TEAM GREEN BRITAIN BIKE WEEK IS HERE!

Team Green Britain Bike Week is finally here! We hope you are excited about attending the forthcoming events. We have provided a few last minute reminders to help you make the most out of your Team Green Britain Bike Week experience: Check the status of the event online at www.bikeweek.org.uk  Register your interest in your event and you be in with the chance of winning one of our fantastic competition prizes! Invite your friends and family to take part with you and encourage them to register online too! Send your event photos to hq@bikeweek.org.uk to be in with the chance of winning a Team Green Britain Bike Week t-shirt

BIKE SHOP VOUCHER
Cycle retailers across the country have teamed up with Team Green Britain Bike Week to offer participants a promotional voucher which will be available to download after the event week. The vouchers will allow you up to 10% discount when presented in one of the Team Green Britain Bike Week Retail Partner shops. To qualify for the voucher, please register your interest to an event today. Check the website regularly to see which shops have enrolled in your area.

ARE YOU A TEAM GREEN BRITAIN HERO?
Now in its second year Team Green Britain, founded by EDF Energy, are looking for heroes on and off their bikes. We're looking for 12 people who'll get green goodies and tickets to London 2012 events courtesy of EDF Energy. One person will also win £10,000 to put towards a sustainable community project. Become a Hero at http://www.teamgreenbritain.org/what-you-can-do

BIKE HUB
Bike Hub is a joint initiative of the Bicycle Association and the Association of Cycle Traders. The objective of Bike Hub is to generate funds from within the cycling industry to support the future of cycling in the UK. This year, Bike Hub is once again supporting Team Green Britain Bike Week, and in 2011 the cycling industry has increased its support of the event.
Find out more at www.bikehub.co.uk

Good luck and thanks for your support!

One gear is enough...

Finally got my Muddyfox Single Speed Special out on the dirt this week. Built around a Muddyfox frame from the late 1990s, the accessories are all spare parts that have been in my Mam's garage for years, plus a few vital componenets sourced from e-bay and freecycle. It was great to actually get the wheels turning at last and it's so light and easy to pedal. I might need to tweak the gearing though... there's a lot of hills round here! but so far so good...

 

Gatorade - Victoria Pendleton Ad - Featuring Ali C

Just picked this ace vid up from the excellent Hipster Nascar blog. For anyone into cycling, this site is well worth a look. It also uses the same "Go Fast, Turn Left" byline as that other favourite blog of mine and many others, Sideburn.

Is Everybody Out To Get Julian Dean?

It's just not Julian Dean's Tour is it? Not only was he on the end of a headbutt from Cav's minder Mark Renshaw, he's also been rugby tackled by a policeman! This comes after he was famously shot during last years Tour! If I was Julian Dean, I'd stay clear of France next year.

You just couldn't make stories like this up. New Zealand sprinter Julian Dean was crash-tackled by a French policeman while warming up for Tuesday's 16th stage of the Tour de France. The policeman apparently thought that Dean was an errant spectator and brought him to the ground with a full blown rugby tackle while he was riding up the Col de Peyresourde. Deans bike was damaged too and the policeman cut his hand, but the incident didn't end there. As Dean got to his feet, the policeman then tried to restrain him and stopped him from riding back down the hill to the team bus.

In another incident, Australian Mark Renshaw was thrown off the Tour for headbutting Dean and obstructing star sprinter Tyler Farrar. Renshaw claimed that the headbutt was in response to Dean elbowing him during the sprint. Tour officials are sticking to their guns though and are not allowing Renshaw the benefit of an appeal. HTC Columbia claimed that Dean should also have carried some blame for his role in the incident.

For Dean, it is another strange anecdote from the Tour De France. In last years event he was shot by someone in the crowd with an air-pellet gun. Despite his hand being swollen and in excrutiating pain, Dean carried on to finish the Tour. A week after the tour, surgeons discovered some of the pellet was still embedded in his finger.

This years Tour has certainly had its moments of controversy. Tempers flared at the end of Stage 6 resulting in a bizarre fight. Spanish cyclist Carlos Barredo attacked the Portugese rider Rui Costa with a bike wheel immediately after crossing the finish line and the two exchanged limp punches and girly slaps until they both fell off and got tangled up in Costa's bike.

