Christmas is a time for bikes
Ride your bike and eat more mince pies
Ride your bike and eat more mince piesOriginally published in the Courier 22.12.12
As the decades pass by and toys go in and out of fashion, each Christmas brings another “must-have” item on children’s lists for Santa. However, one item that never seems to go out of vogue is the humble bicycle; it’s been a staple favourite for children around the world and still remains a must-have Christmas list item for kids of all ages to this day. Thinking back to my own youth, I remember meeting all my friends out on our street in Dundee, mid-morning on Christmas day to give our new bikes a test run; usually our motley peloton in those days consisted of a few drop bar “racing” bikes, a Grifter and possibly even a Chopper. We spent a few hours testing them out for speed and their ability to ride ramps “Evel Knievel” style (riding a “Raleigh Racer”, not something I was entirely successful at), before the cold defeated us and the prospect of more chocolate, Christmas dinner and a read through the new Oor Wullie or Broons annual before bed drew us back to our respective homes.
It is heartening to see that bikes are still high on Christmas wish-lists and that come the 25th of December, those lucky enough to get a bike from Santa will be out on the streets burning off some calories and making some room for their Christmas pudding. Nowadays, however, it is not just children who are out on bikes on Christmas day showing off their new cycling kit; riders of all ages will be hoping that the parcels under the tree are two-wheeled related. However, if new bikes and kit aren’t motivation enough to get out on your bike over the festive period why not set yourself a challenge of completing a set distance during the Christmas holiday. There are established challenges already out there, such as the Rapha Festive 500 in which you can try and log 500km of rides between the 24th and 31st December, but there is no reason why you can’t set your own challenge, no matter how difficult or achievable. It is a great time to get out on your bike, as many of us are lucky enough to have some time off work over this period and what better way to spend your time off than riding your bike, especially when it means you have an excuse to eat another mince pie when you get back home.
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Merry Christmas – Get out and Ride
Scot Tares
Twitter: @SkinnyTyres
Where to Ride
| Where to ride: Balhomish and Birnam Glen | |
| Location: | OS Landranger 1:50,000 Map 52Start –The Hermitage, Dunkeld |
| Distance: | 4miles/ 7km |
| Details: | This mountain bike ride is a favourite with locals and has some technical sections.Starting at the Hermitage, head out west towards Rumbling Bridge. Just after crossing the bridge a marker points the start of a short, but technical and rooty single-track. At the end of this, cross the A822 and head up the track towards Balhomish farm. Just before the farm, turn left and follow the track that descends through Birnam Glen, hugging the side of the Inchewan Burn. You can easily get back to the Hermitage from here by heading to Inver via the footpath that starts at the Dunkeld recreation ground and which heads under the A9. |
Blazing Saddles copyright DC Thompson 2012
Originally Published in the Courier 22.12.12
Alongside my passion for all things two-wheeled, I have several other past-times and pursuits that I enjoy: going to the mountains with my dogs and my mate, listening to and collecting vinyl records, and reading and collecting books. Books have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember and one of the benefits to be had from them for me is that when I’m not up the hills, or out on my bike I can be reading about them, or even better reading about riding bikes in the mountains with camping and whisky thrown in for good measure; another two passions of mine.
Hate is a strong word, but that is exactly how I used to feel about turbo-trainers, the indoor resistance unit that your outdoor bike clips into allowing you to pedal away to your heart’s content without ever actually going anywhere. For me training on the turbo was an act comparable to Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the steep hill, only to find it roll back down before he reached the top. However, no matter how interminable I found the act of indoor training, I knew deep down that there were real and tangible benefits to be gained and quickly too, but I found the whole process intensely boring and would have been more enthused at the prospect of repeatedly hitting my thumb with a hammer. I’m not the only one either; cyclists often speak of turbo-training in hushed voices and with fear akin to that of the Pitenweem witch trials and tortures of 1705. Manufacturers of turbo-trainers are very aware of this mass aversion to their product and more and more are producing virtual reality equipment that allows the indoor trainer to simulate high mountain passes of the French Alps, or even connect up with other riders around the world for virtual on-line races. This is all well and good, and certainly an improvement on cycling alone in your garden shed on a wet Tuesday night in November, but I feel it is defeating the point a little; there is some training benefit to be had from such activities, but it still lacks focus and specificity. If I want to simulate riding in the real world I would rather just get out on my bike and ride outside; for me, the turbo-trainer is a tool that allows for intense training in short periods and it was with that realisation that my hatred slowly turned to love. The point I had been missing for so long was that I had seen the turbo-trainer as something to replace my outdoor rides with when the weather was bad, and many cyclists do use it this way, but this is where the disdain creeps in. Instead, now I use the turbo-trainer to complement my outdoor riding and with planning I can achieve noticeable improvements in my riding in short periods of time, due to the increased control that the trainer gives you over the intensity of the session. The key to such sessions is short but intense bursts of energy known as intervals. Devised for specific goals the duration of the energy burst in these intervals can be as short as ten seconds and interspersed with periods of easier pedalling to recover. These kind of efforts are painful and difficult to complete, even when they are very short, but they acutely focus the mind. The point is that if you find turbo training boring, then you aren’t trying hard enough. Changing your indoor training regime to short, meaningful and focussed sessions will provide allow you to incorporate many short periods of high intensity pedalling, which accumulated will to lead to big improvements in your riding performance.
