It’s still cyclocross season, and I thought I’d post this short, stylised promo video shot and edited by Corinne Walder. It’s just an intro to the sport, so nothing groundbreaking for diehards, but it does feature some soundbites from two fresh-faced Scots on the British Cycling academy, Kenta Gallagher and Grant Ferguson.
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PRODUCED BY CORINNE WALDER. MUSIC : NIRVANA – BLEW
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29. Water bottles shall preferably be freebies from sportive rides or found at the side of the road when watching pro races. Under no circumstances should they be discarded until completely spent, even when not matching bike or clothing colours.
The aspiring Euro cyclist is instructed not to leave his water bottles on the bike while transporting bikes via bike rack- this is an obvious faux pas for the the Scottish cyclist, as they would simply fall off due to the bumpy Scottish Roads.
Nicked from the Inner Ring, the idea of theming food around cycling and a region is one I will stretch a little further to breaking point in this post.
Tunnocks- a great Scottish brand, which has the requisite energy to sustain a cyclist for an hour. It’s something I have packed into my pocket on occasion but not routinely.
But the real question is: Teacake or Wafer? I’d go for a wafer, but not in summer, where it would certainly melt.
www.thecyclejersey.com
via ilike
Scottish Cycling foods II: Irn Bru
Scottish Cycling foods I: Oatcakes
I’m rediscovering my mojo for blogging a bit by getting back to short pieces. It’s not hard to be inspired with designs like these around.
Bathgate Alps – by Matt Ball/West Lothian Clarion
A nice minimal design, with some nice typefaces and a list of the many West Lothian climbs. There’s a map on the WLC website.
The Robert T Shirt – by Rich Mitchelson/Rouleur
I blogged this one before, but it’s worth doing again- again, I like Rich’s minimal 2D style. Also available as a mug.
Ronde Van Vlaanderen – by Scott O’Raw/Velocast
OK, so the Tour of Flanders isn’t anything to do with Scotland, but this T is designed by Scott from the Velocast, of which I am a big fan. Check out this and other designs and support the show.
I’ve got other ideas for Scottish Cycling T Shirts but unfortunately not the creative flair, time or knowhow to see them through. If you have any suggestions for things I’ve missed, post in the comments or send me a message.
On a tangent- some other design work from this year that I really liked was for the Tro Bro Leon race – a ‘mini Paris Roubaix’ held in Brittany. It’s held in mid-April and was raced by Endura last season. There’s a sportive too, which I’d love to try.
I’m not much of a designer myself, but I loved the illustrated style, which nods to the graphic novels (or ‘BDs’ – Bandes Dessinées) that are highly popular in France. The theme was integrated throughout the event website and would be cool on a T Shirt. I’m not sure who the designer was so unfortunately can’t credit.
VC Moulin encompass all cycling disciplines (I believe) but they are known for cyclocross. There’s something great about their jersey with its nod to the Belgian national colours and the powerful logo.
Pic by Brian McArdle on flickr.
We’re almost at the end of the cross season in Scotland and there has been lots going on, some great races, but alas I have too been strapped for time to do the scene justice. The final two races at Mull are coming up next weekend.
Check out Dave Hamill and John McComisky’s Dig In Mate series of videos for a typically Scottish, light-hearted (and sometimes rude) look at some of the races. These also really deserve a separate post… they are great.
In 1897 the World Cycling Championships were held on a track around Celtic Park.
Cycling and football have grown a long way apart in the past 114 years.
Cuilt Brae is the B821, a 2 mile stretch of road from pictureque, well-heeled Strathblane to Carbeth, to the North of Glasgow.
It seems to have several names- coming out of Strathblane/Blanefield, it is signed for Stockiemuir. I have heard people refer to it both as ‘Cuilt Brae’ and ‘Stockiemuir’. The top is at Carbeth, where there is an Inn.
The Glasgow Nightingale and Ivy cycling clubs both use it for their club hill climb championships.
In the photo above, behind the idling riders you can see the road climbing up.
