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getting in on the act

a few years prior to my arrival in the hebrides, bowmore distillery, islay's oldest at almost 250 years, had begun attracting visitors to the distillery for which it had built a visitor centre and walkways to allow a none too radical path through the plant. though there had been and continues to be, constant publication of books detailing the whisky-making process, on islay at least, before bowmore's break with tradition, there was no convincing means of viewing it at first hand. their innovation certainly lightened the load for yours truly, when i asked if it might be possible to make drawings of the distillery's interior workings and exterior elevations. where once it might have proved a trifle fractious attempting to negotiate the mash tun en-route to the oregon pine washbacks, before stumbing headlong into the almost unbearably warm still room, a clear path was now outlined and could easily be accomplished by a teetotal artist, with little in the way of comprehension of that which he sought to illustrate.

while the notion of touring a malt whisky distillery nowadays is as common as tadej winning everything in sight, in the 1980s, managers at islay's other distilleries were not so secretly laughing behind their office doors. though i'm paraphrasing, the common question being asked was along the lines of "why on earth would anyone wish to tour a distillery?" one or two of us even now occasionally mouth a very similar question, particularly during the upcoming islay whisky festival at the end of next month.

while there is a wide range of excellent entertainment to be had at almost every distillery on the island, including the first opportunity to tour the recently opened laggan bay distillery, i do often wonder why anyone would wish to subject themselves to tales of germination, barley types, phenol levels and the bizarre flavours it is reputed can be tasted in the average dram, at (currently) ten distilleries. and that's not to mention the one on jura, the gin and rum distilleries, and the brewery.

i should probably admit, however, that i will be attending adam hannett's masterclass at bruichladdich distillery for subsequent review, and i have been asked by laggan bay to compose a feature on their first festival and public opening.

many of you may think i doth protest too much, and that, given the opportunity, i would gratefully accept an invitation to visit cambiago's colnago factory; and i would agree with you wholeheartedly. however, i would be unlikely to repeat the experience annually for the next ten or so years, as many whisky festival attendees are wont to do. in this context, i'd imagine that there are places of work that are very unlikely to lend themselves to public tours. those of us who work at the local newspaper have, jokingly (i think) considered the possibility of offering tours of the office during the aforesaid whisky festival, based purely on the observation that those in attendance seem keen to accept almost any invitation that includes a tour. personally, i have theorised about the possibility of designing a small box containing phials of yeast, barley and islay water, then marketing it as a distill your own whisky kit.

it might yet happen.

however, it seems that there might soon be the opportunity to at least pay lip service to the possibility of an annual velocipedinal tour, in this specific case, curated by brooks saddles at their smethwick factory in birmingham. having dipped a toe in the touring waters last year, the selle royal owned leather-saddle company is keen to repeat the process this year; on 18 july, to be precise. last year's event was the first time in the company's history that they had opened the doors to the velocipedinal public. unlike the majority of whisky festival events, tickets to brooks' open day are free of charge, if a tad on the limited side.

according to brooks, "We can't reveal everything we've got lined up, yet. For now suffice it to say there'll be revivifying coffee, tasty beers, beautiful bikes made by Brooks' friends, and tours of the factory otherwise unavailable to members of the public." if that sounds like something that might pique your curiosity, you can reserve your tickets here. some time slots have already sold out, but it might be worth a visit to assess the single malt influence and check if, like islay's festival bottlings, there might be an exclusive saddle only available from smethwick on 18 july.

thursday 23 april 2026

sphagnum moss

the various genres of cycle racing all have their unique, or semi-unique, origins, which may, in certain circumstances be inclusive or ignored at will. road racing is perhaps the most obvious, having originated on the road, though the definition of the latter would seem to greatly depend on the era in which it takes/took place. you need only witness images from the tours de france which took place in the 1940s and 50s, to note that, essentially, our heroes were the forerunners of today's gravel scene, would that they had been aware of it. cyclocross, once again, pretty much does what it says on the tin; the cross portion i have always taken to refer to the crossing of a wide variety of natural obstacles in its formative years. though the specifics of cyclocross are buried in the dusts of time, the most cogent theory was its arising as a means of tour de france riders challenging each other to race to the next village over the horizon, as a means of maintaining fitness during the winter months. so doing curated a series of parcours punctuated by rivers, walls, hills, embankments and hedges.

nowadays these have been extensively civilised and corralled into specifically created circuits with many of the obstacles, such as sand traps, brought in by truck.

