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the simple pleasures

in two weeks' time, give or take, the final three week tour of the season will commence, bizarrely enough, in northern italy, a starting point that makes you wonder why they don't just join all three grand tours together in july, in relay fashion, provide nine weeks of solid entertainment and have it over and done with by the first week in september. if that actually happens, remember where you read it first. however, until that transpires, the 2025 grand tour season will end in madrid on 14 september, leaving the world championships, paris tours and lombardy to go before we can concentrate on the real sport of cyclocross. but far from being presented as a fait accompli, punditry will be rife, querying just how many events will be favoured by the big three, and whether their choice of parcours will coincide prior to the 'cross worlds in february.

despite having regularly criticised the subscription cost of watching on tnt sports, while i have managed to cope with only a smattering of highlights thus far in the season, i feel i will be undoubtedly compelled to pony up come late septermer, because well do i know i'll be unable to to survive a winter without weekly cyclocross racing. in effect, warner brothers/discovery have called my bluff; a cyclocross fan's got to do what a cyclcross fan's got to do.

but despite a complete lack of any notable 'cross skills, such as clean, efficient dismounts and devil-may-care leaping aboard from the undergrowth, i have ridden my 'cross bike pretty much every available saturday throughout the year, taking the option to leave the tarmac of uiskentuie strand half-way to debbie's, and pound the unevenness of the machair and the dunes in a verisimilitude of a very short cyclocross adventure. you will note that i have admitted to doing so only half-way along the strand, despite machair and dunes forming an orderly queue from uiskentuie farmhouse, all the way south west to foreland road end. but despite my professed prowess on the fluorescence of my specialized crux, i am inclined to omit the first section on the grounds that it's actually quite hard to navigate.

yes, i am a complete wimp.

matters were, however, not always this difficult. for many a long year, those resident in the aforementioned farmhouse were in the habit of grazing sheep on the strand, a practice that seems to have ended for reasons i know not, a couple of years past. aside from the fact that the flock were inclined to keep the grass and machair at an amenable height and density for the hapless cyclocrosser, they were also in the habit of gradually migrating south and north, as the fancy took them. and being sheep, their regular trajectories brought them to ply the same trade routes, week in and week out. thus was born a series of narrow pathways on which the intrepid cyclocrosser could ply his or her bike handling skills by trying to follow these routes, only marginally wider than the uci regulation tyre width.

however, as i returned home yesterday afternoon, i took a fancy to ride the portion of the strand i have been in the habit of omitting for the reason outlined above (no sheep). i am assuming that the sheep were summarily removed from the strand by islay estates, given their predilection for wandering across the main bridgend/bruichladdich road at all times of the day and night, creating a mobile hazard for locals and visitors alike, though the latter were often unaware of the situation. as i ploughed my way onto the thick, flattened grass (the result of last week's storm floris), i rapidly discovered that, despite a valiant attempt to emulate wout van aert, the fact that the erstwhile sheep tracks were now seriously overgrown and, to all intent and purpose, non-existent, made the going tough, to verging on standstill.

with visions of belgian enhanced power disappearing fast, eyeing the prospect of continuing all the way to the farmhouse as a null set, i opted to bail out and rejoin the tarmac, despite an encouraging, galeforce tailwind. of course, i have not totally admitted defeat, for next time i will be better prepared with woutvanaert-ness, enabling a bottom to top approach and a character-building success. what i'm not prepared to do, however, is set a specific time for this to happen. nonetheless, and my admission of bailing out notwithstanding, i can think of no better way to appraoch the forthcoming cyclocross season, during which i once again, hope to learn how to properly remount with aplomb.

the simple pleasures of the completely deluded.

monday 11 august 2025

what is wrong with these people?

in a previous, pre-hebridean life, i was in charge of a food store dedicated to producing those plastic meals that you're inevitably served on an aeroplane. as reputedly part of senior management (many will see the irony), i was a keyholder, meaning that, should the alarm sound at any time of the night, i was first call to meet the police outside the premises, despite living almost ten kilometres from the building. what always concerned me, when called out because the wind had rattled the service door and set off the alarm, was the fact that the two officers in attendance were always keen that i enter the premises ahead of them. and this despite the fact that they were the fellows with the torch.

