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steam gives way to sale
many of you will not have met daniel wakefield pasley. in fact, i've not met daniel wakefield pasley, but we do have a great deal in common, and we do converse via e-mail several times a week - or to be more honest, several times an evening. you see, daniel lives in portland, oregon and i don't, so our respective working hours are several time zones apart - he's at work while i'm supposed to be winding down. our principal point of connection is the written word: both of us adore constructive, imaginative writing, and while i generally feel that he's better at it than i am, we are happy to enjoy and critique each other's scribblings. how did this cross continent friendship happen? well, daniel works for rapha usa, and was one of the principal instigators of the rapha continental; it is often his words that accompany the to-die-for photography that has featured on the 2008 continental travels, and on occasion daniel has provided a selection of said pictures. disgustingly enough, he is also a particularly accomplished photographer.
so, words are the theme of the hour, and a couple that will be sure to interest most of you, particularly when arranged adjacent to each other in one sentence or statement are 'rapha' and 'sale' (whatever do you mean - contrived?).
for the month of february, rapha have knocked a substantial amount of pennies off some of their best selling items of cycle clothing: £45 off the lightweight softshell, £50 off the fixed jacket, a reduction of £30 on the winter tights (an extremely good idea during the current weather conditions), and £30 off a pair of fixed shorts. after a brief pause for breath, that's not all. if you click over to the rapha website, you can dress yourself in with style without the bank manager sending you one of those letters.
always assuming your bank manager still has a job.
posted on friday 6 february 2009
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................flip ultra video camera & action mount
if i was as competent as i'd like to have you believe, there would be no words whatsoever on this part of the post today. well, to qualify that, the words would all be spoken, and you'd be able to watch me speak them. that is still the case, but some of this review of a flip ultra video camera still needs to be in the written word, and that's almost entirely because i am not yet sufficiently qualified and creative enough to encapsulate them in video.
the flip ultra is roughly ipod sized, and simplicity itself when it comes to recording video. if you are a frequenter of youtube, you will realise that simplicity of operation and creativity are not necessarily comfortable bedfellows, so putting together something watchable and of interest (and i hope i have) requires a bit more time and effort. but ease of use has to be a good start: switch the unit on, point in the right direction, press the big red button and it's spielberg time.
the action mount consists of a tripod mount onto which the camera is threaded, incorporating two long velcro straps that hold it tightly to a handlebar or, if you like, a helmet. the video below will let you see just how the camera operates under such conditions. the camera is small and light enough to stuff in the back pocket of a cycle jersey, making it ideal to take out on the sunday ride or whatever, an excellent way to record those moments of great cycling by way of moving pictures, rather than by way of still pics. there's a flip out usb connector to transfer the avi files to computer, as well as pre-installed (on the camera) software for editing anad uploading to youtube etc. software is onboard for both mac and pc. the ultra operates on two aa batteries (supplied) and the onboard memory stores up to an hour's worth of video. sadly, i didn't manage the same length of time from a pair of batteries, but at least they are replaceable in the middle of nowhere, if you carry spares.
however, unless you're damn good, any video nabbed on the camera is likely to have at least a teensy bit of unwanted footage, so editing would be the order of the day. i used apple's imovie hd to produce the two videos i've managed so far, to my mind a more successful method than the software provided by flip. always assuming any editing software you have will accept the avi files produced by the camera, you can use whatever suits your purposes. recommended price for the flip ultra is a very reasonable £99.99, while the action mount costs around £12.99. (the video accompanying the indyfab club racer review was also recorded using the flip ultra.
producing even short movies such as these takes quite a lot of time, (part of the reason for the non-start of the washingmachinepodcasts), but i do rather like the idea of spicing up these black and yellow pages with moving pictures every now and again: the quality of recorded video produced by the flip strikes me as a neat way to do this.
just remember, i'm very adept at dodging rotten fruit.