we already know of my suspicions regarding gravel racing, based purely on my contention that its particular origins revolve around north america fervently wishing it had fostered cyclocross in the first place. even in a police line-up, you'd be hard-pushed to spot the 'cross bike midst a peloton of gravel machines. nonetheless, the several varieties of gravel would appear to be here to stay, so once again, it looks like it's me that is out of step. and i will grant that mountain biking may have originated on a very big hill, but to be honest i don't really know what they're doing with it now.

but it dawned on me during an outdoor activity to which i was invited on tuesday afternoon, were the scots to follow the lead of the americans, and become desperate to invent our very own style of cycling, i think i have the very answer.

scotch whiskies, particularly those distilled on islay, rely greatly upon on organic material known as peat. according to the industry as a whole, the extraction rate from the ground removes a mere one percent of the entire peat resource in a single year. quite where this number originates, i know not, but it is widely quoted which makes it effectively true whether it is or not. several years past, i investigated what the alternatives might be, should governments dictate that, along with banning peat as a gardener's ally, it could no longer be harvested by the whisky industry to add the necessary phenols to the smokier malts. despite an islay tour guide once being asked at what point of the process did they add peat to the whisky, the amber nectar does not contain any peat whatsoever.

when the barley has been appropriately germinated on a floor maltings or a bulk process such as that carried out at diageo's port ellen maltings, it is kiln-dried by allowing defined quantities of peat smoke to waft through the mesh floor on which the barley has been spread. this method imparts the much-lauded phenols to the barley, prior to the commencement of the distilling process. smoky whiskies 'r'us.

as it transpires, under the current legalities of scotch malt whisky production, no alternative is allowed as a substitute for peat. and though there is a substantial amount of the latter to be seen adjacent to the low road between port ellen and bowmore, environmental responsibilities adopted by the distilling industry now lean heavily towards peat restoration.

it took only an afternoon squelching across the glenmachrie peat moss to witness the different methods of extraction practiced by suntory global spirits on behalf of their two islay distilleries at laphroaig and bowmore. however, rather than continue to demonstrate my complete ignorance of the island's principal industry, watching a tractor with six rear wheels and four, smaller, front wheels waddle across what is, in effect, a giant, living water-bed, a friend and i were given good cause to think this might be the ideal scenario for the next big thing in bicycles. and unlike the current trend for all-road, gravel and cyclocross bikes which are often indistinguishable from each other, the peat bike would sport three, side-by-side rear wheels with 50mm gravel tyres and two, slightly smaller diameter, front wheels with 33mm 'cross tyres.

the gear choice would have, of necessity, to replicate those of the mountain bike, and swa (scotch whisky association) sanctioned races would take place across peat mosses such as those at glenmachrie, ballivicar, or, for maximum controversy, duich. so, all-in-all, a grand day out on the sphagnum moss.

wednesday 22 april 2026

the islay wave

many visitors i have met over the years, including those aboard bicycles of one genre or another, have been heard to remark just how friendly they have found the islanders, not least because of the customary islay wave, where drivers and (local) cyclists invariably wave to each other when passing on the road. the most subtle form of the latter, is a simple lifting of one or more fingers from the steering wheel/handlebar, to the dramatic wave and flashing of headlights from some of the bus and truck drivers who know me, and i know them. however, having acceded to the compliments about our bonhomie, i have usually added the postscript, that we'll talk about them once they've gone.

i'd like to pretend the latter is a joke, but...

i have read letters in our local newspaper where visiting drivers have only cottoned onto the uniqueness of the islay wave, convinced for the most part, that they had been mistaken for someone else. but no; the islay wave is very much a thing, and once adopted, very difficult to get out of the habit. woe-betide, however, those who continue the practice on disembarking the calmac ferry, en-route to tarbert or campbeltown. unless in error, it is very unlikely to be reciprocated.

however, irrespective of the origin or practice of the islay wave, is the recognition that we, as velocipedinists, are members of an unheralded and unconstituted society, that may, or may not, be in danger of being marginalised by the other side. notwithstanding the fact that, here on the outer edge, we enjoy a special relationship with the island's bus and truck drivers, of which there are many and which are often encountered on narrow, singletrack roads. let's face it, it cannot be the simplest of manoeuvres to pull a 40ft articulated tanker into a small passing place, just to allow a few square centimetres of carbon fibre to pass unmolested. yet the frequency with which the above occurs is impressive, to say the least.

