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Saturday 2 November 2013

REVIEW: Atomic22 security skewers, seat post clamp, saddle bolt, stem bolt

REVIEW: Atomic22 security skewers, seat post clamp, saddle bolt, stem bolt

Tribe set H plus a ti saddle bolt for a Brooks Swallow
In my last blog I narrated my visit to UK-based Atomic22, whose sole business is making extraordinarily high quality bicycle security components using a unique, 3D key.

Exactly a week later I returned to Patrick Wells and his business partner Ayantika Mitra to pick up and install the goodies.

What you see here is what Atomic22 sell as a skewer set called Tribe, version H, which retails within the EU for £153 (deduct 20% VAT outside EU).

The only extra is the additional titanium bolt pictured next to the seatpost clamp, which is to replace the allen key bolt attaching my Brooks saddle.

The purpose of installing this little feast on my newish Enigma, is to foil thieves in London.

Installation is relatively straightforward if you are already used to sorting basic bike maintenance. You need to purchase for an extra tenner the Sealey, Micro Ratchet Bit Driver that Atomic 22 sells (they intend to make their own one day), and a torque wrench is a very good thing to have to hand if you don't already have a feel for the difference between 2 Nm of torque and 10 Nm of torque. The only glitch we encountered concerned my stem cap, but this reflected a poor trim of the existing steerer, not the Ahead Stem cap supplied by Atomic22. We resolved it by adding 1mm to the spacer stack height, to ensure that the bolt was tensioning the headset bearings correctly. If in doubt, a good mechanic would help you do all this. Hand them the extremely precise Atomic22 instruction manual and let them get on with it. Any club rider or seasoned commuter will be fine on their own.

Will these components do the trick? I have complete confidence, simply in the sense that there are so many less-well protected bikes for a thief to move on to once they encounter Atomic22 and get confused. It starts with a magic, computer-generated, many-digit number that is the code for a unique, 3-dimensional key. A CNC machine converts this code into metallic reality, using a mixture of titanium and stainless steel depending on the part. Beyond the magic of the formula, Atomic22 have also subjected the parts to all sorts of nasty, down-to-earth attack sequences by burly ex-bike thieves and ex-strong men wielding hammers and chisels and goodness knows what else. It's not just pretty stuff on paper and in the lab. They have blocked the insertion of a slim or sharp implement that can be levered or twisted, a weakness of some rival products.


Skewers from stainless steel; bolts from aerospace grade 6AL 4V titanium. Beautiful.
Obviously, I cannot comment directly on the strength of these parts subjected to attack, because I don't have access to the right sort of laboratory. But the quality of the manufacturing is completely evident from the first glance. Patrick explained how murky the global supply chain is for titanium, to cite one instance of his fastidiousness. Within the top grade, grade 5, there is still a world of difference between a batch of the metal coming from a Chinese mill, and one coming from the States, he tells me. He was once in receipt of a funny batch and returned it immediately. Since then, he has gone so far as to specify the exact mill from which he'll accept shipments. That's exactly the sort of perfectionism we appreciate.

It would be crazy not to mention the aesthetic delight of these parts. They look great displayed in the box, and they look just as good when mounted. They remind me of the skewers supplied with my first ever pair of ZIPP 303s. Fantastic quality.

It would be equally crazy not to pick up on the weight weenie aspect. Atomic22 skewers weigh approximately half the weight of Shimano Dura-Ace. Yes, you have to carry a small bit driver and the key with you, but most riders are carrying an equivalent multi-tool anyway. We weighed the Atomic 22 skewer at 57.4grams. Dura-Ace comes out at 99 grams. The difference is because Atomic22 skewers are butted and don't have chunky quick-release levers. This is all nice-to-have even if the first application is less likely to be a racing situation (although such riders are buying them in droves I hear - these high end wheels we're all buying are vulnerable).

Atomic22 skewer is butted (front). Dura-Ace in background.
Atomic22 skewer trounces Dura-Ace for weight


















Do the skewers represent value for money? It all depends on your bike, but there are few wheelsets that cost less to replace than the Atomic22 skewers that mean they won't need to be, quite apart from the inconvenience. They cost less than most dedicated bicycle insurance policies, which is going to sting you if you live in a high-theft post code as I do. For less than one premium you have hardware that will last for years, so I consider them extremely good value.

Criticisms?
Arguably, Atomic22 should provide two 'keys' rather than one (although spares can be purchased). I'd also like to the see the key drilled through so I could attach it to a key-fob for safe-keeping. And the shaft of the key might be recessed to take an allen key so you have the option of using a multi-tool rather than the bit-driver. As it stands I am terrified of losing this tiny bit, even though Atomic 22 have the magic number stored against my personal details.

Summary
The overwhelming impression I have is that these guys have Chris King levels of engineering perfectionism in a relatively new but rapidly growing field of bicycle technology. The challenge they face is how to scale up their micro-manufacturing operation without losing the precision and quality that defines their approach to a universal problem.


Saturday 26 October 2013

VISIT: Atomic22, bicycle security specialists

VISIT: Atomic22 - Cycle Security Specialists

Call it the road less travelled; describe it like climbing a vertical cliff; measure the unlikeliness of it actually working: first, to design a security skewer that thieves can't foil, then extend it across the architecture of a bike to all the beautiful parts that can be taken at the twirl of an allen key. Finally, to commercialise the results but keep the manufacturing on site, in the UK, to standards that would be immediately apparent to the likes of Cliff Polton (founder of Royce) or to use a Stateside example, Chris King.
Patrick Wells and Ayantika Mitra started out on this gruelling path back in 2009. Four years later they have a small, CNC-equipped facility on a rather lovely business park situated amidst the flowing hills and woods around Horsham, West Sussex. Just as importantly, they have a growing business on the cusp of expansion.
CNC means 3D manufacturing, and the magic sauce of Atomic22, if you like, is its invention of a security skewer with a three dimensional key/bolt head, so that the unique pattern to which each component is cut is unique in more than one plane.
Everyone Patrick and Ayantika turned to said this was impossible, but being beautifully unreasonable people (try that book - The Power of Unreasonable People, by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan - it's full of brilliant examples) they ignored the negativity and kept at their metier. I don't know exactly how they did it, and understandably they don't want the world to know every detail, but they have.
At this point they have already worked through multiple prototypes for a wide range of security parts, centred around wheel skewers for both road and track/fixie.

Shiny sun, red bricks, fields all around

I met Patrick and Ayantika at Bristol Bespoked (AKA The British Handbuilt Bike Show) in 2012, and have just visited them at their facility in Horsham, eighteen months later. They struck me as completely dedicated when I first met them, incredibly intelligent in several fields (they both have weapons grade backgrounds in mathematics, to give you a hint) - and it's fantastic to see them again on their home ground, with several bikes hanging from the ceiling, a little resident cat called Pebbles, and precision machinery behind closed doors, out to the back (I was offered a glimpse but don't count on it - they've been plagued with the wrong sort of well-wishers, call them 'well-phishers').


Patrick Wells, Ayantika Mitra. Founder-owners, Atomic22
More than anything -and this trip confirmed it- they've got that gleam in the eye that says they're going to succeed.

Patrick hates what he describes as the 'cycle of misery' which results from so much of the bike industry importing so much low quality stuff from Asia, where we all know that there are sweatshops and worse.

 He spends a long time showing me the inner workings of a beautiful bike bell patented by his great grandfather in the years following World War Two, and then I begin to realise that this flows in his blood: precision engineering
The 'Harmo' bell by Fearnought Ltd. Pebbles top right...
mixed up with perfectionism. The bell in question features a clockwork element, with a push mechanism. It works beautifully today.