It's that man Cav again

Yeay, he's done it again! Mark Cavendish wins stage 11 of the Tour De France, that's his 3rd stage win this year and his 13th stage win in 3 years. Go Cav!

Tough On The Tour...

The first 4 stages of this years Tour de France have been tough. Just take a look at some of these images from The Guardian...

Ouch!.... Frenchman Lloyd Mondory of Agr2 La-Mondiale gets some serious gravel rash.

Garmin Transitions' top sprinter Tyler Farrar (USA) holds his arm in agony.

Going down on the cobbles.

Mathias Frank ended his debut tour on the rain-soaked prologue with a split lip, broken thumb and torn muscles in his left thigh

He's Still Got It...

Sorry I've been a bit quiet lately, I still don't have a laptop of my own following the ceiling collapse and I've been busy putting our living room back together whilst ignoring that overblown, overhyped booze party they call the World Cup. This past week has seen another distraction appear though, "The Tour de France", a real endurance sport where British sportsmen actually have a chance of beating the Worlds best. So far we have no less than 3 riders in the top 20, Geraint Thomas, the Welsh Wizard, is currently 2nd overall and wearing the White Jersey for leading young rider and Manxman Mark Cavendish has proved today that he still has it by sprinting home to win stage 5... Normal service will hopefully be resumed soon.

Geraint Thomas, currently 2nd overall on "Le Tour"

Mark Cavendish sprints to his 1st stage win for this year.

GEE ATHERTONS WINS IN FORT WILLIAM

Gee Atherton thrilled his home supporters by winning the second leg of the UCI Downhill Mountain Bike World Cup in Fort William, Scotland at the weekend. In a tense finish to a superb weekend of racing, Gee Atherton also strenghtened his position in the overall World Cup standings. His elder brother Dan, had been beaten in Saturday night’s Men's Four-Cross event in the quarter-finals and sister Rachel suffered a narrow defeat in the Ladies Downhill, beaten into 2nd place by French rider, Sabrina Jonnier.

Gee stepped up to the plate by setting a time of of 4min 35.7secs, with five riders left to descend and although all came close at the intermediate times, it was Gee’s lower section that really set him apart from the rest of the field. Cameron Cole of New Zealand, came closest to toppling the Brit in front of a 15,000 strong crowd, but Cole could not gain enough time on the Brit to take over the lead. This left South African Greg Minnaar as the only person capable of silencing the home crowd, but the current World Cup leader and former World Champion did not quite have enough in the tank to topple Gee. As the South African crossed the line to claim third, Gee stood up to salute the crowd and a deafening noise erupted at the Nevis Range resort to the delight of Atherton.

“Winning in Fort William means so much to me," Gee said. "I honestly can say that it is right up there with winning the World Championships in 2008. It comes almost as a relief to me, all the hard work, not just this winter but the last few years - today made it all worth it. The crowd were just unreal and I’d like to thank every one of them for making me push that little harder up there."

Gee is now biting at the heals of Minnaar in the overall World Cup standings, just 15 points behind, while the youngest in the Atherton family, Rachel is mirroring the same situation in the women’s event as she chases down Jonnier. The next stop for the World Cup circuit is Leogang, Austria where the Atherton family will look to continue their fine start to the season.

Information taken from the Red Bull bikesport website

Rachel Atherton was narrowly beaten into 2nd place by Sabrina Jonnier

VINTAGE BICYCLE RACING POSTERS

RE-CYCLE

Here's a few ideas of what you can do with all those spare bicycle parts lying around your garage, shed, hall or bedroom...

This photo from Fresh Pics blog

RIDABLE ART?

This is rideable art from the wacky world of Max Chen

WW1 BICYCLES

My grandfather was a "Horse Driver" in the Army Service Corps (ASC) during WW1. His job was to deliver supplies to the front line and if he ever came under fire he had to protect the horses... He served in Turkey and the Middle East, took plenty of shrapnel hits and suffered malaria, but he survived to tell the tales. He also told me that he delivered bicycles too, for the soldiers who went to war on bikes, and he shared a tent with bicycle dispatch riders too. No multi-geared full-sussers for this lot, nor chunky tyres or disc brakes, just plain old John Bull tyres, single speed, rod brakes and if you were lucky, a sprung saddle. So, I was chuffed to bits when I came across these vintage images of military cyclists from the 1914-18 war bringing some of my old grandpa's tales to life.