so now that we have successfully delineated the separating line between two-wheelers and eight wheelers, what about us? whether you are a vehicle driver or not, once you have clambered onto the saddle you are, as they say, one of us, and identified as such by both sides of the argument. as such, we now are party to an unseen and effectively unwritten bond, once demonstrated by the subtle, yet demonstrable oval tanned patch on the back of each hand. while i am not proposing that we all go on a club med holiday or training camp together, surely it is within the bounds of possibility that we acknowledge each other on the road? that the present season of association has already begun was brought home only the other day, as i slowly wended my merry way south west for coffee and toastie. just past bridgend auction mart, i was smoothly passed by a fellow cyclist who had the impeccable decency to turn to face me as he rode, and offer the modern equivalent of "hail fellow, well met."

while i am not suggesting that specific phrases pass our lips at the point of coincidence, particularly if heading in opposite directions on a two-lane highway, i am recommending that we indulge in the islay wave tradition, and acknowledge each others presence. of course, there do have to be limits, which, in this case, extends mainly to whisky tourists aboard rented e-bikes. while i have nothing personal against such individuals, not only are the majority both young and fit enough to ride acoustic bikes, but given their choice of mobility, are highly unlikely to be classed as, or class themselves as, cyclists.

those folks we definitely talk about when they've gone, and sometimes, even while they're still here.

tuesday 21 april 2026

watch it

i realise that it is a malaise of the 21st century, blame for which must be accepted by the late steve jobs. in 2007, he launched the iphone, and thus began the demise of modern civilisation. i surely cannot be the only one to notice the subtle, yet manifest change in the social niceties of conversation. where once one would have found one's interlocutor at least pretending to be interested in whatever we had to say, nowadays, even earnest discussion of the highest order will be immediately put aside on receipt of a text by the opposite number, while still affecting the pretence of listening. in a worst case scenario, the text will be replied to.

when last visiting my daughter in glasgow, i caught the train from glasgow central's low-level station to my destination. unfortunately, on sundays, there is no direct connection, necessitating that i disembark en-route and wait for a second train to reach the station nearest my daughter's abode. in the carriage of the originating train, everyone (and i do mean everyone), was scrolling on a smartphone, a tablet, or wearing earbuds to listen to their particular choice of music. on alighting at the mid-point station, everyone on the platforms on both sides of the rails was similarly attached to a phone or tablet. and on boarding the second train, guess what?

i, on the other hand, looked out of the window to learn of the environment through which i travelled. on the station platform, i simply watched everyone on their phones and kept an appropriate distance from the edge, as various trains passed through. on disembarking at my destination, those walking in front and behind were engrossed by their phones. i have, out of genuine interest, asked those who are obsessed by their smartphones, quite what it is that corners their attention, but i have yet to receive a coherent answer. when teaching drumming at the local secondary school, it was not uncommon for the pupils to finish a particular exercise, then extract their phone from a pocket, just to check. i do seriously wonder what could possibly be happening in a teenager's life that necessitate's checking a phone every five minutes or so.

and for those of you who are of an acute observational nature, have you noticed that almost any group of people, when sitting down to have drinks or food, immediately place their phones on the table. once again, what is it that has otherwise intelligent people consider that something momentous will occur while they drink coffee and crunch one of those little biscoff biscuits, something that couldn't wait for half an hour or so? does anyone recall what happened before 2007? though that's almost two decades ago, didn't we used to read books, newspapers or magazines? didn't we look out of the window, and when attending a cycle race, didn't we used to watch the cyclists?

in 1998, a friend and i took a ferry from campbeltown to ballycastle in northern ireland and cycled south to dublin over the course of two days, to witness the start of the festina affair, otherwise known as the tour de france. opening with a prologue, we watched cyclist after cyclist pass at speed from a carefully chosen vantage point in dublin city centre, before making our way to the finish line to learn of chris boardman's victory. the following day, we watched the peloton and its first yellow jersey leave across the river, heading for the wicklow mountains, before returning later than same afternoon to cross the finish line at a speed that verged on terrifying.

in 1998, few digital cameras were of a quality that allowed photographing of very fast moving cyclists. those that were, demanded a mortgage to afford. so while i returned with a few photographs of our visit, none that i recall contained even slow-moving velocipedinists. cycling photography and moving images were the preserve of the professionals and television outside broadcast. i cannot deny that i was comfortable with that situation, and to be honest, so were most cycling fans. we were mostly happy to await publication of the comic on the following thursday.

and it is in the current edition of that selfsame publication, that a double-page spread shows cycling fans in the velodrome at roubaix watching tadej pogacar leading the ultimate victor, wout van aert. and when i say 'watching', i mean almost every one of them is looking at the screen of his or her smartphone, filming the final few metres of the event they have doubtless waited all day to witness.

