Manchester weather exported for Milan-San Remo

It was great to see the season opening monument at the weekend 'la Primavera' Milan-San Remo. Thought Ian Stannard was excellent value for his warming sixth place.

Milan-San Remo started at White City Retail Park this year

Interesting that they managed to import some Lancashire spring weather for the race which usually takes place in the warming sun.
Its often easy to slip into the mindset that pro cyclists are a bunch of lily-livered wooses with their winter training camps in Majorca and as much pasta as you can wave a colander at.
Fact is, there can be few tougher sporting tests than riding, at race pace, in conditions like this.
Chapeau! 

Northeast 4 or 5, occasionally 6, snow, poor

I love the Shipping Forecast. I love its brevity,The codes which you need to decipher in order to understand what the devil is being spoken about. It’s a real window into another world. A world of blokes who stink of fish, live in places like Grimsby and who hoover up anything that’s living out of the sea.
But this is not a rant about marine conservation, there are other places to find that. Without wanting to sound too Daily Express, its about the bloody weather. 
I wonder if anyone has developed a mathematical model for the additional effort required to ride into a headwind of, say, 10 mph? How does heat effect the average cyclist?
Maybe it doesn't work like that and I'm just talking sh*te but it could be used to develop a cycling equivalent of the Shipping Forecast: the Cycling Forecast in all likelihood.
It could be broadcast at around 7.30am on Sunday mornings on Radio 4. Only the dedicated few would hear it and understand its content.

Rock all sunshine

I bet there are more people out on bikes than are out in British territorial waters looking for the final few dozen cod in Cromarty.
I can but dream. I'll have to make do with steeling myself before gingerly pulling the corner of the curtain back.

The classics cometh!

With the race season getting up to speed, it'll be really interesting to see how the Tirreno-Adriatico works out.
Loads of the top names are there and they'll all be looking to get an early edge over the others. Personality vacuum Mark 'Mark' Cavendish is leading after stage one: the team time trial.
Not long 'til the classics!

Yale Law School talks doping

There's a fascinating panel discussion with Floyd Landis, Jonathan Vaughters, Travis Tygart and a bloke from the WADA who's name escapes me available via the Yale Law School website.
It's about doping in cycling and while this may be a bit 2012, it's Floyd Landis' first public discussion of the topic sine Lancegate happened. Reminder to self - must watch the Oprah thing.
Not sure how long this will be available for...

Click Vaughter's face

Edward Elgar: cycling legend. Who knew?

Fascinating programme from Radio 3 on how the bike played a crucial role in inspiring the music of Edward Elgar's.

Pump and Circumstance: Elgar's bike

If you look at his Wikipedia entry, you can find a statue of him on his bike in Hereford apparently

Friends in the saddle?

Not everybody likes cyclists.  But then you knew that didn't you? We all have our own favourite anecdote of cycling rage and all know the shocking stories of disgusting intimidation meted out by bus drivers, owners of urban 4x4s and other idiots who seem to get off on making people's lives a misery.
As the number of regular riders increases, frustrations from others will increase whether riders are doing anything wrong or not: simply by virtue of cycling becoming more and more visible.
Riding a bike can put you into difficult positions with other road users and I always feel it's worth changing your behavior in relation to your position within the prevailing hierarchy.
Perhaps rather counter intuitively, this does not mean meekly riding between 2 and 5 cm away from the kerb when on the road or riding like a loon when you're on a shared path with pedestrians, dogs and horses.
I always find that the more assertive 'defensive' riding techniques taught to motorcyclists are much better employed when negotiating traffic and, conversely, slowing down a bit to provide a wide berth on shared paths, is a definite winner.

An equestrian, yesterday

Both instances require riders to take control and be active in their riding style while having a very good all round road sense.
We play these roles out almost every ride we do and there's no doubt that claiming the moral high ground with a cheery 'hello' and 'thanks' works wonders when negotiating the real life hazard perception test that is riding a bike - particularly through the vast menagerie you come across on shared paths.
Negotiating horses has always been a tricky thing for cyclists. I did read once that a horse's brain can not interpret that a cyclist is actually a human which is why they can get so freaked out by a passing rider.
The British Horse Society recently produced a code of conduct for equestrians (whatever they are) and cyclists 
It includes obvious but important advice which, for cyclists, has being polite and considerate at its core.  Good advice I'd say, after all, what could be worse than being kicked off your bike by a horse and then realising it was your own fault!

Manchester: cycling utopia?

Buried in this article from this week's Cycling Weekly is the stat that Manchester has seen an increase in cycling to work of 25 per cent between 2001 and 2011.
Can't argue with that can you? Well, maybe.
I'm always a bit skeptical of statistics presented in percentages - maybe its working in PR makes you cynical about these things.
The real questions relating to 25 per cent are: from what number did the count start and how does Manchester compare to other cities.
More broadly than that, is there a coherent plan to sustain the growth and, if there is, what objectives is that plan moving toward. Put another way, what does a successful cycling strategy for Manchester look like and how will its success be measured. 
You can find TfGM's Interim Cycling Strategy here on the Greater Manchester Cycling Campaign website - there's even a picture of Manchester's most famous cyclist on page 33. The Interim strategy sets out the city's vision for cycling.

Interim: always tends to be a bit shite

Interim suggests that this strategy is going to be overhauled and I'm pretty sure consultation is on-going although there's no reference to this on the City Council's website.
There are many bold words and a series of targets in the document as I'm sure you'd imagine but I think we all know that the result will be slow, incremental change backed up with headline figured like 25 per cent increase which make it seem like we live in a cycling utopia.