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Grassington, Kidstone pass, Hawes – Tour de France stage 2014

It was a case of the sublime and the ridiculous today. Firstly, the weather was sublime. 25 degrees, sunny, little wind. When you get this weather in the Yorkshire Dales, it’s hard to beat it. With the National 100, five days away, I wanted to do a good five hour ride. I decided to do […]

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YCF 50 and Andy Wilson memorial

A float day is when all the planets align and the weather gods smile down on the time triallist, with perfect conditions. No wind and warm. Fast to the turn, fast on the way back. With the same power output, your times are 2-3 minutes quicker, and after the race, you see many people looking […]

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Rob Hayles – Easy Rider – book review

I received a copy of Easy Rider: My Life on a bike by Rob Hayles, and enjoyed reading it. It’s the story of a laid back character, who rose from riding the track in Portsmouth to finally coming double world champion in 2005. It’s a reminder that the world of cycling is incredibly competitive, and […]

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Defensive cycling on rural roads

A reader offers this comment about cycling on rural roads: I have cycled most of my life in a city. I’ve recently taken early retirement so now cycle purely for pleasure. Last night I went for a ride which took me through some rural roads and also busy A roads. On the narrow country roads […]

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Tour De France Questions

The tour is one of the biggest sporting spectacles in the world. No matter how many scandals and tearful confessions on Oprah , we can’t resist the allure of watching the Tour. The tour has everything, beautiful scenery, drama, excitement, raw passion and the opportunity for endless hours of Sean Kelly say ‘erm, well, I […]

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The day after a long bike ride

It’s a funny feeling the day after a long hard bike ride, (e.g Nat 50). When I was young, the height of excitement was visiting Alton Towers and going on all the roller-coasters. The day after going on the big dipper, I would still have  a residual feeling of going up and down the roller […]

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National 50 mile TT Champs 2013

This year’s national 50 mile time trial championship was in Wales – between Abergavenny, Raglan and towards Monmouth. To say it was in the heart of Wales, it was surprisingly flat. There can’t be many 50 mile stretches of roads that are so flat in Wales. I was off number 60 at 9.00am, with the […]

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Inverted pyramid intervals – G. Wright

‘The interval method from hell‘ – that is how Stuart Dangerfield described a particular set of pyramid interval training sessions, designed by Gordon Wright. However, although very intense, it helped Stuart Dangerfield to a string of successes at domestic short distance time trialling. His achievements included lowering the competition record for 10 mile TT to […]

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Cycling and Triathlons

In the pecking order of cool cyclists, triathletes are generally pretty low on the ladder – An eager triathlete using tri-bars is probably put below even sportive riders racing downhill for a strava segment, whilst wearing a replica World Champion jersey. The coolest cyclists are those road racers who follow THE RULES. Time triallists  chasing […]

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12 Champions

12 Champions by Peter Whitfield offers 12 different chapters on the great British cyclists of the post war period. It focuses on the domestic stars of both time trialling and road racing. I really enjoyed reading it, and is one of my favourite cycling books. It captures the best of British cycling during the post […]

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Mike Cuming wins tour of Korea

A few weeks ago, I was riding the Buxton Mountain time trial. After the race, I had a brief chat with Mike Cuming, asking him how his season as professional at Rapha  Condor JLT was going. He replied. ‘not great. It’s been a tough year.’ It made me realise the difference between an amateur and […]

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