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the real reason

sunday saw the second round of this season's x2o badkamers trofee, with some riders having opted not to start round one on saturday, while others had entered both. co-commentator on tnt sports, former british national champion, ian field, explained how many of those riders coped with two high profile events in two days. as he pointed out, this was now part of the job, where the riders undertook a mandatory warm-down after the race, had a restful evening, while consuming a pre-determined amount of carbohydrates and protein, readying for the second event on sunday.

but rather than have a leisurely morning yesterday, it appears that almost all would have either spent some time on the rollers or turbo trainer, or gone for an hour's road ride just to get their bodies ready for the effort they would soon be subjected to. and then, unsurprisingly, there was the course reconnaissance, though mr fields admitted that the latter would have taken place prior to the women's race, during which, certain aspects of the parcours would have changed, possibly necessitating a change in tread or pressures. it may have been that some of the early bike changes were as a result of those apparent changes.

rapha recently released what i regard as a somewhat pointless range of clothing under the banner 'could've gone pro' presumably alluding to the possibility that, had life's circumstances been even just a smidgeon different than they'd turned out, the wearers of such a jersey, jacket, shorts et al, could have been vying for victory with the best of the best. that could be the alternative reality, or it could be wishful thinking on their part. it almost seems trivial to mention the price of a simple waterproof gilet (£235) and £40 for an 'essentials case'. it strikes me that i'd need a lucrative pro contract similar to tadej's to afford the opportunity to tell folks of my close shave with fame and fortune.

however, ian fields' perspicacious appraisal of how the professional cyclocross rider conscientiously approaches his or her livelihood, offset by rapha's cartoon approach to those of us who reputedly just missed out, inadvertently highlighted the true difference between them and us.

if you have fastidiously or even cursorily read the training advice appearing in the comic over the years, will no doubt have gleaned a singularly repeated methodology. though almost daily training rides that adhere to a pre-arranged training programme are an intrinsic part of the process, so too is a cunningly thought out nutrition plan, catering to the dietary requirements of each individual. but the aspect of such a concerted approach to victory that sticks in my mind, is that of rest. the theory of physiology contends that, as we stretch the limits of various muscle groups, we produce minute tears in those muscles. as the body effects repair, it does so by strengthening those tears, meaning that the next time we push our limits and beyond, we gain slightly more from each muscle.

however, such repairs can only be achieved by a suitable level of rest. 'why stand when you can sit, and why sit when you can lie down? it's advice espoused by pippa york when racing as robert millar, advice which is probably easier to enact when you're a professional sportsperson, than if you need to be in the office by 8:30am on monday morning.

and here's where the real reason arises as to why we 'could've gone pro', but didn't. if we agree to suspend the vast difference between the distances ridden by yours truly and the professionals each weekend, when i returned home on saturday afternoon, i had first to watch two cyclocross races, before composing the day's washingmachinepost monologue. i had then to make my tea, before heading out to the secondary school to take photographs for the newspaper, at an evening concert. on my return i'd to read the two chapters required to ensure that i keep up with my book review due later this week.

the following day, i once again opted to go for a bike ride in less than clement conditions, having taken care of the fettling required to have my bicycle in a suitable condition to be ridden.

then there was another two 'cross events to watch, prior to another day's post, the need to have the weekend's cycling kit washed, tea to make and another two chapters to be read. today it was back to work for a further week at the coal face.

assuming my weekends and subsequent weekdays are not substantially different than your own, you can perhaps appreciate that we do not appear to be achieving the amount of rest that would ensure an ability to tear up the roads the following weekend. if you're like me, you find it a major struggle to get out of bed during the week, fervently hoping that, on reaching the office, we could perhaps nab a few minutes/hours of shuteye. even going to bed early seems not to have the desired effect, and adding in wind band practice on tuesday and pipe band on wednesday doesn't seem to help either.

so there you have it. though i'd scarcely recommend that you avail yourself of rapha's green and white cartoonery, maybe we could have gone pro.