wtf?

monday 20 april 2026

watts the problem

many of us as kids were guilty of pegging playing cards, or something very similar to the front forks of our bikes so that the front wheel spokes would create a noise nothing like that of a motor bike, but a sound we were convinced turned our bikes into a harley davidson. if you rode your bike too often (and what self-respecting kid didn't?), the cards had to be regularly replaced. more often if it was wet. but those selfsame kids must also remember the three or four digit counters strapped to the fork and on which a small, toothed sprocket was turned by a pin attached to one of the spokes. after a few days you could proudly announce to your chums that you had ridden 465.8, a number that was as vacuous as the point of doing so in the first place.

the history of the modern bicycle, at least from the 1960s, has been rife with devices clamped to the front fork or cranks, often connected to an oddly-shaped plastic display affixed to the handlebars, offering dubious numbers that were thinly related to some obscure definition of velocity. i recall acquiring just such a device from cycling weekly, that seemed only to calculate speed in 5mph amounts; i was either riding at 10mph or 15mph, but nothing equitable in between. not sure whether it was designed that way, or whether there was a fault somewhere, but it did once display that i'd ridden at a top speed of well over 350mph. the biggest problem i recall with the early cycle computers which operated via a magnet on one front wheel spoke and a sensor mounted on the fork leg, was raising the handlebars and inadvertently knackering the attached cable. i'm ashamed to admit i did that more than just once.

of course, everything is wireless nowadays, gaining the majority of information via a gps satellite, meaning no longer is it necessary to look up your wheel diameter and tyre width in a little booklet, prior to typing the appropriate code into the computer via a series of buttons and paper clips inserted into small holes on the side. assuming you have the correct mounting bracket on the handlebars, the gps unit can be easily swapped between bicycles, no matter the wheel size. but how much attention do we actually pay to the information provided by these incredibly complex devices, and even if we do, what good does it do us?

obviously enough, i can only speak for myself, but i harbour a sneaking suspicion that i'm not too different from those in the wider peloton. this is not to do a disservice to those who live by the data generated on their handlebars, but realistically, for those of us who are essentially leisure cyclists pretending to have just stepped out of the professional peloton or a rapha clubhouse, it might be information surplus to requirements. personally, since i don't wear a watch when cycling, i have a garmin attached to the bicycle du jour so that i know when i'm going to be late. average speed, actual speed, total distance, burned calories and gradient are of no real interest, but since the screen is capable of providing eight different parameters, i figured i might as well use all of them. of those that i haven't mentioned, the battery level and ambient temperature are of notional interest, but if the unit died tomorrow, i doubt i'd shed any tears.

i know of many who religiously upload the data from each ride to a web based service (yes strava, i'm talking about you), but more by way of passively stating "i'm still here"; facebook for cyclists.

yet those liquid crystal displays provide a wealth of information that could conceivably help us improve our performances, if only we knew what to do with the numbers. it is, in effect, a parallel to the partial obsession with the bicycles ridden by the pros. we have discussed at length the promise that, if it's good enough for wout, mathieu or pogi, it would be hard to dispute that, in fact, it has no place in any of our bike sheds. however, in the main, the same accusation could be levelled at the now ubiquitous gps devices. while professional riders have, almost by law, a bona fide team or personal coach to help them make sense of the numbers, i think the majority of us labour under a misguided attempt to do it ourselves. as a spurious example, if my saturday bike ride relieves me of 2,000 calories, what does that actually tell me? should i be burning more or less? and if, for example, i burn less, is that better or worse? and how much is influenced by the conditions in which i'm riding? if i'm riding into a stinker of a headwind, my speed will be proportionally less than a tailwind, yet, i can guarantee i'll be working a darned sight harder.

but the simplicity of the internal calculations probably won't reflect that.

with so many groupsets now available with crank or spider mounted power meters, is that resulting in more superfluous data for the great unwashed? the results might well provide coffee stop bragging rights, but unless you can drill down into that data to learn where differences might be found, however incremental, ultimately, what's the point? if i were to delete the battery level section on my garmin and replace it with one displaying my paltry wattage, is there any way i can digest all the additional information to help teach me where my deficiencies lie? for were that to be possible right now, i can assure you, all i'd be doing is frequently attempting to ride as fast and as far as i can, and hope that i improved; if that is not what transpired, like many, i'd have no earthly idea what to do about it.

