Here’s something for everyone who thinks that just because they can do a track stand, they’ve got *bike skilz* (me included):

London’s a mean city.

If someone’s not knife-criming you in the face then they’re voting in a buffoon to run the place presumably on the off chance he’ll do something funny. Which, as I’ve mentioned, is just mean.

And on top of that, it’s not the nicest off places to ride your bike either. Don’t believe me? Take a look at these bike-shed of horrors:

• Sometimes London can be busy and noisy and riding a bi-swicle can be fwitening.
• Sometimes the paths just turn into canals.
• There’s nowhere you can leave your bike without it being stolen – even under your bottom.

Actually, that last one sounds genuinely horrifying.

So to try and make the experience of riding a bike through the Hell on Earth that is London a little more enjoyable, some jolly lovely chaps (and/or chapesses) came up with the idea for Ding Day:

Ding Day 2009 - Boris Johnson gave it a ringing endorsement. A-huh. A-huh.

Yes, Ding Day. All over London on Wednesday, 9th September whenever a cyclist see a fellow cyclist they will give them a little ding-ding on their bell in the hope that, in the words of Ding Day’s organisers, they’ll be “creating a harmony around London’s cycling community”.

Which is all very laudable and on the whole “a good thing”. After all, one of the nicest things about cycling is the sense of belonging to a group. And I think we can all agree that when you’re out on your bike getting a “Hello”, a nod, or even just a raised hand over a brake hood from another rider is nice.

Which is why I can’t help feeling that this is all a sad reflection of what life living in London is really like – you have to organise a special day, have it endorsed by the Mayor – Boris Johnson says “…Ding Day is a welcome addition to spreading the word about the joys of cycling” - just to get cyclists to acknowledge another cyclist.

Whatever next? A special day to stop people hitting strangers about the face and neck with your D-Lock?

Anyway, Ding Day says that through its day full of ringing bells, it aims:

To create a fun experience for cyclists and locals in and around London, with the hope of creating more of a sense of community amongst fellow cyclists, including commuters, parents, children, basically any cyclist young or old. It’s free and open to everyone.

Yes, saying “Hello” to someone else is free and open to everyone. Marvellous, isn’t it? But a word of warning from poor-little Minette Marrin, before you get carried away and start ringing that bell all willy-nilly at strangers:

When I protested at one of these dicers-with-my-death by primly ringing my bell, he got off his bike and was so frighteningly nasty I didn’t dare touch the bell again.

Hmm, London is a mean city.

Responding to the Tourmalet-sized cynicism that’s developed in all of us since it was decided drug taking was bad for bike racing (despite the fact that everyone – inlcuding the soigneurs – were apparently doing it) and manifests itself as an endless moan, Bradley Wiggins was forced to release his blood test values.

Garmin-Slipstream put out his blood values for both haemoglobin count – the concentration of oxygen carrying protein in red blood cells – as well as, what’s becoming the de facto measure of cheating, his “Off Score”.

Now calling it the “Off Score” makes it sound a little more Terry Thomas – “Your Off Score’s really not on, you absoulte scoundral!” – than it probably is. Here’s how Garmin explain it:

The Off Score, which takes into account the relationship between haemoglobin and reticulocyte concentration is currently used as the reference point for assessing an athlete’s blood profile. Since reticulocytes tend to decrease when haemoglobin is artificially high, the combination of a high haemoglobin and a low reticulocyte raises the Off Score.

Not quite as funny as it first sounded, I think you’ll agree. Maybe closer to some of Thomas’ later work but certainly not up there with Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or Monte Carlo or Bust.

Anyway, much was also made of Bradley’s weight loss in the build up to the Tour – in the 9 months prior to the Tour he lost 7 kilos. Which although might not win him the crown of “Weight Watchers Slimmer of the Year” it’s no men feat for someone who’s not actually a fatso. Of course, for the anti-doping cynics out there this is a hard fact to believe – and Bradley’s partly responisble for this. Judging by the account in his autobiogrphy Bradley used to be an almost Flintoff standard drinker and his cake consumption is estimated to be the same as that of a single woman in her early 40′s.

Which is why Garmin have been forced to release Bradley’s cake and beer intake levels for this year’s Tour:

Bradley Wiggins releases beer/cake values taken during and immediately after the 2009 Tour

At first glance, you might think that this is simply a pathetic attempt at humour, very badly done in Microsoft Paint – you’d be wrong, though. It was actually done using Adobe Photoshop.