every occasion on which this happened, turned out to be a false alarm, but my concern was based on the possibility that, were it indeed a legitimate case of breaking and entering, i would have been the fall guy, walking into darkness without knowledge of what might be hiding around the corner.

surprisingly to most people, i passed my driving test when still seventeen, only a matter of weeks prior to heading off to college. i can still recall my driving instructor, who owned a yellow ford escort (how can i remember such detail from over fifty years ago, yet struggle to think what i had for lunch on tuesday?), advising that "if in doubt, don't." this advice was dispensed when sat at a road junction, trying to decide whether there was enough space between me and oncoming vehicles in both directions, to turn onto the main road. it's advice that i'm sure was provided by driving instructors all across the land; hopefully still the case today. if that latter hope remains true, then sad to say, it appears many are ignoring its validity.

from the croft to debbie's is a mere 14 kilometres, a journey frequently ridden at weekends, but certainly every alternate friday to deliver retail copies of islay's local newspaper. it's a return trip that i can satisfactorily excuse as work despite it offering an afternoon out of the office, a bike ride and, inevitably, a soya latte. at least three kilometres of that route are along uiskentuie strand; not dead straight, but a wide open, two lane highway with excellent visibility all round. bordered by grassy sand dunes, assuming (as was the case yesterday) i am aboard my cyclocross bike, i can take myself out of harm's way and ride on the grass. but the three kilometres prior to that are of the twisting variety, featuring several blind corners, which i usually approach in the centre of the road, demonstrating to following vehicles, that it is unsafe for them to pass, because neither of us can literally see what's round the corner.

in the majority of cases, when it's not at the height of visitor season, placing myself thus has the desired effect, but it appears that friday may have been national stupidity day, as in that short space of three kilometres, i was overtaken on blind corners and a blind summit, by drivers who could not possibly have seen any oncoming traffic. one of those occasions did lead to an oncoming car having to brake to avoid a possible collision, while the others escaped scot-free entirely by luck rather than design. however, my contention that uiskentuie strand may be relatively safe due to unhindered vision was proved well wide of the mark, and showed that you simply cannot perceive the level of stupidity to which some motorists will stoop.

having exited the grassy section onto the main bridgend/bruichladdich road, prior to the hill at black rock, three vehicles approached in the opposite direction, having just descended said hill. as i pedalled towards them, a white bmw pulled out from behind the other two, and proceeded on 'my' side of the road, to overtake. i braked hard and kept well over to the left, but as the bmw passed at speed, i raised my arms in the international wtaf? signal, but the driver simply stared straight ahead as if i wasn't there. the bit that worries me is that the driver seemed to think i was expendable, potentially and simply unfortunate collateral damage to his desire to get past two slower, yet not slow, other vehicles.

as if that were scarcely enough to occupy my personal alarm systems, i was twice more, overtaken by cars on blind corners between blackrock and bridgend, a stretch of only five kilometres. thankfully, at no point was any oncoming traffic close enough to promulgate a coming together of them, the overtakers, or yours truly, but that was entirely due to good fortune, and certainly not to good driving.

the above mentioned incidents will, sadly enough, be daily, if not hourly occurrences for many of those reading, but my point is not that islay's cyclists are in any way suffering as many travesties as those within urban or inner city locations; my point is that situations such as these have made their way to the rural/island idyll and are becoming more and more omnipresent.

at one time, it was possible to purchase car window or bumper stickers proclaiming 'islay: and it's goodbye to care', while the local bookshop sells posters and fridge magnets that state 'islay is not a destination, it's a state of mind'. almost every one of the incidents described above, involved visiting, not local drivers. the whole point of visiting the hebrides (inner and outer) is by way of a search for a more relaxed way of life; no need to rush; islay time - and it's goodbye to care. the fact that so many still drive like motorway idiots is somewhat disheartening, because i fail to understand why? where are they going that requires driving at such speeds, ignoring normal sensibilities? because if this level of idiocy has reached the outer edge(s), what hope is there for the rest of you?