granted, there are any number of smartphone coaching apps, subscribing to which might solve much of the above at a price. but unless you or i actually plan to use that to some sort of personal advantage, i think we're in danger of spoiling the ride. in the days of the spoke-mounted magnets, i would set myself an annual distance target, and if by year's end, i was short by only a few kilometres, i'd find myself riding needlessly up and down nearby roads to nowhere, attempting to reach the magic figure. i even considered turning the bike upside down and spinning the front wheel. and there's possibly a danger in playing the numbers game with output in watts, despite no real need to do so.

obviously this is somewhat of a generalisation; there will be many who will benefit from learning of their power output generated by an integrated device that came with their choice of groupset, but i'm inclined to believe there will be many more for whom it is wholly irrelevant. as bill bruford said of rudimental drumming technique, it's only of any real value if you have some idea of what to do with it.

saturday 18 april 2026

how much?

as mentioned in yesterday's monologue, colnago has released its latest derivation of the original c40, one of the first all carbon road bikes to see the inside of the professional peloton. the new c72 is reputedly not dramatically different from its predecessor, the c68, but that is often the way of the industry these days. technological and aero development has been almost endless since the first c40 left the factory at cambiago; the law of diminishing returns pretty much ensures that there is a limit as to how long that can continue before enforcing micro-adjustments. we are currently in a state of incremental refinement, a period which is likely to last only as long as the industry's marketing departments can convince us that these are worth acquiring.

it is the modern velocipedinal equivalent of the japanese import albums of the 1970s, where most music fans already owned every track on the album, bar one. and that one was the irresistable enticement to purchase the album. i hold my hand up to falling for a variation on this theme; though i still possess the original vinyl release of bill bruford's first solo album 'feels good to me', yet i am eager to purchase the special 2026 record shop day vinyl release due this saturday. full disclosure.

yesterday i read on the bbc website, an article that queried whether it was necessary to be a millionaire to become a formula one racing driver. it is/was an eyeopening dissertation; even a season of karting at the age of eight can cost around £130,000, rising to £260,000 by the age of thirteen. quite how those from less wealthy families could ever hope to reach the stratospheric heights of a formula one grid, is probably a question that will become harder to answer as time goes on. at least even the most expensive road bicycle can be ridden to work on public roads, should you find it necessary to do so. try that in max verstappen's formula one red bull. or even an entry level kart.

since the advent of carbon fibre as the principal material of the contemporary bicycle, things have changed, and not just visibly. in the days of steel, or possibly even aluminium, the professionals were provided with bespoke framesets, designed to accommodate their particular strengths, weaknesses and physical stature. carbon, however, by and large, begins life as pre-preg; carbon fibre matting impregnated with resin which must be man/woman handled into very expensive molds. though it is possible to vary the layup of this matting to cater to some aspects of the professional milieu, it would prove overly expensive to create individual molds for each rider. but, in order to recoup some of the costs engendered by this production line manufacture, the bicycles are sold to us on the premise/promise that, if good enough for (insert name of professional rider here), then it's almost certainly good enough for the likes of you and i.

unfortunately, that is often very far from the truth; professional riders place very different demands upon their hardware than do you and i. the very few professional level road bikes i have ridden were very uncomfortable to say the least, though they were all at lot faster than yours truly. however, the quest for professional level road bikes from non-professionals seems not to have abated, and probably won't, even when the iniquity of doing so is made perfectly plain. sadly, this is not a situation exclusive to the realm of the velocipede. i own two drumsets and a number of snare drums that are far better than anything i am likely to ask of them.

however, as alluded to above, evidence would suggest that, whether assembled from individual carbon tubes or the more common monocoque construction, the cost of production is expensive, made even more so by the necessities demanded when sponsoring world tour race teams. if we take an average of 28 riders per team, with each provided with two race frames, one training frame and a time-trial bike, that's 112 bicycles, plus one or two extra for the principal riders plus necessary spares. taking into account crash damage and those spares, on average, a bicycle supplier provides up to 200 bikes per season. if we assume that the bike sponsor supplies only the frames, at an average actual cost of £3,000 per frame, the starting budget must be around £360,000. add to that the amount of money the manufacturer has to pay the team to have them ride their product, and that's a heck of a lot of money to recoup via sales to you and i.

it is, of course, very difficult to quantify just how much the above costs add to the price of a top level bicycle that might be purchased by you or me, but it has to be clawed back somehow.

