The World According to Lofthouse

CLEAN AIR is in very short supply in London and many other cities. The cycling lobby have met a fork in the road. If they campaign they make cycling sound like a health hazard. If they don't campaign, they ignore one of the biggest problems of our time. Drayson Technologies have launched a laudable clean air crowdsourcing widget and movement called CleanSpace. I've subscribed for three, one for my wife, one for me, and one for a charity. This could become global. It's very clever. SEE: https://our.clean.space/

THE VW SCANDAL is ironically a good thing. Diesel was already in trouble, but now it's truly besieged. We'll now see a raft of hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and eventually charging points. The hero vehicles in London are currently: BMW i3 and Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. The beemer is radical, way-out-there chic. The Mitsu shows that if the world wants SUVs you gotta make PHEV versions of SUVs, not micro-cars wearing holier-than-thou dog collars.

DISC BRAKES serve commercial interests alone, unless you ride heavier bikes/ haul a trailer/ e-assist/ cargo bikes, where they obviously serve a purpose. Pro-Peleton? They have no choice if they want to be sponsored. But the brutal truth is that disc brakes:

• add weight
• add complexity
• detract from clean lines
• make wheel changes slow
• expose the rider to even more forms of potential crash damage, from rotor slicing
• add cost (and therefore OEM profits)

ON THE SUBJECT OF COST road bikes suddenly went through the roof about two years ago, almost as if the industry flicked a switch. When I bought my 'then top of the range' Canyon Ultimate CF SLX Dura-Ace in 2010 it cost £2,800. Equivalent bikes from fully branded makes that use retailers are now £5k ++. Your best bet is to buy the right frame and then source the carbon wheels carefully and within a budget. Voila: you can get the five grand bike for 2-3k. 

BASE LAYERS have cost me a lot of trial and error money. While I initially fell for Rapha merino they are very expensive. Depending on the wool vintage, not all of them have been scratch-free, in particular the thinner vest ones that you can wear for commuting under a smart shirt. I've found a much better alternative: M&S T-shirt by David Gandy for the Autograph range. It's half cotton and half synthetic, parading under the label 'modal' ("like silk" the shop hand waxed - acrylic I presume). Go a size smaller and you get a terrific drape: a real base layer. I've trialled it extensive in commuting and road riding. They cost £15 each. That's my wardrobe tip for this winter...

LIGHTS TRUMP HI-VIZ but evidently loads of folks don't see it that way. I just keep seeing peeps in hi-viz and fluo, thinking it gets them out of needing lights. You can dress all black and be fine as long as you have A1 lights, preferably two front and two back to allow for malfunction and fading batteries. Isn't this obvious by now?

SECURITY SKEWERS CAN BE AMAZING. The Atomic 22 'complete suite' that I've invested in over two years for my Enigma Ethos 'do it all town bike and audax' is certainly one of the loveliest revelations I've ever had in cycling: my only regret is not buying ALL of it at the start. I mean saddle, seat post, stem bolts - all of it. What happened instead was that I baulked at the price, got wheels and seat post only (to replace Pitlock which are so-so) - and lo and behold, on a bright summery day someone stole my handlebars, the shifters and the saddle. £300 to replace that lot. Another £200 on the additional security bolts. But that was the revelation. Far from being ugly or utilitarian, those items are simply BEAUTIFULLY MADE and BEAUTIFULLY PRESENTED and have IMPROVED the bike. The wheel skewers for example are considerably lighter than a quick release, yet made of stainless steel. ATOMIC 22 are the Chris King of England - salute Patrick Wells, the founder. What I don't understand is why this stuff is not being fitted as original equipment. Cost? Yes, but we've reached the point where in London at least, you can't lock a bike without component theft on an industrial scale. The other benefit is that I only need to carry one mini-U-lock not three.

REVIEW: End of front light test, Exposure Strada Mk VI (2016 model)

REVIEW: End of front light test, Exposure Strada Mk VI (2016 model)

Digital reading ends range anxiety

Burn programmes: set up and forget

This is the best light that I have ever encountered for road use. I will admit to being partial to Exposure Lights - they're hand made at a UK base down in Sussex, which is in itself a terrific achievement in an age of plastic junk.

But until now I've bounced between two extremes: a JoyStick at one end, which I never really understood was meant to be a helmet light...and a Six Pack which offers so much light that if you mount it fractionally wrongly you'll be in big trouble on the road, blinding Minicab drivers into instant rage.