image: rapha

monday 3 november 2025

willy naessens for president

it is incumbent on both profesional and amateur racers to put in suitable preparation for the races in which they are entered. different events will, tautologically, require different preparation; witness the usual early-season choices where teams split their individual riders into groups, usually those intent on doing well in the spring classics, while others look forward to the season's grand tours. what is very definitely not an option, is to stay home watching the tellybox and eating frites and mayo, if your first race is not for quite some time yet. how often have we heard the epithet that summer victories are, in fact, won in the winter?

if your competitors are undertaking lengthy rides even in dastardly weather, it well behoves you to do likewise, only more so.

but perhaps, for those of us who have no intentions whatsoever, of covering the three rear pockets with race numbers, ought still to be indulging in a modicum of pre-event preparation. the difference being, that our events, take place on an ipad or the television and, in truth, require very little by way of physical input.

yesterday and today saw the first two rounds of the x2o badkamers trophee series, with yesterday's event, by common consent of marty mcdonald and ian fields, taking pride of place as one of cyclocross's monuments if such a thing existed in the world of cyclocross. ostensibly taking place in oudenaarde, belgium, each lap of the race required the riders to ascend the legendary koppenberg, made tangibly harder, by the amount of mud carried onto the cobbles from the rest of the race taking place in fields inhabited by cows for the remainder of the year. won for the second time in succession by thibau nys, scotland's cameron mason, current british national champion, took a comfortable second place, 21 seconds behind nys, but one minute 20 seconds ahead of third place, pim ronhaar.

considering we are but a few weekends into the start of the 25/26 season, this augurs well for mason in upcoming events between now and worlds in february.

so what of the preparation?

i have frequently pointed out that, as a species, cyclists are no different than motorists when it comes to moaning about the poor condition of the roads. this is particularly noticeable in this part of the hebrides, where persistent distillery traffic, to say nothing of the visitors' vehicle plying the same routes, are slowly destroying roads that were never intended to carry such heavy vehicles. many of the roads over here are built on peat; you need only stand in a passing place as one of the pot ale tankers passes, to experience a verisimilitude to that of sitting on a water bed. yet, when roubaix and flanders hove into view, those selfsame moaners remonstrate with the tellybox as the more astute professionals eschew the cobbles for the smoother gutters on each side. where, we are wont to ask, is the point of having cobbled races, if our heroes display tendencies to avoid them at all costs?

cyclocross riders are generally of a different ilk; it's highly unlikely that they'd choose this particular discipline if unwilling to suffer mud, hurdles, sand and goodness knows what else might be lurking in the undergrowth, if they didn't demonstrate a certain fascination for the terrain. we, however, as fans of the sport, may not be able to directly experience the hardships they encounter, particularly if there doesn't happen to be a cyclocross course within your vicinity (dutch and belgian readers can excuse themselves at this point), so, in order to set ourselves up for the races we wish to view, it does not seem totally unnatural to venture out on uiskentuie strand on a cyclocross bike in freezing rain and strengthening winds.

of course, given a distinct lack of a professional contract, there are limits. as i donned my helmet yesterday morning, prior to heading southwest to debbie's for lunch, there was a frighteningly heavyy hail shower that i was happy to avoid, remaining just inside the back door of the croft until it passed over. yes, i was caught in at least two other heavy showers, and as i approached the hydro hill on the way out of the village, a black volvo ploughed through a substantial puddle of water, the majority of which landed on yours truly, before i'd even had the chance to warm up.

and you wonder why i don't like cars.

having completed what was a relatively short parcours, including at least five kilometres of grass, gravel and a thick carpeting of leaves, interspersed with a soya latte and a cheese and tomato toastie, i arrived home for a shower, dry clothes and a very happy two hours watching the men's and women's x2o badkamers trophee events, enhanced greatly by my own pre-race preparation.

and while i'm here, it may be worth mentioning that, having complained vehemently about the interspersing of adverts in the very expensive to watch, on demand coverage on tnt sports, i accidentally discovered that you can actually fast forward through the adverts. whatever you do, don't tell tnt in case they disable that feature.

