Logging the miles

Bike computers have come a long way since the early days of analogue mileometers and speedometers.
The first one I had, in the mid 1980s, was essentially the same as the one shown in this Lucas advert from the 1950s.
It worked on a similar principle as today's computers: a striker unit was attached to your fork which turned the little star shape wheel on the side of the counter. With only four numbers, it reset every 9,999 miles - something which never affected me at the age of 10.
I've just got a new cateye unit to fit to my summer bike which probably has more computing power than the Apollo missions which put man on the moon.
It's a really neat wireless unit which records cadence and speed from the same sensor. The sensor is housed on the non-drive side chain stay rather than the front and is dead easy to set up.
You can also programme in a different bike and have two totals running as well as a cumulative reading.
Finally, it's a heart rate monitor so it'll tell you exactly how bad you are going!
I really rate cateye products if for no other reason than you can, if you need to, replace clamps and other perishables which don't last forever. The products are spot on too.
So with cadence, heart rate, speed, distance and intervals all measurable, I have no excuse for not being able to identify marginal gains!
Ride safe.

Fuel for cycling

Pop into your local bike shops and the chances are there will be a display stand somewhere holding a range of products which scream at you about their energy boosting or sustaining qualities.  Then there's the 'recovery' products too which, the helpful sales blurb tells us we should take to replace things we loose when we're riding.
There are gels, powders, liquids and chewy things mainly brightly coloured all wanting our attention.
I often wonder what people in 50 years time will think about these products.  I recall listening to a radio documentary about how attitudes toward bathing had changed.  It included an interview from the early 20th century with a guy who was convinced that bathing more than once per month would sap his strength - to our current sensibilities, those are the words off a mad man.
I recount it here as it shows that truth and knowledge are historical and open to change or as Nietzsche efficiently put it: "Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth." 
I cant help thinking that our current trend for consuming these dietary additives will too be seen as a quaint absurdity by the time the year 2100 rolls around.
So are we just being sold snake oil?  Well, I'm not a scientist but I can say that you can ride your bike for 6 hours at reasonable intensity, over the hills of the Peak District without having to use any of these uber-products.
If I was riding competitively and needed to 'accumulate marginal gains' then maybe these products are the way to go.  But I, like the 99.9 per cent of cyclists in the country, am not and can get by quite comfortably on bananas and water.  But yet it's me who feels the subtle pressure to buy into this stuff.

Graeme Obree famously fuelled himself on jam butties (sandwiches) and that's good enough for me.  I'm never going to ride a 3 week stage race, attempt the hour record or compete in a spring classic and, therefore, I don't need to buy any of that stuff to ride my bike.

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