But we've moved beyond 'bigger and brighter is simply better' to a more discriminating solution of real problems. I don't downhill in the dark. I commute in London and sometimes in more rural settings, where I want to see potholes before I feel them. Even the outer perimeter of Regent's Park has some very dark spots.

I liked...

• Digital read out eliminates range anxiety. 35 hours on LOW and a full charge - outstanding. 
• No 'flash back' into rider's face. Instead it casts a puddle of light down and out, exactly what you want. 
• Overall size and weight. Perfect 'middle' solution lies between heavier and lighter solutions.
• Fits in any jacket pocket.
• Mounting bracket is very secure and fast to fit.
• Comes with remote switching so you can flick through settings without shifting hands position. 
• 'Puddle' light AND 'spot light' cover all bases in a road setting

I didn't like...

• The little rubber grommet that plugs the recharge port is fiddly and bounces free so it hangs loose. This is the one thing that lets the light down a bit, although it's only an incidental detail.
• Not sure I need the remote switching - the pressure back panel is so good it does the job on its own.
• Could use more guidance on mounting angles. You still need a slight 'down' angle to avoid blinding drivers.

CONCLUSION

Beautifully machined alloy body reeks of quality. Battery life and overall lumens output have gone sharply up even compared to three years ago. If you have an old light (as long as it is an Exposure) Exposure have an exchange programme so don't hold back upgrading. I was skeptical but the improvements over just two years have been remarkable.

Exposure have learned to 'curate' light

REVIEW: Exposure Lights Strada Mk 6 (2016)

Bathed in red: Startline, 2015 Rapha Manchester2London

We're an Exposure household, you might say -

Exact burn time left. No more 'range anxiety'

Exposure Lights Strada Mk 6 (2016)

Lighting. Come late August, a night out in London and oops...no lights and a self-conscious flit home, 'hypocrite' branded across my conscience. I'm not too sympathetic for riders who don't bother with lighting.

This year was a bit different. September 6th was the Manchester2London ride, put on by Rapha to raise money for Ambitious about Autism. So I had an early foretaste of the winter riding that lies ahead. It was a gorgeous day of sun and light wind. But it began and ended in the dark as all epic adventures should.

I noticed a lot of miniscule lights around the field of 200+ riders, saving weight and bulk, but also some impressive stuff. One abiding memory was racing the last leg from Hertford to the Olympic Velodrome in East London. There was a point when we put our lights on, but then another point when nightfall became a reality. We hurtled into a black wood, but the guy in front of me had an Exposure Sixpack, surely one of the ultimate lights money can buy, with a 'Wembley effect' 2,000 lumens. I just followed him. I could see every pot hole and it wasn't even my light.

My choice of weaponry was an Exposure Flash on the front, and a Flare on the back tucked in beautifully under the saddle rails using Exposure's saddle rail bracket (£7.95). The Flash functioned only intermittently despite me deploying a fresh, spare battery I'd carried since Manchester! So I have now bought a Mk 6, 2016 model Strada, a big step up and a chance to conduct a test over the next couple of months.

I'm planning to include some night riding, the usual epic amount of London commuting and some Audax. So far the Strada looks like a huge advance, with precise burn times relieving much anxiety. But the niggly question I've got is whether it is better or worse than a Sixpack. I've got a Sixpack. The argument for it is that it's a nuclear weapon that brooks no argument. The argument against is that it's comparatively bulky, too heavy for club riding, and so bright that in practice you run it on low beam 99% of the time. If you mount it at the wrong angle you blind drivers to the point where you attract nothing but pure aggression. So arguably it's overkill...except that I love it, especially when conditions are terrible and you want to be lit up as much as possible, or in the countryside when actually, yes, you have to light up that lane and read the potholes.

2016 Strada has two beams: puddle and spot

Programs allow tailor made burn timesREVIEW: 