sunday 2 november 2025

chips and mayo

nvidia artifical intelligence microprocessor

on wednesday of this past week, american microchip manufacturer, nvidia became the world's first five trillion dollar company, exceeding the gross domestic product of several countries, including india, japan and the uk. founded in 1993, nvidia has long been a manufacturer of microchips, but originally these were used in graphics cards for displays in computers, developing more powerful chips in response to the demand for higher quality and quicker screen redraws by computer gamers. however, deliberately or otherwise, it transpires that their products have become the core of the current fascination with artificial intelligence, dramatically increasing their sales, and subsequently sending their profits and share price through the proverbial roof.

chief executive, jensen huang, announced not only 500 billion dollars worth of chip orders, but a partnership with uber to create robotaxis, a one billion dollar investment in long-lost phone maker, nokia to develop 6g technology and is working with the us department of energy to build seven ai super computers. not only that, but u.s. president, donald trump has admitted to owning 1.3 million dollars worth of nvidia shares.

so what did you do last week?

there are concerns, however, that such high valuations of several companies within the sphere of artificial intelligence, could conceivably lead to to bursting of the ai bubble, with officials at the bank of england flagging last month that tech stock prices, bolstered by the artificial intelligence boom, might come crashing down from a great height. and apparently the head of the international monetary fund has issued similar warnings. that said, it seems very unlikely that artifical intelligence is likely to become less of a fixture in contemporary life; probably quite the opposite.

if, like me, you have seen tv adverts for smartphones, all of which extol the virtues of their adoption of artificial intelligence, you might be wondering just what the fuss is all about? where once samsung, apple and google promoted the never-ending increase in the number of megapixels featured in the phone cameras, now it's all about their implementation of ai. and despite the billions of dollars invested in the technology, the most it seems to achieve is allowing teenagers to talk about football, rearrange your living room, or identify favourable cosmetics, should you inadvertently find yourself in south korea bereft of a phrase book.

on my macbook air, and the office imac, i have switched off apple's ai, principally becasue it kept trying to type my e-mail replies before i'd a chance to put fingers to keyboard. i am more than capable of composing suitable replies all on my own thank you very much, just as i have been doing for the last thirty years or so. nor have i ever been tempted to allow ai to write my newspaper articles for me. undertaking relevant research, asking local people for comment, and assembling everything into a comprehensive and legible article, is highly satisfying, educational in the process and one of the major joys of daily life. nor would i ever invite the likes of chatgpt to provide one of these daily monologues; i frequently have no particular idea of what each might contain, when left staring at a blinking cursor, but arriving at a satisfactory subject and ultimate conclusion is what keeps the grey matter fit and healthy.

there were times in the halcyon days of yore, when the very thought of applying artificial intelligence to the bicycle would have seemed like one of the horrors of science fiction, but given not only the recent 'advances' proclaimed in the technology's development, but a growing necessity by the marketing departments to climb aboard the ai bandwagon, it seems unlikely that the velocipedinal realm can remain wholly untouched for much longer. i am insufficiently well-informed to provide examples as to how ai might infiltrate the world of zwift, rouvy and others, but if it has not already been deployed in that direction, i'm pretty sure it won't be long before it is.

and who would deny that sram, shimano or campagnolo will soon find a way to incorporate artifical intelligence into the electronics of their wireless groupsets? perhaps ai will soon be allowed to make automatic gear selection, or warn when the chain may either need lubricated, or replaced. campagnolo has recently announced three variations of its super-record wireless, 13 speed groupset platform, but how long before there's only one version, now incorporating artifical intelligence to select the most appropriate mode of operation, dependent on the terrain to be seen under your tyres? i'd imagine that the expensive solution looking for a problem that is the classified hub, is ripe for inclusion of artificial intelligence.

earlier last week, my copy of the guardian newspaper featured a double-page spread inside the front cover, proclaiming the benefits of a specific brand of artificial intelligence, a surprising turn of events i think; if it's really that good and verging on indispensible, why does it need to be advertised in the first place? does anyone remember similar adverts promoting the internet?

me neither.

