In 2012 Beatrix Campbell was in the World Pride Power List of the 100 most influential gay people of the year and is a self-styled “republican with politics rooted in Marxism and feminism”. Although she is not a person without flaws, I was impressed that she had this to say about cycling:
“In the context of the great debates about identity politics – are you gay or straight, nationalist or republican, British or English and so on – I would ask, “Do you ride a bike?”
Of course I do!
The cyclist’s conjecture
n’ = n+1 for n=1..∞
states that n’, the number of bikes that a cyclist needs, is always one more than n, the number (s)he already owns, for any value of n.
That’s my way of saying “I’ve just bought another one”!
My oldest road bike is almost vintage having been bought in 1992. I used it in a group ride about four years ago only for a lycra-clad short-a**e riding a carbon-fibre bike to sneeringly tell me that “You don’t see many of them nowadays” …
… which is why I was rather pleased to win a modern aluminium-framed bike a year later with carbon forks and a Campagnolo gearset. It’s amazing what the purchase of a shrink-wrapped block of Wensleydale cheese can lead to – I’d bought a promotional competition pack to mark the Tour de France’s Grand Départ from Yorkshire.
So why buy another bike? Simples! The road bikes are terrific for tarmac, but not so good over slightly rougher surfaces and my travels with Priscilla (posts passim) lend themselves to both tarred and non-tarred outings. So I need a bike for each (of course I do).
The new one is of the ‘adventure bike’ genre: carbon forks with generous tyre clearance for fatter tyres, disc brakes and reduced gearing on the chainset (ideal for a moderately overweight recreational cyclist aka a MORC), but with road bike geometry and clearance for mudguards it makes for an ideal winter bike too. Win-win!
Postscript: I was given a road bike for my 21st birthday, but remember little of it other than its saddle was nicked when it was securely racked outside a hall of residence in Dundee. Some while later the rest of it was nicked too.
I wondered at the time whether the thief followed the advice that I was given when I asked a girl off my course (who I thought of as a rather reserved and quiet lass): “How can I ride it without its saddle?” Reserved and quiet maybe, but also blunt, coarse and to the point: “Stick it up your a**e and pedal like f**k!” she said. I never saw her in the same light again!
Well, Priscilla and I have now spent a couple of nights together and I have to say things are looking good between us. Our first trip was over to Ullapool to scout out the area as a base to cycle from. Looks good! Free all-day car parking near the ferry terminal should be fine for a few hours out on the bike and the nearby public loos with a shower facility mean that I can avoid the campervan equivalent of a bed bath to clean up afterwards. There’s also loads of convenient off-road laybys for overnighting, so no need for site fees 🙂
After looking over Ullapool we pootered back eastwards to lay-up close to Rosemarkie on the Moray Firth so that I could get to Chanonry Point early the next day to view the Moray Firth dolphins (parking at the Point is next to impossible for late arrivers). I got further east than anticipated and overnighted at the Clootie Well near Avoch in a small forest car park. It was quite spooky due to the cloots hanging from the trees. These are rags left by folk seeking for their ills to be cured; they provide an eery backdrop in the dark.
The car park was quiet other than for the owls hooting through the night and the local dogging fraternity (… only joking, to the best of my knowledge no dogging occurred even though the car park bore a striking resemblance to that of the ‘Camping’ episode in the TV show ‘Not Going Out’ where Lee, the show’s chief protagonist, tried to prove his manliness by joining his mates on a camping weekend in the middle of a dark, spooky forest that turned out to be … you’ve guessed it … a dogging hotspot).
So no ‘canines’, but the dolphins were around the following morning porpoising gently rather than putting on a proper show for us, and the sun, although welcome, was in exactly the wrong place to photograph them. Still, it was a splendid situation and I can recommend the Rosemarkie Beach Café for a late brunch.
The second trip was to overnight at Ballater. Free parking in the village centre provided the base for a 40 mile ride from Deeside across to Donside via Glen Gairn and the Old Military Road. The first 12 miles included some very steep ramps (see ‘Bring back the birch’, May) and due to the excess baggage that I’m still carrying there were a couple that I had to push up rather than pedal. After that the worst was over and there were some terrific downhill runs before stopping for coffee in Bellabeg; itself winding down quietly after the weekend’s highland games at the Lonach Gathering. The return leg to Ballater via the Muir of Dinnet Nature Reserve was altogether easier even though the hills at the start of the day had rather knackered me. Still, it wasn’t work and the sun was shining so I didn’t mind. I strongly suspect that this may become a favourite cycling route
Another lay-by, another night. A bit noisy with passing traffic this time, but up with the lark for a bacon butty breakfast in Ballater and a supposedly gentle ride along the 10 miles of tarmac to Loch Muick. Well, under normal circumstances it would have been gentle, even if it is mostly an uphill drag along the glen; however, yesterday’s hills had been more tiring than I thought so it was a bit tougher than it should otherwise have been, but coming back? Glorious! Downhill all the way (in a good way, unlike post-middle-age life generally)!