Moving over to Atomic22 products, he shows me the latest iteration of a masterpiece, the Atomic22 wheel skewer.
Patrick explains how it features a butted profile to reduce weight - it's not just about security - and offers a floating head to alleviate alignment issues, serrations to prevent movement or rotation, and a tab called a dog, also to prevent wrench-induced twisting or chisel-induced shearing. Meanwhile the threads are both internally and externally rolled, making them extremely smooth. The central experience I relate this to is the day I bought my first pair of ZIPP 303s. I described the skewers as jewel-like, and you can say the same about these.

Thieves will move on to less challenging targets
So who's buying them? Having already had great coverage at the NAHBS (North American Handbuilt Bike Show), Atomic22 is taking orders from all the markets you'd expect: USA, Australia, UK and Europe, plus a long ragged tail of other countries.
The biggest frustration is the sheer number of standards prevailing in bikes now, which makes measuring bolts more complex than it used to be and is set to get worse with the plethora of bespoke bikes, plus large manufacturers striving to be 'different', often for the sake of it rather than any meaningful advance. But that's where Atomic22 will need to scale up and take a view on how exactly to proceed. For now, the core customer is high-end commute (geared and fixed) and roadies, which makes eminent sense given the current state of the MTB sector.

I ended my visit by ordering a set of bolts for my Enigma - wheel, seat post collar, saddle and stem. I'll re-blog the results when they are in hand.

Monday 30 September 2013

RACE REPORT: Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross Race, 2013


Camping by the River Ribble in Martin Hanson's field
Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross Race, 2013

The Pub at the centre of all the action
Difficult to describe this race, because it is an oddity, both within the British scene and the international one. The entire context of the event is actually fell-running, the peculiar British texture of this mad sport best described in Richard Askwith's loving portrayal Feet in the Clouds. The current race was founded by John Rawnsley in 1962, and it was really a super-imposition of bikes atop a fell running race. Fifty years later, in 2012, Rawnsley retired from managing it. By then it had attracted international attention. The best feature about the event and it's history was published in issue 34 (2012) of Rouleur, page 146ff. It's a brilliant feature.
The Start: Straining at the leash - and not only this Hungarian Vizsla  

Rob Jebb leading on Pen-y-Gent (Credit: S.R. Hall)

Pen-y-Gent, which translates as 'winds'. And there are winds.
This year's event -depicted in a handful of photos here- represented a watershed in the history of the event, being the first run by a committee led by Mark Richmond. They did very well. It was also a watershed because the 51st edition of the race was won convincingly by Rob Jebb for his 10th victory, a simply incredible achievement.

I said in my previous blog post that I would briefly revisit my various decisions, strategic and technical, to see what worked and what didn't.

First of all, I was not 100% race fit having battled an unhappy left ham string since June - in fact throughout the four months of specific training for this event. I came 486th out of 544 starters, of which 40 retired. I had entered in a realistic but determined frame of mind: let's do this thing and learn about it. Then regroup for a possible return.

That's about right: I don't think any amount of forum chatting can really get you ready for this one. You need to do it respectfully the first time. This event stretches cycling beyond its normal parameters. It also takes you way out of the normal 'comfort zones' even of otherwise hard-core Cross racing. First there's the running/climbing aspect, obviously, but then there's the terrain, the gradients and the wind (the wind was diabolical despite the sunny conditions - and it made everything much harder). I spent a good portion of the event wondering whether you can 'enjoy' the Three Peaks: it is a very northern, very austere way of having fun, epitomised by an ethos that served up one 'feed station', a white plastic cup of water and nothing else. The subtext was abundantly clear. 'If you were a real man,' said in a thick Yorkshire accent, 'this is all you'd consume for the whole event.' No garish sports drinks, no ghastly Nestle sponsorships (whisper The Etape), no gels, nothing at all. I really thought that was brilliant. Fantastic. The Last Outpost against commercialisation (although it still costs £50 to enter).

Another thing: there were very few overweight competitors, and the fifty or so women competitors were all absolutely brilliant as far as I could tell. Many of them had fell running backgrounds because I snatched the odd conversation with one or two out on the course. On the male side, it was a bit like a National Cross Champs with a smattering of foreign entrants from Switzerland, Belgium (especially), Germany and the USA. I wonder what they made of it all. The quality of the overall field was very good indeed: it was not like a sportive. Every single entry is vetted by the committee, so there are no 'have a go Harries'. There was a palpable respect when you got to the top of the last peak, but in between the encouragement was of a disciplining type. 'C'mon, step it up lad, this is a bludy race.'

On the technical front here's what I found out. I think I made the absolute right decision to fit Panaracer Cinder X 700x35s. They weigh 350grams. This is a strong, MTB-heritage compound tyre with an aggressive block tread. At 90psi (which it is rated for) it rolls well enough on the road. I stand by what I said before about the Schwalbe Urban Cruisers. They are really sluggish and weigh too much at 600grams. Equally, I noted that lots of riders seemed to turn up on the same tyres (700x32, typically) that they'd use on a normal Cross race. This is an error. The average Cross tyre is not strong enough for this course. You need strength and volume of air and a high PSI rating. Clinchers beat tubs unless you are very brave, and happy to change one in the field. I was confident I wouldn't puncture and I didn't. Panaracer flataway kevlar stuff may have helped; in the end I had a disaster with the Joe's sealant and gave up. Not before it had gone everywhere. No comment.

Shoes: As predicted, it was a case of swings and roundabouts. I was way out on a limb deciding to wear Inov-8 Mudclaw 300 fell running shoes instead of clip in SPD MTB shoes. I was very content with this, and so it proved, partly: I had a ton more grip and felt much more confident every time we ran. What I didn't realise was that you need to mount/dismount/mount/dismount at the drop of a hat all the way round. A bit like the world champs in the sand dunes. This is not so easy with clips and straps and fell running shoes with rubber studded soles. I had practised, but on difficult terrain I undoubtedly lost time reachiong down to lift the clip and get the shoe in. The overall distance of 61kms was as far as I would want to ride in running shoes. If I could find the right, 'flexi' pair of MTB shoes I might try that next time. If it was very wet you might still want the Mudclaws. There were lots of sections where this year's dry conditions made the paths dusty/slippery and people in stiff MTB shoes were just struggling to get any grip at all. That's a big risk of injury; ditto the wet grass ascent of Ingleborough, the famous 'cliff' that always gets photographed each year, and often where the initial selection is made.

Tyres and shoes are the two most important decisions you'll make. The other one is gearing and I was right about that too, based on advice from Konrad Manning, something of a veteran of the event. You want 1:1 gearing so you can ride much of the initial path up Pen-y-Gent, the last climb. On 34x32 (my set-up), it's marginal. You are so wasted by then, you can only ride small sections and then have to dismount and walk/run. It would be much better to have 32x34. This is crazy stuff outside of the context of this event and takes you off into special kit and expensive prep. But that is what you would ideally have. I didn't have it, but then lots of riders had turned up with 46x36 / 12-25. Stock stuff for school playing field racing. I hope they enjoyed their running legs.

Summary
It would be strange to talk of enjoying this event. The technical demands are so steep that you cannot enjoy any descent as such; I crashed three times to prove that point, once heavily on the descent of Ingleborough. But it is mentally engrossing and by the end you are completely drained. I'd compare it to a bad weather fishing trip that yields little, but the little brown trout you finally catch using a pure method, say dry fly, is worth the wait. Or, a gold panning expedition where you have to pan for hours with nothing, but finally reveal a single, perfectly formed nugget of gold. This is not like an Etape where you get to play the Pro on a 20km descent at wild speeds, pure good fun. It's much harder and drier than that. But, you do have your wild off-road moments, or other moments of beauty; it is very authentic and there are no losers in this event. At the end of it all you're supposed to have a laugh and drink a pint, exactly as the fell runners do. And by then you know that you've done something much, much harder than the Arenberg Trench of Paris-Roubaix fame - which pales in comparison.