THIS YEARS NEW LOOK....

Following all of the recent debate about the banning of "skin suits" in downhill mountain biking and the arguments over whether baggy is best, British Cycling have finally decided on a compromise which will hopefully satisfy everybody....

INSPIRATION & EXPERIMENTAL GEARING....

Hmmm; I might just try moving up a tooth on this one!

...it might take a bit of legwork to get up to speed, there again I might just fit a motor and let the engine do the pedalling for me....

...or how about welding on the back end of a Mini for a bit of extra passenger carrying capacity? Whadya think?

VINTAGE IMAGES OF BICYCLES

I've been into photography since my Stourbridge Art College days and during my working life I ran a camera shop, lab and copy studio for one of Cumbria's top camera collectors. He used to turn up on a monday with all sorts of wonderful treasures... old cameras, dark room equipment, projectors, glass plates and plenty of old photographs, postcards and 'cartes de visite's' (photographers business cards from the early 20th century). If any images of motorcycles or bicycles turned up he would always give them to me, which is where many of my vintage images come from.

Here's a couple of very early "Cartes De Visites" , the first is of a Safety Bicycle (Penny Farthing) taken by F.W.Dyer of Trowbridge in Kent and the second is a Victorian image taken by W.Kemp of Euston Rd in Morecambe, Lancashire. I hope you enjoy them just as mch as I do.

STEALTH FIGHTER MOUNTAIN BIKE...

I got a bit of time on my hands this week and what with rebuilding the KLE, tuning up my Giant XC bike, building up my single speed, retro Muddy Fox and considering the repercussions of yet another project in the garage (see my streettracker post!)... I've been looking for another downhill bike to take up on Dent (my nearest fell) and thrash back down again. Get a loada this though.... The Stealth "Fighter" from Stealth bicycles in Australia. It's got FAT tyres and even an electric motor to save all that uphill pedalling!

Awesome >>>>>>

MOTORISED BICYCLES ARE SO MUCH FUN

I discovered these l'aal beauties via the wonderful PIPEBURN site. I'm convinced I've found my ultimate weekend toy as I'm a cyclist, a motorcyclist and I adore vintage racers. These machines can legally be ridden on the road without a licence, registration or MoT tests just about everywhere in the world except nanny state UK!!!! where they have to be inspected, accepted, registered, taxed, licenced... blah, blah blah.... Anyway, enough whingeing from me, take a look at these photos and enjoy, don't they just look so much fun?

This race bike is one of many featured on the Australian "Bikes Move Us" discussion group. There's a whole load more photos if you click on this link.

Imperial Cycles manufacture motorised bicycles inspired by vintage board track racers. They use classic Schwinn frames, composite wheels, dropped handlebars and sprung saddles. Take a look at their website for all the specifications and prices and also worth a look is the Imperial Cycles blog where you can see all their latest projects and news.

Ridley Motorcycles also make motorised bicycles inspired by vintage motorcycles, my favourite is this WW1 style Ridley MP with matcing leather saddle, grips and tool roll. They come with a choice of 49cc or 70cc engines too.

Spooky Tooth Cycles are another American company who make motorised bicycles that look like vintage motorcycles. The bike with the sprung saddle is the Hot Shoe" and the one with full mudguards and comfy saddle is the "Stealth". These guys enjoy riding their bikes so much that they took on the local governers to make them  street legal and won... yeay!!! Read more about their bikes, merchandise and their fight for rights on the fab 70s style website. 

Finally, I couldn't show off these motorised bicycles without a Whizzer. This company has been making bikes since God's dog was a puppy and I particularly like this all-white board tracker style model.

RETRO CRUISERS

Being a bit sad last night and looking at some vintage and retro cruiser bicycles. These really caught my imagination and remind me of the old Indian and Harley-Davidson board racers from the 1920s The modern one is a Felt V12 Cruiser which looks like a good starting point for a bit of customising.

Here's some more great looking retro cruisers from Felt...

Felt 1903; a real vintage looker, girder forks, white-wall tyres and sprung saddle

Felt Iron Pursang; ...complete with knobbly tyres and number plates

Felt Red Baron;  Flaming graphics and big fat tyres