Used cycling top: £200

Allied with Team GB's superb successes at the Olympics and Paralympics, has been the uber-cool Stella McCartney kit that they've been wearing.
The limited availability of the cycling kit has led to a boom in the second hand market for the abstract Union flag design.

Available now on ebay

If you have a look on eBay for Team GB Olympic cycling kit, you'll find that jerseys are demanding hundreds of pounds and people appear to by paying it.
You'll also find, what some people refer to as 'cheap Chinese replicas' going for £30.
Apparently the 'originals' were manufactured in Italy rather than the far east but given that almost everything else is made in China, there's probably very little difference between the two products.
It all rather makes you wonder why the kit isn't still available.  Profits could go back into legacy or whatever.

27 reasons to be cheerful

The track cycling at the London Paralympics finished yesterday with another flurry of medals for the British team which is based at the Manchester velodrome.
The final tally of five golds, seven silvers and three bronze medals was enough to place Team GB atop the medals table and with a bit more luck, it could have been more.
Mechanical issues aside, the overall performance has built on the achievements of Beijing four years ago but increased competition, particularly from China, has led to serious competition for medals - and the sport is all the better for it.

Paralympics 2012 track cycling medal table

Add these medals to the nine track and three road race medals won at the Olympic games, and Team GB's total haul of 27 medals represents a superb return.  
It's quite fitting that the team is based at the aesthetically functional Manchester track rather than the beautiful London version, after all churning out medals which inspire people to ride is what it's all about.
Less good news in Northern Spain for British riders where Chris Froome is being put to the sword in the Vuelta. 
Despite last week's Cycling Weekly claiming that Froome basically had the ride in the bag, under the baking Spanish sun Froome looks tired and just cant live with the bursts of acceleration from the Spanish trio of Bertie, Joaquim Rodriguez and Alejandro Valverde.
It looks like Froome has left too much of himself on French tarmac and that we'll have to wait until next year's Tour form Britain's next stab and a GC winner.
Still, we have the World Championships to look forward to in a couple of weeks.
Ride safe

Hit the North

I've always counted myself to be very fortunate to live in the north west.  Not only for the famed hospitality, humour and fine baked pastry products, but it you have an enjoyment of the great outdoors, you really are spoilt for choice in this neck of the woods.
Within a couple of drive you can get to pretty much anywhere in North Wales, the Lake District or England's best attempt at wilderness around Kielder Forest in Northumberland.
Other parts of this sceptered isle will no doubt lay claim to similar fortuitous locations but if you add in the fact that an hour's ride from Manchester city centre, you can find yourself lost in the magnificent surroundings of the Derbyshire Peak District which bleed seamlessly into Staffordshire and the plains of Cheshire, then the North West does have a great claim to being the UK's best cycling region - especially which you factor in the the wonderful roads around the Trough of Bowland.
It appears that I am not alone in this view.
Every week, Cycling Weekly publishes a training ride with a significant figure from UK cycling.  The idea, presumably, is to provide a bit of insight into the rides 'the pros do' and to inspire and educate the enthusiast to try different routes or expand their horizons.
While the feature covers all four corners of the North West is regularly represented with this week's entry being a case in point.
Russell and Dean Downing take the Weekly readers on a ride along the Hope Valley in Derbyshire along familiar roads to club cyclists from the North West - although we'd usually approach from the west.

Route around Derbyshire in this week's Cycling weekly

Now maybe the region has an unfair advantage as British Cycling is based in Manchester with much of the squad being based here too.
But they're here for a reason or reasons.  One of those must be the access to tough but relatively quiet roads.
Ride safe

Long way from home...

Once again the success of Britain's cyclists at the London Olympics is leading to commentary relating to how we can make the UK's roads safer for cyclists.