REVIEW: Schwalbe Durano Plus tyre

Front tyre showing bald centre line

REVIEW: Schwalbe Durano Plus tyre, 700x23c Road, folding
This review is a 'whole life time test,' not what you normally get from Bike Radar et al. I noticed lots of confusion and gallows humour on forums about the acceptable life of a tyre. Unlike cars, there is no legal minimum with bike tyres. On one forum, the first advice was: keep going until you can see the inner tubes. Someone replied: if you're fifty miles from home at that moment, good luck!
Here's my experience.
I fitted these Durano Pluses on my commute/winter Enigma in December, 2013. They have lasted 8,500 kms. I hasten to add that they could have done more, at least a bit more. Let's say 10,000kms - maybe. But I decided to call it a day. Here's why. (1) I noticed that a new 'centre line' had become visible when it had never been before, a sign that the main tread is almost gone through. Don't be fooled by the crosses down the side - that's not where all the work is being done. Secondly, both tyres, but especially the rear, had 'squared off'. I commute all over London with heavy Ortlieb's, every day, and have also used the bike for long distances in all weathers over two winters. The rear tyre took an absolute battering. London is an incredibly abrasive environment, as these photos show. But hey: not one single puncture throughout the test, which is a remarkable testimony to how tough the Pluses are.
The final photo shows you what keeps the glass and flints at bay, the blue latex layer that lies beneath. I did that on the final day, when I knew I'd change them over to new ones. I locked up on Highgate Hill and held the tyre in one position for a thirty metre skid.

Why Change? I could have carried on. But these comparatively slow tyres had gone 'slack'. Without panniers, on a 125km ride last week, the back tyre in particular felt draggy and 'flat', no doubt a result of the squaring off. It felt baggy. Had I been on a world tour, I might have just kept plodding along, but I enjoy my riding. There are limits between parsimony and pragmatism.

Verdict.
These are the best tyres I have ever used for industrial, non-sporting use. In 700x23 guise they weighed 300g, 40g LESS than the claimed weight of 340g. When I demounted them, the rear weighed 250g, the front 270g, the amount of lost rubber! OK, they are rubbery feeling, compared to the beautiful feel you get from a Conti 4 Seasons or Durano S. But it means you can commute fast, with laden panniers, and not worry. I'd also add, perhaps above all else, that the wet weather grip is far, far better than you'd imagine. I once mounted a Marathon Plus. Now that's a wired tyre, and will go 20,000kms, but the penalty in wet conditions and rolling resistance is a stiff one. Woe betide you if you corner on a wet drain cover. That's not the case with the Durano Plus. It grips far beyond what you'd expect from a 'hard' compound. As the Velominarti chaps point out in The Rules, a motorbike tyre for racing will last one race. If you get anywhere near 10k kms out of a bike tyre, count yourself lucky. For race tyres (sub-200g), I reckon on one season maximum, which might only be 2-3000kms.

Pock marks no object but show how abrasive it is

More of the same: front tyre

Profile significantly squared off, rear tyre

The latex under the skin. The tyre could have gone on.

BOOK REVIEW: Roads were not built for cars

BOOK REVIEW: Roads were not built for Cars by Carlton Reid (2014)

BikeBiz (www.bikebiz.com) founder Carlton Reid has published an extraordinarily timely and valuable book.

The rhetorically charged title unfolds in two respects. First, the art of road building enjoyed a pre-railway peak in the 1830s. So in that sense, roads were built for pedestrians and horses and stage coaches. Reid's second point, and the central theme of the book, is that the coming of the bicycle from the 1860s, and its bona fide 'craze' period in the 1880s and 90s, resulted in myriad road improvement lobbying in Britain, in Europe, and in the USA. This lobbying was carried out by cyclists and pre-dated the motorcar. It's a Very Important Fact. Hence the first half of the sub-title of the book, 'How Cyclists Were the First to Push for Good Roads.'

The second half of the sub-title reads, '...& Became the Pioneers of Motoring.' This is where Reid's narrative gets delightfully confounding, if you are a partisan of cycling, and not just in the ordinary (and perhaps obvious) sense that numerous cyclists became motorists, and are today both at once. More pertinently, it was the most vigorous cyclists who became the most vigorous motorists. Reid offers cameo histories of 60 pioneering car manufacturers with cycling roots. It wasn't just the (slightly) better known handful of examples such as William Morris in Oxford, and Carl Benz in Germany.

The central reason for this organic transition was technology. The Victorian bicycle craze was a feast of rapid innovation comparable to mobile phones a century later. As Reid painstakingly recounts, it was the bicycle that delivered pneumatic tyres, ball bearings, differential gears, roads, motoring and even aviation (consider the Wright brothers and their roots in cycling).

The great cycling pioneers of the late Victorian period saw themselves as red-hot progressives. What the car and the bike shared in common was the open road and freedom from timetables, plus the adrenalin of speed and the utility of getting from A to B. This commonality was embodied in the tellingly titled groups such as the Self-Propelled Traffic Association.