at one time, computer technology was regarded as the potential saviour of humanity, fostering the so-called paperless society and improving quality of life by taking on the more mundane, every-day tasks, and leaving us with unheralded leisure time. that hasn't quite worked out for the best. all that appears to have occured is the implementation of successive technologies that make life a tad easier for business, but ever more complex for those of us who wish to avail ourselves of the products those businesses supply. how successful have your recent interactions with customer service been, following an endless selection of phone options, none of which seem to fit the category you may have been searching for? and do you really think that making tax digital is for the benefit of those who pay tax?

the more we become corralled by the plethora of technologies that seem hellbent on alienating everyday life from that of politics or industry, the greater need there is for an antidote, an outlet free from such interference. for you, me and many others across the world, one of those outlets has frequently involved the bicycle, offering, as highlighted in so many biographies of the greats of the sport, a refuge from the less palatable portions of modern society. the phrase, 'nothing's ever worse after a bike ride' remains true.

for now, at least.

friday 31 october 2025

on the right track?

beginning today and continuing through this particular weekend, the london three-day track meeting will take place at the queen elizabeth olympic park, formerly known as the lee valley velo park. the event is sponsored by, amongst others, colnago bicycles, something of an oddity itself, where a cycle company, not renowned for its track bikes, sponsors a cycling event in which their home country riders will probably compete on pinarello track bikes. however, it appears that there may be method in their madness, using the profile of london's three-day track meet to launch the colnago t1rs, which, according to the press release, marks the company's return to the track after an absence of several years.

billed as 'the most aerodynamic bike ever created by colnago', there are echoes of tadej's tour and rainbow bands winning y1rs, with its idiosyncratic approach to seat tubes; or rather, the lack of. these attributes are readily acknowledged by colnago: "The adopted silhouette and design are directly derived from the experience gained in the World Tour with the TT1 and Y1Rs models", claiming those to be benchmarks in time-trial and road-racing. whether that would be a legitimate claim were the world champion not on the uae team-emirates roster is perhaps a discussion for another day.

as has become common in colnago's and many other manufacturers' claims, the new track bike has been designed to 'minimize aerodynamic drag and convert every watt of power into pure forward motion'. it seems not to have occurred to ernesto's former company that each and every manufacturer is hellbent on achieving the same outcome. i would imagine if you questioned representatives of the various marques participating in this weekend's racing about their own primary objective, the answers would be remarkably similar.

however, despite colnago trumpeting its presumably welcome return to the track after several years' absence, is it on the right track with the t1rs, or is there the possibility that it is more of a vanity project; perhaps the same could be said of their peers? colnago has made it clear that, without the constraints of road applications such as brakes and gears, their designers and engineers have "...pushed the limits of aerodynamics and stiffness even further". there are moments when it seems that colnago might have entered cloud cuckoo land, proclaiming benefits that will undoubtedly favour the professional track athlete, but i'd imagine that, if the t1rs is truthfully a commercial venture, it is likely to be the lesser of mortals who hand over their well-bolstered credit cards in order to own one of these grey speedsters.

colnago contends that the design process has produced a bicycle that delivers its desired payload at speeds above 60kph, "...the critical threshold where track races are often won or lost." i can see that as being the target parameter in events held at lee valley this weekend, but i would harbour doubts that the likes of you and i, assuming any track experience at all, could reach and sustain speeds such as that mentioned above. i don't, for one minute, believe that the colnago t1rs does not possess great merit at speeds below 60kph, but... in explaining the aerodynamic advantages of this particular design, colnago are at pains to point out that the rider will "expend less power at 70kph, but that airflow remains cleaner and more stable, better maintaining velocity. i would question from whence that extra 10kph suddenly arose, but if we couldn't manage 60kph, i can't see 70 being a realistic outcome.

however, assuming you feel particularly enervated by the possibility of owning and riding your very own, grey t1rs, where do we stand on price? colnago are currently quoting 6,500 euros (£5700) for the frame only (though the price includes fork, seatpost, saddleclamp and small parts), and depending on whether you intend riding in sprint/endurance, or time-trial/pursuit events, the cockpit can be configured to suit either. not including the handlebar(?), you're looking at 250 euros + vat (£265 inc vat). if you fancy your chances at pursuit activities it's 320 euros + vat (£340 inc vat). an adjustable extension kit will set you back another 270 euros + vat (£290 inc vat). and that's before you've thought about suitable track wheels, a chainset, track tubulars and a saddle.