.
posted on friday 6 february 2009
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................toffee apple crumble
wednesday morning was really scrummy on our rock in the atlantic: loch indaal was recreating its very finest impersonation of a mill pond, the sky was blue and sparkly, while the clouds maintained a respectful distance round the edges and over the bumpy bits. i'd inadvertantly left the garmin outside over night, and the previous evening's rain was a mini-glacier all over the surface; in a testament to the tenacity of these devices, it worked immediately at switch on.
jez was leaving home at 9:30, but mrs washingmachinepost in her capacity as a childminder would have screaming brats long before that, so i kitted up in my winter finest, incorporating a cultivated degree of style, and headed west. the lack of available route options guarantees meet-up at some point without the danger of ships in the night syndrome. ultimately go west young man has a built in redundancy, because you'll run out of land - a visit to club headquarters at ardbeg had long been on the cards, since last year if truth be told, and this morning seemed as good a time as any. the kilometres would come in very handy too. well at least for jez they would. london paris is not far enough away that days' training can be treated with disdain, but this really only affects one of us - the other struggled to keep up for much of the time, despite the availability of nine more gears and a freewheel.
nobody can have failed to notice that the sun doesn't reach quite the height it used to last august; as we passed the bonded warehouses belonging to laphroaig distillery, immediately followed by a thicket of trees; you could feel the temperature drop. and it wasn't too warm to begin with. still, the gap between distilleries on islay southern coast provides flashes of sunshine and a bit more of the heat we were rather craving at that point. from certain angles, jez resembled her majesty, with a buff collar pulled up over his head like a scarf, topped with a rapha winter cap. warm, but hardly the guise that encourages emulation.the roll down to ardbeg distillery has to be one of the finest scenes to greet the long-distance (it's all relative you know) cyclist; distilleries don't all look the same, despite commonalities, but none of the rest have an old kiln cafe and staff who are as friendly as their whisky is peated. sad to relate, in the first week of february, we found ourselves wishing jackie, emma and janey a happy new year - it really has been that long.
despite last year's brief hiatus during re-decoration, the specials blackboard has reappeared on the gable wall of the old kiln, unintentionally lit in the shape of a heart by the newly slung spotlights on the chunky wooden roof beams. i thought the chalk script was probably the leftover from tuesday's close of business, so jokingly ordered a toffee apple crumble, sugary stodge that promised a welcome in its dish size. the joke and crumbs were on me. i opted for cream rather than ice-cream, purely because the outside temperature made the latter a tad unseemly. jez opted for coffee only, but relented and spooned a mouthful or two of the crumble anyway.after that, who cares that it started snowing on the way home?
posted on thursday 5 february 2009
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................take me to your rouleur
i am well aware that this could seem like the continuation of a mutual admiration society between pixels and print, but in my own mind, there is very good reason for this to be the case. i have, stashed tidily (for once) in a cupboard in the depths of washingmachinepost towers, a copy of every issue of rouleur since its inception. two of those copies will likely be collectors' items at some time: one is signed by ernesto colnago, and another is signed by eddy merckx - in fact, when i sent my copy out to cambiago for ernesto's signature, he was suitably enough impressed with the quality of the magazine (and i'm sure mr colnago sees lots of cycle mags), that he asked if i could send him a copy of his own. while i realise this may not be impressive to some, it pretty much says everything i need to know about rouleur.
should you too, find the foregoing impressive and worthy of further investigation, now indeed, is your lucky month. take out a four issue subscription to rouleur before the end of february, and you have the opportunity to acquire several associated items for what almost amounts to peanuts. each copy of rouleur costs £9, so a four issue subscription would cost £36. but for only £80 you'll receive not only your four quarterly copies of rouleur, but a rouleur t-shirt, the 2008 rouleur photography annual, a rouleur musette (very handy for keeping the latter clean and tidy), a rouleur enamelled pin badge, 2009 calendar and a set of eight postcards featuring photography from this esteemed publication.
if you're an existing subscriber, you can extend your subscription at any time and take advantage of this rather fine offer. and just think, for once, you could be one up on ernesto.
editor guy andrews also tells me that they hope to stock the recently reviewed book by janol apin - les p'tits velo -, which is very good news. i'll let you know when it is available.
