memory, but that's an entirely different story).

somewhere, in the vastness of the palmer wardrobe is a well worn t-shirt from the rather inappropriately named 'big ball sports' sporting the legend 'cycling is life - the rest is mere detail' and every now and again it comes as rather a shock just how true a statement this is. i wear a park tools 'tool-o-ha' shirt to work, interspersed with a rapha or campagnolo t-shirt; the wall behind the very imac g5 at which i am sitting is festooned with posters of colnagos, pantani, robert millar (we are not worthy, we are not worthy) and freire winning the worlds last year. a veritable teenager's bedroom, only teenage years have long since gone. i agonise over the style faux pas of armstrong's black socks, and my stock answer to anyone's ailments is 'lack of cycling' (interestingly, this is, i have found, one of those answers that cannot fail . when i'm fit and healthy, as i am most of the time, self righteousness is mine when comparing my state of health with that of my spluttering friends and colleagues. should spluttering be inflicted upon myself for a brief period, then the reason this has happened is - you can see this one coming - 'lack of cycling'.

but should i worry that i have actively and seriously thought about taking the bike with me on the pipe band bus this weekend? i don;t think so, but i can think of one or two pipers who would disagree with such a premise.

so cycling is life. and come the revolution, the rest of the world will find that out. then i'll be very smug.

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this website got its name because scotland's graeme obree built his championship winning 'old faithful' using bits from a defunct washing machine

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as always, if you have any comments on this nonsense, please feel free to e-mail and thanks for reading.

this column appears, as regular as clockwork on this website every two weeks. (ok so i lied) sometimes there are bits added in between times, but it all adds to the excitement.

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