though i am very poorly informed as to the wherefores and whys of track racing, how many colnago afflicted riders are there in the world willing and able to spend in excess of £12,000 on a track bike? none too many i'll warrant. however, i will admit to finding the (only) colour quite favourable

friday 31 october 2025

self-sufficiency

i may have mentioned this on several previous occasions, but wednesday afternoons, for me, are spent in the recording studio of the local secondary school. sadly, not actually recording anything, but using the space to teach pupils drumming for national five, higher and advanced higher certificates. there are several practice rooms in the music department, but the studio happens to possess the best of the drumsets along with two monitor speakers that can be used to play the backing tracks to which the pupils are required to match their drumming.

that the students are at a bit of a disadvantage in their endeavours is probably true to say, for while nobody would consider teaching piano without having the students learn scales, it seems that the scottish education authority are quite comfortable imposing oft times difficult drum scores without ever having alerted the pupils to the existence of rudiments. these i consider essential to becoming a well-rounded drummer; not so much because they form part of each lesson, but because striving to master the 26 rudiments almost inadvertently, teaches technical skills that ease the pain of the more complex drum scores.

and unfortunately, due to the number of intermittent holidays across the school year, previous attempts to inculcate at least the basics of learning a drum roll have failed miserably, though it has to be said, mostly due to lack of application by the pupils. that said, they usually have other pressing school matters with which to contend. learning to play a drum roll 'correctly' took me about one and a half months of practice every evening for at least one hour, sitting with my practice pad and slowly playing mummy, daddy evenly with each hand, gradually increasing the tempo as my hands, wrists and fingers became more adept at manipulating the sticks. the last student i had at advanced higher, left school with the appropriate certificate, but was singularly unable to pay a drum roll. as a result, in her late teens, she is now having to learn those basics as part of her music course at university.

there have been many discussions as to whether the aspiring drummer has need of a teacher, or whether it is possible to reach a high standard by being diligently, self-taught? i can see both sides of the coin, having reached my lofty heights at the behest of my own ministrations. however, there is little doubt that some things are a tad easier with a teacher by your side to answer the awkward questions and simplify the process, often removing the continual notion that you're doing it wrong. i am very fortunate that, though entirely self-taught, i appear to have taught myself well (more by luck than by design, it should be said), and i am now in the position of helping today's youngsters get a grasp of drumming by removing the doubt of getting it wrong.

my biggest problem is a lack of being able to sight-read very well, though i can manage enough to cover the pieces required for examination.

but with regard to being self-taught, i believe a similar question could be levelled at those of us who ride bicycles. i have detailed often enough, the lengthy process through which i put myself on a tiny red bicycle borrowed from one of my school friends, but put to good use on the large area of grass in the back garden. not for me the familar figure of a dad hunched over the back wheel, holding onto the saddle to allow yours truly to gain coinfidence in cycling. rightly or wrongly, i did it all myself.

but did i do it right?

for instance, watch any of the professionals, and they appear to ride with their knees pointing in towards the top tube. i've no real idea why that is, but i find it hard to replicate with any confidence. and if and when it comes to sprinting, am i doing it properly? is there, perhaps, a secret seen in plain sight, that would allow me to distance my compatriots at the bruichladdich village sign? maybe there's a particular technique that would allow me to ascend hills with less effort, one that i know i'm not using at present?

of course, there are many techniques i have acquired from the mighty dave t, several of which have eased the effort involved in slogging into a galeforce headwind. but what if you don't have a mighty dave t to hand? there are many locales bereft of a constituted cycle club, where techniques such as those outlined above, would be handed down within the peloton, so how is the apprentice roadie to learn? it is my observation that many of those lessons have to be taught while on the bike; it seems insufficient in many cases, simply to watch a youtube video, or read a magazine article, and try and recall what was supposedly learned when next out cycling.