i am insufficiently well-informed as to the economics that surround today's bicycle industry, but i fear that it is in the throes of raising the price of admission outwith the reach of the majority. it's a revelation that i have observed for several years, but one that shows no signs of changing for the better. as mentioned in yesterdays article, the colnago c72 outfitted with a sram red axs power-meter groupset, will relieve you of £16,300. but the limited edition la scala edition adds another £3,000. the cheapest s-works tarmac costs £11,500. the cheapest, non s-works tarmac is still £3,600. the most expensive trek madone tops out at £12,700, though you can buy an aluminium domane for less than £1,000.

but the marketing departments of colnago, trek and specialized almost never mention the entry levels, and our own aspirations have effectively conditioned us to look further up the ladder.

a sigma sports e-mail which arrived in my inbox earlier this week, advertised limited numbers of the cervelo s5 lupine, the very model ridden to an ecstatic victory by wout van aert in last sunday's paris-roubaix. that's the sort of carrot on a stick that grabs the attention to the detriment of our paypal accounts. of course, wout didn't have to buy his bike, a luxury not available to the great unwashed. sigma have cervelo's framesets and bicycles on sale at present, but were that not the case, an s5 lupine with sram red bears an rrp of £12,250. even a used 2022 cervelo with sram rival has a list price of £6,200. whichever way you look at it, finding yourself aboard something that bears comparison with the professional classes is alarmingly, and in my opinion, ludicrously expensive. there was a time in the not too distant past, when i could actually own a colnago and still afford to eat reasonably well.

i hear skateboarding is quite cheap.

friday 17 april 2026

revisionism

in the days of the ubiquitous, lugged steel bicycle frame, the material was posssesed of sufficient tensile strength at narrow diameters to produce bicycles that were svelte. even looking at bicycles from the 50s and sixties, with brake cables arching from the top of the brake lever hoods, and the gear levers clamped around the upper reaches of the downtube, they embraced the definition of balanced. where, like an original porsche 911, or citroen 2cv, no addition or detraction was necessary. the bicycles of those days are and were, at the pinnacle of physical design. it's a state-of-the-art that persisted through early forays into carbon fibre, but one that, subjectively, was ignored when shifting to aluminium.

the metal, gleaned from bauxite via almost obscene amounts of energy, is lighter than steel, but lacking in tensile strength. the only means of augmenting that latter facet, is to increase the diameter of the tubing, a choice that ultimately led to those drainpipe downtubes. however, as predicted by newton's third law of motion (every action has an equal and opposite reaction), increasing the tube diameter had a causal effect on virtually every other part of the bicycle. in order to provide sufficient real estate onto which those large downtubes could be welded, not only had the headtube to be enlarged, but also the bottom bracket area, immediately offering a previously curtailed opportunity to fit larger headsets and bottom bracket spindles and their companion bearings.

this was the point where it became silly; in order to refrain from engineering enormous headset cups, the headset was moved inside the headtube, allegedly to increase stiffness. but when the same reason was quoted for installing the b/b bearings in external cups, you could tell that the hyperbole had originated in the farmyard. but this increased velocipedinal real estate was the marketing department's dream, for now it was possible to emblazon the manufacturer's name in very large, bold lettering that could be easily seen during the tours of france, italy and spain, not to mention any number of one day classics throughout the season. and aero, if nothing else, turned carbon bicycles into high speed billboards.

in fact, there was little to curb the paint shop's fervour, going so far as to apply decals to the underside of those big, fat downtubes to take advantage of the creativity demonstrated by the motorbike camaramen, who often held their cameras mere centimetres above the tarmac in the search for ever more obscure angles. in fact, my specialized crux cyclocross bike features the marque delineated under the top tube, a feature of which i was blissfully unaware during the first two years of ownership. so plastering the name there was obviously not for my benefit. seemingly my cynicism knows no bounds; hopefully those bike tubes were not solely enlarged to have the name writ large.

colnago have continued to offer two distinct lines of carbon frame; those made in the far east and those still constructed from carbon tubing and lugs in a small factory in cambiago, reputedly underneath ernesto's house. however, though they still pay lip service to lugged construction, originating on the c40, a carbon version of the master frameset, the lugs which appeared on the c68 were not the lugs you're looking for. and now that they have released the colnago c72, the former lugged areas seem more akin to aesthetics than constructional necessities. "no longer treated as purely structural junctions, they become defining elements of the frame's identity", to quote from colnago's press release. unfortunately another defining element of the frame's identity is the price tag, beginning at £6,300 just for the frame, and extending to £16,300 for a complete bike, replete with sram red axs, power meter and an enve wheelset.