It has steep but steady gradient and a couple of nice hairpins, where the gradient rises to 15%.
click for larger map
Turning right at the top will take you towards Drymen Hill, another good climb that I will have to cover another time. Turning left takes you back along the Stockiemuir Road towards Glasgow, and taking another left after passing the Hilton Park Golf Club, you will find an unclassified road that is known as the “Khyber Pass”. Another short sharp climb beloved (or hated) amongst Glasgow cyclists that is also on my list to look at.
If you ride the Khyber Pass, you’ll pass Mugdock Park, which plays host to a Scottish Cyclocross series race. Back down into Strathblane, you have the option to go east to tackle the Crow Road or the Tak-Me-Doon. North of Glasgow certainly has a great deal of climbs to offer.
This climb on Google maps.
photos by Jamie Forbes Glasgow Ivy(Ivy gallery)
Glasgow Ivy CC website
The other weekend my younger brother came over from Switzerland for a 2-day MTB skills tuition with Andy Barlow at Dirt School.
The Glentress trail centre is known as one of the best in Britain, if not Europe and now we have top-not coaching to match: Dirt School run their training courses there: founder Chris Ball focuses more on elite downhill and XC racers while he and Andy Barlow provide skills coaching to any age and ability of rider.
My bro is pretty experienced, spending all summer riding local trails around Zurich and the Swiss ski centres and it seems that he got a lot from the weekend. He brought his all-mountain Transitions Covert over in a bike bag especially. It’s set up with 6″ travel front and back and a Hammerschmidt internally geared BB.
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An admission: I’ve been struggling for time a bit lately and have been lax with posting on the blog.
I’ve really enjoyed writing during the past 2 years, and I don’t intend to stop. Output might just become a little less frequent than it has been, with work, kids, family life, club volunteering and riding and training on the actual bike all to be factored in.
During the start of 2011 I spent lots of time at home on family duty and had lots of time to post- even doing some weekly preview and roundup posts of local racing. Bigging up the local scene was fun and made some new friends, but unfortunately I can’t see this happening for next season- doing news is only worthwhile if it is regular, and I can’t keep up with the schedule.
I’ll keep trying to do some in-depth pieces, like the interviews with mountain biker Andy Macleod and track record breaker Steve McCaw, and the usual shorter pieces like Scottish Climbs- there are many more to be covered.
Maybe I’ll even go back to the daft Official Rules, which helped to get me started but I felt became embarrassing after a while.
The blog was initially a research project- the frivolous and naive ‘Top 10‘ being the starting point. I may have come across as some sort of expert on Scottish Cycling, but most of the material was researched by trawling the internet and it’s been an enjoyable learning experience for me. I’ve built up quite a of material and should probably revisit some pieces, the stuff on Ken Laidlaw and Ian Steel having been particularly rewarding.
Let me know what sort of stuff you enjoy. Bite-sized banter also available on twitter.
To my delight, the Velocast is back with a music-and-cycling banter show called Velocast Race Radio. Check it out.
One of the gems of the show are the ‘this week in cycling history’ snippets from Irish fount of historical cycling trivia, Cillian Kelly. He posts good articles over at his Irish Peloton blog, but the radio snippets are something interesting and different that you won’t find elsewhere. Every week he will enlighten us with facts from cycling history, ranging from the 1880s to the 1980s. His twitter feed is also good for some really interesting facts and trivia during the big races.
In 1975, Sean Kelly, Pat McQuaid and Kieran McQuad and two Scots broke the apartheid boycot and travelled to South Africa incognito to get some winter racing miles in the Rapport Tour. If you don’t know, all sporting contact with South Africa (and trade imports and exports for that matter) was banned. This boycott was in force right up until the mid-90s and the end of Apartheid. I remember my Mum tutting when Cape and Jaffa oranges began to appear in the supermarket.
The Scots were Henry Wilbraham and John Curran – some mention of them along with other Scottish riders banned for various other transgressions are mentioned on a typically delightful misty-eyed thread on the Braveheart forum.
They were photographed by a journalist covering then A-Listers Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s second marriage. The photo of the riders alongside Burton and Taylor was published and the riders recognised. The Irish initially got 7 month bans and lifetime exclusion from Olympic competition. (although Pat McQuaid now apparently sits on the Olympic governing body)
There’s more on this story over at the Cyclismas blog. Thanks to Cillian for flagging it up.