Don’t miss the full-length edition of this movie – about Sean Kelly – screening on rapha.cc this Friday, 20 August. I missed the Yohan Museeuw one last Friday, but on 27th there’s a 3rd screening, about Dario Pegoretti.
I just love the way Rapha keep getting cooler.
The Klein Attitude Comp, in its glory days.
My mate Andy Booth recently sold his Klein Attitude Comp 2000, and I feel the time is right to salute man and rig.
The details are hazy, but as I remember Andy bought the Klein in 2000 with some insurance money. He’d had his previous bike stolen on York University campus, but that wasn’t the source of the windfall – something to do with a traffic accident, a sore neck (I’m feeling in the dark here)?
Anyway, he bought the Klein. Andy’s a tall chap with a penchant for brightly coloured bikes – hence the crane geometry and lurid paint job. Yet the Klein was lean and fast, and over time, as is to be expected, the frame was adorned with all manner of trick upgrades, including Hope hubs in gun-metal grey, and – the jewel in the crown – a Chris King headset.
The Chris King headset, in silver - still as smooth as the day it was fitted, etc. etc.
This bike experienced a golden age in the early noughties, accompanying us on some memorable rides with the University of York Cycle Club (UYCC) in Yorkshire, the Lake District, and beyond.
Still going strong: riding the Klein in Borrowdale, August 2005.
Crag-top stunts - Helvellyn?
Latterly though, the Klein fell from grace, and became rather a sad figure, its whale-like Serfas saddle in particular becoming the butt of many a trailside joke. In the end, the Klein was replaced by a younger, sleeker model, and its once glossy sheen became covered in the dust of neglect. That Andy eventually put it up for sale without even cleaning it was an indication of just how bad things had got.
End of an era.
I caught Robert Penn’s fantastic documentary on BBC4 on Monday night. The Story of the Bicycle, timed to coincide with the launch of Penn’s book All about the Bike (jacket below), saw the one-time round-the-world cyclist build his dream bike from parts sourced direct from manufacturers in many different countries – bars from Italy, hand-built wheels from the U.S., etc.
The resulting super-rig, the bike of dreams, turned out to be a Brian Rourke steel frame equipped with full Campagnolo Record, Continental tyres, Chris King headset, Cinelli bars, and – the cherry on top! – a Brook’s saddle. A fine combination of kit, if not exactly in line with my tastes. However, you have to ask – why the blue and orange colour scheme? Dark red, white panels and black lettering, surely?
Jacket image: All About the Bike by Robert Penn.
Photo: Getty Images
Today’s stage finish up the Col du Tourmalet delivered a Tour battle to rival any I can remember. As @rich_mitch observed, it wasn’t quite Lance vs Pantani, but Contador vs Schleck, mano-a-mano through the mist, was tense and gritty stuff.
No-one but Andy Schleck could have restrained the accelerations of Contador, even though, in the end, the Spaniard made only one significant move. On the face of it, however, he didn’t need to win: with only 8 seconds separating first and second place, Contador’s time-trial pedigree means he’s sure to take overall victory on Sunday. Schleck had to attack, and he did all he could, riding a savage tempo up the mountain that had both riders grimacing in pain. Ultimately, they were so evenly matched that they crossed the line together – Contador generously, and wisely (given the events of Tuesday), handing the stage win to Schleck.
2002
I rode up the Tourmalet in 2002, while traversing the Pyrenees on a week-long charity ride from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. On a day of drama that will mean nothing to anyone bar the protagonists, I can vividly remember flashes of that punishing 90-minute ascent (the same, tougher, side as the Tour went up today).
To recap, we were a group of 7, that included university mates Ewan, Si and Joe, plus some older blokes, one of whom was Mike B.
Mike was a keen club rider; we were an odd assortment of fitness levels, ranging from Joe, a natural talent, to Ewan, who despite radically transforming himself in recent years and completing an Ironman in 2008, was at that time shambolically out of shape. But it was a charity ride, so racing was hardly on the cards.
That is, until the first morning of the trip, a tough, drizzly leg out of Biarritz, when Blakeney rode off the front for 50 miles. Who did he think he was, Eddy Merckx? Suddenly, in the microcosm of the group, Mike B (who is actually a good guy all round), with his carbon Trek and beer gut, was the villain of the piece. Revenge was brewing, and the Tourmalet – which we hit on the Thursday – would be our showdown.
Toast
We stopped for lunch in a town not far from the foot of the mountain. I remember taking Joe to one side and briefing him for the climb: he was not to hang back with us, he was to ride at B’s pace, and keep up the tempo until B cracked. Joe and B rode off together, leaving us to await the outcome.
It goes without saying that the climb was hard. For the first time, I experienced all the usual side-effects of long, hot mountain climbs that I’m now pretty familiar with: the pins-and-needles face, the slack jaw, the aching back. I dropped Si after 20 minutes – a minor victory – and then it was me and the road.
