The bicycle cycle

There’s a well-ridden path that will be familiar to most riders who have immersed themselves in cycling. We begin with a modest enough machine, convinced that it’s more than enough for our needs and won’t need to be replaced for many years. And of course strictly speaking that’s true. But then the miles go up and the interest deepens and broadens to embrace lots of little cycling sub-cultures. And it becomes clear that the mid-budget sportive machine we thought would suffice for any cycling purpose doesn’t really cut the mustard for that crit race we seem to have entered. Or the time trial. Or the multi-day mountain epic we’ve got planned for the summer. Or the 300km audax we signed up for on a whim. Or the mixed-surface cross-country adventure ride… Before you know it, there are three bikes in the shed and an increasingly pained expression on your partner’s face whenever you utter the words ‘bike’ and ‘shop’ next to each other. Each new machine scratches the itch for a while. The shiny new featherweight carbon racer with the uncompromising frame geometry and super-stiff frame seduces you so completely that you genuinely think for a few blissful weeks that there will be no need for anything else. But then the N+1 monkey is back on your shoulder, whispering sweet new-bike nothings into your ear. Before you know it you’re online again, skipping breathlessly from one online retailer to the next, ogling the hardware and reminding yourself that life is no rehearsal. You’re a good person. You work hard, dammit. You deserve to be indulged every now and then. It could be so much worse. It could be sports cars or yachts or class-A drugs. And anyway, isn't this exactly what credit cards are for, right?

Well done Wiggo

A victory at Paris-Roubaix would have been a fairytale ending to Bradley Wiggins’ five-year stint at Team Sky but on this occasion it was not to be. The man who has done as much as anyone to transform cycling in the UK in the last few years put in a pretty heroic performance. When he briefly left the pack behind to chase down the breakaway group with 32 kilometres remaining there was a real sense of excitement that it might just happen – that his dream of signing off with Sky with a win at this most fabled of all Monuments might actually come true. It would have been fitting to score that final victory at a velodrome too – a nod back to his early track successes. But let’s not be too downhearted that the dream didn’t come true. Wiggo was beaten fair and square by an incredibly impressive John Degenkolb, whose strength in bridging the final gap and then finding a winning sprint just minutes later deserves enormous respect. Wiggins’ reaction was typically classy, honest and funny. He said: “I was pleased with the race, you know? Just to be able to attack in Roubaix. When I attacked, I was right up the back of the motorbikes and it was like I was 16 again, training on the mews outside my house, thinking I was it. That was nice. Something to tell the kids. 'Your Dad was shit at Paris-Roubaix but he was leading it at one stage!' “I attacked with Sep Vanmarcke with five kilometres to go but by then it is bit like the Titanic when it is going down in the film and they are all hanging on, and people are falling. But I'm pretty happy. I've won the Tour, you know? I've had a good run.” It must hurt not to have won the race he’s been dreaming of winning since he was a teenager but we hope Brad’s pain is soon replaced by a richly deserved sense of pride about five glorious years at Team Sky and a sense of keen anticipation about the next chapter with Team Wiggins.

Show business

The London Bike Show is one of those events that acts as a bit of a teaser for the season ahead. Taking place at the beginning of the new calendar year, just when our thoughts are starting to turn to the cycling season ahead, it provides us with a little nudge - a wake up call. Some will need little reminding of the targets they have set themselves for the year ahead while others might need a little jolt to turn their thoughts towards more intensive, targeted training. Shows like this one can act as a refresher course, giving us an opportunity to take stock and assess what we might need to up our game. It's a chance for cyclists to congregate, to meet and greet the suppliers and manufacturers of the machines they ride and the accessories and clothes they wear; to talk to the experts and exchange experiences and opinions. More often than not, there's also a sneak preview of some of the new and upgraded kit that will shape the season ahead. We're sure shows like this attract the full spectrum of visitors, from casual bargain-hunters to those looking for a new helmet to match their new bibs, right the way up to the seasoned racer in search of a brand new bike. All are drawn to shows like this; moths to the light. As you stroll round, it doesn't take long to hit the hunger, thirst and tiredness sweetspot, yet on you trudge to stand after stand - never entirely convinced you've seen everything and increasingly weighed down by the carrier bags full of glossy catalogues you'll never read again. We came away from the Show having met up with friends old and new but it was one manufacturer's ad slogan that crystallised our thoughts about shows of this nature, acting as a timely little reminder of something so easily over-looked in the presence of such a vast collection of shiny new kit. It simply read: 'Don't let your body let your bike down'.

Cold on the outside, warm on the inside

February has provided many UK-based cyclists with their first sightings of snow this winter. It's meant any training programme has to include either a turbo or rollers session to keep us safely ticking over. The more privileged among us may have imitated the pros and jetted off to the warmer climates of Majorca, Tenerife, Lanzarote, Girona or Andalusia. But for the rest of us the only real positive factor about this time of year is the fact that the days are slowly but surely starting to lengthen. Coming hot on the heels of the Tour Down Under at the start of the pro racing season, the Dubai Tour is one of the latest additions to UCI calendar. It ran for the first time last year and although it might sound more like a golf event than a bike race, this four-day tour neatly slots into the warmer climate early season events that attract the pros. We've just come back from London cycle café Look Mum No Hands having witnessed the penultimate stage of this tour. It's a crazy, almost surreal experience to see a live televised sporting event in a setting that seems the stuff of far off dreams. For us, the days of just jerseys and bibs remain months away. This year's Tour leaders' jerseys were designed by British fashion icon Paul Smith and one was elegantly modelled by GC race winner Mark Cavendish (who also had the honour of donning another PS designed jersey when he won the 2013 Giro d'Italia points classification). The Dubai Tour has whetted our appetite nicely for the season ahead. Bring it on we say!

Considering N+0.5

Sometimes the urge to splash some cash on a new bike is almost irresistible. You may have convinced yourself it’s an essential purchase, rationalized the expenditure, prepared your excuses for your blissfully ignorant other half, figured out where it’ll fit in the shed and even spoken to that lovely salesman who understands you and your needs better than anyone – anyone – else. But hold on there a second. Before you part with your hard-earned cash, it makes sense to ask yourself a few difficult questions. That argument you cooked up to persuade yourself it was an essential purchase…is it really quite as water-tight as you seem so happy to think it is? Will parting with that four-figure sum really address all the issues you’ve told yourself it will? Let’s be honest here. The chances are, there’s nothing wrong with one of the bikes you’ve already got. You’re probably just a bit bored with them and have decided that you deserve a new one. Goodness knows there’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t get us wrong – we haven’t swapped sides and joined the ‘you paid how much to save 500 grams?!’ brigade. If you want to give in to the N+1 impulse, Simpson would never dream of standing in your way. But if there’s a little part of you deep down inside that knows it’s actually a rather bad idea – that you’d spend as much time feeling guilty and regretful as you would enjoying your new bike – sometimes you can scratch that infuriating new-bike itch at a fraction of the cost by simply gussying up your existing bike. It’s truly amazing how efficacious it can be to fit new forks or handlebars or even just a new seat post. (Pro tip: try all three! We did!) So for those times when N+1 = a whole lot of trouble, why not consider N+0.5?