Sunday 22 September 2013

REVIEW: Schwalbe Ultremo DD Evolution tyre

The Schwalbe Double Defense -good but it has limits
REVIEW: Schwalbe Ultremo DD Evolution 700x25c tyres £35.19 (Wiggle)

This is not the tyre that most often crops up in the Schwalbe range - it's usually the Ultremo ZX, a pure road comp tyre, or the very popular Durano and friends.

I picked out the 700x25c for its relative light weight (260g) and widely touted puncture resistance (see below the many claims) - as a fast but commuter-savvy tyre capable of handling a rack and panniers laden up to about 10kgs in a commuting only situation. Fitted to my new Enigma Ethos on black Mavic Aksiums, they looked the part but I was always worried that the tyre was too light. For the spring and summer months I never had a problem, but when the rains came two weeks ago, I began to fear the worst - it just feels like a race tyre being stretched to capacity than operating well within its strengths.

Here's the highly persuasive marketing blurb from Schwalbe:

"Cuts by glass shards, or sharp flints are effectively repelled. Weight and rolling resistance remain low. Naturally with Triple Nano Compound. HD Ceramic Guard - This unique, high density fabric offers highly effective protection against penetration punctures. The additional coating of tiny ceramic particles blunts small shards of embedded glass, so that migration through the tyre is stalled. SnakeSkin. The addition of "snakeskin" protects the tyre shoulder and side wall against sharp rocks and broken glass. Although side wall defects are quite rare in road racing, it is still annoying when it happens. And worse, the tyre is often not just punctured by a cut, it is frequently completely destroyed. Double defense is the best prevention against this happening."
Here are the limits - don't know what caused this hole

Part of a winter, Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders - now for commute
Well I'm sorry to say this but my back tyre ruptured big time the other day, riding across London in the wet. I never got to see what I hit but it was probably a shard of bottle glass. The cut, pictured, went right through the tyre and I had no shoulder with me so rode home on 50 psi, gingerly, thinking that any more pressure would likely force the tube out through the hole and leave me stranded.

My immediate thought was that this is a summer tyre or maybe a three season training tyre, but it's not really strong enough for commuting.

Turning to the winter then, I considered buying new Duranos, or even Pluses, or maybe a combo (Durano Plus at the rear, Durano at the front). But I had these last winter and I know they're great. The point here is to try something new.

So I dug out the Vittoria Open Paves that have already seen serious cobble action, and am going to fit the pair with Panaracer Flataway between tyre and tube, a sort of kevlar fuzzy band with adhesive. Make no mistake this is a totally different philosophy of puncture prevention, before we even get to the Panaracer stuff: the Open Paves reply on density (320 TPI =threads per square inch), and a kevlar component, and also a profile where there is more meat in the actual tread than the walls, more so than competitior tyres. Plus, they're 700x24c - an unusual size - and I have always liked their feeling of just being that bit stronger. I'll report back come the Spring. If I have to estimate the weakness, it will be from cuts that just slice the rubber irrespective of the TPI. But if so, it won't be any worse than the piece of glass that just went straight through Schwalbe's HD Ceramic Guard.

Friday 6 September 2013

UPDATE: Prescription glasses for cycling - Rudy Project, RXSport, and why I hate Oakley

Original post: July 19th, 2013

This is a journalistically satisfying update. Back in July I posted about the very complex world of prescription glasses for cycling, and why Oakley is a dysfunctional giant within a monopolistic mega-group, Milan-based Luxottica. The happy ending of my purchase, via excellent 'minnow' provider www.rxsport.co.uk, of an expensive (£340.04) pair of Rudy Project Magsters turned out to be quite complex: here's what happened.

The projected delivery time was 2-3 weeks, with the glasses coming from the Shamir laboratory in Portugal. The date of the order, placed in person when I visited RXSport, was July 12th, 2013.

I returned from a trip a month later, with nothing awaiting me except a message from RX Sport to call. The glasses had been delayed.

Two weeks later, another call confirmed that they had arrived but were of poor quality, the naked lower edge of the lenses poorly finished.

Another week passed and I spoke to James Coakley, the founder of RX Sport.co.uk, who by now wss handling the matter.

Unbeknownst to me, but I guess typical for a web-savvy company, they'd all been reading my original blog post having performed a routine search for their own brand name. James agreed with my verdict on the industry but insisted that he doesn't make the profit margins I'd estimated. We had a perfectly amicable phone call. He also said that the defective quality of my glasses was "very unusual." They get a small handful of such instances each year, he claims, and my order, apparently, was pushing the available technology to the edge of the known universe, despite a weak, single prescription.

To re-cap: I'd ordered a pair of Rudy Project Magsters, directly glazed single prescription, with brown photochromic lenses, frozen ash frames, and the best available coating, called Shamir Glacier Plus. Until recently you could not obtain all this in a cycling-specific application.

James also rebated me about 12%, bringing the order down to £300, as recompense for the delay - which I thought was a decent (and fair) gesture.

He explained that Shamir has a small UK laboratory and they were starting from scratch to re-manufacture the lenses.

The glasses arrived yesterday, September 5th, eight weeks to the day since the order was orignally placed.

I like the glasses and they came (just) in time for the Cyclo-Cross season, when photo-chromic lenses make a ton of sense. During the very sunny recent weather, I've had a different pair of prescription shades to wear. So I am very happy with the outcome and pleased to have been partially rebated. RXSport handled the whole thing very well and I'd still recommend them - the problem was a third party problem.

I still think the whole industry is comically complex, with a vast array of retailers and a very small number of actual providers, and too many patented applications, all a bit oversold like software. Here's a list of the bits enclosed with my order:

1. Rudy Project sticker
2. IMPACT X Photochromic lens advert
3. Warranty booklet
4. Magster diagram
5. IMPACT X technical brochure
6. Shamir-branded micro cloth
7. Shamir-branded lens care guide
8. Promotional business card from www.transitions.com
9. Shamir 'credit card' 'Certificado de Qualidade'. Let me book my flight to Portugal!
10. Duplicate 'credit card' from Shamir UK Ltd

The micro cloth, at least, is USEFUL!

Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross Race 2013

This is roughly what I think you need -
It's been a long-term goal of mine to do the Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross Race. Long billed the hardest Cyclo-Cross Race in the world (in recent years the claim tempered somewhat to 'the hardest race in the UK' -) it is actually a very British oddity of a thing, to take a bike where no bike should go and then call it a race. Anyway, there's plenty about the history and geography of the race, which has run since 1961, here:

http://www.3peakscyclocross.org.uk/

The point of this post is instead to summarise what I have done for my first attempt. It's just three weeks away now and as I am writing this my pulse is soaring. After the event I'll re-post and we'll see what went right and what went wrong.

The first thing you need is to get on the start sheet. To do that you have to produce evidence of ability. For me this meant completing the previous 'Cross season, with a full roster of races and a final placing. I was ranked 20th Elite Vet out of 57 in the Elmy Eastern Cross League, 2012-13. http://www.easterncross.org.uk/

For the purposes of clarity, I am elite nothing; but in my League they bundle the youngest Vets (40-45) with the 'real' Elites to contain ever-swelling fields of entrants. Call it the advantage of being a younger-older rider.

My palmares was enough to get me accepted onto the start sheet for the Three Peaks, when I applied on Saturday June 1, the day entries opened (it is no longer an unseemly scramble: you have a couple of weeks, and then there is a committee decision. I did not pull any favours as a journalist).

I was then faced with the whole logistical thing: how am I going to get myself and my kit ready?

