October 2010

Photographer Geoff Waugh is a master of the pixel gun, known for both his work with Rouleur magazine and from back in the early days of the mountain bike boom. He's captured them all: Seven Eleven, Fignon, Lance and his latest collection of cycling imagery is ripe for the viewing. Check out Selectism from the evening of 5th November until 30th November at Look Mum No Hands Cafe.

And check these out!
http://www.waughphotos.com/
http://waughphotos.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/TheWarhead
http://www.facebook.com/FreestyleSportsImages

Following a busy few months artist James Straffon has exhibited work with Paul Smith and Condor at the Cycle Show. James is showcasing the entire range of his 'Art of Cycling' collecting. The exhibition runs from the 1st to 7th November at the Frameless Gallery, 20 Clerkenwell Green, London, EC1R 0DP.

www.no-gallery.co.uk

Race specific cyclo-cross bikes rarely have a bottle cage or even bottle cage bosses, the reason being that it's harder to get one's shoulder and arm through the frame to shoulder the bike. But then if you fit a bottle cage just for training taking it on and off becomes an extra task.

Condor designer Ben Spurrier came up with a novel idea based on something we discussed last night whilst cross training with one of the guys from USE lights.

To get to our training session we rode from London to Surrey (45 minutes), had a training session (90 minutes), and rode home (35 minutes). All that time spent riding without water is not a good idea, but carrying bottles in your pocket isn't that comfortable.

"My idea is that you buy the system and it comes with, say, 3 adhesive-backed magnetic strips and you simply stick the strip to your bottle. Maybe you can also buy the strips in packs of 3 separately.

The magnetic block/holder is shaped to support the curves of the bottle and attaches to the downtube via a rubber band so you are not reliant on bottle bosses and before the start, you remove the whole system."

Thoughts...?

For the past few years Condor has been supporting Rollapaluza and their nationwide revival of roller racing.

At Condor we started building custom bike rigs using our knowledge of making steel bicycles. Since then we've gone on to make custom bikes for Rollapaluza to take into schools and educate school kids about cycling and active lifestyles.

As a closing event to the Bicycle Film Festival, London Cycle Cafe Look Mum No Hands hosted a Rollapaluza evening. Riders from the Rapha Condor women's team were out in force, as was Rollapaluza virgin Dan Craven of Rapha Condor Sharp men's team, trying his hand at what Cycling Plus magazine described as a crazy, drug free legal experience.

The RC girls offered Dan some rather poor advice: "erm, just pedal really, really quickly", and with that the countdown began to the longest 500m. Though he churned a respectable sub 25 second time it wasn't enough for him to move to the next round. Later on his Twitter he was full of praise for his first outing on the Roller rig: "Rollapaluza rocks. No matter how much I suck at it."

Our women's team riders, Claire & Rachel, ended up in a head to head 500m dash final, with Rachel finding victory over a second quicker than Claire.

Rollapaluza have started their hunt for National champion. Check out their National Series coming to a town near you soon.

Do you know your derny from your bunny-hop? Your broom wagon from your chaingang? How many cyclists does it take to power a washing machine? Could you name Bradley Wiggins' favourite band?

New book Cyclopedia from noted writer William Fotheringham is a bicycle bible littered with miscellany of facts, figures, interesting snippets and quirky characters from the world of cycling. William Fotheringham joined us at the Cycle Show to sign copies of his book and we took the chance to have a chin wag with one of our favourite writers.

You have written two biographies: Tom Simpson and Fausto Coppi. Cyclopedia is quite a different style of book. Why?
It's very different being a reference work but I fancied the idea of doing something different plus it was a good chance to find out about areas of cycling I'd never really thought about. I had a lot of fun doing it and I think that comes out.

How long did it take to compile?
From about start to finish it was seven or eight months. But a lot of the material was already in my head from 20 years in journalism.

Who do you think Cyclopedia is for?
Pretty much anyone. My 13-year-old son who is new to cycling seemed to like it, but I think there's enough new material to make it a decent read even for cycling aficionados of many years standing.

Where do you think it will be kept, bookshelf, coffee table, bathroom?
It's a book to dip into, the idea is that you can open any page and be drawn in. Not coffee table then but bathroom, for those long visits...

What was your first bike?
A steel Raleigh but that was closely followed by a 40 year old curly Hetchins

What book are you reading right now?
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, decided to reread it after seeing the film Tamara Drewe which has a similar plot.

How did you get into journalism and specifically cycling journalism?
I started out at a mag called Bicycle Action and moved to Cycling, as it was then, in 1989, they sent me on the Tour de France in 1990 and I kept going from there.

You recently rode the Track Masters? Do you prefer it over road racing? What track event do you compete in or favour?
In pure performance terms and spectacle, and as a sport to participate in, I'd go for road, but for anyone who is juggling bike, work and family, track has advantages, mainly that it's easy to learn quickly, you can take the family along to watch as it's spectator friendly, your children can compete at the same time if it's track league, plus you can race all winter indoors, as keeping race fit becomes harder the older you get. The event that gets me going is the points, because it's totally brutal and usually the strongest guy wins.

Favourite entry in Cyclopedia?
Dogs I think, because of the Dog Pistol, and the totally freaky quote from Richard Ballantine. Also poetry because it was something I had never come across before.

Cyclopedia is in store now, the first 10 copies have been signed by William Fotheringham.
William Fotheringham is on twitter you can find him here www.twitter.com/willfoth