posted on wednesday 4 february 2009
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................independent fabrication club racer fixed gear
this has been droning on for over a week, and i'm thankful for all the advice and encouragement i've had from a varitey of correspondents during my over-publicised attempts to ride a fixed gear. the indyfab club racer was supposed to have arrived with a single speed freewheel, but didn't, and for once i'm very glad that someone paid no attention to my request.
if you've read any of my other bicycle reviews on the post, or indeed any of the reviews in the monthlies, you cannot avoid noticing that they often have a commonality in the groupsets with which they arrive. granted, in this case, you can purchase the indyfab as a frame only and put what you like on it, but a fixed gear machine is devoid of most of these fripperies; and gears.
for this reason, and allowing for the fact that there seems a degree of born again-ness amongst the fixed fraternity, it is hard to ignore the somewhat obvious sensation that you are riding a bicycle and not a collection of components. the bike was/is great, i had a very fine time throughout, and now i'll shutup long enough for you to read the whole review.
posted on tuesday 3 february 2009
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................the dark knight
although i have mentioned this before, on at least a couple of occasions, at the end of last year, moore-large sent a knog 1 watt led bike light for review, and though i did give it a quick hurl on a close-by road, the real night-time commuter amongst the ardbeg peloton, is lord carlos of mercian to whom the light was passed for a more thorough appreciation. now that the dark knights are fading into the light (pardon the pun), lord carlos has written his definitive review, which i take great pleasure in printing below.
Lights are a big deal for us remote island types. We do serious winter darkness here, darkness which unfortunately you residents of the real world only experience if you shut yourself in a cupboard, so ubiquitous has the night glow from your cities become. Here on Islay we still do the kind of darkness which prevents you from seeing your hand held in front of your face, let alone the road along which you are riding. When the sun and the moon and the stars have been switched off, switching on sweet little commuter LEDs and pointing yourself homewards is gonna end in tears. Or a ditch. Most likely both. Serious lights are an absolute requirement for those night rides home from work.
Your correspondent has therefore extensively tested two serious front light systems during my daily eleven mile commute round the loch. Rear lights are not an issue as they are fundamentally all the same. You do not need a reviewer to tell you that the ones that have five LEDs tend to be brighter than the ones with three LEDs. Use two because one may fail. They all let in water eventually, and the batteries suddenly die; so might you if you don't carry a spare. Nuff said.
But front lighting is an art form. Books could, and should, be written. I have experience of the American Light and Motion 'Solo' system, which is a thirteen watt halogen light, and the Australian Knog 'Gator 105' which is a one watt high power LED with a supplementary 5mm LED. For sheer power, the Solo is a much better bet. It was designed for downhill MTB racing in the dark, i.e. for nutters, and so has handy replaceable break-away disks which are designed to break the light head away from the handlebars when you crash - potentially saving you about £100 ($140) for a new light. Nice idea, but I have no intention of crashing. More importantly for this staid commuter, is the ability to focus the light where I want it, with the main power of the beam lighting up the verge/edge of the road and the peripheral light being used to wash the road ahead and the sheep approaching from stage left. The Solo's light is a comfortable yellow colour. Nice.
The Gator 105 does not really hack it on my commute - which is actually not the product's fault - I simply have the wrong model. I need the Gator 605 which has 2 x 3 watt LEDs plus the little flashy 5mm LED jobbie. The 105 is not really bright enough to light the road properly, and sadly cannot be focused laterally, only up and down meaning the main beam is dead ahead. That's no good to me - as previously mentioned, my priority is the edge of the road.
The little LED piggybacking the main light is dead handy though. Power consumption is a big deal on front lights (more about this in a minute) and it is really handy to have the option of a flashing LED that does not suck your battery dry for that all important half an hour of dusk before the real darkness descends. My truck driver mate Willie, actually stopped me the other day as I was coming back from Port Ellen at dusk to say what a great wee light that was - he could see it for miles - so that is good. The light colour of the Knog is a hard white though - not as soothing as the Solo.