As you can see, during the whole of the Tour both his beer and cake intake were very low. There’s only a slight blip plotted on the cake line when Bradley accidentally ate half a croissant. No-one is quite sure how this happened, although it’s currently believed that a member of Saxo-Bank may have spiked his porridge with it. His consumption levels stayed constant until he hit Paris and, as clearly shown above, beer imbibment rose markedly and he Katona’d it on the cake front before returning to a more normal level.

There we have it, categoric proof to support Wiggins’ weight loss based performance increases. We can only hope this will be enough to satisfy the doubters or, at the very least, stop them moaning on and on and on for a couple of weeks.

You’re the most successful cyclist Britain has ever produced so what’s the first thing a national newspaper mentions in an article about you?

Do my thighs look extremely powerful in this?

That’s right, your clothes:

Nicole Cooke, the Olympic and world road race champion, is likely to spend the rest of the season racing in GB colours after the collapse of her Vision 1 team.

Come on, give her a break. Just because she’s a woman surely there was something you could have written about other than the clothes she’s wearing!

It’s August, which means it’s time for those cyclists caught doping during the Tour de France to make their comebacks after serving out their bans.

And this year brings the returns of two particularly heinous  drug cheats – Floyd Landis and Alexander Vinokourov. Boo! Hiss!

Interestingly both of these riders could have been back sooner. Vino was caught blood doping in 2007 and only received a one year ban. And Landis was caught “Spunk doping” at the 2006 TdF whined “I didn’t do it” like a child all the way to the CAS so his 2 year ban didn’t start until September 2007.

Anyway, with their return to the sport, they bring the dark cloud, or at the very least the purple haze, of doping back to a sport that’s trying desperately to clean up it’s image.

Fortunately, it seems cycling can rest easy and not worry that these two’s will further sully the reputation of the sport they helped to all but destroy as both Landis and Vino’s comebacks have been nothing short of ridiculous.

Utah Sinners

Landis has hit the headlines again as he tries to promote the Tour of Utah. He’s done this by having a double-header (fnar, fnar) with the Utah Jazz’s Deron Williams – a handicapped bike race and then a basketball penalty shootout thingy.

Here they are pretending to literally duke it out before metaphorically duke it out. Do you see? Do you?

Commentators are still baffled as to why cycling fails to attract ethnic minorities

Brilliant stuff really.

Landis now riders for a US based outfit called OUCH – apparently named after the noise you make ripping a testosterone patch off of your nutsack. For the cycling leg of the challenge he was to school Williams in the finer points of time-trialling – which he foolishly did a little too well as Williams beat him, albeit with a 60 second head start.

Maybe Landis agreed to take part in this challenge because he’s a benevolent soul who genuinely wanted to promote the Tour of Utah. Maybe he did it to keep up with the Armstrongs. Or maybe he did it to remind us that he’s not just the Tour’s highest profile drugs cheat, but a bit of a loon as well.

What ever the reason, it’s made him look like a fool.

Maybe I’ll Just Slip In Through the Back Door So’s Not to Be Noticed

If Landis’ return made him look like a fool – Vino’s has made him look like a complete nutcase.

Taking delusional self-belief to the next level, he wore the most amazingly awful jersey I think I’ve ever seen. In the Kazak national colours it was adorned with a photo of himself – himself! – and the slogan “Vino 4 Ever”:

Wracked with the self-loathing of a convicted drugs cheat, Vino gives himself the old up-yours

Even if he’s turned up completely naked after OD’ing on viagra he’d have come across as less cocky. Truly astonishing.

Although this custom jersey may be the clue as to why it’s taken him a year after his ban finished to get back on the bike – it’s clearly taken Vino’s mum a very long time to make.

What’s even more amazing is Vino beleif that Astana will not only want him back but actually need him back.

What I think is clear from both Landis’ and Vino’s comebacks is just what a long time 2 years is in sport and just how much cycling has moved on since they were banned. And regardless of what each of these riders might think, I don’t think the world of cycling will be a better place with them back.

It’s fair to say that in recent years French cycling has gone down this:

French Cycling's become a "three flusher"

Or more to the point, down one of these:

Confounder of many an English child desperate to go

The effect of this is there for all the world to see, the French haven’t won their own race at their own sport since Laurent Fignon and his pony tail did it back in 1984.

