I were right about that saddle though

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=VCUN8eJancQ&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DVCUN8eJancQ

Cycling quote No2

"As long as I breathe, I attack" 

The badger

Bernard Hinault

Nice things to lock your bike to #3 - thanks to @6ss8

Apparently there's a whole load of these in Southport.  Wonder what makes local planners favour the penny farthing as a piece of bike security street furniture?

Rather abstract and quite nice too

There must be a reason.  Are Sheffiled stands offensive in some way I wonder?

Going big to big down Stockport way

Spotted this bike in Decathlon, Stockport while picking up a couple of stocking fillers. I can't say that I'd advise that particular gear selection! New rear mech anyone?

Big to bigger

Cycling, drugs, cheese and @guardian

Really interesting interview with USADA grand fromage Travis Tygart in today's Grauniad.  As well as providing an insight into his world in the midst of the Lance Armstrong investigation, he also questions Sky's zero tolerance approach  to drug use and questions whether it's counter productive.
My initial thought was that Travis must have been at the Creme de Menthe a bit early but actually, his point is a good one.
He's not saying that team X shouldn't do all they can but, the whole of professional cycling needs picking up by its lapels and slapping in the chops with a pair of white cotton gloves. No cycling club is an island.

Le petit fromages

The reason this matters, in my view, is that it's pro cycling which really inspires people to get on a bike and ride - kids in particular. Nobody is inspired by me cursing my way up Windgather or hocking filth onto the A482 in the rain.  But they're inspired by that Brady Wiggin chap and his amusing facial furniture.  They're inspired by the Scottish chap who always wins, you know, the one with the big dad.
If cycling is to continue to prosper in Britain then we need the sport to be cleaner than the entertainment on St Francis Xavier school's summer trip to Lourdes.

New GB bike kit for 2013

Cycling Weekly has some photos of the 2013 teeem geebee cycling kit and very nice it looks too.  I don't suppose there's much else they could do other than go for the Union Jack design.
Any suggestions that they should incorporate a pathetically inadequate bike lane or a large pot hole into the design are just immature.  

White, red and blue

So, with that in mind, how about they incorporate a speeding taxi motif into the 2014 version? I can feel a twitter campaign coming on.
I'm still looking forward to what Rapha are going to do to the Sky kit.  You'd have thought they'd have it out for Christmas really wouldn't you.

Manchester City likes the cut of cycling's jib

So, despite the damage that Lance has done to the sport, the Wiggo effect coupled with the sheer volume of participants, means that cycling has finally been let into the VIP lounge after years of queueing up in the rain and claiming to know the DJ.
This was confirmed today when Man City became the latest organisation to sidle up alongside cycling in a bar, wink, ask it if it came here often and if it wanted a drink.
With its big doe eyes and down to earth demeanour, cycling had no defence against the flashy vigourous charms of Premiership football with its sharp Italian suit and its illegally parked uber car with tinted windows.
For today, well yesterday, football got its mits all over cycling's pristine chamois leather and sucked it into a whirlwind romance laced with celebrity and charity.
The near neighbours of the National Cycling Centre in East Manchester are The City (sitteh) who perform their soccers at the Eastlands Ethiad Enormodome.  It was all built in the early 90s when The Manchester hosted the Commonwealth Games.

City and one of its gerberas

For years they've ignored each other but now, finally, they've been struck by cupid's arrow. Rumour has it that Man City even popped in to The Asdors (Asda) during its dinner and left a bunch of gerberas on cycling's door mat before ringing the bell and running away.
For next March, the two lovers, still gazing wistfully into each others eyes, will entwine themselves in a selfless and very public act of love with the Velocity event. That's Velo (bike) and city (sitteh) combined into the word velocity (measurement of speed) incase you didn't get it.

Cycling was magnetically attracted to soccer

Quite what will happen at the event, I'm not sure.  Some people will definitely ride bikes - for 24 hours it seems.  And there will be some sitteh players there too - obviously they don't fancy the FA Cup anywhere near as much as they fancy the shapely form of British Cycling.
Registration costs £250 per rider and opens tomorrow - Wednesday 19th December.
I'm off to buy a hat.

Manchester's two-wheeled award winners

This is not a post about Wiggo winning the sports personality of the year.  The only thing which needs to be said about that is that, he has one, a personality.
No, much closer to the everyday, two cycling related bodies picked up gongs at the recent North West Together We Can awards.
In the Creating Learning & Enterprise category Pedal MCR won the top award for their Earn a Bike Tool Club while the Friends of the Fallowfield Loop were highly commended  for the Levenshulme Community Orchard in the Better Neighbourhoods category.  You can find out more about the awards here.
Always good to see grass-roots organisations getting recognition. Very well deserved I say.

A different Gong

Radio bike

Hardcore cycling safety enthusiasts can check out this two hour Radio 5 programme hosted by James Cracknell.
And quite how I missed this documentary on Beryl Burton hosted by the wonderful Maxine Peake, I will never know. Maxine regularly renews my belief in the human race and she's from Bolton too!

BERYL BURTON WAS AN ENGLISH RACING CYCLIST AND ONE OF BRITAIN’S GREATEST EVER ATHLETES DURING THE 50S, 60S, 70S AND 80S. SHE DOMINATED WOMEN’S CYCLE RACING IN THE UK, BEST BRITISH ALL ROUNDER FOR 25 SUCCESSIVE YEARS AND TWICE WORLD COMPETITION HOLDER AT 3000 METRES. NOW A DOCUDRAMA HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT HER FOR RADIO FOUR BY THE ACTRESS MAXINE PEAKE, IT IS THE FIRST DRAMA THAT MAXINE HAS WRITTEN AND SHE ALSO PLAYS THE CHARACTER OF BERYL. IT IS CALLED “BERYL: A LOVE STORY ON TWO WHEELS” AND WILL BE ON RADIO FOUR ON TUESDAY, 27TH NOVEMBER AT 2.15PM. MAXINE IS JOINED BY CHARLIE BURTON, BERYL’S HUSBAND, AND THEY TALK ABOUT THE LIFE OF THIS GREAT CYCLIST AND THE NEW DOCUDRAMA.

~

BBC RADIO 4 - WOMAN’S HOUR, MAXINE PEAKE ON BERYL BURTON

Liverpool trousers £2.8m of cycling cash

News that Liverpool City Council has trousered £2.8m for a new city centre bike hire scheme should finally increase the level of riders in the city.
Envious glances may be cast down the east lancs from Manchester which, despite its stated desire to become the home of cycling, still has a long way to go.
Perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised that Manchester is claiming cycling as its own, after all the City claims everything from liberal democracy to the computer to be born in the city - it's never that straight forward as you know.
So, how come Manchester has missed out on this pot of cash? Manchester is usually very good at being first in the queue. Well, here's my guess. Mayors.
While Manchester's electorate voted against having a mayor last May, Liverpool just went ahead and got one. That, I reckon, has pushed Liverpool above Manchester in the Whitehall pecking order. Perhaps.

My new Manchester commuter route

Day one of my new biking commute is over. First impressions: jeez Louise, it's cold! Really though, it's loads better than I thought, traffic not too bad, road surfaces are mostly ok. Very few bike lanes though!

DM campaign targets Manchester cyclists

It does demonstrate how mainstream cycling has become when ambulance chasers start spamming you through your letterbox. This was snapped on its way to the recycling pile.

Cycling quote No1: Kraftwerk. Manchester

"Cycling is like music. It is always forward. It is free; it is outside; it is the weather; it is the planet; it is energy." Ralf Hutter, Kraftwerk

Was this really 3.5 years ago?