To cut to the end, I have placed almost my entire preparation down to the comment about this race that has stuck deep inside my head since I first read it some years ago. The most prolific winner, Rob Jebb, is conventionally described by the organisers, Bradford R.C.C, as "a fell runner and occasional cyclist."

So my whole approach has been to work on the stuff most cyclists hate. I began a whole new training plan, re-joined my gym and built in ramp running on a treadmill, upper body strengthening, core work and more actual walking and running and stair climbing to recruit those muscles. 

It's not been straightforward. I got symptoms of ITB on my right side; and combined with a big bout of cycling, almost over-training, I overloaded my anterior adductor which started to yelp. This has now passed across to an intermittently unhappy medio-hamstring. I have a masseuse (Timo Dahlstedt, London-based genius: timo@timomassagetherapy.co.uk) and a physiotherapist (Simon Gilchrist via www.marylebonephysio.com), and the physio does dry-needling with acupuncture needles. This is, let's put it this way, an interesting procedure. Luckily I am not injured, we are all agreed. It's more akin to an overuse symptom. This encourages me.

The rest of the prep will involve increased intensity and actually racing - my first 2013-14 'Cross race is tomorrow, Sept 7, and there is room for a second next weekend before the big trip north to the Yorkshire Dales.

TYRES
As for kit, the picture shown in this post is a rough guide. The special forum for the Three Peaks is very handy but it is not to be taken as gospel. You have to make your own decisions in the end. There is a consensus, for instance, that the best tyres are Schwalbe Land Cruisers, clinchers pumped up very hard to minimise pinch punctures. All well and good, but the first time I rode mine I didn't like them. At 615g each in the 700x35cc size, they feel sluggish. The centre line is nice for a turn of speed on the road, but seems to compromise grip off road. The merest dab of the back brake, and the bike stepped out. So I am selling those on eBay having replaced them with a more conventional 'Cross tyre, the Panaracer Cinder X. Once again 700x35cc (the maximum size permitted by the rules, and thus the maximum volume of air/ contact patch possible for this event), these weigh about 380g each and then I've added Panaracer Flat-Away, an adhesive kevlar fuzzy band that sits between tyre and tube.

For context, I notice in the photos from last year that Rob Jebb, contrary to what people have said on the forum, does not ride Land Cruisers. The photo shows him riding Schwalbe Racing Ralphs - beautiful light tubulars. But he has backers, spare bikes and immense experience. Strange - I have just fitted the same tubs to a pair of Zipp 303s for my normal racing, but for the Three Peaks, I do NOT want to be stranded on a moor with a wrecked tub and shivering hands. My sense is that it is an agicultural situation. Kit breaks. Do not go with the lightest thing money can buy, but err towards strength.

A week before the race, I'll inject sealant into the tubes as well. If I puncture, I'll have CO2, a pump, and two spare tubes. If I get through all that I have my legs left as the last engine.

SHOES
The other big debate is footwear. Oh yes. Now I was recently in the Canadian Rockies and my former marine father-in-law insisted that I take his steel framed bike to start running up and down the mountain with a bike on my shoulder, in cycling shoes. The main lesson was that Specialized S-Works MTB shoes are mentally stiff and simply don't work for running steep gradients. The limestone trails of the Three Peaks do not suit the twin studs at the toe either - I am told. This is why everyone gets screaming calves or blasted achilles tendons.

So here I'm out on my own limb: I've decided to do clips and straps mated to fell running shoes. I went off to this fantastic, family-owned specialist running shop/web retailer, http://www.runandbecome.com/Home, last week and bought a pair of Innov-8 Mudclaw 300s, the '300' referring to the weight in grams.
The tread looks like a nightmare for getting into clip and straps, but I tried it and with a wiggle, they go in OK. Yes, they are flexible where ideally you'd have stiffness, but I'm sticking to the original philosophy, that this is a fell running event with cycling thrown in, rather than the other way round. We'll see if I come to revise any of that.

GEARING
So finally to gearing. For normal racing, my Ridley X-Night is set up with Shimano Ultegra, 46-36 / 11-25. This is way too high for the Three Peaks, where as I was reminded by front runner & long time participant Konrad Manning, Nick Craig won it one year by ascending the final Pen-y-gent peak by riding out a 1:1 gear.
Well OK. But there's a budget here and going right over into bespoke chainrings and cranksets, is not something I'm willing to do yet. At 1:1 you can profitably run or walk too.
So as you see in the photo here, I've done the obvious by going as low as I can without departing the known universe or resorting to a triple: added a 34 tooth inner chainring and acquired a new set of sprockets, Shimano Tiagra 12-30. Even this hasn't been cheap. The Ultegra short cage derailleur can't go bigger than 29, and the chain as fitted was too short for 46-30. So add another £85 for a Shimano 105 long-mech and new chain.

COST
Well, I've eBayed myself half out of trouble, but the actual cost of Three Peaks-specific kit is so far £320. This includes the running shoes. It cost more than I thought it would but then I am the eternal optimist.


Monday 26 August 2013

REVIEW London Bikes Shops: Sargent & Co

Rob Sargent: A genius for steel
Bikes shops.
When I was growing up in a tiny village, there was no bike shop but the son of a family we knew 'who could mend a puncture'. Dad didn't have a clue.
Now I live in London in 2013, and after a recent trip to San Francisco and America's 'most cycling city' Portland, Oregon, you better believe it: we Londoners have it good.
In bike shop terms London is a Shangri La, despite the amazing world of the web and the fact that a big box web 'tailer like Chain Reaction can stock hundreds of thousands of parts that even the largest shop could never hope to stock.

But the fact is that bikes are awkward in the mail and there are numerous problems that can be quickly solved by a decent mechanic. Bike shops are blossoming. They are not being killed off by the web. In fact one I know (Micycle, Islington) told me they too order bits and bobs online, when they need one widget and not a hundred, subtly subverting the traditional distributor/wholesale model. I'm sure they're not alone.


One of my favourite all time stores in London is Sargent and Co. in Finsbury Park, founded by Rob Sargent. I pass it daily and keep an eye on his ever-changing window feast of old steel beauties. 

Currently he has a poster in the window. It reads: "You can't buy happiness, but you can buy a bike and that's pretty close." There's also a cheeky sign that says 'No Mountain bikes or 'hybrids''.
Premises at 84 Mountgrove Rd, N5 2LT
So you can see straightaway that Rob has done what you have to do to succeed: focus on one area and do it really well, in this case steel frames and bikes that modern bike shops have almost forgotten how to service. He knows them inside out and has two halves to his business, selling retro-magic bikes and frames and builds, and of course servicing and fixing God Knows What old stuff coming in the door, the 'rescued from the shed but needs a bit of attention' commuter market.
Rob replaced my head set and allowed me to watch

Rob's magnificent cat Cassius sleeps in the window, and when I popped in to get a headset replaced on my Coppi (I had made an appointment on this occasion), it was as relaxed as can possibly be. I set off to buy some coffee for both of us from the Retro Vintage Cafe two doors down, and then we just chatted while Rob expertly did a big job requiring specialist tools. He charged me just £40, and what to charge seemed almost like an afterthought. What a fantastic guy.

Rob Sargent wins my vote for 'favourite bike shop in 2013', partly for defying 'market economics' and riding a different and beautiful wave that's seen a whole sub-culture of low cost, beautiful bikes being restored, re-cycled, re-worked and re-built.

I salute that: it is personal and intimate and friendly in a way that biking culture should be. I am not against the big chains like Evans, who can service other needs (and open very long hours), but they are headed in an opposite direction, getting bigger and bigger, bought out last year by private equity and thus owned and run now by non-cycling bean counters. It is great thing that the formerly humble world of the cycling shop could have matured and stratified to this degree as an entire business sector, but my vote goes to Rob Sargent nonetheless - and of course I love steel road bikes so I am partly expressing my own preferences.