the lugs are not the only thing to have changed on the carbon frame, however. 'neath the custom designed bottle cage, is "a hidden storage compartment" in which to smuggle documents across the border. but the most notable aspect, given what we've been discussing above, is the dramatic reduction in size of the downtube colnago logo. could it be that cambiago is, once again, ahead of the curve? a new trend?

thursday 16 april 2026

sticky

for some of you, at least part of the following will be a learning opportunity; for others, a walk down memory lane. in the halcyon days of yore, bicycles were, you may be surprised to hear, a lot simpler and mechanically rudimentary than they are today. bottom brackets did not feature press fit bearings, nor external cups, and nor were the spindles the diameter of drainpipes. there may not have been such a wide range of crank lengths, and they were more likely to be shiny alloy than dark carbon fibre. on decent wheels, the spokes were of stainless steel, perhaps butted, but invariably laced three-cross to either chromed steel or alloy, the former hardly the best of choices if you actually wanted to stop in a hurry, or at all.

sprockets on today's rear wheels can number as many as thirteen, for the time being, but rather than amalgamated into cassettes, the five sprockets of yesteryear were constituted into what was referred to as a freewheel. this screwed onto a standard threaded portion of the rear hub, for which, depending on make and model, required a proprietary tool to remove, when time came to replace it. if memory serves correctly, the maximum number of sprockets that could be acquired in freewheel format, was eight, before everyone followed shimano's lead and converted to cassettes. that, it has to be said, is a whole nuther bucket of bearings, which we'll leave alone for the time being.

indexed gears pre-dated the cassette, and friction shifting predated indexing, but the latter was of a more rudimentary operation, and generally confined to the rear derailleur. there seemed little point in indexing a maximum of three chainrings, and even today there are still those (me for instance) who query the necessity of so doing. action was by way of a thumbshifter, which simply clicked through all five gears in both directions. and that's where, it seems, the problem had occurred. if i might bring you up to speed, i received a phone call on tuesday morning from the adult son of a friend, visiting that friend over the easter school holidays. their own son had opted to indulge in a bicycle ride aboard what turned out to be a rather elderly child's bike; not too big, not too small.

related over the phone, the child had apparently clambered aboard, and commenced pedalling, before being pulled up short when the cranks stopped revolving. the phone call was by way of an enquiry to ask if i might have an idea as to the problem (i'm sure this must happen to more folks than just me). without seeing the bicycle, i figured the most likely problem was either that that chain had overshifted the freewheel and jammed between that and the hub flange, or, it had dropped off the front rings, and jammed at the bottom bracket. however, to aid my diagnosis, i asked the gentleman if the chain was still to be seen on the chainrings and the rear sprockets, which he affirmed was indeed the case.

unable to proceed further with my conclusions from a distance, i asked if he might send a couple of photographs of the transmission from which i could reach a more accurate conclusion and which he promised to do. in actual fact, no photos arrived and i subsequently received a second phone call alerting me to the fact that they were on their way into the village with the bicycle in the car.

it transpired that my initial suspicions were 100% accurate, and his assurance that the chain was still sat on the sprockets was 100% wrong. in fact, the chain had overshifted on the largest sprocket and was well and truly jammed solid behind the freewheel, probably as a result of trying to pedal through the initial problem, and simply making matter worse. in cses such as this, it's often possible to lever the chain from its stuck position with a large, flat blade screwdriver, but this proved completely impossible, so well stuck was the chain. as a confirmed luddite, i once owned a wide-range of freewheel removers, and an industrial strength bench vice that i used to remove freewheels. but that was a long time ago; they are no more.

the method of affixing a freewheel to a wheel hub has one fatal flaw; even if grease were applied to the threads when new, the chances are by now, it has solidified (it's amazing just how many bikes were assembled with no grease whatsoever on the freewheel threads) and it's a fact of physics that all that pedalling effort simply tightens the freewheel on the hub. this inevitably means that they are an absolute b****rd to remove. the removal process involved clamping the freewheel remover in the vice, placing the internal freewheel splines, still attached to the wheel, over the remover and using the leverage afforded by the wheel's diameter to unscrew the offending item.

but freewheels went out of fashion with the ark, and there had seemed little point in keeping all those freewheel removers. shimano freewheels adhere to the same remover pattern used on their cassettes, but the removers are rarely as sturdy as those designed for freewheels, and without the vice (rusted out of existence years ago), i really wasn't in a position to attempt removal, referring them instead to a friend of mine who has a neat bicycle workshop at the bottom of his garden.