As the book unfolds, however, we get all sorts of dark portents concerning the future dissociation of the two pursuits of cycling and motoring, and indeed their eventual mutual antagonism despite what they held in common. For one thing, the bike and the car impart to the operator a sense of being the author of propulsion. But while the car magnifies that sense to almost monstrous levels of capacity, it is a sleight of the right ankle, so to speak. The driver is a facilitator but not in fact the author of anything. The cyclist, by comparison, is the engine, and in many respects the suspension as well. Chapter 5, Speed, is exceptionally good at distilling all this. Early cycling purists were extremely aware of the nuances and distinctions. They already knew in their Victorian bones that the car would result in terminal boredom on the M4 and the larding effect of too many unearned Greggs sausage rolls, but they also delighted in mechanical efficiency and in progress and in speed. Many of the pioneers of cycling became advocates of motoring when there were only a handful of cars and no climate change. Even then, they knew that each pursuit was different and a few saw that the car could lead to all sorts of mischief. Not a few of them were killed by cars, while cycling. As the car took off the bike began to fade.

Actually, that last bit is wrong. The bike didn't fade. It did something much more damaging to its image in a world (especially in Britain) blighted by wretched class division. It went main stream. As the bicycle became affordable to workers, so the rich and privileged switched over to cars. By the 1930s, when millions cycled to the factory gate, the elites (whether true Aristocrats or middle classes) had typically disowned their earlier zeal for two wheels.

Of course, at the end, Reid brilliantly (if briefly) brings to bear our own, twenty-first century reversal of the mid-twentieth century, suggesting that since the same millions of blue collar workers ascended to car-dom (in the fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties), gradually it again became chic and even elite to be seen in lycra on a swanky carbon fibre scorcher. The arrival of Rapha and Team Sky, in this light, is not a coincidence, but nigh on inevitable in a society driven still by privilege, elitism, material display and so forth. Cars became prole-mobiles. Bikes are the new elitism. Another slightly discomforting point for partisans.

Speaking for myself, as a journalist who has written lovingly about fast cars and fast bicycles, and indeed their slower brethren, I found the book therapeutic as well as fascinating. I've always owned a discomforting sense of not knowing which tribe I belonged to exactly, yinning and yanging between them, but ultimately knowing I was more cyclist than car guy (but you wouldn't always know it). I published a humourous piece about pro-cyclists at the wheel of cars in the Daily Telegraph Motoring Section on the occasion of the 100th Tour de France. This predated Roads were not built for Cars but made a similar point, that it is a modern myth to say or believe that cyclists and motorists are separate groups, even though they often behave like it on our busy roads.

What I found most engaging about Reid's research, is just how much it brings to life the late Victorian pioneers of cycling. Those pioneers no longer seem like whatever fusty impression you have of the dread term 'Victorian'. They come alive as the Google and Apple innovator-equivalents of their generation. They are zingy and close and alive. The ugliest and dullest bits of the past century come across rather as the mid-twentieth century and the sixties, when the planners fell in love with concrete and peer-presided traffic consultations tried their hardest to write the cyclist out of existence (except in the Netherlands, where apparently cycling was wrapped up in national character - a subject I'd like to know more about).

My follow-on thought from Reid's book is that what we now need is a massive investment in light rail, trams and trolley buses, all the things that catered to the non-cyclists of the late nineteenth century before cars came along to tempt them. Cars will no doubt continue, but road-as-race-track needs to become track-day-only; driverless electric and hybrid cars will take over the public highway, slashing fatalities and injuries, and cities will become largely car free centres of utility cycling and public transit. Cyclists will be subject to further restrictions such as speed limits in Royal Parks, if I am not mistaken, in light of their 'scorching' habits and the typically-forgotten rights of pedestrians. Cars will be banned from those same parks, except for special user groups such as the disabled.

Far from being a slender insight banged out into the Twittersphere and blogged about the land, Roads Were Not Built for Cars took Reid four years of graft, as 500 pages of careful historical research does. In fact it's a marvel that he did it in so little time. Deeply grateful to Carlton Reid! Published for now as an e-Book in numerous formats, following a tiny print run last year that sold out quickly, the book will be published in hard and soft back later this year. If you want the full beans, the print version will be worth waiting for because it will include the full index and over 900 footnotes, all missing from the otherwise delightfully executed iBooks version (which in turn boasts photo galleries and audio-visual elements that you can't get from print).