This is all connected to the thrust to increase participation in cycling.
The discourse goes something like: if more people cycle they will be healthier, it will cost the NHS less money in the long run and traffic congestion will be reduced.  But to achieve this, people need to feel safer on the roads.  There needs to be better infrastructure, better road surfacing and a more 'European' attitude toward cyclists and cycling.
Out on the club run on Sunday I was reminded of the attention which a group of people riding can garner.
On two occasions, random people shouted stuff at us as we rode along.  It's not that what they said was particularly offensive or upsetting in any way, but it demonstrates that for some people, even as cycling is riding the crest of a wave, it will always be an incomprehensible pursuit undertaken by an alien people.
Cycling has revelled in its status as Other and it's often marketed to us as such.  While the Olympians are doing wonders for the sport, we need to champion the everyday cyclist too if the unimpressed are to be educated.
Ride safe.

We have the technology

News that the French track cycling team at the London Olympics are suspicious as to whether Team GB is using stock Mavic wheels on their bikes is not just sour grapes.
Technology lies at the heart of modern cycling and those marginal gains which the whole of British pro cycling is built around, leave no stone unturned in the pursuit for 1000th of a second advantages.
Of course, all bikes, no matter how old, are technology but the development of new materials and new ways of thinking has ballooned over the past couple of decades.
Competitive cyclists have always used the very best machinery available to them.  Reading about Merckx recently, it's striking the lengths he went to to ensure he had the best kit available.  Outside of the infamous saddle tinkering, his bikes and other kit were all top of the range.
Take one of his bikes from 30-odd years ago out now - 10 speed, gear shifters brazed on to the down tubes, none of the benefits of hyper-glide cassettes and it's like travelling back in time - exactly like it in fact, because it is!  The image is of Merckx's hour record bike which is on display in a train station in Belgium I think.

But for the French, and everybody else, they must be racking their brains as to how the British team manage to peak in the correct week every four years.  The finger pointing at the technology must be out of sheer exasperation rather than bitterness.

Ride safe

...always believe in your soul

The Olympics in London have been superb.
Despite the rabid commercialisation of everything and the disaster with the security company, the real stuff (the events) have been superb; and not just from a Great Britain (Team GB) perspective.
British cycling has been the undoubted star of the show in my view. On the back of the Wiggo show in France, cycling has eclipsed the swimming, rowing and even track & field. The design of velodrome is considerably more attractive than the main stadium - although the flame cauldron is a triumph and on two wheels our team have really delivered.
From a marginal sport, cycling keeps being catapulted onto the front and back pages with superb and emotional performances from the team.
Of all the great successes one stands out: the women's team pursuit.
Setting five consecutive world records on their way to an overwhelming performance in the final, it was refreshing to see competitors be genuinely emotional with their win.
The question for British Cycling is how to turn the surge in interest in the sport into a lasting (cliche alert) legacy.
This is a tough one but there has to be more marketing, better facilities and, ideally, less rain.
But more than that, if the country is to really embrace cycling, then lots needs to be done to encourage more participation. And not just 30-something white blokes on £1500 carbon bikes. There are many under-represented groups when it comes to bike riding - as opposed to cycling - and too many still drive their cars 1/4 mile to the shop or to visit friends.
A real legacy would be to see this type of behaviour change and see all sorts of people choose their bike for diverse journeys - without being considered a loony.

Trials of a nation

So, here we are. Following the disappointment of the men's road race when plan A didn't work and, in homage to George Osbourne there was no plan B, Britain's (Team GB) cyclists today carry the hopes and expectations of the nation.
Both men's and women's time trials take place today and our riders are expected to figure.
I find watching Olympic cycling unusual for one reason: the kit. You get used to seeing the riders in their pro team kit and it looks odd when they pull on the national garb.
If you ask me Belgium's riders have got the best deal with this classic jersey.
Britain's Stella McCartney abstract job is nice too.
It'll be interesting to see the bikes too. The tight rules on olympic sponsorship mean that manufactures are limited to how many logos they can use on their products. This is a problem for bike makers and might explain the hideous paint job on Vino's Specialized which he rode to victory in the road race. There's a review of it over on bike radar.