much of what i have mentioned above is the very stuff of which richard's bicycle book was crafted. first published in 1979, not only did richard ballantine espouse the delights of cycling to the young at heart, but provided an enlightened overview of the mechanical intricacies of the albeit simpler bicycle of the times. but far from being solely an entertaining waft of nostalgia, the circumstances outlined brought me to wondering where or what might be the richard's bicycle book of the 21st century? nowadays there might be a vast repository of velocipedinal information on the interwebs, mangled beyond recognition by artificial intelligence, but none of that could possibly come close to owning, reading and re-reading a well-thumbed copy of richard ballantine's enthusiasm for getting about on two wheels.

ballantine died in 2013 at the age of 72. goodness knows what he'd think of today's bicycles, especially those 1300 watt electric motors mentioned only a matter of days past.

postscript: uk shimano distributors, madison, used to publish an annual bicycle catalogue entitled 'freewheel'. today's version would probably be called 'cassette', which doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

wednesday 15 april 2026

pedalgate

usually, if islay has any presence in the media, it's as a result of something related to whisky, but the recent (and continuing) calmac ferry problems appear to have elbowed aside the filling of the first cask at the newly built laggan bay distillery. for those who have been living 'neath a rock lately, similar to the compulsory mot test applicable to motor vehicles, passenger ferries are required to undergo an annual refit, necessitating the shipping equivalent of a chinese puzzle from november to may each and every year, to ensure every route has a ferry. however, though the aspirational lifespan of a west coast ferry has been pegged at 30 years, still part of the 2026 calmac fleet, the mv isle of arran is well over forty years old, with others not far behind. the historical reasons for this are many, but basically, the government (which owns caledonian maritime assets ltd (cmal) - owner of the boats and piers, and calmac which operates the ferries) didn't build boats when they should have been building boats.

a quick scan of the calmac fleet will appraise even the most innocent of bystanders, of the wide variation in ship design, a fact that causes problems during re-fit season, when potential replacements don't fit the piers. this is potentially being remedied with the construction of four islay class ferries in turkiye, the first of which arrived during march. however those four identical ferries don't fit any of the piers on the routes for which they were designed, necessitating millions of pounds in upgrade costs, the last of which will be islay's southern ferry terminal at port ellen. construction work to upgrade the latter will commence in june this year and expected to be complete by mid-2029.

this will entail all the islay-mainland sailings travelling between kennacraig and port askaig for the duration. even at the moment, when the first of those new ferries, the mv isle of islay actually sails on the route for which it was built (a long story), it is too big to berth at port ellen; hence the reason for the upgrade. you would be right in wondering why cmal doesn't simply build new versions of their existing boats that fit the piers already in place, but according to those who supposedly know, that would stifle progress. they might have a point, but it's not one that seems particularly well made. though in a tangential move in that direction, the mv isle of islay features a rear ramp with a movable section that can be moved from side to side to accommodate the majority of pier linkspans.

this lack of standardisation within a ferry network that is unashamedly but often laughingly categorised as a lifeline service, is perhaps only incidentally responsible for much of the chaos that has resulted over recent weeks, when ferries in drydock have had extended stays due to unresolved technical issues, and others have simply broken down. that 40+ year-old mv isle of islay is so old, spare parts are no longer available and calmac is considering having the necessary bits custom made, at considerable cost.

of course, the world is full of incompatibilities, not least that of the velocipedinal world, a subject i fear i may have visited once too often. but for most of the time, any incompatibilities that surface are mere irritation, easily, if not cheaply, remedied by a change in brand or model of component. it is not a situation you would imagine might prevent a professional cyclist from attempting to snatch victory in one of cycling's historic one-day monuments, but essentially, that's what happened to mathieu van der poel in sunday's paris-roubaix. uncharacteristically for the dutchman, he punctured on the brutal cobbles of the arenberg forest. team-mate, jasper philipsen quickly handed over his own bike, but mvdp was unable to make use of this selfless move because philipsen was riding prototype shimano pedals, and mathieu wasn't.

to be honest, that seems like a critical error either by van der poel, or team management; either every rider should have been on the prototypes, or none of them. no doubt shimano had perfectly good reasons for altering the format of their pedal cleats, probably citing similar reasons to those of cmal; to do otherwise would stunt progress. van der poel has won paris-roubaix three times, and seemed remarkably magnanimous in his post race interviews, not to mention being the first rider to congratulate race winner, wout van aert, despite assertions that the two riders are 'deadly' rivals. but to lose out on the possibility of a fourth cobble because of (two) pieces of plastic, surely gives pause for thought?

tuesday 14 april 2026