Both these lights need serious rechargeable battery systems that sling under the top tube and connect to their handlebar mounting light heads via a cable. Here, the Knog system is light years better than the Light and Motion design. There are probably real power issues that require the Solo system to be significantly larger and much heavier than the Knog, but that cannot be the reason for the rather naff Velcro tape that fixes the Solo in place. The slim line Gator 105 is attached using two flexible rubber bands - a much better idea so long as they last - which they show every sign of doing. The really irritating thing about the Solo battery is the recharging however. Not only does this take 14 hours for a fully discharged battery, but if you leave the thing charging for more than 24 hours, then you shorten its life. Being a rather forgetful old duffer - I sometimes forget to unplug it. The Solo batteries are supposed to last for two hours. I have been using mine for three years now, and my first battery is now down to a run time of about an hour - and I have felt it necessary to invest in a spare, which at £60 is a bit of an ouch.
The Knog battery recharging is much better, charge time being only about three hours (max) and there is a red/green LED indicator to tell you when it's done. The only way of telling when the Solo is charged is to pick it up - apparently if its warm it's done! That's kinda clunky in 2009...
So there you have it. One could bellyache on for hours about front lights. I Like my old halogen Solo - it has been a good workhorse, reliable and bright, but it is a bit clunky now. I understand that Light and Motion have now moved on to LED systems - and I would love to try one of their new offerings. The LED Gator 105 is an excellent backup, but it ain't really man enough for the serious dark stuff that we do here - again I would love to try their big beast the Gator 605 - I suspect that will be the type of systems lighting our way home in the future.
© lord carlos of mercian 2009
posted on monday 2 february 2009
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................brilliance
not one for placing video on these pages (not just yet, anyway), i really cannot ignore this. filmed by carey s-h from rapha's portland office, this is from the recent rapha continental expedition to ride the tour of california before the professionals take their chances: stage 5, mile 92.5. if this doesn't make you want to rush out and buy a rapha jersey, then just watch it till it does (or doesn't, as the case may be).
music is 'ny snow globe' by rachel's from the album 'systems/layers'
posted on sunday 1 february 2009
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................heresy?
i love freewheeling. a fixed gear may be a very pleasant, and oft times cool way to get about the inner cities or, perchance, a biggish town, but i'm not sure it's an entirely practical proposition on a rock at the edge of the atlantic. today brought that home quite forcefully. i am quite prepared to accept the deluge of comments to the contrary from those who tour with one, fixed cog (stand up tony morley), but such nostalgic suffering is not for me.
for the first time in a couple of weeks, i switched the pedals back to the company colnago, since my exact itinerary for the morning was unknown; a regular, contributing factor of the velo club d'ardbeg sunday ride. democracy rules the day, so we'd have ourselves believe, and if the voting majority thinks it an excellent idea to climb hills, then so be it. unfortunately, on 49x18, in my case it would have been a case of 'so be it not'. an interesting factor of island life is the incessantly mentioned wind: its direction changed overnight, shielding washingmachinepost towers from the whistling and howling that had been our soundtrack for most of the week, simultaneously preventing next door's shed top anemometer from truthfully reflecting the direction and strength of the prevailing.
while my skills on fixed have improved over those laughable early attempts (the mighty dave t was heard to comment favourably on my pedalling prowess during echelon practice this morning, which he attributed to a coulple of 'fixed' weeks), my wimpish attempts to turn a 72 inch gear would have come to naught this morning, a factor that would not have made itself known until fixed pedalling was already underway. so i'm glad i went freewheeling. the very name advertises itself well: free as in 'gift', 'dom', 'will', and 'sat'. a perfection of motion that gives back whatever you have put in; it's as much of a struggle to climb hills for me as for anyone else, but the chris king ring-drive buzzes all that energy back again on the downhill at the other side. momentum is conserved. what could be finer?