So, that’s a couple of trips out with Priscilla and two great successes, both helped by the arrival of a little bit of fine weather. We really do live in a beautiful part of the world (it helps when the sun is shining) and to be out and about breathing in the freshest of air and looking at the most splendid of views is truly invigorating – especially when everyone else is at work!
When I first told ‘Management’ that I had joined my work’s Yammer group on Women in Science and Engineering, her pithy comment was: “Does that mean you’ll now do your share of the ironing?” (thus putting the ‘ouch’ into touché!). Unfazed by such comments, I then Yammered to my colleagues about the way that bicycling had contributed to the emancipation of women. Susan B Anthony’s well-known quote from 1896 was my starting point …
“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood“.
… and this was followed by reference to a couple of articles on the MentalFloss and Grauniad websites (and there is a host of other web references that could be equally well cited).
Subsequently, and entirely by coincidence, the week after I Yammered about it an episode was screened of the TV series ‘In the Factory’ that was devoted to the manufacture of Brompton foldable bikes. In one of the show’s segments the historian Ruth Goodman presented how the bicycle had supported the emancipation of women. It was not as complete a treatment as the references above, but it did explain why specifically bicycling and not tricycling promoted the cause (apparently it was largely to do with the apparel required to ride the corresponding cycles)
“Anyway“, I hear you ask, “where is the quote that made you laugh?“. Well, I was quite tickled by the penultimate paragraph of the MentalFloss article that mentions Jacquie Phelan, a feminist mountain biker who founded WOMBATS, the Women’s Mountain Bike and Tea Society. And it is one of her quotes on the WOMBATS website that made me laugh. It chimes greatly with me and, I suspect, with Firstborn too:
“I never grew up, because grown-up has “groan” in it“.
A cyclist’s re-working of the old “it’s easier to say sorry than to ask permission” gag:
“When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me“. (Emo Philips).
… and no apologies for raiding my old Facebook postings to re-post this cartoon (one that, having failed to see its underlying message, my sister showed to a class of children. Bless!).
My microcamper is ready to collect! It is a Hillside ‘Dalbury’ conversion based on a Nissan NV200 (see posts passim) and I’m soon off to Derby to take ownership. Insurance is sorted (at not too bad a price) and I’ve already bought my first add-on, a sticker for the back …
It’s completion was three months later than anticipated due mostly to Nissan’s extended lead time for delivery to Hillside, and that means half the summer has passed without it, but I’m already looking forward to its first outing to the west coast at the end of July; a short photography trip with a few friends from the RGU B&W film photography course (staying in a bunk house though, not the van). We’re off to Applecross so it also gives me a chance to recce the Bealach na Bà; the bike’s going too but I’m not intending to attempt to cycle over the pass on this trip!
Meantime, those friendly folk at the Daily Mash have a few words to say about campervans (a few pompous mobile home owners on one of the ‘anorak’ forums took these articles literally, not realising that the Mashters are satirists – sad really).
Postscript: Based in Derby, Hillside names its various camper conversions after towns within the county of Derbyshire, hence the ‘Dalbury’. Forme, a Derbyshire manufacturer of bicycles does the same with its products which is why the Forme road bike that I won a couple of years ago is called the ‘Longcliffe’. Good job neither were named after Fanny Avenue, (Killamarsh), Spanker Lane, (Nether Heage) or Butt’s View (Bakewell) all in Derbyshire, and I hope neither would live up to the name Knockerdown (Ashbourne) either.
A hard bike ride yesterday saw me bail out and return defeated. I’d done about 10 miles of short, sharp hills; the sort where the road just shoots straight upwards without any pretence of contouring and you get no respite as the downhill bits pass by in a flash.
I retreated at that point because, without actually knowing the route, I thought I might get halfway around and then hit the wall, so the better part of valour was discretion and I turned back. I recce’d the full route as I drove home and realised that I’d actually done the hardest part and could probably have managed the remaining 30+ miles, so I’ll be back. Memo to self: recce routes in advance!
Despite failing with the ride it was a joy to pedal through the birch woodlands along the River Gairn – it was only when the woodland gave way to moorland that the climbs took their toll (I really do need to lose a few kilos).
