Rock and rouleur – When he’s not bike-bothering, Perry finds time to hold down a day job as the guitarist in Pendulum, touring the world and getting to perform in front of thousands of baying fans. Follow his bike jaunts and guitar adventures. Also, he’s so Welsh even Geraint Thomas and Nicole Cooke feel a bit inferior next to him.

Jo Rowsell’s blog posts – In among the News updates, Jo’s blog posts are a great insight into what it’s like to go from being a top-level cyclist aiming for the Olympics to one of the most in-demand Team GB athletes going to London 2012. Her latest post, on going from World Record setting to the Daybreak sofa is a million miles from the usual fare of professional cycling.

The Cycling Lawyer - The junction between cycling and the law is the most important barometer of how cyclists are considered as road users. As a QC, Martin Porter provides some of the most thorough and informed commentary on cycling and the law in the UK. Martin Porter is another friend of mine: we’ve raced together for years and ridden the Etape together (he somewhat quicker than me).

Cycling Inquisition – One of the few blogs that never fails to deliver something interesting and different. Passionately and – despite its own protests – well written, it brings a very personal perspective on the sport, with its delicious insights into Colombian cycling. It’s always a joy to read about the world beyond the European scene, especially given that Colombia is a sleeping giant of the sport, slowly being roused from its slumbers through the 1990s.

Big Ring Riding - Like an insane drunk with a large cowbell, equal parts hilarious and just a bit scary. Big Ring Riding comes to praise, the riders who bury themselves in search of glory.

Women’s Cycling Tumblr - If I need to find out something about women’s cycling, I go to Sarah’s blog. She knows as much as anyone writing and someone needs to hire her to do so. Quick note: It’s WOMEN’S cycling, not Ladies or Girls. No one says Gentlemen’s or Boys about the Men’s racing.

Image by Jean Pierre Belot on Flickr

(Having typed that, I’m suddenly doubtful. Most of us can: get down a hill without soiling our nappy; change gear without coming to a grinding halt; work out that a bike on which we can barely reach the drops of the handlebars probably isn’t the right fit; accept that you don’t win by riding for someone else when you should be attacking.)

But here’s a simple test if you think I’m being unfair: Not including the Tour de France 2010, which he won by default, can you name the last multi-stage race in which Andy Schleck won the overall classification. And for a bonus point what was the last race which Andy Schleck won. * (what I think are the answers at the bottom of this post)

The more consistent I become in gaining world-class results the less doubt there is in my mind.  - Bradley Wiggins, on winning Paris-Nice

There’s plenty of knockers for Wiggo – some of them with so little point to what they’re saying you could barely push your way through the skin on a custard with them – but one thing you can’t knock him for is understanding that if you want to win big you have to start winning often.

Look at Alberto Contador and Cadel Evans: when they turn up to race, they don’t turn up just to get round or maybe test their legs on one climb on one stage. They turn up and give the tree a shake because they know that the confidence you gain from a good result is worth far more than another winter spent in the wind tunnel trying to make yourself less like a square rigged sail on a time trial bike.

In consecutive years, on the final climb of the Tour de France, Andy Schleck has turned to them and begged like a child for them to help him or to attack. They in turn have looked back at him with eyes full of the knowledge and confidence that they’ve learned how good a win feels and quite like where they are sitting in his wheel.

Andy seems content to carry on giving isolated stages a bang in the Tours of Switzerland and California while ignoring opportunities to ride the exact route of the decisive stage of the Tour de France in race conditions.

As I look at today’s results, Andy Schleck finished 2 minutes back on stage two of the Volta a Catalunya, back with the crash victims and domestiques. Up in the front group: Wiggins, Gesink, Van den Broeck, Leipheimer.  Now that could be simple bad luck, but then again misfortune has a habit of finding easy victims.

His opponents see every race as a chance to start building the trust in colleagues and establish when they need to rely on themselves; to figure out the logistics and interlinking skills needed in a three-week race; to find their voice as a leader and how to motivate their team.

Every race is about practicing good habits, building momentum, learning how to improve your weaker areas and figuring out your rivals. Andy seems to view them as a minor inconvenience to be endured until July and the Tour de France comes round.