history informs that those early pioneers in the tour de france up until the year of 1933, were forced, by decree of henri desgrange, to race on fixed cogs, but there was little protest from the former when derailleurs and freewheels were finally sanctioned. so far, there has been no move on behalf of shimano, sram or campagnolo to provide sponsored teams with ten or nine fewer sprockets, so i'm afraid my view on fixed riding must ally itself with the general educational view of latin; it's perfectly suitable for academic study, but dead romans with which to converse are a bit thin on the ground. translated into a more amenable form, i can see nothing wrong with those who delight in fixed riding, and i can see myself wishing to partake on occasion, but to be honest, i wouldn't like to live there.
not necessarily a convert or acolyte, but definitely a student. i'm citing location and wuss-ness as my defence.
a review of the indyfab club racer fixed will appear very soon.
posted on sunday 1 february 2009
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................but can you draw with it?
in my first year of college, in the graphics class, we were all asked to do the following: take an a3 sheet of paper and divide it into squares. i can't remember how many squares, it was a long time ago. on every second square, paint a black circle, and in the squares that were left, paint three (or was it four?) vertical lines. i know not whether the fastidiousness of art school lecturers has improved in any way over the years, but while we were carrying out these seemingly bizarre instructions, the lecturer went out for a tea or a coffee presumably. upon his return, when everyone had finished and we were looking for the cameras that likely had them rolling on the floor in the staffroom, it just got worse.
having painted our circles and lines with consummate skill, we were instructed to tear the sheet of paper into smaller pieces of paper, then place them in an envelope. at this point, a photograph of the assembled faces would have been worth keeping for posterity; and the search for cameras linked to the staffroom continued in earnest. happily (or sadly, depending on how you hoped this would all turn out), there was a logical outcome, an outcome not told to us until the following week. and you thought art college was easy.
ranking up there with the foregoing strangeness, is this: cut down lengthy shoots of bamboo, leave them somewhere nice to dry, then carbonise them (a word that possibly has more favour here than elsewhere) and grind into fine bamboo charcoal particles. not stopping there, you should now blend it with polyester.
exactly.
so where are the cameras this time? fortunately, this second ministry of silly walks also has a logical outcome, which i wore today under my long-sleeve jersey and softshell. the crewroom's vapour x shirt is, you will have now learned, constructed from bamboo charcoal and polyester, promising a wicking fabric that is breathable and able to regulate body temperature. marketing is a wonderful thing, and vying with santini's promise that the carbon in their shorts can reduce lactic acid build-up, the hang ticket that arrived on the short sleeved shirt states that the charcoal can absorb infra-red from the environment and emit it 'to help cell activation and promote blood circulation.. i can't say i noticed.
what i did notice, on a day that had me struggling on a fixed gear into 50kph winds and minus three windchill, was that i stayed warm despite frequent stops along the way (testing something else that i'll tell you about soon). despite misgivings about wearing a short sleeve thermal on the last day of january (i've been encased in long sleeve winter merino since before chrimbo) the vapour x was cosy, the fit was nigh on excellent and the wicking, when i did warm up, quite superb. if the shirt did get damp during the two hour scurry in the wilderness, i didn't notice. a very good thing.
the crewroom are purveying this as a running shirt, despite its being found under the cycling tab on their website. to this end, it has reflective spots on the back, and the logo on the front is also of the reflective variety. i don't think it's really intended to be a baselayer in the accepted sense, but today's test proved that, if anything, it is perhaps a more versatile garment than we have been led to believe. i'm certainly happy wearing it under a jersey.
sizing of the shirts is on the loose side; i would always order a medium size of any baselayer, but the crewroom sent size small that was right on the money. i've not an earthly whether the bamboo charcoal has any benevolent effect on the feel of the fabric, or whether this is just a subtly fine blend of the polyester fibres, but it's really soft and comfy. maybe the bamboo is a marketing ploy, maybe it isn't, but who really cares with performance of this calibre? the crewroom vapour x shirt is available in black or white, in men's and women's, from xs to xxl and retails for a measly £25 ($36). no need to wait until the summer to acquire one of these (unless you plan on not wearing a long sleeve jersey and a softshell).
mind you, avoiding marauding hordes of pandas can be a chore.
posted on saturday 31 january 2009
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