jeremy powers kindly taught be how to mount and dismount in the required cyclocross fashion. i did practise, and i did manage a versimilitude of his instructions, but i've now left it so long, i'll have to begin all over again. car drivers are not allowed out on the open road unaccompanied until they have been appropriately taught in the vicissitudes of the highway code, use of gears, signalling, controlling speed and so on, then passed a legally enforceable driving test. as far as i'm aware, there is no similar requirement for cyclists.

the once-named cycling proficiency test is not compulsory. if you can buy a bicycle, then you can ride it pretty much anywhere apart from motorways, even if you can't spell highway code. but would cyclists everywhere benefit from a few salient lessons, or are we just as well left to our own devices (though i'm aware that the professionals and many aspirants are professionally coached to help them achieve victory)?

or is that simply a rhetorical question?

thursday 30 october 2025

thematic

in the early days of thewashingmachinepost, i harboured notions of branching off into the beginner market, making helpful suggestions to those new to road cycling concerning riding, apparel componentry etc., conjoined with basic mechanics. the fact that you will not currently find any such sub-sections, rather confirms that those ideas never got any further than being ideas. why? quite simply, a lack of confidence in my ability to provide such information.

as previously mentioned, i am self-taught in the art of bicycle mechanics, skills learned in the days when bicycles were a great deal simpler than is the case nowadays. you can perhaps see the complete irrelevance of writing a monologue on how to remove a freewheel, unscrew the outer lockring with its left-handed thread, and the simplest way to replace the squillions of tiny ball bearings that fell onto the bikeshed floor when you lifted the sprockets from the freewheel body. or perhaps how to correctly use a crank removal tool on a crankset affixed to a square-taper bottom bracket, before re-greasing the cups and replacing the bearings.

i can already see the eyes of my reader glazing over.

similarly, the art of choosing suitable apparel. though that would appear to be simplicity itself, there's not as much beginners' advice available on cycling apparel websites as you'd like to hope. for instance, let's discuss bibshorts. i have met many apprentice roadies who have settled for bib-less padded shorts, unsure or unwilling to adopt the whole enchilada. it's a conundrum we've all experienced; do i base the size on my waist size or my height? and having broached that particular hurdle, what about bibtights? do i want those with or without a chamois pad, or do i just wear them over the bibshorts i just bought?

then, assuming that joining a cycle club is either impractical or too scary, what about peloton etiquette? what the heck is an echelon? how do i draft properly? if i stand up to climb, will i fall off? see, questions, questions, questions. i was remarkably fortunate to learn from the mighty dave t; what the great man doesn't know about riding in a peleton and race strategy, probably isn't worth knowing. he has the answers and skills, i had an internet blog; match the two and how could it possibly fail? having chickened out from so doing, i'll probably never know.

but when the post began its internet career, it was more or less an isolated case, a theme that has continued for the last 29 years. having begun before the world weblog was first coined, and before it was contracted to blog, almost all the cycling blogs with which it grew up, have long gone. but i confess that, in the early days, i had not long moved from mountain biking, and i was somewhat unsure of my ground. as it transpires, my ground was pretty much spot on, and had i harboured the confidence to spout forth, thewashingmachinepost would quite probably have been an entirely different affair.

nowadays, however, the on-line resources available to the apprentice roadie are plentiful, and in the more populous areas of britainsville, there's still the ubiquitous cycle club. i am reliably informed that the more perspicacious amongst them have ditched the keep-up-or-get-dropped mentality. but the technical complexity of the modern road bike has arguably made the riding learning process a great deal simpler. i'm not ashamed to admit that i rode in the inner ring on my first road bike for several weeks, terrified of what might happen when the chain was moved to the outer ring; did it simultaneously move back up the block to the large sprocket, did i need to back-pedal, and how fast should i be pedalling when i changed?

with electronic shifting, single front chainrings, and helically arranged ramps to ease the chain from one to the next, it strikes me that the first ride can be as clumsy as you like and you'll still make it to debbie's in one piece. but still i doubted my ability to transfer rudimentary knowledge to the static black pixel.

but, especially following yesterday's monologue, what you will never read on thewashingmachinepost, is anything even approximating advice on how to ride indoors. for starters, the bicycle is firmly locked into the ubiquitous smart trainer, there's probably a soft carpet on each side, the central heating is at an amenable temperature, and you're more than likely connected to a worldwide peloton, members of which would be more than willing to advise on how to participate in any of the myriad online riding/racing platforms.