saturday 9 august 2025

this is the problem we are looking for

according to one of britain's national cycling organisations, cycling uk - formerly the cyclists' touring club, in 2023 12% of adults (around 6.8 million) reported cycling at least once a week, a less than impressive number, if i'm perfectly honest. if you care to dispute that contention, i might point out that this was a decrease of 2% from the previous year. if you want to fudge those figures to more optimistic ideals, the national travel survey shows that 20% reputedly cycle more than twice per month, but to create that extra 8%, they included those of five years and over. i may be speaking out of turn here, but i tend to think that those aged between five and possibly fourteen or fifteen are a)more likely to ride their bicycles for leisure purposes, and b) most importantly, because access to any other form of personal transport is severely restricted. for the purposes of gauging the number using bicycles for purely transportation purposes, i really think we have to begin at age 17, when either you can't afford a car, or choose the bicycle for more practical reasons.

the same set of statistics demonstrate that males are more likely to ride bicycles than females, which could be for any number of legitimate reasons, but anecdotally it's because women tend to feel more vulnerable when alone on a bicycle than do their male counterparts. this is where those numbers edge noticeably into acknowledging a lack of suitable cycling infrastructure across the nation. it may be possible that the safety perception amongst women could alter dramatically were more to actually cycle regularly, but that would surely take a sizeable number to act as the vanguard; given today's seemingly male dominated world, that's probably not going to happen anytime soon. which brings us right back to the fact that, while governments pay lip service to the desire to have more of the population walking and cycling, in truth, they have made very little attempt to bring that about.

averaging £154 million per year, the uk government has promised to invest £616 million in active travel between 2026 and 2030. compare that, however, with the annual roads spend in 2024 (the last year for which figures are available) which totalled £12.2 billion. i am not naive enough to deny that the nation's road infrastructure requires considerable maintenance, at least in part, justifying such a huge discrepancy between numbers, but were more to travel by bicycle and fewer by motorised transport, that figure would surely be on a decreasing trajectory. yet the figure quoted is in addition to the £8.3 billion allocated for road maintenance, presumably meaning that the £12.2 billion is aimed more at increasing or improving driving conditions for the already well catered to motorist.

the average annual distance driven by each uk motorist is reckoned to be around 7,500 miles, just over double the distance i could once count on travelling by bicycle each year (and bear in mind i live on an island roughly 20 miles x 21 miles). yet statistics also show that 72% of all car journeys are of less than five miles. i appreciate that my average 3,000 miles of cycling each year, tends to take place on the island's portion of the national road network, but i'm pretty sure that my mileage, and that of my few cycling colleagues, is unlikely to have resulted in any measureable wear and tear on the tarmac. granted, i am being more than just a smidgeon isolationist in my contentions; even on islay, there are likely to be many journeys where walking or cycling as opposed to driving, make no real sense unless you're a particular die-hard such as yours truly. but that still leaves a great deal of room to manouevre.

so, while britain is no different than many others, there are those who have bucked the car-centric model, providing a more rational and environmentally sound set of transport options. countries such as denmark for instance.

with an official goal of achieving 50% of all work and education-related journeys by bicycle, denmark is unequivocally one of the world's best cycling cities. and unlike the often feeble attempts and faux strategies espoused by our own governments, denmark continues to expand its national cycling infrastructure. first developed in 2013, the country's cycling-friendly infrastructure manual helps to ensure that expansion takes place in "...a consistent, safe and secure manner." and perhaps in a effort to demonstrate how this might be achieved elsewhere, specifically on this side of the channel, the 2024 edition of the manual has been published in an english language version.

freely available, the manual is updated every two years, setting a high standard for both the design of roads, intersections and maintenance of cycle and road projects. as the opening chapter states, "Cycle paths form the backbone of Copenhagen's cycle infrastructure and have, for more than 100 years, been crucial in developing today's cycling city". were an alternate reality suddenly to be thrust upon an apparently uncaring set of uk governments and administrations, that sentence alone ought to prove that change is unlikely to happen overnight; but it's going to take commensurately longer the more the challenge is ignored. depending on which administration happens to govern your portion of the country, largely controls in which year it has been indicated net zero will take place. in my humble opinion, none are seeming remotely achievable, particularly when those dates seem prone to being altered at will.