Cyrille Guimard who shaped him at VC Roubaix compared his talent to some of his previous charges such as Greg Lemond, Bernard Hinault and the late and much missed Laurent Fignon.

Andy Schleck is 26, an age at which Fignon had two Tours de France to his name and, but for an errant helicopter,  should have also had a Giro d’Italia. It’s all very well point to his young rider’s classification jerseys, but as the leading rider of his age by a margin, they aren’t really enough of a return on his talent. Raymond Poulidor may have become mythologised as the eternal second, but he won plenty in his time. Andy Schleck hasn’t won a great deal.

Finally, let’s talk about the Galibier stage of the Tour de France 2011. It’s easy to focus on the attack on the Col d’Izoard and the 2’15″ between him and Cadel Evans at the finish. But take a look at that final kilometre to the finish: Evans took 45 seconds back on Schleck. At 5km to go, the gap was 3’15″, at 11km it was 4’15″ according to the Cyclingnews account of the stage.

Those 45 seconds made a world of difference the next day when Evans sat tight less than a minute behind Schleck, and the day after that, when he started the time trial with one minute to take back on a course he knew rather than the thick end of two.

* By my reckoning, the last time Andy Schleck won a stage race was the Fleche du Sud in 2004 as an 18-year-old amateur. The last professional race in which he finished first was Liege-Bastogne-Liege in 2009.

(Just imagine how much nicer the picture above would be if the bottom half weren’t obliterated by eye-gouging yellow)

Hi-Viz yellow is a blot and a blight on the British landscape. Like the increasingly common “daylight” LED headlights, it is a solution that creates as many problems as it solves.

The ubiquity of the heavy yellow fabric, inevitably stained with grime up the back, disheartens me on a daily basis. It’s lazy, ugly and  depressing, the antithesis of everything riding a bike should be.

I was once told a story of a watercolour painter who found that he found it increasingly hard to paint the glorious landscapes of Dartmoor on account of the eye-bleeding distraction of luminous yellow trooping across the Tors. Looking at the picture at the top of this post, I know how that painter feels.

I’m not totally opposed to bright colours. I wear a very bright pink Rapha gilet on occasion and at the right time of day or night, I’m a big fan of reflective materials to catch the eye of other road users. I’m a fan of eye-catching colours when the light is flat or there’s mist or fog – like this morning when I wore my Liquigas lime green gilet – which reduce visibility, but there are many more colours than simply yellow.

Hi-Viz yellow is symptomatic of a passive state in which that the wearer has been made safer simply by putting on the garment, rather than actively seeking to be safer by using lights, observation and other elements of roadcraft. That’s all before it’s often hidden behind a bag or rucksack.

Under sodium orange glare of street lighting I find that it tends to bleed into the background, rendering it no safer than anything other colour. Only things like the reflective panelling on Respro’s hump  really stand out in those conditions.

More than anything it seems to be a peculiarly Anglo-Saxon obsession. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it making the same visual dent in the landscape of France, Italy, the Netherlands or Denmark, or the usually cautious Germany.

On clear day there is no justification for claiming that a cyclist is any harder to spot than a pedestrian crossing a road. No one has ever suggested in all seriousness that pedestrians should all wear yellow tabards for crossing the road as a matter of course.

But a significant proportion of British cyclists default to yellow rather than exploring the spectrum of opportunity, from the brightest of peacock blues to bold purples and glorious reds. Go out my readers and ride away from the boring, dare to push away from lazy choices.

Cycling should be about moving as part of your landscape, the sensation of oneness with the terrain around you, not gouging a visual tear in the landscape.

If tomorrow you burn your hi-Viz jacket or bib, then you will have done something to restore a little bit of beauty to the experience of cycling.

• Percy Pigs are the food of champions

Lizzie Armitstead ate no less that five of them, doesn’t seem to do her any harm. I ate three bags and don’t seem to have suffered either.