Sunday 25 August 2013

UPDATE: Enigma Ethos Custom Build, £3,000

There have been teething problems with the Enigma Ethos
In my original blog (May 12, 2013) I explained how I'd spent £3,000 acquiring the ultimate commuter/light tourer: a hand-made, custom build, Reynolds 853 from Sussex, England-based titanium and steel specialists Enigma.

Four months in and I've had a few teething problems.

The front brake caliper seemed to be slightly uphappy from an early stage, but only when I noticed strings of fine cotton pealing off the outside wall of the Schwalbe Ultremo DD Double Defense 700x25cc front tyre (not a cheap tyre!), did I realise that the nearside brake block had somehow worked its way above the rim and was lightly scoring the tyre every time I braked.

I was worried, because on inspection I realised there was no more vertical allowance in the caliper arm, and it was not a question of playing with the centering screw or anything like that. In truth, I think this demonstrates that you can't happily get a regular caliper over a 'normal' set of mudguards (in this case SKS narrow/road).

In fairness to Enigma, I think they'd tried desperately hard to keep me all-in with the Shimano 105 groupset, including the regular calipers. Plus, Mark Reilly their meister-frame builder offered to 'tweak the crown' if I could get the bike back to them for a couple of days. That's a big shipping bill or £50+ of diesel and hours of driving so I decided instead to order 57mm drop calipers (colloquially called 'long-drop' calipers).This is the obvious solution and should perhaps have been applied at the build stage.

I replaced the front caliper yesterday and have now ordered a matching back one, not wanting to be with an unmatched pair of brakes. Problem solved - except that to stay with Shimano means going down a groupset to Tiagra, where each caliper weighs 20g more and has a less slick barrel adjuster.

Yesterday, I was talking to Condor owner Grant Young (Grey's Inn Road, London), and he explained that every single time they meet with Campagnolo they ask them to make a long drop brake for the many, many riders who want a mudguard to slip underneath and the clearance for up to 700x28mm tyres (the perfect winter commuting tyre I'd suggest). But they don't.

So Condor commissioned its own brakes and they come in polished silver or black at £60, sold only as pairs (called Pioggio, there's also a lesser pair). Grant claims they are the equal of Shimano 105, but I decided to stick with Tiagra having already taken delivery of the front caliper. 

Another solution is to choose different mudguards - not the Crud RoadRacer 2s that every roadie is now fitting here in the UK, but I'm thinking something more durable for this sort of bike, such as Portland Design Works's aluminium guards (called 'Full Metal Fenders @$120 a pair, see: https://www.ridepdw.com/goods/fenders/full-metal-fenders), which come with special hardware to go around calipers. And they look amazing. Watch this space - I might try these as an experiment.

The next issue is replacement of the now-damaged front tyre, and probably the rear at the same time. But I've examined the front and it's OK for commuting duties until October and then I'll put on something wintry.

The final issue concerns sizing. From day one I felt it slightly large.

I took the bike with me to Sheffield and a Retul bike fit with Chris Last at Planet X (for a TT bike which I subsequently purchased, to be the subject of another blog). He offered to give me a quick check on the Enigma and noted that he'd knock a couple of cms off the stem and bring the saddle back and up, to get the right angles at the knee. Caveat: he was talking road race set-up, whereas this is a utility bike, so we agreed that I should just do what I wanted.

I would emphasize here that Enigma didn't do anything wrong. There are different sizing philosophies and none of them are exactly right. I'd tried to mimic the upright posture of the Focus cross bike, but translating this over into the road-geometry of the Enigma had exaggerated the length of the top tube. 

In the midst of all of this I had surgery for a mild squint which I'd had from birth, which has subtly changed everything and made me more comfortable with a larger saddle-stem vertical drop.

So I am still sorting these elements out. I've got a big spacer above the stem on a steerer tube that I'll need to trim, and am toying with slamming it even lower. Meanwhile, Grant at Condor generously lent me a 100mm stem (versus the 110mm stem fitted by Enigma), so I can mail Enigma the original, colour-matched grey stem, for them to colour match a 100mm replacement.

Costs so far: Set of Tiagra brake calipers from Fawkes in Oldham (via web): £43.68. New stem will cost c£45 (colour matched to frame).

The Reynolds 853 frame: it is fantastic. You should really try to ride one. As such I am not having 'second thoughts' about the bike, although occasionally I miss the cowboy potential of the cross bike, which I abused mercilessly. The Enigma is too nice for that but it makes me feel older than I feel. No wheelies.

UPDATE: Can a vegan diet make you faster as a cyclist?

Bombay Wrap w/ home made plum chutney 25 Aug 13
I said I'd report back on my vegan experiment which began on January 1st, 2013.

I maintained a strict vegan diet for one month, before ending the experiment.

You might think that I then splurged on bacon butties and sausage meat, but I didn't.

I waited to see what would happen and my position six months later is very similar to Brett's (www.zentriathlon.com - a popular podcast series from this likable guy in Texas).

He recently had an interesting conversation with Rich Roll, another ultra guy who's made veganism the basis of a significant business. But Brett just said this: that he can go for days and weeks as a vegan without even consciously trying to, but it's not a strict commitment for him, so much as a life style choice that can bend in the breeze on the occasions when kale smoothies and chick peas are thin on the ground.

In my original blog, I noted that pro-cyclist Dave Zabriskie had reported his fastest season when he threw out most of the meat in his diet, going pesca-vegan - no dairy but a couple of weekly portions of salmon to get those omega fats.

I recently received a press release about a massive, long-term health and mortality piece of research conducted over twenty years over 20,000 subjects, and the winning group for sheer longevity were the pesca-vegans.

If I am faced with various non-vegan alternatives when (say) on a hearty press trip with motoring journalists who wouldn't know the difference between lettuce and spinach, I'll get the fish or the white meat or occasionally a steak - a piece of high quality red meat is better than plumping for a massive plate of fries washed down with beer, to say that you're still vegan.

So that's my position. Overall and no cheating or lying, I'm about 70% plant-based, the rest comprising dairy (I really like a drop of milk in my coffee, for example), fish, and maybe 2 or 3x a month a small amount of meat. I'm heavily indebted to my wife Stephanie, originally from the West Kooteneys, British Columbia, Canada, without whom I think I'd still be in the land of the sausage roll. She just made the Bombay Wrap displayed above. Whole wheat pita; curried hummous; carrots; purple cabbage; coriander; red peppers and home made plum chutney. Fantastic.

The biggest standoput result of my vegan experiment was that I lost weight and felt lean quite quickly. I was already at a racing weight, the experiment beginning in the middle of the Cross season, but by the end I was down to 68kgs and flying (warning: unless you are that mythical beast, a GC contender, do not make the mistake of losing too much weight - having said that half the guys in my club have stomach weight they should NOT be carrying, even if they are still faster than I am on the road). During the experiment I was eating a great deal, so it never felt like a diet. I never even set out to lose weight and in fact didn't need to. It just happened. A by-product of cycling a lot and cutting out meat and dairy.


Saturday 17 August 2013

REVIEW: Rapha City Trousers, RRP£150 (reduced to £100 at time of review)


To Londoners, Rapha needs no introduction. Increasingly that's the case in other cycling meccas from Melbourne to Portland. I personally inspected Rapha's clothing range in River City Cycles, Portland, Oregon, just last week. The only brand that seems to come close for attention to detail and, ahem, pricing, is San Francisco-based Mission Workshop, who focus on clothing and bags.

Rapha is streets ahead of Mission Workshop and has a much larger global brand presence.

