I just read a wonderful blog entry from Cycling Inquisition on the appropriation of nationality and the hyper-real manner in which fans of cycling willingly give up their grip on reality in favour of the fantastic (or not-real). I was foolishly inspired to write something on how we have lost the ability to distinguish the real from not-real in judgments of sporting performance.
I am off the bike at the moment due to post-viral syndrome: hence, by car, a visit to the 10th Annual Classic Bike Display, in Shelf, West Yorks today. The show was put on by the Bygone Bykes Club, and included a short ride (not for me, sadly) on period bikes, around the British League of Racing Cyclists’ ‘Beacon Grand Prix’ circuit.
The centrepiece was a lovely Percy Stallard mass start road bike:
I posted yesterday about what I had learnt so far from the Barry Bonds trial and here are my first thoughts on the outcome.
The jurors managed to find Bonds guilty of obstruction of justice, but not on three counts of perjury. In the light of my first point yesterday this is an odd outcome and has led the prosecution to call for a mistrial on the three perjury counts. Interestingly, the jury seemed convinced that Bonds was doping and obstructing justice, but not that he lied about it his doping; they were not all convinced by the witnesses’ plausibility, hence the slightly strange outcome.
Many seem to think that the efforts of sports’ allegedly corrupt governing bodies to combat doping will be eclipsed (or aided) by the work of police and government investigations. However, the track record for fighting doping and sporting fraud in the courts is mixed: just look at Operation Puerto, where so far the efforts of the Spanish police seem to have come to naught in legal terms (although recent news suggests Puerto may yet come to trial).
My introduction to fixed gear riding came in the late 80s in a London where cycling had become my passion. I lived in a flat in Whitechapel, with two fellow cycle commuters; my then girlfriend had a father who ran a bike shop in Yorkshire. I was fairly naive about many aspects of cycling, but the simplicity and elegance of fixed gear bikes appealed to me. My Condor was ripe for conversion, and on a grey Saturday the drive parts and handbuilt wheels (araya semi-aero rims on maillard and pelissier, double fixed) arrived from the North along with my girlfriend (and a substantial invoice); girlfriend then departed to her flat, to unpack her stuff.
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