• If you put in a curved, panelled wood roof on a wooden track, it makes for really good reverb and amplification

The noise was deafening whenever a GB rider was on the track. Not just loud in volume, but that roaring noise that hits you physically. Even when it was only about a quarter full as everyone streamed out on Sunday night, the applause during the medal ceremonies was still loud.

• Sir Chris Hoy is an Olympian like no other

Whether it’s hitting 78.4km/h in the Keirin to ride round three riders inside him, or leading by example, he is a Colossus of a man. Physically he may not bulge like the German sprinters but for sheer presence he outmuscles everyone.

• When the shut the doors, the heat is unbearable

It’s meant to sit at around 28 degrees Celsius, but apparently can hit 31-32. You don’t need a jumper to sit in the stands. I was almost giddy with the heat at times. Well, that and the massive buzz of excitement.

• If the Omnium finished with a bunch race it would be completely compelling

Watch Laura Trott defying the odds on Saturday night and then think how cool it would be if the event climaxed with what is essentially last man standing.

• GB’s man one crisis in the team sprint is simple: stick Jason Kenny at one

Jamie Staff clearly thinks Kenny is quickest, the mutterings are that he can go faster than Edgar at man one. In qualifying, there was about 0.3 seconds across the top four. If Kenny at one closes that gap, GB are back on Gold standard at two and three.

• Someone needs to have a word with whoever is running the PA system

Too much compression means everything comes out loud, so the music bleeds into the commentary and nobody can hear either properly. Reduce the compression, bring back in a bit of dynamic range and there will be natural separation of the two.

It’s a “wet” room naturally so there’s very little need for so much sloppy reverb like you would need in another venue.

“Recently I approached a notoriously dangerous junction with the lights on red and a police car at the front of the queue. I knew that in half a second the lights would switch, that the other lanes were already at red and had stopped. I ran the red light. Blue lights flashed. I was fined and made to undergo internet cycle training. I am grateful — its videos showed me how little lorry drivers can see of cyclists from their cabs. That has made me safer but hasn’t stopped me breaking the law.”

– Lech Mintowt-Czyz, The Times 09/02/2012

So let me break this down: he approached a junction where the traffic was already stopped at a red light and a queue had formed, manoeuvred through static traffic to the front of the line, past a stopped police vehicle and through a mandatory stop signal. This made him feel safer.

Let me pick apart the problems here based on how I ride and what I’ve found to be a safe approach to the issues on London roads over the last 12 years.

• If a queue had formed, he could have safely adopted primary position behind the last vehicle in the queue
• If he filtered, as he could do safely, he could have adopted primary position ahead of the police vehicle with no penalty
• A cyclist filtering through the stopped traffic lanes could easily have emerged and caused an accident by following Lech’s logic

Clearly from his tweets he believes his position is entirely sane, rational and justified. It isn’t. It is simple, petty law breaking. It’s not a symptom of the problems on the road, it’s a symptom of an attitude of entitlement to know better than the law. I’m not without sin, very few road users are, but I have little time for attempts to justify this sort of behaviour.

“I do not justify my actions on some idea of bicycle supremacy — an attitude often attributed to “irresponsible” riders. I deplore cyclists who ride listening to music — are they mad? I condemn those who ride in dark clothing at night or without lights. And getting on a bike without a helmet? No, I don’t buy that either.”

I frequently wear dark clothing (albeit with reflective trim) and I almost never wear a helmet when commuting. Neither of these things is actively against the law, although there’s many who would argue for contributory negligence on my part in the event of an accident. Neither has an existing precedent as such in English law, as far as I can see.

And neither could in any way make me feel safer about the biggest threat to my life on the roads: HGVs turning, frequently without checking their mirrors and blind spots properly and with the driver oblivious to the cyclist on the road, resulting in fatal crush injuries to internal organs.

I reduce that threat by avoiding being in their blind spots, establishing eye contact with the driver when stopped at a junction and not filtering up their left. These are simple, sensible things to do, and none of them is illegal. There are times when this may cause me to stray across stop lines, to temporarily impede other traffic’s progress or push at the limits of legality, but none are an active offence which would usually concern a traffic enforcement officer (think tax avoidance rather than tax evasion).

