February 2011

Tags: Cobbles

Spring can only mean one thing in the race calendar, and it's European bare-knuckle single day racing where anything can happen. Inspired by the grime and glory, we've created three iPhone wallpapers.

To change the background wallpaper on both your lock screen and home screen:

1. Download the image by holding your finger on the wallpaper and tap 'Save Image';
2. Go to your photo library, choose the photo and tap the arrow icon in the bottom right corner of the screen;
3. Tap 'Use As Wallpaper';
4. Drag the photo to position it, pinch to zoom in or out until it looks the way you want;
5. Tap 'Set', then choose whether you want to use the photo as wallpaper for your lock screen, home screen, or both.

Wallpaper 1 - Mud, blood, cobbles

Wallpaper 2 - Three classics

Wallpaper 3 - The stones

Designs by @BenSpurrier

Found in an old copy of Illustrated London News we had piled downstairs in the library of tat, this is an advert for all the novelites one could find on a visit to the 1900 National Cycle Show, in the famous (now burnt down) Crystal Palace Exhibition Centre.

Some innovations of interest include:
Self Inflating Tyre (top left)
Rover backpedalling rim brake (top centre)
Riley antivibrator (right), otherwise known as suspension

This weekend, one of our sales team members, Rhys Howells, went to the east London road race circuit of Hog Hill.

He raced the 3/4ths and won, then got back on his bike and raced for another hour in the 2/3rds and finished up with a silver. For Rhys his day was not over; he went back out onto the tarmac to race the elites and found 9th.

For anyone that knows the circuit, the climb to the the finish line is a serious pain inflicter and nicknamed by local riders as the Hoggenberg.

We guestimate Rhys would have raced up the Hoggenberg roughly 60 times, completing 3 and a half hours of crit racing.

What a brilliant example of gutsy and canny racing by the big man.

"Batman had Robin. The Lone Ranger had Tonto. And Dangermouse had Penfold."

Like the sound of that? Then take a look at Rapha-Condor-Sharp rider Ben Greenwood's new blog post on the Velonation website

Click here for the link

Join us, we're heading over to Look Mum No Hands tomorrow night for the final round of the Rollapaluza winter league. There are Condor gift vouchers up for grabs all you have to do is spin!

Tags: Cobbles

Collectively, we at Condor have ridden the cobbled classics twelve times. We were all first timers to the vicious Paris-Roubaix cobbles once and had to learn about weaving about on the Flandrian climbs.

Not that you'd need a survival guide for the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix, but it helps to be ready for a memorable day in the saddle. A couple of our staff members who have entered Paris-Roubaix decided to begin their preparation for what promises to be an epic day.

Sunday 6th February
There has been little rain in London for a week leaving the bridleways and gravé. Whilst gravé is not as brutal as the pavé it does a pretty good job of slowing you up, shaking ones bones, and sending the teeth chattering.

Armed with our cyclo-cross bikes, spare tubes and a printed OS map with a sort of a pre-planned route, our band of three riders (Damo from Mule Bar, and Claire and Ben from Condor Cycles) headed just south of London towards the North Downs.

The route wasn't well known to the riders, but some of the towns that they have passed through on their road bikes were. The narrow farmland tracks required much map reading after every sector. A few wrong turns were taken but it led the riders to discover hidden and better pathways, and the odd super sharp climb. On the twenty mile route there were ten sectors to be found, three punctures along the way, four hunza nut Mulebars confumed, one out-of-date pinocolada bar (half consumed) and one aching wrist come Monday morning.

Feel free to export the route to your own Garmin and give it a try.
Click on View Details on the map below.
Choose Export and then the file format (TCX or GPX).

The Sectors

Sector 1 - Well Wood -1km
Sector 2 - Nash - 0.5km
Sector 3- James's Wood - 1.4km
Sector 4 - Keston to Biggin Hill - 2.76km
Features a long chalky ascent
Sector 5 - Saltbox Descent - 0.3km
Sector 6 - Mollards Wood - 4.3km
Keep your eyes peeled for a sharp left before the steep climb
Sector 7 - Vanguard Way - 1km
Sector 8 - Holt Wood to Green Park Wood - 1.6km
Flat fast paced sector
Sector 9 - Frith Wood - 1.9km
Fast descent at the end - plenty of fun
Sector 10 - Climb to New Addington - 1.3km
Vicously steep climb in the last 300 meters of the sector

Condor has been lent some beautiful pieces by James Straffon (www.no-gallery.co.uk).

The main body of the work has been installed in the Condor store window with smaller detailed work placed on the middle sales floor by the till points.

For one month only, the artwork is available to purchase in store at a special pre-season price.

Take one energy drinks company, add a hill, two very exciteable MCs, a handful of local Bristolian heros, a handful of pro riders, a crowd three rows deep, custom Charge bikes up for grabs and what do you get...? One electric night at the Red Bull Hill Chasers event.

Condor's designer, Ben Spurrier, found his way into the event when a rider dropped out through sickness. At 10am he got an email from Red Bull asking him to ride.

In round 1 he dispatched super fixed gear rider, SuperTed, who had a mechanical and stripped his sprocket.

Round 2 was a serious fight to the line against Mongoose pro rider. Chris Akrigg (Cobble Wobble hill climb and Red Bull London Minidrome winner).

When Ben re-entered the rider enclosure he looked in bits and was told he was up against National Hill Climb Champ, Dan Fleeman. So convinced that he was going out, Ben didn't even remove his team training top. Looking at the riders in the start gates Fleeman was in the big ring and Ben in the small. We all knew Ben was going out in the quarter final.

The hydraulic gate went down and tubs hit the tarmac and Ben was in front and he was in front all the way to the line.

Round 3 - Dan Fleeman - dispatched.

Ben was quite ruined when he got to the rider enclosure and had one minute to get ready to fight out the semi final. That's as far as Ben got losing out to hill climber, Paul Derrick.

His 5th time up the climb was in the minor final to see if he could earn himself a custom Charge bike in a race through the chicanes for a 3rd place.

By luck or by accident, Spurrier's name had been noted on the rider list as Superior. It gave the two MCs all sorts to play with through the night. Think he's dining out on that name for a little bit.

Red Bull Hill Chasers 2011 - results:
1st. Chris Metcalfe
2nd. Paul Derrick
3rd. Ben Superior

We like this video from The Foot Down and we like the images from RomanSkyva's flickr and portrait pic of Ben with his prize by pro photog Grant Robinson (below).

Red Bull Hill Chasers - Bristol - 29/01/11 from The Foot Down on Vimeo.