I initially thought it was a product of my own super-heated brain when I looked up after 10km and saw Mike B, dismounted at the roadside, helmet off, pink-faced, puffy, a Dead-Elvis grin on his face. But he said something – it could have been ‘Help’ or ‘Water’, I can’t recall – and I realised with a surge of adrenalin that Joe had buried him. I was intensely delighted, not only by this reckoning, but also by the fact that I was now number two on the mountain. A celebratory hot chocolate was my reward at the summit.
More:
The Downs, from the crest of the bank.
Ah. How many times do I have to ride in the cold, wet and grey before I get a day like this? Yesterday was a cheat-the-week classic: 3 hours, 45 miles or so, plenty of hills, bits of tempo. I was test-riding the new Easton EA90 SLXs (of which more later), it was warm enough for a single layer, traffic was sparse, my legs felt strong.
My girlfriend asked me, as I was pulling on my lycra after lunch:
Shouldn’t you be working?
My answer was yes, I probably should. However I have a real problem not riding when I’m inside and the sun starts shining. This may be the one factor that prevents me becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg: when he was coding, I was out riding.
Riding comes first. I realised this 45 minutes into the ride, as I broke my first sweat of the day, and heard my phone ringing from my jersey pocket. It was a call from a client. I knew who it was – I had even asked them to call that afternoon, before I decided to go riding. I listened to the call ring off, imagining the testy voicemail, the urgent deadline reminder. At the sound of the message alert I kicked up a gear, filled my chest with air, and rode on into the afternoon sunshine.
Cycling is higher up in my pyramid of needs than work. Naturally, I need some work to have money to buy a bike in the first place – but if you offered me 50% extra salary with no more riding, or even with only 1 ride permitted per fortnight, I’d turn you down flat. I need to ride. Riding bikes has been something fixed in me since I was a young boy. Cycling has been a hobby, then a pursuit, then an obsession. Sometimes it’s a yoke I feel compelled to put my shoulders into (training – it has to happen, lots of it).
Sometimes I wonder if I could ever sit inside on a sunny day with a bike waiting to be ridden, and just not ride. Currently it’s not possible.
There seems to be a storm in a teacup about ‘mechanical doping’ i.e. riding with an engine in your bike. Personally, I’m in – does Wiggle stock them yet?
I’m really impressed with the folks at Brixton Cycles. They did a great job on installing my Centaur chainset, and I would have no hesitation entrusting a bike of any value to them again. I like their relaxed vibe and friendly early-morning workshop sessions.
True, the shop floor is a tad cluttered, they don’t have the Giro playing live on a plasma screen, and I can’t pick up a BC-blend latte while I wait for my wheel to be fixed – but there will always be Condor. To be honest, the secret of a good bike shop is patient staff who are knowledgeable – and who wear their knowledge lightly.
The Eddy T-shirt, designed by Richard Mitchelson, available from rouleur.cc
I bumped into Richard Mitchelson (aka rich_mitch) on Twitter following one of my sportive write-ups. We both rode the Puncheur, and compared notes on the freezing conditions on the day. Anyway, a pleasant but unremarkable cyber-encounter.
Then this morning, as I was flicking through a copy of Rouleur, wearing my cleats and a cycling cap whilst sipping a Rapha-blend macchiato and half-watching the Giro (of which experiences, more later), I recognised Richard’s name in print. RM is an animator/illustrator, who has not only designed a bunch of Tour-legend t-shirts, currently available via the rouelur.cc shop, but also a comic strip of the famous Lemond-Fignon showdown in the 1989 Tour de France, for the latest issue of Rouleur.
Wonder what he’d charge for a one-off ‘Al’ t-shirt?
Pro cyclist Michael Barry’s blog Le Métier is a must-read. Barry – who also writes for the New York Times – blogs his experiences in the pro peloton, his training, and life behind the scenes as a full-time rouleur. His writing is on another level from the output of other high-profile riders: nice-but-dim Ivan Basso (whose tweets I note are now exclusively in Italian); the ranting Wiggo – much as we love him; and of course Lance (permanently self-assertive and on the attack in all aspects of his life) – to name but a few.
This from his latest post shows the kind of insight he offers, delivered in his easy, elegant style:
On a cold rainy winter day, while I was climbing a mountain in solitude, ideas were floating through my head as my heart rate increased with the effort. I thought about the ride. I was alone on a road in the pouring rain. It was a moment in the life of a cyclist that the public doesn’t see. There are thousands of such moments.
It reminded me of a day back in March, when Jonny, Millsy and I ended up fighting our own solitary battles against horizontal drizzle. The thought that we were all three of us enduring this misery, on our own, at the same time, in different parts of south-east England, only appeared absurd; in fact there were probably thousands of other riders doing precisely the same thing across the country. Why? Because we love to ride. Because we work hard in the expectation of a payday. A peak-season payday, hopefully, that happens when you want it to happen; or a day of glory that takes you by surprise.
Anyway, check out Barry.
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