Sir Chris Hoy, the UKs greatest ever Olympian and now immortalised with an eponymous Velodrome in Glasgow, is a household name who has inspired thousands of kids to get on their bikes and ride. Even my two children insist on a certain breakfast cereal because of Sir Chris’s face on the box. This inspiration has been great, but up until now opportunities for young riders to try out track riding have been limited to the three outdoor tracks at Meadowbank in Edinburgh, Belahouston in Glasgow and Dundee’s very own Caird Park. Now though, only four weeks old and the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow’s east end is packed to the gunnels with riders wanting to hit the boards. The track has already hosted the Scottish National Track Championships and “Thunderdrome” race meet and this weekend the cream of the world’s track stars descend on Glasgow for Round 2 of the UCI Track World Cup. It’s a fantastic coup for the Velodrome to be hosting an international competition so early in its life and the fact that 2000 tickets sold out in less than an hour demonstrates a voracious appetite from the public to see the gladiators of the fixed wheel battle it out on the wooden boards. Away from competition, the Velodrome is just as busy, with riders coming from all over Scotland to ride. Recently I was lucky enough to be part of a British Cycling School of Racing coaching session for 12 to 16 year old riders, and it was clear from the high level of skill and tactical nous on display that we are going to have many heirs to Sir Chris Hoy’s crown in Scotland; roll on the Commonwealth Games in 2014.
I’ve never been one for bright, garish cycle clothing; I recently won a “Soreen” malt loaf cycling jersey in bright and garish yellow, and my modesty only ever lets me wear it when I am on my indoor turbo-trainer. I much prefer understated cycle clothing, with my biggest statement being my 1984 woollen “Charles Star CC” jersey, that I wear more out of nostalgia than for its bright red, white and black diagonal stripe. Saying that though, I do have a certain smug feeling putting it on that I can still fit in to a jersey that I got when I was 14, (what I can’t remember is if my parents bought it several sizes too big for me, so I would grow into it).
I’ve written before about cycling in the rain and it is one of those things where the thought of doing it is actually worse than the reality, (well most of the time anyway). And so it was one recent Wednesday, when some friends and I were due to meet for our weekly off-road night-time mountain bike ride. All day the rain had fallen and as I got home from work the thought of going out again was not appealing; there then followed a brief “text” conversation between myself and friends that went along the lines of: Me: “I’ll go out if you go out”, Friend: “Well I’ll definitely go out if you go out”, Me: “I’m not bothered though, if you don’t want to”… It was the cycling equivalent of a Tarantino-esque “Mexican stand-off”; we could have spent all evening doing this and used it as the perfect excuse not to ride, each blaming the other’s lack of motivation as the reason for our laziness. Thankfully we got our act together and arrived in Dunkeld, switched the head-lamps on and hit the rain sodden muddy tracks and trails of Craigvinnean Forest that were doing a good job of imitating rivers. It was fantastic fun and if our faces hadn’t been thickly plastered with mud you would have seen the huge grins that adorned our faces throughout the ride. My smile faded as I got home and realised that I would have to hose the mud off the bike before I did anything else; it was dark, still raining, I was soaked to the skin, freezing cold and hungry and it was now 9pm, but I knew that if I didn’t do it now I would regret it the next day as I would then spend twice as long scrubbing off the dried encrusted mud from the chain-set and bike frame. I quickly got to work, cursing as I did so, but as I had known, the effort was worthwhile as the next morning I was then able to take a sparklingly clean and freshly oiled bike out of the shed for another ride in the mud.
“After being encouraged by the team, pressured to perform and pushed to my physical limits I crossed a line I promised myself and others I would not: I doped. It was a decision I deeply regret. It caused me sleepless nights, took the fun out of cycling and racing, and tainted the success I achieved at the time. This was not how I wanted to live or race.” – Michael Barry, a former team-mate of Armstrong’s
There is nothing more infuriating than a squeak or a creaking sound on your bike and that was exactly what I had; as I rode I recalled the old VW car advert where the driver of the car was mystified as to where a squeak was coming from only to find out after stopping at a garage that it was the squeak of his sleeping passenger’s earing. I’m old enough now to have removed all the earrings that I once had in my youth, but thankfully not old enough for the intermittent creak to be coming from my knees; no, this creak was definitely coming from the bike. Like the driver in the advert, I was mystified, as when I stopped and pushed and pulled, turned and spun various moving parts of the bike, it sounded as smooth and sweet as a well maintained bike should, but as soon as my backside was on the saddle and the pedals were turning the noise returned.