Posted by barq on June 18, 2009 – 4:59 pm
Starting on Wednesday 24th June The Guardian newspaper begins a new monthly cycling podcast. The press release sent to CycleChat boasts these first edition features:
- Triple Olympic champion Sir Chris Hoy tells Sean Ingle about his favourite places to cycle and gives him a few tips for improving performances on the bike.
- Matt Wells talks to CTC (the UK’s National Cyclists’ Organisation) Director Kevin Mayne about his new vision for cycling.
- Are fixed-wheel bikes a flash in the pan or here to stay? We ask Fixed Gear London.
- Bike guru Dr Justin Spinney puts three newly released road bikes to the test.
- Susan Greenwood goes on a single-track Mountain Bike adventure on the Isle of Skye.
This looks like a broader approach to cycling than found in most magazines so it will be interesting to see how the podcast develops. Will they resist the temptation to be London-centric? How will they balance casual/general cyclist appeal against pleasing the bike nutters among us? And will the podcast become more regular (say, weekly)? Only time will tell.
The podcast is being launched “in tandem” (!) with their new Cycle Blog which seems already to be underway and have contributions from Matt Seaton (whose book The Escape Artist is forever being passed around in the forum Cafe). I note that the blog appears under The Guardian’s environment section so I presume ‘green’ issues will also be a dominant topic.
A podcast preview is available here. Full version available Wednesday 24th June.
Posted by barq on February 11, 2009 – 6:48 pm
Busy lives + bad weather + winter illnesses = not much cycling. Well that’s certainly true for me. As a mountain biker I’m used to mud, but once it reaches a certain depth (somewhere around the axles) progress becomes painfully slow. Afterwards, time spent cleaning up the bike becomes excessive for a half-hour evening blast.
On paper a turbo trainer should be the perfect answer. And to be fair my cheap-but-not-too-cheap Cycle-Ops Magneto seemed perfectly well made and rides better than I expected. However I soon remembered that what motivates so many rides is the terrain: the steep climbs, the fast flat runs and the feeling of freedom. Being able to escape – being somewhere that isn’t my home or office – is part of the reason for riding. I cycle to get up real hills, not imagined ones.
I tried to bring out my inner gym bunny and set myself a routine which was moderately successful. Whilst I didn’t take to the training DVD packaged with the turbo trainer, I set up my laptop nearby and watched films and the BBC iPlayer. TV programmes became my training routine and I developed my own pace – warming up through the news, then sprinting through stages of Masterchef.
What it still lacked was a sense of having been somewhere or done something. You certainly get sweaty, especially without the howling wind cooling breeze, but it didn’t deliver achievement. The partial solution came from my heart rate monitor which gives some measure of effort. So at least now I can motivate myself to push just a little harder.
If you buy a turbo trainer remember that the biggest problem may be motivation, so you need to be creative to keep training!
Posted by barq on August 12, 2008 – 2:03 pm
Ann Arbor is a Michigan college town a few miles outside of Detroit. As the home of Google’s AdWords division and Domino pizza you might not immediately associate it with a healthy cycling community. However Ann Arbor positively welcomes cyclists so wherever you look there are people on classy road bikes, sturdy MTBs and, the most popular of all, ‘sit-up-and-beg’ town bikes.
Whilst on a recent trip to Michigan I bumped into a fixed rider and asked him about what kinds of cycling the area offered. 70 mile excursions along the wide open roads seemed to be his ride of choice. With more space on the tarmac, and fewer cars per mile than in the UK, I could see the appeal. Personally I was surprised by the poor condition of the roads. They say everything is bigger in the USA and that also includes potholes.
Although I didn’t find many mountain bikers in downtown Ann Arbor I discovered the next best thing… mountain bike beer. The local brewing company teamed up with a nearby Ypsilanti bike shop to support local trails through the sale of beer. I was able to express my ‘support’ for the mountain bikers several evenings running.
On the wide sidewalks on Ann Arbor and the leafy university campus sit-up-and-beg bikes intermingled at low speeds with pedestrians. Cycle paths are conspicuous by their absence. Cyclists actually use their bells and pedestrians seem to respond appropriately. Very strange. Of course it wasn’t all idyllic and one taxi driver rattled off the familiar shouldn’t be on the road tirade. However two factors seemed to make cycling more appealing to the citizens. Firstly the weather is quite settled, so although the winters are very cold, the summer is relatively dry so people spend less time worrying about packing waterproof clothing. Secondly Ann Arbor is a relatively low crime area and the fear of bicycle theft was a minimal concern. Londoners would laugh at the puny bike locks Ann Arbor residents use.
A graduate student at the nearby University of Michigan said she bought a cheap mountain bike from Target due to rumours of quality bikes being stripped for parts. But on the whole people seemed happy to take their bicycles pretty much everywhere. Some commutes were surprisingly short which seemed to free people up to take less clutter with them – afterall who needs a puncture repair kit, pump, multitool, water and so on when the commute is only two miles?
Back in England I find myself wondering if more people would take up cycling if it weren’t for the fear of theft or vandalism? Unfortunately whatever we do the weather is one thing we really can’t fix.
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