islay currently has eleven working distilleries, with a further two likely to come on stream within the next year. all require massive amounts of energy to produce their particular version of the amber nectar. under the auspices of the scottish government-led carbon neutral islands strategy, the island is due to achieve carbon-neutral status by 2040. but other than the installation of a few token solar panels, nothing seems to have been accomplished so far. though scottish power renewables plans a sizeable offshore windfarm between islay and colonsay, a development from which i have been assured it is technically possible to direct some of that emission-free, renewable energy to the island, it transpires that the local power network is singularly incapable of supporting any notable increase in power supply. in fact, at least one of the distilleries and a brewery soon to be completed have been told they are unlikely to receive a network power supply intil the 2030s. until that time, they will require to use diesel-powered generators already on-site.

unfortunately, this would seem to prove that, despite an exemplary plan for a successful cycling infrastructure being freely available, i doubt there's a cyclist in the land who would bet it will happen (or even commence) in their lifetime. however, to help circumvent that despondent future, i have posted the link below from where a copy of denmark's cycling-friendly infrastructure manual can be downloaded. i'd recommend that you do so, and send it to your local mp or msp.

denmark's cycling friendly infrastructure manual

friday 8 august 2025

do we want this?

i have made mention in previous occasions of the uci's oft cited cunning plan to make world tour cycling into the verisimilitude of formula one motor racing, though presumably without the colossal expense. from one point of view this is a most laudable aim, as long as their debatable altruism is concentrated on benefitting the riders and/or cycle teams and cycle manufacturers, rather than the coffers at aigle. i daresay the only means of verifying that to be the case would be the uci actually achieving their aim, then checking where the money goes.

as i believe i printed a few weeks ago, former world champion, max verstappen's recently signed contract provides him with an annual base salary of £49 million. to place that in a useful perspective, the average salary in the uk is around £37,000. you and i would probably have to employ several staff to spend max's salary on our behalf, lest we run out of time. by comparison, this year's tour de france winner, tadej pogacar earns a reputed £7.8 million, approximately one sixth the amount received by verstappen. we could argue the toss for hours as to precisely which of them expends the greater effort in earning their respective salaries, but ultimately, it's like comparing strawberries with bricks. verstappen might well be fit enough to ride a bicycle competitively, but i'd be very surprised if he could finish in the top 50 at any world tour event.

whether tadej fancies driving at over 200mph is somewhat of a moot point.

for the average uk worker, both the above described salaries verge on the obscene, particularly that of verstappen. the average formula one grand prix lasts between 90 minutes and two hours, an amount of time only marginally in excess of watching women's and men's cyclocross events back to back, but considerably shorter than the average time occupied by a tour stage or spring classic. and whichever genre of cycle racing floats your boat, the riders are responsible for pedalling from start to finish. racing drivers have very powerful engines to carry out the bulk of the work. the decision is yours.

however, though i am on record as disparaging the effectiveness of sports punditry, no matter the sport under discussion, this week i came across online formula one discussions that put anything that velon or tnt sports could manage, firmly in the shade. and, to make matters worse, it appears on the bbc website, a national broadcaster that does not own the rights even to show highlights from the formula one season. i have no idea if that to which i refer is a regular dialogue, appearing after each grand prix, or whether i happen to have stmbled upon a one-off. i tend to think the former.

on the sports section of the bbc's website, of the eleven headings on offer, none of them mention cycling, but selecting formula one (one of the designated headings) my eye was immediately drawn to a colourful heading above the question "Will McLaren be worried about Norris-Piastri relationship?". on reading further, i gather that norris and piastri are both drivers for the mclaren team and after sunday's bulgarian grand-prix only nine points separate one from the other. it appears that motor-racing fans are slightly concerned that their habit of racing each other might be of concern to the team principal, though a cursory read through the answer would tend to suggest not.

but it's not just the competitiveness of orange-clad drivers that is of concern. the following series of questions, posed to bbc sport's formula one correspondent, andrew benson (remember; the bbc does not hold the rights to any formula one broadcasting) consists of how does george russell feel about the one-tme possibility that mercedes would have dropped him in favour of verstappen?, why has aston martin's car seemingly improved? and do post race investigations harm formula one's credibility?

