"I have baggage".

I was just about to start to write up an article for the team site on the inside of a suitcase of a pro rider getting ready to go to the Tour of Britain. I hear lists are the way, "people love lists" I'm told, and to be honest the only experience I have had with lists lately was the Rapha 'jersey pocket' stuff, which was a lot of fun. Maybe it is because bike riders love quantifying things; hours in the saddle, minutes at threshold, average wattage, kilometres to go. It is quantities we live by. 

However, this 'Munning about' style list isn't really quantity at all, more quality. For the second time in my life I am going to go and work on a bike race and not compete in it. Last year with my recovering elbow I played Assistant DS at the Tour of Britain, this year I am slipping into my covert role as press officer for RCS. It should be cool, I have seen the hotel list and as always the Tour of Britain has come up with the goods. So before I unleash the contents of a bike riders suitcase on the world, (coming soon to the www.raphacondorsharp.cc team site) here is what any self respecting Press Officer takes on tour. 

 Elsie by The Horrible Crowes.

I can't recommend this record enough. It's just great. Brian Fallon is one of the best performers out there at the moment. I purchased the blood red vinyl the other day, but won't be dragging that about - I have the digital download ready to roll on my Ipod. (Don't steal music).

As recommended by Jasper Credland, a man of taste - Straight Life, by Art and Laurie Pepper, is a heavy book. I am about a third in and I hate the guy. His unremorseful account of his life so far, including his herion addiction and weird sexual desires is gripping stuff. Worth it for his rant on page 85 alone.

 A good hat.

 Series of short stories by Theodore Sturgeon. Sturgeon was the science fiction writer that Kurt Vonnegut based his recurring character 'Kilgore Trout' on. These are quite cool, they have that same human element that defines a lot of Vonnegut's work.

 Notebooks for obvious reasons. I have also started to use a pencil to write. They are great, I always figured that you couldn't take a pencil seriously because you used them at primary school and part of growing up and going to secondary school was using a pen.

The wonder that is 30 Rock. I love this show. I love Tina Fey for making it happen. I often miss these characters when I have watched a few episodes and I turn off the TV. Sounds very sad - but for the record, my girlfriend feels the same way too. Maybe we both have problems.















I owe the copywrite of this blog post to Munners http://munningabout.blogspot.com - I tried doing it his way, but it still ended up with a lot of words. 

12.6 Miles from Glastonbury. September.

God-damn Europeans,
Take me back to beautiful England,
And the grey damp filthiness of ages
and battered books                                 - PJ Harvey

There is something so comforting to me about the English damp. Damp isn't cold when you ride your bike. It is mystifying. It makes everything look a little out of time. Rides alone in the damp take me back to my youth on the roads of England. All the world is green. The moisture mixes with my sweat and rolls onto my lips as I ride through the still air. Sweat and precipitation tastes like training, and it tastes like England. 

Writing / mother up a ladder.

I write quite a bit these days for various projects, websites and publications. It’s great, I absolutely love it. The only problem that occurs is, just like when you start riding your bike for a living, I get less and less time to write things just for pleasure. This blog sadly falls into this overlooked category. I love this space because I can write whatever I want, as long as I consider it worth someone else reading.

Lately I’ve been writing more than ever. It’s like anything, the more you do it the better you get. My brain, that hadn’t yet turned flabby but certainly lacked a little definition after years of only having to activate the relevant motor neurons needed to push pedals, has probably never been in such good shape.

My cyclist’s routine has admittedly gone out of the window. I simply find it really hard to do two things well. Bike riding demands that you get up early, fresh and ready to push yourself, then that you spend your afternoons in a fuggy haze of fatigue. Writing wants the opposite of you, I sit down at my desk and lose all track of time, mealtimes pass by unchecked – an unthinkable concept for an athlete, and it is often late into the night that I finally decide that I’m not making any improvements to my arrangements of words.

They are not exactly mutually exclusive; in fact I find that cycling promotes neural activity. The trouble being that it is hard to train at present, as I keep having to stop every fifteen minutes to make a note of something on my iPhone. That is not in the training handbooks. But I know that I will forget that thought if I don’t get it down right there and then.

I have to admit writing is winning this tug of war for my concentration, in part due to the winding down of the racing season for us, and in part for the fact I am finally well underway with writing my book.

Writing a book has been something that I’ve never wanted to do, because it always seemed like an unfathomably enormous task, and it really is. However I do love doing it. The parameters of my working world are now so much smaller than they ever have been, no longer the open road but either my study or the room that I converted into a blackboard so I could see what I am thinking about (as well as transcribe all the handy sentences I create on my rides as soon as I get in the door).

It’s a great experience, if a little isolating. But then Isolation is the gift.

Anyway it’s nice to come back and have some time to write about whatever I want, and here it is:

I really dislike the way health and safety has gotten so out of control. I feel very strongly that individuals should take responsibility for themselves. There seems to be this weird climate of fear now that dictates you can’t even look at a photo of someone smoking, mention that you ride with headphones, or go out in black cycling kit without someone chastising you for endangering yourself. I don’t do all these things, nor do I recommend them, but I would like it to be my choice not to do them. It makes me feel human.

So it was cool the other day when I went to see my Mum’s student's textile show up in London. I hung around after the show to help take the stand down, and at some stage heard gasps and exclamations of horror coming from the group of hi-vis vest wearing students that were helping mum dismantle a scaffold. It turned out she had climbed a ladder all by herself (something I found out later, she was forced to take a course in before being allowed). The students simply couldn’t believe their lecturer, all 5ft 8 of her, was all the way up a stepladder on her own.