It helps that Rapha now appear prominently on Team Sky's kit, because it enforces the sense that no detail is too small to ignore. I know this from experience because Rapha recently mended the shoulder of my five-year-old soft shell jacket, for free (for goodness sakes!). I can't think of any luxury brand anywhere that would honour product back-up for wear and tear so long after purchase. Raise a glass to Rapha and stop quibbling about price. You always, always, get what you pay for and double that for cycling apparel.

But putting one over on gigantic Adidas to win the Sky deal in 2012 doesn't mean that Rapha gets everything right first time, however.

I think these trousers fall into that category.

They are described as 'stylish city riding trousers with clever functionality.' The functionality is beyond dispute. In particular, I noted the durable weight that hit the mat when they arrived in the mail. They exude high quality. The Schoeller fabric is a classic, while the all-important Cordura seat panel will, I predict, outlast conventional cotton chinos by three or four times.

Laura Bowers, who masterminds the UK marketing arm of Rapha, explained to me at length how a cotton fibre unravels under pressure of riding and eventually disintegrates, while Cordura is all but indestructable. She is right. A really thick, £99 pair of Brooks Brothers chinos suddenly developed wear holes on top of my sit bones after less thna one year's commuting. That was a real shock.

Other details such as the one belt loop in a different colour, and hi-viz lining when you roll up a leg, are nice touches.

But my beef with these trousers is that the cut is wrong for the mostly professional, middle class audience who would consider spinning £150 on a pair of commuting trousers. The seat is perfection, but the waist gapes a bit at the back as you ride and sits very low, hipster style, making the gripper band seem superflous. Worse, the leg is cut very slim, so much so that it felt as if I'd returned to high school 'drain-pipe' jeans. Particularly around my thighs, which fully fill the leg to bursting.

I was down in London today and there were a bunch of twenty-something dudes shooting a film. Thin trousers, bare ankles, converse sneakers and plaid shirts. Rapha's city trousers are part of that look, but they are not part of a sensible wardrobe that I would ride to work in and then wear all day behind a desk.

Funny thing is, last Monday I visited the Rapha Cycle Club in the Cow Hollow district of San Francisco, and someone there said that Rapha would be introducing a 'sprinter's cut' version later this year, with a wider leg.

I hope so - but please note here that you don't need to be Sir Chris Hoy to need the more generous cut.

I also notice that Rapha has recently reduced all sizes and colours of this product (beige and navy) to £100 from £150, (www.rapha.cc), suggesting that on this occasion they did get the pricing a bit wrong. It's certainly steep when, as I mentioned earlier, you can buy a luxuriously thick pair of Brooks Brothers chinos for £99.

But the other comparison I'd use is more telling still. There's another UK brand called Rohan, who years ago started applying synthetic tech to conventional jeans, with a travel/adventure/expedition audience in mind. In recent years they've moved into the 'chinos' market, and I've recently been sampling a pair. While not aimed at cyclists, the cut is much better than Rapha's and Rapha could do worse than to buy a pair and copy them.

In summary, these are potentially great trousers that aren't quite there yet, except for a niche audience of whippety thin Shoreditchers. A couple more colours wouldn't hurt either - the beige is very pale and will pick up chain oil stains faster than a backstreet mechanic. Oh, and keep the price below £100, because the Rohans I mentioned cost £57 (reduced to £37 in a sale...).

Sunday 21 July 2013

BOOK REVIEW Cycle Road Racing by Tom Newman

Tom's book is homemade, like this image
Cycle Road Racing by Tom Newman, The Crowood Press, 2013
ISBN 9781847974341, £12.99

This book is interesting evidence for the cycling boom that defines England in 2013 (and this review written early on the morning of the day that will see Chris Froome win the Tour de France, the second Briton in as many years after Bradley Wiggins' victory in 2012).

In other words, what we have here is a tiny independent publisher, Crowood, trying to cash in on that boom by rushing out a series of 'how to' manuals for beginners. They have already published other titles in their series on cycle sportives and BMX, to name two. There is another one that combines beginner advice on road racing with time trialling.

This particular volume by established coach Tom Newman is supposed to be a more advanced guide, as revealed by the author who, at the end, fantasizes that even elite and professional riders will have 'gleaned some useful tips that they take on.'

But the advice is often tick-box stuff aimed entirely, one must presume, at the novice. Here's the entry on eyewear under the 'Equipment and Clothing' section:

'Eyewear Glasses provide protection from both UV rays and grit thrown up from the road. Better-quality glasses come with straight ear pieces so they can be placed into your helmet slots when not required when out riding.' (p24)

This falls right into the category of purposeless advice, blending as it does the obvious with the borderline inaccurate. There are extremely few, if any, instances when you can be safely riding with your inverted glasses sticking out of your helmet. It's what you do when you're finished, to swank around, or the odd pro on a very hot climb at low speeds. But I did not see Froome or Contador doing this on any climb during this year's Tour. 

Nonetheless, the book is a summary of plenty of wisdom by an experienced coach and died-in-the-wool club rider. Newman is very good at saying: the fashion might be this, but actually the time-hallowed advice is that, and sometimes the time-hallowed advice wins the day. You don't get this tone of voice in magazines, where the object is to breathlessly chase the latest product in a thinly disguised attempt to curry favour with potential advertisers.

In particular, if you are a rider wanting to hire a coach at £30-80 a month, it makes the book look cheap at £12.99 because many of the coach's training plans are divulged. You just need to motivate yourself and follow the schedule, always the hardest bit. The schedules are good ones, and distil lots of basic good sense. In particular, it was a relief to read that you really have to decide what it is you want to do and then do it. You can't be good at long distance time trialling one minute, a crit the next, and a hill climb the day after, exactly in the same sense that Tour de France riders lose a lot of grand tour form the minute they start doing lucrative fish and chip races for small town Belgian promoters. Focus on just one branch of the sport and do it, consistently. Across a whole season there is plenty of chance to switch focus from road racing to hill climbing, and then to cross racing - just as any traditional club calendar would anyway. This sort of structure is being rapidly blurred by the sudden boom in everything, anytime - summer cross series, urban hill climbs in July, winter road racing. As a newcomer, it can be totally bewildering.

As books go, however, this one is no thing of beauty. Production values are low. All the photography is homemade, and looks like it. There is a particularly funny picture on p24, of the author's baggy skinsuit hanging dankly against a cupboard, edging away into dark shadow. Another gripe is the shameless plugging of Quest-branded bikes, a never-heard-of no-brand based near the author in north-west London. Literary values are nil, and errors are conspicuous, such as the misspelling of names (Contrador!).

Some of these defects are endearing, and a reminder that amateur cycling has always been a grassroots affair, not to say a shambles. Look beyond it if you can.

However, the main criticism is that the advice given here is so uneven. For example, the advice on turbo trainers is really just the author's own view, without any effort on his part to look a bit further and see what the wider picture looks like. He says that magnetic trainers and electronic trainers are the best, and cautiously avoids mentioning any particular brands, and thus the vital fact that magnet trainers are cheap and noisy entry level affairs, while a top Watt Bike costs thousands. Why fail to even mention fluid trainers such as Cycle Ops, the one that most of us actually use and in fact one of the best selling turbo trainers of all time? In this instance as in some others, the author is not even providing a good service to beginners, who could glean more by going onto internet forums and by asking their fellow club members.

The section on women's training reads terribly. Clearly an afterthought, the author does that thing where he tries to exonerate himself in the first sentence by reminding us that women are very good at cycling, and some even better than men! Then we get one paragraph on why the menstrual cycle messes it all up and we don't know why, but it's a hormone thing. And then the author returns to his main theme again. This is nothing short of a disgrace, but I'm sure the author didn't even realise, and there was no editor to cast a critical eye over at Crowood. But that is how it reads and it IS disgraceful. He would have been better not to have mentioned women at all.