is this something for which cycling aficionados are pining? are we feeling hard done by because the country's national broadcaster ignores our sport, even when a 22 year-old scot takes fourth place in the tour? or do we simply realise that formula one is, as has often been said, simply a pointless circus of overpaid yuppies who would struggle to earn a living by any other means? (i can't believe i just said that out loud).

i'd settle for simply watching each race to learn of the victor as he or she crosses the line (or would do, if tnt sports hadn't placed it out of economic reach). i have no need of a correspondent ready and waiting to answer inane and largely unimportant questions on matters i feel quite able to answer by myself, should i be even interested in the first place. but i am a tad concerned that my licence fee is subsidising pointless interlocution on a sport that already earns more than the bbc.

perhaps we should be forever thankful that the uci has so far failed to equate the world tour with the grand prix circuit.

thursday 7 august 2025

two tribes

this year's ride of the falling rain was somewhat sparsely populated; a statement of fact rather than a complaint of any sort. recent circumstances meant that i was unable to provide matters with my full attention, coupled with the fact that a combination of the cost of islay accommodation and the general difficulties experienced by folks attempting to book on the ferry were hardly encouraging. it may also be that sportive rides in britain are not quite the fun-filled weekend they once were. however, that last part is pure conjecture, because i have no experience whatsoever of higher profile events elsewhere. nonetheless, from the little information i have, those participating appear to have enjoyed their weekend, and i promise i'll put a bit more effort in for next year (2 august 2026).

as you will be bored to tears of hearing, the ride of the falling rain was named by a participant in the early 2000s, when it rained from 10am in the morning until 4pm in the afternoon. inspired by the world tour event, the tour of lombardy, regularly referred to as the ride of the falling leaves, due to it taking place towards the end of october, the name has stuck throughout the subsequent years. it is, in effect, a marketing dream; if, as this year, there is scarcely a drop of precipitation to be witnessed, it's a bonus; if it rains all day, well, we did tell you. however, those early years were just a smidgeon different.

the ideal was one of sticking together and having a conversation, whether about the bike ride in progress, or matters unrelated to the velocipedinal realm. however, after a couple of years, two really nice fellows flew up from london, blitzed the course, in time to leave by the afternoon flight. unfortunately, a number of local and visiting riders attempted to go with them, and the entire peloton was blown to pieces by the time portnahaven was reached. that appeared to set something of a precedent, and subsequent years appeared mostly to follow that pattern. that is, until, i received an e-mail from a former participant enquiring whether it might be possible to instil a conversational ride, at a lesser distance and lower pace. always willing to help, that was duly undertaken. after all, where's the point of inviting folks to the centre of the known universe, then riding off and leaving them behind?

i was reminded of all this on reading of the release of a funded guide entitled 'why aren't you mountain biking?', reputedly brought to life in an attempt to 'dismantle barriers within the mountain biking community'. the more pedantic amongst you will surely realise, as did i, that those who are not currently mountain biking can hardly be regarded as being a part of the mountain biking community and therefore not restricted by the barriers within. surely the ideal would be to ask the question of those external to such matters? however, pedantry aside, it strikes me that the more encompassing why aren't you cycling? would have been the right question to ask, promoted by either cycling uk, or british cycling (or both), while each subset of britain's velocipedinal community could be left to deal with the lengthy queues intent on answering that question. thus, this singular strategy could potentially bring more into the larger peloton, irrespective of any particular preferences for a specific genre of bicycle. that way, we could save being inundated with why aren't you gravel biking?, why aren't you road cycling, why aren't you time-trialling and, possibly the largest group of all, why aren't you cycle commuting?

yes, i would agree; i may have laboured the point to a greater extent than absolutely necessary, but i feel it is prudent for the cycling community to share its differences rather than point them out. for many a civilian, cycling, is cycling, is cycling. they may well have bought whatever the shop sales staff advised, or even dragged an elderly verisimilitude of a bicycle, kicking and screaming from the bikeshed, but should we not allow them to figure the rest of it in the same manner as did you and i? that way, perhaps more folks might turn up for the falling rain next year.

tuesday 5 august 2025