You would have thought she was teetering on a window ledge half way up a skyscraper.

Looking down from the top my mum just casually bollocked them all for making a fuss, saying “don’t be so bloody ridiculous, IT’S A LADDER”. I laughed; she had a point. My mum is very cool.

That’s all.

Sweet Kernow

As someone who’s working days are defined by the lengths of tarmac that stretch out ever before me, it seems only natural that my favorite place on earth isn’t a beach, or a romantic viewing spot on top of a hill; it is in fact a stretch of road.

As anyone who knows me might know, I love the coast road between Lands End and St.Ives. The views across the sea and the rugged coastline were an incredible backdrop to a youth spent aspiring away as fast as my skinny legs could allow.

There was no way I appreciated it then, as any kid with dreams would agree – it doesn’t matter the backdrop when your young you still end up dreaming of being anywhere but where you are.

These days though, I appreciate more and more just how great this place is, and instead seem to now spend my days dreaming myself back there as often as possible.

Thoughts of this particular place were stirred recently when the Rapha Condor club rode the Cornish Coast in my absence in early Feb.

http://www.raphacondor.cc/club/ride-report-tom-s-west-penwith-regional-ride

It really bothered me that I was unable to be there when a group of riders had come so far to experience, not just my favourite training loop, but to pass that sacred point just outside of Eagles Nest. The three or four hundred metre stretch between the tops of two small hills is the exact spot that I would call my very favourite place on earth.

As I write though I have just had the pleasure of retracing this route once again on my return from six months in Australia. Under a mild April sun, and next to a perfectly calm ocean, I was very happy indeed to be back dreaming away on that particular stretch of grey tarmac.

Saddling up.

For as long as I can remember I have led something of a nomadic lifestyle. I can’t tell now whether that is a result of the cycling, or the cycling is just a handy way for me to be able to live like this.

I spent my first summer away from home racing at 16. I realised pretty quickly that that the only way to really get ahead in the sport was to be in Europe, so I headed straight to Holland for three months literally the day after finishing my high school exams. Unchartered territory it may have been, although looking back now it was a fairly tame experience.

Since then I have not managed to spend a single 12 months in one place, travelling and living between Australia, France, Italy, Holland and the UK. I find myself at once a restless soul, yet utterly content in whatever surroundings I find myself.

For the last five months I have been fairly still, yet utterly content here in Melbourne. My wanderings have only taking me as far as Mt Dandenong, or Healsville, but I don’t think I had a dull day, nor the itch to leave.

Once again though the time has come to move on: back to Bristol and more importantly back to the bike races. Bristol is of course a great city, and now the home of several of Rapha Condor Sharp’s international imports, and seeing as I have to now wear full finger gloves to go riding here, I think it is high time I returned.

To be honest I can’t wait, not least for the fact that I will be able to get replies for my emails the same day that I send them, time zones (and my dislike for working past 8pm) play havoc when you are trying to complete an MA via correspondence.

However Melbourne and all its fantastic contents will be missed. I have discovered yet more to this truly amazing city over the summer period, and for this many thanks have to go out to Jarred Lory Smith and the Stay True/Soul Devotion crew. http://staytruecycling.blogspot.com/ The most hospitable bunch of fellows I could have wanted to meet over here, and of course to Mal at Northside Wheelers, who’s shop keeps reminding me that I really have to write this book http://www.northsidewheelers.com/.

Until we meet again.

Munning about

I went 'Munning about' too today. On roads that used to be familiar but, that in the absence of my two training partners from the North Western suburbs, Casey Munro and Mitch Docker, have become a rare treat indeed.

It was a good ride, and to be honest I don't have much to say about it, apart from the fact that autumn can really be a nice time of year around these parts.

Oh and that this is I think my favourite road name amongst a plethora of odd and often repetitive road names that you find out in Australia.

I actually wanted to photograph this sign a long time ago as the NO THROUGH ROAD sign was dangling at a perfectly dishevelled angle that made for a cool shot. As always though when training alone I was reluctant to stop and get the phone out to capture said image, so I kept leaving it. Then today I was of course so startled to find the sign fixed that I made myself stop and take the picture.

WILD DOG CREEK - it's all in the name.

Well cobble me..

As I may previously have mentioned, I do love this city. I consider myself pretty lucky to spend roughly half my time (and all of my off season time) in Melbourne Australia. It just seems to have it all, and as much as I try to explore the place there always seems to be more to find, do and experience.

Aside from the cafes, the bars, the rooftop cinemas, the laneways and streets that make up my experience of this city, there seems to be so much more to be found. I am a particularly bad explorer when left to my own devices, but I do have a penchant for being led to some great places, and on some interesting journeys.

I happened to be lucky enough recently, to have had the call answered to experience Melbourne.. or Melburn as she is now known, in all it's cobbled glory. In the company of two great explorers - my main man and fellow Glowing Young Ruffian Munners and Andy from the great Fyxomatosis, who joined me for a day of alley bashing along the route of the Melburn Roobaix event that I will one day take part in (see the non-race race calendar).

What a jolly time we had, I have no idea how Andy finds these roads - admittedly some of the harder ones are used every year for the event, but most of the fun it has to be said, is finding your way about the route. Checking for painted arrows on the roads, and turning left at the same time as the guy who knows where he is going.

Here is a rather cool set of pics, that featured on fyxomatosis, of the day.

Thanks Chaps.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44948571@N03/sets/72157625966108350/show/