I even ride listening to music, just as I drive with a car stereo on (on the rare occasions I drive), much as millions of road users do in the UK. I could argue that I do so because I feel it makes me safer as it allows me to concentrate on the visual indicators of hazard/risk and maintaining a safe road space around my riding position rather than focusing on the noise from vehicles (not just cars) sitting too close behind me. I don’t because it’s a ridiculously flawed logic.

The fundamental point is this: red light running doesn’t make you safer, no matter how much you are convinced of it. A driver who is inattentive enough to turn across your path and drag you under their wheels is inattentive enough to hit you whether you are standing still or moving.

Running a red light wouldn’t, as far as I know, have saved the lives of any of people killed or seriously injured on Britain’s roads, many of whom were hit by drivers on open roads nowhere near a junction. It will not save yours or make you safer.

And ultimately, if this campaign is about making the roads safer for cyclists, it will do nothing to advance the debate or convince anyone that cyclists should be entitled to equal treatment as road users and stakeholders in the transport infrastructure.

Here’s the course of our debate on twitter pulled together through Storify, I’ve stuck some elements on the end with my commentary on where the discussion ended.

One was packed with “winning talent”, but couldn’t find a sponsor. The other had a sponsor but couldn’t find a rider to go with the much-vaunted winning reputation of Johan Bruyneel. So in a marriage of convenience – and of such indecent haste that the words love, honour and obey were never uttered even by the priest – they “merged”. Which makes Flavio Becca happy as he’s got a team management that doesn’t rely on the stock availability of My Little Pony to motivate riders.

(Picture courtesy Team Radioshack Nisssan Trek)

First the name. Radioshack Nissan Trek is the “they don’t have rules where we’re going” version. All it’s lacking is a ponderous “presented by” fourth sponsor tacked on the end for good measure. I flatly refuse to call them by any official designation if I can avoid it. So I present to you Radish Hack Nissen Hut. They will be known as The Radishes this season.

After last year’s attack of the clone scarves, this year saw another “everyone wearing the same casual outfit”.

Nothing is less stylish than everyone wearing exactly the same look from one designer. It shouts “Butlins suits, you think it’s funny?” The whole point of casual wear is that it is in some way individual and not uniform, which is formal attire.

Light grey cardigans, white V-neck Tees is so middle-aged dad trying too hard. Which is an accurate description of father of six and full time dog-with-a-bone war machine Jens Voigt.

Undeterred by Astana having got there first with annexing a nation for a professional team, the Radishes have thrown the retro card on the table – Luxembourg having existed as a nation somewhat longer than Kazakhstan.

Scratch that, they’ve simply figured the quickest way round the issue of Radioshack’s brand colours being red and their existing design being baby blue is to stick another stripe on, along with the ubiquitous “cancer shield” livestrong band. God only knows how many brand identity consultants that solution took.

NY Velocity tried to find something palatable in the team presentation but ends up leaving it all on the plate.

Meanwhile over at the home of over-earnest hyperbolic press, Team Sky, the thin blue line between winning and losing seems to become a rather thick band.

Fine line? Yes, if you consider marker pens fine.

Thanks to Kristof Ramon for this handy photo of what the blue line represents

"This is the line" - Team Sky bike by Kristof Ramon

If it’s a fine line between success and failure and we ride it every day, then Team Sky seem to have decided to take to the cote d’azur this year for a whole lap of FAIL. And there’s a bloody long way between winning and losing compared to 2011.

Still, at least it means space for the News International logo (it’s the one that looks like a portcullis seen through a fisheye lens) to slip on to the jersey in time for the Olympic year.

So now you know where all that money the Murdochs saved when they closed the News of the World went: fatter blue stripe and Mark Cavendish’s monthly cheque and the hope of basking in the reflected glory of gold.

This season Sky will probably concede the lead in sending out absurdist jokes as press releases by Green Edge, whose press to date seems to be one long folly based on the reinforcing every Aussie stereotype going. Here’s some sample copy from the official Green Edge cycling site:

“… to find the edge in every aspect of our sport, stretch it, explore it and push it forward. That’s where we’re coming from.”