A profusion of lichens explained why the silver bark of the birches looked anything but lustrous even in the sun. In truth their trunks were more like O’Rafferty’s Motor Car (in a good way – forty shades of green) and testament to the air quality of the Cairngorm National Park. It’s consoling to know that you’re breathing clean air when you’re gasping up a hill wishing you had lower gears.
And guess what? The trees don’t just provide a beguiling view. It seems they can give post-ride comfort for your average knackered cyclist in the form of Molton Brown’s Bracing Silver Birch Thermal Muscle Soak! Pricey (£19 from John Lewis for 300g!) but described as:
“A beautiful fragrance that leaves the body feeling clean and refreshed. A dedicated muscle therapy which will instantly enliven and uplift. The fresh, woody aroma of silverbirch, cedarwood, cumin and bergamot will lift the spirits and sooth the muscles”.
Sounds like bollocks to me but it gets five-star reviews all round on the John Lewis website with the following endorsement for bike riders:
“Bought as a gift for a keen cyclist. He found it very relaxing and it has a great fragrance”.
So, setting aside my usual disdain for (i) advertising copywriters, and (ii) male grooming products, consider it added to my Christmas prezzie suggestion list.
.… all of which serves as an excuse to post a pic that I took in the nearby Cambus o’ May birch woodland last autumn. It has a rather ethereal quality I think (and the sharp-eyed may recognise it as the photo from which this blog’s header image was derived).
Sammy Cahn’s lyrics to a well-known Sinatra song let us know that love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage. Well. that’s as may be, but what really goes well together is a ride out on a road bike and decent cafe stop for coffee and cake. Unfortunately, for the modestly overweight recreational cyclist they sometime go together too well, especially if one is planning to lose a few kilos in preparation for an assault on the Bealach na Bà (Pass of the Cattle) in Wester Ross. I’m hoping to ride it later in the summer, but avoiding either of the sportives that include it in their routes.
The statistics are impressive for a hill climb in the UK, a 626 metre ascent over 9.1 kilometres with an average gradient of 7% and a maximum of 20% (did I say lose “a few” kilos; make that many!). The route is about 45 miles in all, so maybe it is best to ‘do’ the hill early on. I’m hoping to get some hill-climbing miles in my legs by training on our own local climb on the Cairn o’ Mount road near Banchory. The Cairn route from the Banchory side is slightly longer than the Bealach na Bà, and some think that it is just as testing, so I will see how it goes and whether I need to invest in a more forgiving set of gear ratios!
The problem with training over the Cairn o’ Mount (apart from the obvious one of it comprising a long, steep hill) is that the downhill return leads you into Banchory and its coffee shops; less than helpful to a chap’s weight loss regimen. One in particular caters well for the cyclist: Tease even has its own Strava group to keep tabs on its members’ biking efforts. I’m not a member or a Strava-naut and although the coffee and cakes are a tad expensive they are rather fine.
I have yet to visit Tease this year, but have something of a confession to make. On a recent visit to the family’s matriarch in Kendal I was determined (and I mean absolutely determined) not to visit nearby Grasmere. I really don’t like the Lake District honey-pot towns of which Grasmere is one, but two things keeps drawing me back (by car, not bike). The first is the ludicrously-named Faeryland tea shack by the waterside, set in an implausibly-beautiful location and, at its best, capable of producing one of the finest cups of tea in old Albion; the second is the opportunity to stock up on gingerbread at Sarah Nelson’s Grasmere Gingerbread shop.
Well, my determination to give it a miss failed and the lure of tea and gingerbread won. On this occasion the tea wasn’t so good, but despite the best of intentions to lose a few kilos I took consolation in a couple of packs of gingerbread and, do you know what, it’s gone already; shared of course with friends and colleagues (well, some of it was)!
In a diatribe seemingly aimed at a former technical director at British Cycling, Marina Hyde writing in the Guardian appears to conflate the concept of the aggregate effects of marginal gains (in sporting performance) with the bullying and harassment of a number of female and disabled cyclists. I think she is wrong to do so because a bully is a bully and that is quite distinct from the marginal gains philosophy. One is not prerequisite to the other.
Despite her apparent confusion on the issue she does come up with a cracking quote (perhaps her ‘confusion’ was a deliberate ploy to enable her to frame the quote nicely):
“The real sadness, in the meantime, is that we have yet to see a long think-piece in which someone quantifies the ‘marginal gains’ of working for an obvious a**ehole”.
Experience from a period early in my career when I was managed by a complete sphincter tells me, in fact, there are no such gains in those circumstances.
Now the weather has turned in our favour it’s time to get serious on the bike and hit the first ‘half-way’ ice cream of the year (the pic was taken at Banchory looking downstream on the River Dee).
