Category Archives: cycling

Haunting Malcolm Elliott

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Kellogg's Tour of Brittain 1988. Winner Malcolm Elliott

Photographs are obvious catalysts for memory. They sometimes deliver more than one expects. Someone I follow on twitter posted some old pictures of the Kellogg’s 1988 Tour of Britain (which spookily include a blurred Jimmy Savile) today. I was there at the final criterium in Westminster,  and my hazy memories are formative in my passion for cycling (this was the first international racing I saw in the flesh). This photo of Malcolm Eliott,  who won that edition, is one I have seen before. However, I never noticed that I was in the crowd in the blurry background until today (unless I am seeing what I want to see)… and indeed Elliott was the first pro I had an on road encounter with (a few years later), in Sheffield, stopped at the lights.

Mills Hills Sportive: at last I enter an event (and finish too)

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Pie and peas with gravyOver the last few years I have been failing to achieve even the modest riding objectives I aspire to. Despite the improved quality and quantity of my ‘training’ I haven’t completed a single organised ride; more accurately I haven’t started any. I entered two audaxes this year, and failed to start either, and this weekend was nearly the same old story of goals thwarted by circumstances or psychological self-sabotage. Instead I managed to enter, start and complete one of the toughest northern sportives (my first), overcoming pain and temptation along the route. Continue reading →

Secret Race vs. Human Race: it’s all about Tyler Hamilton

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I wrote the other day about why we should resist the tendency to focus on individuals in efforts to combat sporting fraud, especially doping. Instead, I argued, we should focus on the institutions and values that facilitate and encourage such behaviour. Paradoxically, it is individual cases and the personalities of individuals that can be pivotal in catalysing such a change in focus. That is why we should applaud the actions of those that lift the veil, rather than scapegoat and vilify. Here, I want to explore some of the personal qualities that emerge in one such whistleblower.

Tyler Hamilton’s recent book with Daniel Coyle (The Secret Race) might easily be portrayed as a book about doping in general, and particularly as a book about the behaviour and personality of Lance Armstrong and his confederates. Whilst this is a reasonable and accurate response, I think it would downplay a more positive and constructive narrative about an individual who seems peculiarly adept at battling physical pain, but much less equipped to deal with the psychological pain of life and competition. It is this peculiar combination that makes the book much more interesting than pure exposé. If we are to understand doping, I would argue, understanding the mindset of those who are prepared to publicly discuss it is an important step to undertake. Continue reading →

Doping scandals: lessons learnt?

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Ben Johnson, BALCO, Festina: sport often learns the wrong lessons from doping scandals. It learnt that coming clean about your doping when caught screws you and leaves others just as dirty to win; that if you have the right drugs and advice you will only get caught if someone gives you up; and that all sporting entities learn from a scandal is that a repetition must be avoided at all costs.
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Bike Wash

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  1. Fill bowl with warm water and washing up liquid
  2. Take outside with large and small sponges, kitchen towel, chain lube, GT85
  3. Wash bike with lots of soapy water and large sponge from top  to bottom including wheels and especially pedals
  4. Use small sponge/brush for tricky bits
  5. Empty dirty water down drain
  6. Fill bowl with clean water from tap
  7. Rinse bike thoroughly
  8. Repeat as necessary
  9. Dry/polish/rub bike and especially chain with kitchen towel (also removes greasy bits nicely with a rub)
  10. Apply cháin lube to chain following instructions on bottle
  11. Spray pedals and gear cable adjusters with GT85, wipe away excess with kitchen towel
  12. (Apply a very little lube to pivot points on derailleurs)

Wiggins the Olympian?

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Early yesterday I made the mistake of visiting the clinic. It turned out that almost everyone there thought Bradley Wiggins was a doper, either due to his team’s association with Geert Leinders (ex-Rabobank team doctor) or his supposedly extra-terrestrial power output during Stage 7. It was fairly depressing reading, which was shunted back into the positive by some more rational discussion on twitter about the leaders’ power outputs: the best estimates (based on Brajkovic who lost a bit of time to Wiggins) suggested to @scienceofsport that the leaders’ performance did not imply blood manipulation. Thus I felt happier, given that I would rather not see yet another Tour de France winner popped for doping. We have had too many of those in recent years (doping is not ancient history, contrary to the impression given by some professional cyclists).