yet one of the more successful online journals has apparently designated this particular week, indoor cycling week. it seems the internet still has dark corners that should be avoided at all costs.

wednesday 29 october 2025

outside is free

according to an article published in the guardian newspaper earlier this year, our connection to nature haas declined by 60% since the beginning of the 19th century. this has, according to the article, even seen the disappearance of words such as river, moss and blossom from books. the research that resulted in the writing of the article, was undertaken by miles richardson, professor of connectedness (nope, me neither) at the university of derby.

his research accurately tracked the decline of the importance of nature in people's lives over the laast 220 years, by using data on urbanisation, the loss of wildlife in neighbourhoods and, more seriously, parents no longer passing on engagement with nature to their children. the latter may account for the possibly apocryphal story that children in inner-city schools thought that lamb and beef came from the supermarket, with no inkling of the mores of rural agriculture. it has been posited that today's children can identify more pokemon characters than wildlife species.

modelling based on this study, has predicted an 'extinction of experience', due to the continued loss of nature awareness as a result of the preponderance of 'built-up' neighbourhoods. as life continues, if today's children are losing exposure to the great outdoors, they are highly unlikely (or unable) to pass on the delight to their own offspring in the future.

according to several research studies since the 1950s, the psychological and physical benefits of connecting with nature are manifest, but now in danger of being lost for good. people who are more connected with nature are reputedly happier, feel more vital, and experience more meaning in their lives. of course, while it would be wrong to disparage such research outright, it subjectively comes close to those 'touchy, feely' sensations often said to be applicable to 'tree huggers' and environmentalists in general.

the advent of the technologically dependent 21st century, has, arguably accelerated the process, perhaps as a direct result of the covid pandemic, but one from which cycling is hardly immune. it would be naive to think that attached gps devices, electronic gear shifting, and e-bikes are directly involved in this paradigm; those could easily be promoted as enhancements, and in certain cases, cheerfully fulfil that potential, but i'm sure you can see just where this is heading.

as described in yesterday's article, i managed only a minimal number of kilometres on saturday, thus determined to expand upon that the following day. and as a brief aside, my contention that anthropomorphisation of the weather could easily be supported, next weekend looks even worse than the last. yet, despite my support for increased accessibility to the great outdoors, it does look likely that i'll be stuck indoors watching cyclocross on tnt sports, as opposed to heading south west to debbie's for the saturday lunchtime, double-egg roll.

but as intrepid cyclists, we are surely well-equipped with state-of-the-art waterproofs, apparel that is essentially worthless, unless used for its primary purpose. having previously admitted to being impossible to live with if cooped up indoors at the weekend, despite high winds and heavy rain on sunday morning, i was heading out no matter what. given that the majority of us who partake of a sunday morning ride are, essentially, riding in circles before heading home for a shower, why does it matter if we get wet? i will readily agree, however, that during my perambulations of the mulindry section (definitely the name of my next jazz quartet), there was little to see through the rain on my glasses. nonetheless, experiencing the weather, even of an inclement nature, is good for the soul, always assuming you are of the persuasion that believes in such a human trait.

while i do well comprehend the importance of zwift and its peers under certain circumstances, if we're to take the research figures referenced above, it wouldn't be too outlandish to consider riding a smart-trainer in the sitting room as a 'cop-out'; an excuse not to go out even in light drizzle, in favour of dubious comfort and joy, thus exaggerating the described disconnect.

though there are many reasons to go cycling, each applicable to a different subset of velocipedinists, the most common cited in interviews with the professionals, is the ability to get away from it all, to explore one's surroundings, ironically, quite frequently by those domiciled in the built-up urban areas referenced as responsible for the growing disconnect with nature. there are all manner of individuals and organisations currently fighting to save the planet. would not it be a sad indictment of humanity, particularly those on bicycles, if we refrained from enjoying the results of their not inconsiderable efforts?

zwift if you must, but only as a last resort.

tuesday 28 october 2025