A comparably bad section is where on the discussion of power meters the author reproduces, verbatim, a long and self-serving press release from Garmin on their Vector pedals. He even thanks Garmin for the permission to reproduce the press release! Here as elsewhere we find that suddenly, from no mention of any brand we are back to extremely partisan support for a very few brands. The last chapter is essentially Garmin by Garmin, with Strava thrown into the mix.

Weird, but I ended the 'book' thinking that it is further evidence for the demise of the book. Not as long as a magazine (at 127 pages) nor as svelte as a 'bookazine', and not detailed enough to be a serious treatment of any particular subject, it is an uneven instance of a marginal genre. If this was an app, I'd be recommending it just for the training schedules, which are (possibly) worthy of the (steep) Kindle price of £7.99.

Verdict: Of some use to complete beginners, but only as a starting point. The training schedules may interest riders wanting more structure in their training, towards their first race or a particular goal.



Friday 19 July 2013

Prescription glasses for cycling - Rudy Project, RXSport, and why I hate Oakley

Cheryl at RXSport. Web-only means low overheads.
Not so long ago prescription glasses for sport seemed to be taboo. If you were an athlete, then you were assumed to have perfect vision. Here is my tale about how I finally, after quite alot of difficulty, located the right pair of shades at the wrong price, instead of the wrong pair at the right price.

If you love contact lenses then no need to read on. Personally, I do not think they work well for cycling. One piece of grit and you're doomed.

But prescription glasses for athletes? This industry is still in the dark ages. It is monopolised by very few dominant players and the prices are ludicrously high.

On that, more later.

But let's just rehearse how to actually find the perfect pair of prescription shades for cycling, price no object. It is not nearly as easy as you'd think.

For context, I already have the cheaper but clunkier Optilabs cycling shades, actually glazed by a company called Lubisol (although the UK-based trading company is in Croydon, south of London). The frames are a bit clunky, but I love the transition lenses, perfect for the low light cycle of much of an English calendar year. "For winter training," I said to myself as Spring came around. But now let's get something cool.

So earlier this year I started over, all fresh and excited in the hunt for the perfect pair. For this clean sheet exercise I went down to the Oakley boutique in Covent Garden. 

And indeed, all the bright young assistants help you try on all the cycling shades that Oakley make, and because they have a grip on the pro-peleton, they're the brand you want. The boutique even has a wind machine so you can get a subjective sense of protection.

But when I asked about prescription options, I was told that no one knew anything and furthermore they were not allowed to tell me anything. All I had to do was go to affiliate brand high street optician David Clulow, across the square. They could advise on prescription, but worry not, they carry the entire Oakley range!

So over I went to David Clulow. Now this is a cautionary tale. They do not carry the entire range of Oakleys, and most of it is not on the premises. Furthermore, the frames I wanted, the Racejackets (AKA Jawbones, of Mark Cavendish fame) could not be glazed (I was told firmly) even with a simple, single prescription. So that was the end of that! I was dejected.

I then went back online to RXSport (www.rxsport.co.uk), who I had looked at before. They are a web-only supplier of prescription sports glasses, offering many brands and shipping them all over the world. I called up, and low and behold, "Yes, you can have a prescription for Racejackets, and yes it is not an insert (clip-in addition) nor an implant (where they glaze the prescription bit on top of the regular shade, adding quite a bit to weight in the process)."

So little independent RXSport can do what the mighty Oakley cannot, bearing in mind that the mighty Oakley is actually a minnow within the truly mighty Luxottica conglomerate - the largest eyewear company in the world. Why they are so crassly incompetent I do not know, but it is probably a result of being part of something too big.

By then I was sufficiently unhappy with Oakley to want to explore all the other brands, and there are many.

RXSport sent out two pairs of frames on a 'home trial' which costs £4.95 plus return carriage (which was £8.00 because I wanted full insurance for the return. These items get stolen alot.)

So now I had a pair of trial Rudy Project Rydons alongside the Oakley Racejackets, to examine them side by side. I instinctively preferred the Rudy Projects. They had thin arms that fitted well under a time trial helmet, and had been well reviewed as well. Plus, they fitted my quite-narrow head well, unlike the Oakleys. Great but not perfect. The lenses were shallow in the vertical dimension, so you were aware of seeing 'out' of the bottom. Not fully protected in other words.

By now I was starting to despair.

But being a journalist, I decided to escalate everything to another level and visit RXSport. To my amazement they said it was possible, despite not having any retail premises, and yes, they had enough stock for me to try everything on.

So I pre-booked a train to Peterborough, north-east of London one hour, and took my bike with me. From the station, with iPhone mapping my only assistant, it was a terrifying case of negotiating main roads to get out of town and 14 kms to Thorney, an idyllic village. Always a reality check compared to the superb cycling culture London now has.

At one point I thought the whole mission was a stupid waste of time and a folly. Especially when I strayed onto the A47, which is a single lane highway clogged with big trucks.

But drawn on by my own curiosity, I eventually found an idyllic country lane leading to Thorney, a heritage village with a medieval abbey, in the grounds of which sit a gorgeous mansion and a converted stableblock. The stableblock houses eight desks and eight sales experts who between them, if my maths is correct, take £20-40,000 a day in sales for sporty eyewear for RXSport (based on 20 orders per person per day, which is average I was told, each sale with a median value of £200). A brilliant, highly profitable niche to exploit, and it's nowhere near saturated and growing rapidly. I hope someone reads this and goes into it too, if only to increase the competition.

Cheryl had spoken to me on the phone and we quickly located a Rudy Project frame that had the slightly deeper lens. It's called the Magster.

That's the end of the story. I placed an order; the finished item will come to me from a lab in 2-3 weeks. I've listed a few tips and insights at the bottom of this blog.

But here's the kicker footnote, and it concerns the industry.

There is only one laboratory in Europe than can handle delicate, single-glaze prescriptions in the curvy, wraparound style that we have come to take for normal on cycling shades. It's called Shamir and it's in Portugal. (http://www.shamir.pt/) That's where mine will come from.

From the RXSport website you can go for the 'official' Rudy Project glasses, which for a Magster with transitions comes to, wait for it, £589.99. Yep, you read correctly. That's near enough a thousand bucks for any Americans reading this.

If you source the RX version you get the same thing (but with a couple of deleted photochromic emerald green-type lens finish options) from the same lab, but for A LOT LESS.

But not SO MUCH less that RXSport aren't doing pretty nicely thank you in an industry premised on monopoly and extremes of greed premised on equally high levels of self-esteem among us, the customers. Remember the adage, that you can't put a price on vanity? It applies to cyclists and eyewear.

My Magsters cost £340.02. That makes me pretty vain I guess, but not as vain as £589.99.

So there are two other observations left to make in this little tale. The first is that Milan-based Luxottica coins in almost half a billion euros a year in net profit, and has a stranglehold on all the brands you thought were different but are not. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica

The second is that James Murrey Wells, the young chap who founded Glasses Direct, a UK company, is to be considered a hero, for exposing the fact that the industry is a giant rip-off. He sells prescription spectacles from £6, which is all you need to know about the real cost of producing a pair.

Maybe there is a third point. It is that when Wells tried to set up Glasses Direct he was the object of hatred in the industry, for exposing their dirty secret. He was bullied.

That tells you everything you need to know about the sector.

It would sweeten the bitter pill if Oakley could actually be competent as well, but by artificially dividing the non-prescription business from the prescription business, they've done themselves no favours. I know even less about Rudy Project, who are to all intents and purposes another Oakley, but in the end, I was just glad NOT to go with  Luxottica-owned brand.