And in those 25 years, and 25 Tours, many a French riders and their carzy terrible hair have lined up on the start line, their hearts full of hope only to cross the finishing line in Paris wearing only their tear-stained jerseys – and matching shorts, of course. Oh, and after 2003, helmets. And shoes and socks, yes, shoes and socks. And gloves, don’t forget gloves. Most of them wear glasses now too, don’t they? Really, what I meant is, no Frenchman has won the Tour in 25 years and it upsets them.

France 6 – Britain 9

Well, this year things have got a little bit worse for them – they’re only able to select 6 riders for the World Championships.

But before we laugh too heartily, we should spare a little sympathy for them. Because cycling is to the French what cricket is to the English – despite each inventing our respective sports but neither of us can beat the Dutch at it.

And it’s this belief that the sport is in some way “ours” that raises the level of expectation, and with it pressure, for success and makes it so much more disappointing when the Australians inevitably win.

To be fair, the French more likely than not couldn’t give a flying fromage about success in the velodrome – it’s their singular lack of anything remotely resembling a “result” in the Classics and the Grand Tours that’s got their French knickers all in a knot.

All of which means that despite taking 3 stages at this years Tour, French riders have performed so badly in the last 12 months, that they will only be able to select 6 riders for the World Championships. Frances disappointment at this abject failure was surely only compounded when they discovered that the British qualified for the full 9 riders.

Which leaves me feeling a little sorry for, the French National Team Manager, Laurent Jalabert. Jalabert has many claims to fame:

• He’s the subject of the most famous Tour de France photos ever taken,
• He’s the  second best French rider to never win the Tour (after Pou Pou)
• He’s the third most famous person with a name that sounds like JaJa (after Zsa Zsa Gabor and Jar Jar Binks)

To which he can now “Managing the biggest bunch of sadsacks that France has produced in many a year”. Despite the gloom he seems in philosophical mood, telling French sports daily L’Equipe:

“It’s very disturbing,” Jalabert told French sports dailyL’Equipe. “This does not mean that we are already beaten, but it says a lot about the true position of France in international cycling. I hope this will at least provoke some thought.”

We can only hope that as disturbed as he is, during his period of thought, Jalabert is still sane enough to not listen to Bernard Hinault. As in his pre-Tour interview, you know the one that made Lance Armstrong type the word “Wanker”, Hinault’s take on the situation in French cycling was as follows:

“There are champions who become like civil servants when they turn pro. You have to put a knife to their throats to get any results,” Hinault said. “The French earn too much money and don’t make enough effort.”

Presumably Hinault is speaking from experience here, as aparrently during the height of his career, The Badger wasregularly threatened with being hit over the head by a spade then dumping by the side of the road to make it look like a car had hit him. And remember, these were the pre-2003 days, before compulsory helmet wearing in Pro races. A much more severe threat.

Even so, threatening to kill your riders if they don’t perform seems a little extreme to say the least. Here in the UK we like to leave that job to other road users. But then, it doesn’t seem to have done our riders any harm, so maybe Hinault does have a point.

Shimano finally bit the bullet and replaced those skanky old, narrow, feet-burning SPD-R’s with the new, wide platformed, “so comfy it’s like wearing slippers” SL’s after Lance Armstrong spent 10 years riding Looks. If anything that says most about just how little giant corporations like admitting they’re wrong, doesn’t it? 10 years of this generation’s greatest champion specifically not using their product because he thought it “Sucked” (I’m paraphrasing there but it was probably that or “Blew”) before they changed it.

And like Shimano, my current return to the sport I have finally replaced my old Ultegra SPD-R’s with shiny new 105 SPD-SL’s. Which say less about how little I like to admit I’m wrong and more about just how tight I am.

You see, I bought my Ultegra SPD-R’s (which is Japanese shorthand for “Racing” and currently I’m about as close to “racing” as I am being the first black woman in space) about 20 minutes before Shimano launched the original SPD-SL’s (which is Japanese shorthand for “Super Lightweight” which is much more accurate description of me). Despite annoying me quite a bit I wasn’t about buy another new set of pedals. Which left me clipping in and out of the pedal equivalent of the LP. And like the LP which some claim gives music “a warmer” feeling the SPD-R’s gave me a warm feeling on the balls of my feet which more often than not progressed into a unbearable burning sensation.