This brief happiness lasted until it became clear that Wiggins seems to think doping is a problem created by fans and media, rather than riders and their teams. We do share a joint responsibility for engaging constructively with doping, but some of the most intelligent discussion of such matters occurs on twitter, on blogs, and even in the clinic (alongside ridiculous speculation). It disappoints me that Wiggins seemed so oblivious of the opportunity he had to respond constructively as the tour leader. Athletes (Olympians especially) have a responsibility to adhere to the underyling values of their sport, and indeed promote the, in order that they set an example. Sport is not just a job for those who agree to be part of an Olympic team:

Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.

IOC (2011)

Those universal fundamental ethical principles underpin anti-doping. Cheating is against the rules of Olympic sport because it goes against the core values of Olympism. The stakes here are high, if we are to believe that sport is anything more than entertainment, spectacle and commerce. Jim Parry would like to suggest that Olympic sport can have such added value, providing a role model for behaviour, particularly for the young:

I believe that providing multicultural education in and for modern democracies is a new and urgent task, and one that must be made to work if we are to secure a workable political heritage for future generations. In the present global political context, this means promoting international understanding and mutual respect; and a commitment to the peaceful resolution of conflict. In the case of Olympism, I think that the formal values underpinning the rule structures of sport, acceptance of which by all participants is a pre-condition of the continuing existence of sporting competition, support at the educational and cultural levels such political efforts. Children who are brought into sporting practices, and who are aware of international competitions such as the Olympic Games and the World Cup, are thereby becoming aware of the possibilities of international co-operation, mutual respect, and mutual valuing.

Parry (2003)

Wiggins is an Olympic athlete, and should act in a way coherent with those values. If he wants us to believe, then he should be prepared to respond to what he sees as unfair criticism by reiterating his acceptance of the rules that govern the sport and acting as if he takes these rules seriously, not by swearing at anonymous critics who could simply be ignored or reacted to with factual rebuttal (the approach taken by Marco Pinotti).

1994

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I used to be in an Experimental Rock Band, and I guess that is how I met @accidentobizaro. She knew our bassist’s girlfriend through her housemate/landlord (that’s a long story in itself).

I knew she cycled.

She knew I played live in a transparent plastic cape (yes, that kind of Experimental).

That is where Chris Boardman comes in: I was taken out by a car driver on the Essex Road cycling back to my flat to watch the Tour de France  coverage, Boardman having won the prologue that year and the Tour being  in Britain for a few days (Sean Yates wore yellow that year too). When I finally spoke to her on the phone that day (from our bassist’s flat, where I was hiding and feeling sorry for myself) I was in a state of ill repair, having left a man-sized dent in a saloon car, and suffered bruising and minor cuts. I wasn’t a very confident guy back then, and I think the accident helped me to loosen up…

I remember that day and people’s kindness and love so well. I never really thanked the couple that looked after me and transported me home in their van with my bike, or the St John’s Ambulance guy who checked me over by the road side.

We are still together in 2012 but part of me is still in 1994, at the beginning of things. I cycled to our first date…

Speed and distance: the Andy Wilkinson paradox

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I did my first turbo session of 2012 today. To be more accurate, it might be my first session of indoor sensory deprivation torture since January 2011: I can’t say I took up cycling to ride indoors. I can’t go out on Tuesdays during the day as my youngest son is at home with me, but the opportunity is there for indoor training whilst he is having a nap. Given that I don’t race, the wisdom of turbo training is a paradoxical one. The received wisdom of long distance preparation is slowly building a base; gradually increasing the duration if rides to match the distances encountered in competition. As with marathon training, there is an upper limit: it is probably not a good idea to prepare for PBP by gradually increasing training distances to 1200 km: a diet of long day training rides and events of up to 600 km is the sort of regimen suggested by Doughty (or Burke and Pavelka). Continue reading →

Cycle journalism and the social media: anonymity or pseudonymity?

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I have enjoyed, and will continue to enjoy Lindsey’s writing, but on social media, I think Benson has it.

Joe Lindsey and Daniel Benson (via nyvelocity) both shared their views today on the relationship between print and online journalism, and between traditional journalism and blogging. I think the latter has the more balanced and constructive analysis. Benson even singles out for praise some examples of interesting non-mainstream internet sources, including @inrng and @cyclismas; Lindsey is pretty down on twitter and blogging, and even implies that we should be suspicious of @inrng purely based on his “anonymity” (@inrng chooses not to publish under his real name in order to separate it from his real work, both might be compromised otherwise: see his about page). I would encourage you to read both posts (and a sample from the excellent inrng.com) and see if you agree with my opinion. However, @inrng is not anonymous, he is pseudonymous, and this is a signal difference.

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