TIPS and INSIGHTS
1. By a ratio of 5:1, northern Europeans prefer brown tint to grey, because it makes the world look warmer. I opted for a brown tint.
2. Getting the most expensive protective and non-reflective coatings is probably money well-spent.
3. Transitional lenses are now ubiquitous and make the glasses far more versatile than having to cart around multiple lenses for different conditions (another Oakley trick, 'persimmon for the evening and dark brown for noonday sun, and here's a special bag for carrying them all.')
4. Use the home trial service from web providers to examine as many pairs as you can before actually buying. Fit to different heads/faces is unique to each individual.
5. There is no truly budget sports glasses with prescription solution currently available, and Glasses Direct does not sell cycling glasses.
6. Shamir is one of very few labs in the world that can handle tricky prescriptions for cycling glasses
7. RXSport send out orders all over the world, via Portugal but from a UK base, suggesting that this is still a very specialised industry when it need not be.
8. Even allowing generously for expenses, the estimated profit margin on a pair of official Rudy Project Magsters at £589.99 is about 80%, compared to an average luxury goods gross margin of 60%.





Tuesday 25 June 2013


REVIEW: Francesca Cucina
215 Baker Street, London, NW1 6XE
(Corner Melcombe Street, one block south of Clarence Gate, Regent's Park)

Apologies to non-UK readers, for whom this review may nonetheless resonate.

Rapha, the cycle clothing gurus of North London, San Francisco and Osaka, has for a couple of years now gathered a group of cyclists loosely calling themselves the Regent's Park Cycling Club - they meet at 08.30 on Fridays at Gloucester Gate, Regent's Park, and there's a strict Rapha-only dress code. They (I've only been once so saying 'we' might seem presumptuous at this point) ride for about an hour and then shoot off to work or coffee.

It's with them and the thousands of other cyclists of Regent's Park in mind, that I thought I'd write about Francesca Cucina, a new pasta kitchen situated less than a minute to the south on Baker Street, corner Melcombe Street.

Francesca Cucina is styled a slice of Italy, yet the main business is French, reflecting the Italian-French partnership of founder-couple Francesca Albanese and Bertrand Aborgast. It's unapologetically a chain with 118 restaurants worldwide, since inception fifteen years ago, and just this one so far in the UK, open now since 2012 (I love it that us Londoners get to try everything first).

The concept is wonderful bowls of pasta served al dente, but fast, at a very acceptable price, and it works. I kicked off with the pictured bowl of farfalle bolognese, but you can choose fusilli or spaghetti if you want - and several other sauces including vegan options such as spinacci. The pasta was cooked just correctly and the sauce was delicious. I would deduct a couple of points for no whole wheat option on the pasta front, but balance this by saying that I've eaten worse pasta in Italy (and when did you ever see whole wheat pasta offered there?). The boss of the UK fledgling business, Paresh Pandya (pictured), says they are looking to expand the menu and wholewheat pasta is an idea they are considering. Meanwhile, the underlying ethos of the whole company is a transparent supply chain rooted in Italy and healthy, real food. Another nail in the coffin for McDonalds et al.

I can't think of a nicer way to end a ride than to lock up at one of the racks on the corner (just in Melcombe Street) and have an early bowl of warm pasta. Scroll the news and emails on my iPhone, perhaps meet someone for business or mix it all up as we do, cycling and networking.

Paresh reminds me that the place is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner too until 10pm, so it's one of those reliable second homes. There are salads and paninis and the obligatory San Pellegrino beverages, but equally you can request tap water without eliciting obloquy - which is very welcome and unthinkable in Italy. If you go for the small bowl of pasta you can be all done for £5. Arguably this is better value than the equivalent sandwich + cookie from Pret, across the street, but I think Pret wins if you only want a non-carb superfood salad or whatnot, but then if you want carb-free food you're not a cyclist.

Sunday 16 June 2013

Cycling Mont Ventoux, top five dos and don'ts

View from Gorges. Provence is great cycling country
Mont Ventoux, top five dos and don'ts. JUNE 2013

1. Don't leave behind the knee warmers
This wasn't my first ascent of the 'Giant of Provence,' summit 1,912 metres (6,273 feet). I did it in the 2009 Etape du Tour, beginning at Bedoin after 155kms, in blazing heat and no wind. By comparison, this time I arrived in Bedoin to be greeted by the usual mistral winds, gusting violently to over 100kms at the top, and battering all the foreslopes in ways that were unusual by local standards, at least for June. This and the unseasonal snow that had re-opened one of Provence's ski resorts just the previous weekend. The snow had gone except at the summit, but it remained cool. Pulling in at one of the Bedoin bike shops to buy knee warmers, I was advised that it was only safe to go up if I was willing to walk the last 7kms from Chalet Reynard. So we waited two days and then climbed it early on a Sunday morning, in bright sun shine. Steph clocked 1 hr 47 and I came in around ten minutes faster (but from St Columbe, the next village up, so add +/- 20 minutes from Bedoin). The winds at the top were still fierce and the temperature cool. So that's the first piece of advice: carry a 'light winter clothing' system which extends to a jacket (preferably waterproof and wind proof), full finger gloves and knee and arm warmers. A lot of riders find they have to do a wardrobe adjustment halfway up. Temperatures can be 10 degrees different at the base and peak.

2. Keep your bike in the hotel room even if told not to
I'm based in Hackney, East London. We think of Provence as a much more secure sort of place, where you might happily leave bikes in locked cars and that sort of thing. We came close to being robbed. It might be an isolated incident or it might represent a crime wave that no one is owning up to, but what happened to our neighbours at Hotel La Garance should be taken as a warning. Here's what happened. Le Mistral was blowing. There were lots of battering and blowing noises. Just after midnight, right outside our ground floor room, an experienced thief neatly punctured a hole beneath the lock of a Belgian registered Mercedes Sprinter Van, gained entry and took the first bike of several, a three thousand euro Wilier, not six months old. He was obviously on his own. He rode away on it and left the rest. Nobody heard a thing including us, and despite the pea gravel. The bike was not insured (of course it wasn't, have you tried to get an insurance company to cover a bike unsecured inside a van? They won't - this is why). The hotel we recommend - it's run by a real hotelier, Dutchwoman Johanna Beaumont, and it's situated right on the Bedoin climb, so you ride right off the doorstep and not get lost. But she still puts up signs saying 'No bikes in rooms'. We were very lucky the thieves didn't get to my LOOK or Steph's Specialized, locked in the back of our rental car. Very lucky. The bikes came inside the next night.

3. Pace yourself
If you are only doing the Ventoux you can treat it like a 50 mile time trial - it's two hours at that sort of effort to clock what is considered to be a very respectable club rider time. The record was set by Iban Mayo in the 2004 Dauphiné Libéré. He did it in 55′ 51″.

4. It's not the Etape
By which I mean the roads aren't closed. It's laughably man-land and all the tribes are out: bikers, drivers, cyclists. There was a club of Renault 5 Turbo nuts (visible in the distance of the photo below); there were a lot of bikers coming down as I was going up, at high speeds, and sometimes coming right over onto my side of the road. That's OK but it doesn't allow for wobbling around. So get your gearing sorted. You'd think people would realise this but they don't. You need a 34 tooth inner chainring, a compact. Either that or you're going to be a top rider smashing it on a 39x25.

5. Don't forget the descent.
The classic ascent is from Bedoin. That allows you to descend to Malucene or back down to Chalet Reynard and on to Sault. The Malucene descent is the most fun because it goes on and on, the surfaces are excellent, and the sight lines are the best. The Sault road is bumpier, while going straight back to Bedoin is fine (I did this), but you really have to be careful because of the steep gradient. It's definitely the moment that you begin to respect the Pros and to start thinking about where precisely your limits lie in bike handling. Don't forget a gilet. You'll need it even if the weather is fine.
Mont Ventoux, June 2, 2013. Alps visible on horizon. 

Richard Lofthouse

Richard Lofthouse