This used to be a Shimano Ultegra SPD-R. No, really it did

But it wasn’t terrible ergonomics that made me buy new pedals, it was a threat to my well being which over the years has proven to be of even greater proportions – my dog. After surviving 2 years hibernation in a cupboard it only took one night with my dog for shoes to end up like this:

2 years in a cupboard, 2 minutes in s dog's mouth

So it was actually deciding I couldn’t bring myself to ride my bike with a dog’s chew toy strapped to each foot that’s made me part with some more of my hard earned cash. Although not too much cash as I’ve only gone for 105′s.

Now as every Club Cyclist knows, your groupset says a lot about you as a rider – and I’ve long held aspirations to be an Ultegra-man. Ultegra says “Serious racer but not delude enough to buy Dura Ace” and that’s who I wanted to be. But now, although in cycling terms I’m not exavtly “over the hill” I can very nearly see the crest of it (although I’m secretly hoping it’s just a false flat), I’m being a bit more honest with myself. Because in reality, I’ll never be more than a 105-man. So that’s what I bough.

Freshly packed 5 minutes after picking

The first thing you’ll notice is how much bigger the new “SL” is compared to the old “R”. That what, as Shimano puts it, “creates a highly stable interface between the shoe and pedal” you know “in a super lightweight design”:

It's evolution happening right before your eyes

Are Those New Shoes on that Table?

So along with the new pedals I bought a new pair of shoes too. The more eagle-eyed of you will have noticed that my old shoes were made by that well repect shoe manufacturer Shimano. This might paint me as someone who knows nothing about cycling what so ever – but that’s only half true. On my first daliance into the world of clipless pedals I foolishly bought an incompatible shoe/pedal combo and had to, somewhat shamefacedly, return them to the store. I decided on that day to not take any more chances and just buy Shimano, what could possibly be wrong with that?

Anyway, enough water has passed under the bridge since I last made a fool of myself in a bike shop so I decided to be brave and buy a non-Shimano shoe. It’s these Specialized Elite Roads:

For a pound off you can get last year's

If you look closely, you’ll see that the button to release the micro adjust strap is all black and boring and not red and funcky like the one on the 2009 shoe. This, the guy in the shop tried to convince me, was because these were the new 2010 shoes. I strongly suspect the actual reason is that these are the 2008 shoe which would explain both why they not only look worse but also why they were a whole pound cheaper.

Either way, after only a couple of rides on this new combo, they seem to be much more comfortable  and the shoe and pedal definitely feel like “they perform as a single ultra-efficient component”. Which is nice.

This post might be a little bit late but during this year’s Tour I couldn’t help noticing the similarities between Armstrong and Contador and the Steptoes:

Alberto and Lance in Happier Times

OK, so I realise that this is possibly one of the worst Photoshop efforts every to see the light of day, and it’s based on one of Armstrongs facial expression captured on the podium but, unlike the old man in the Alps, I think it’s got legs.

Both Harold and Albert and Alberto and Lance were trapped by circumstance both desperately wishing that they could escape from the other but equally both secretly knowing that they needed the other.

Of course, now he’s formed team RadioShack Lance is finally be rid of the ungrateful Alberto but, mark my words, he’ll miss him soon enough.

So hot on the heels of the first drug revelations from this year’s Tour comes the first drugs use denial.

The pain of an injection in the buttock never lessens

Mikel Astarloza is reported in the Guardian as saying:

“…he had no idea how he tested positive for the endurance-booster EPO in a sample taken before the race.”

Obviously, just as performance enhancing drugs have no place in pro-cycling, so casual racism made popular by 1970′s comic creations have no place in cycle blogging but am I the only one who thinks that Astarloza is trying to channel Fawlty Towers’ Manuel by essentially claiming “I know nothing” possibly in the hope that we’ll see him as a hard done by idiot ignorant of his crimes rather than a filthy drugs cheat. Initial reports that Astraloza also claimed the rat he’s keeping as a pet was in fact a hamster were later revealed as nonesense.

I didn’t do it!

Just like a child with chocolate round his mouth denying he ate the last biscuit, the motto of the doper is “I didn’t do it”. In the most high profile of recent cases, Floyd Landis, took his “I didn’t do it” as far as the CAS. In claiming he’d no idea how he’d become “super spunky” over night, he rather disturbingly added that his high testosterone levels were “produced by my own organism” despite those levels being more than twice those of the 1980 East German Women’s Olympic Shot Put team combined.

So despite his denial, it’s not looking good for Astraloza.

He is, of course, innocent until proven guilty so the anti-doping vultures circling above the ailing Astraloza will have to wait for the results from his B sample before the can descend and peck his eyes out. Even if his B test does come back negative to clear him of these charges there’s still a 50:50 chance he doped. And let’s not forget that when the US sprinter Marion Jones was cleared of EPO use thanks to a negative B sample back in 2006, it turned out to be the dope smoke from the fire that eventually ended her career.

And it seems that Astraloza has been around enough to realise this:

“The damage has been done, I’m innocent and I’m being accused of something I haven’t done. This is a very serious situation.”

I bloody well knew it!

Most worryingly for me, the Astarloza affair has revealed a side effect of the witch hunt against the dopers that’s far worse than doping itself: it’s turned me into a cynic of near Kimmage proportions. When I heard a rider had been suspended for doping my first thought was “I knew it was too good to be true” and on reading Astarloza’s denial all I could think was “Well, you would say that.”

Having said that, I’m not quite at the bitter, forgotten, old Lemond level of showering Contador’s parade with “VO2 Max” flavoured piss – we should celebrate the class of his win with out putting our hands over our mouths and muttering to ourselves “unless you’re a drugs cheat”.

Becuase if we suspect everyone who achieves anything in cycling of cheating, what future will there be in the sport at all?

“Hey” and welcome to Chain Suck – a new cycling blog that’s about as much fun as an infected saddle sore on a summer’s day – and, you might like to note, one that’s pretentious enough to name it’s first post “Prologue”.

Enjoy.

Tell Us About Yourself. We Insist.

OK, but only since you insist.

I’ve been cycling since I was 14. Not non-stop, obviously. That would be ridiculous. No, ever since I was 14 I’ve occasionally got on my bike, ridden a certain distance – mostly in a loop, sometimes in an out-and-back – then got off my bike and done something else until the next time.

Look, here’s a picture of me doing some “bike riding”:

Those ears cost me at least 2 seconds over a 10. At least.

In the 16 years since I first started doing that, I’ve been a member of various clubs. Starting out with the Thanet Road Club as a teenager – doing club runs and 10 mile TT’s. When I left Kent for University, I joined the Coventry Road Club – although it could have been the Coventry Cycling Club, they’re easily confused. And finally when I moved from Coventry to Birmingham I rode with the group setting out from Birmingham City Cycles – get this – on a Saturday morning!

Since then I’ve had some time away from riding – well over 4 years now. And by “time away” I don’t mean prison but the far less glamourous but equally restrictive on your free time world of “having a family”.

But the kids are growing up, leaving me more free time. And I figured if, after all he’s been through, Lance can make a come back then, you bally well know what, so can I. Currently my come back has lasted 2 weeks but I’m confident that I can make it to at least a full month.

Why Bore Us With the Blog?

Well, in a way, for the same reason the Fat Cyclist started his blog. Not because I’m fat – I’m not, if anything I’m thin – but to keep track of my “come back” (that’ll be fun for you, then) and to keep myself motivated with riding.

If you’re a cyclist, I’m sure you know what it’s like on those cold, dark winter nights when the last thing you want to do is get yourself out on the bike. So you sit, watching TV on the settee instead and before you know it, 4 years have passed.

But I promise not to bore you too much with BMI stats and readings from my array of electronic timing devices even though it is an obsession of mine.

Just to prove it, here’s me having fallen off my bike. Ha ha ha. Good times.

Not tiredness, just incompetance

One Last Thing, Chain Suck?

According to a popular interweb based reference, chain suck is:

The tendency of a chain to stick to chain rings and be sucked up into the bike instead of coming off the chainring. Primarily caused by worn chainrings and rust on small chain rings, under high loads, and in dirty conditions.

In short it’s a mechanical problem that’s mostly caused by poor maintenance meaning you can’t shift gears/fall off your bike. Not best.

And, although it’s quite a negative name, I think it pretty much sums up my relationship with cycling. I most certainly do suck at it – Paul Kimmaage (huck-puh!) once said

When God created bike riders, he created thoroughbreds and donkeys.

Well I know which I am – and an asthmatic one, at that. I find cycling endless difficult, extremely frustrating and quite often like banging my head against a brick wall on wheels. But I’m hooked, so what can I do?