Exquisite corpses is a wonderful parlour game, but it’s no way to write copy.

Green Edge have also successfully lowered the bar for professional team kit right down past “cookie cutter club kit with less than no thought” to “Jerry Ryan’s picking up the tab, so it can’t be any less aesthetically pleasing than a Jayco caravan”.

Gradient fades? Nobody has thought them a sensible design cue since Paintshop Pro was considered a viable alternative to Adobe Photoshop for design work.

In seasonal footnotes

• Omega Pharma-Quick Step stick to their long and inglorious tradition of glamorously ugly kits. If it was a question of life or death and they had to pick between form or function they’d choose pass.
• Team Slipstream have found a second sponsor. Too late to save the women’s operation,but at least it means they can now make weak jokes about fish as Team Garmin-Barracuda. Let’s just call them The Barracudas and describe them as a shoal, etc.

I remember getting a Raleigh Burner Mark 1 (the classic post office red and yellow one) for Christmas when I was about six or seven (I think it was 1982, possibly 1983).

1982 catalogue image of the Raleigh Burner in red (from Dan's Raleigh Burner Resource)

It came from the Halfords in Woking, long since demolished, just across from Stanley Road. My parents hid it in the garage, along with my brother’s blue and yellow Mini Burner. I’m pretty sure I knew it was there. It was probably the most enduring present I have ever been given.

When we moved to St Lucia, it was ridden every day, racing against my friends on dirt roads, seeing who could hold a wheelie the longest, who could do the longest skid, biggest jump, sprint fastest.

When I was older, I rode it all over Surrey in search of adventure in the school holidays: shops that would sell me cigarettes, hooky off licences, trying to impress girls or find ones who would talk to me.

I took it to university in Manchester to save on bus fares and to get me around, mostly to the pub, shops, kebab houses, even lectures. I remember it got a lot of use on late night booze runs and down to the all-night garage to get milk for tea during marathon Tomb Raider sessions on the Playstation.

I had that bike and rode it until it was stolen in 2000, when I drunkenly let someone persuade me they were only going to ride it round the car park at closing time then rode off into the night, apparently for amusement. The tyres, grips and saddle were changed over the years, but most of the moving parts were still original. I miss it still, the first bike I really loved riding, but I did get a replica Team Burner a few years back from the missus which I promise I’m going to start using more.

From the beginning a bike gives the owner confidence in their own ability, mobility to go almost anywhere they want as fast or as slow as they choose. It’s liberating like no other gift you can give for Christmas.

So I hope you’re getting a bike for Christmas, or giving one as a gift to a child. A bike for Christmas will be as good a gift as anything you could wish for.

Smashing video from the mighty Morvelo which deserves to go on here rather than just on the Chasing Wheels Tumblr which is where I find I’m posting a fair bit of quick and dirty pix’n'vidz at the moment.

(via Competitive Cyclist on Twitter)

Puts into perspective the risks people run with deer crossing the road in Richmond Park. Actually it seems there’s a seriously aggro badger that’s been taking people out recently.

Pegoretti Marcelo: The Thin White Duke

Ordered in January 2011 and finally delivered today, it’s been a lengthy process but never a fraught one thanks to the charm and good humour of Roger Graver at Mosquito bikes.

I went with stock geometry as the wait time for a custom one is nigh on two years now. Plus I’m not really a custom geometry. I’m a pretty standard 52cm frame sort of shape.

I’m aware that this is the last of its generation as Dario Pegoretti has changed his design for the Marcelo this year in terms of tube shape and diameter. I really wanted this classic style and so was easily persuaded by Roger to go for this over a Duende, despite it costing a bit more.

I wanted a white bike because they look good and go faster. And I also wanted a personal touch. So I asked Dario to include a quotation from the Italian humanist writer Renato Serra who was killed during World War One.

It comes from Esame di coscienza di un letterato and reads in the original:

“Del resto, viviamo, poiché non se può fare a meno, la vita è così.”

I first read it in Passion and defiance: film in Italy from 1942 to the present, By Mira Liehm, where it appears at the beginning of the chapter Obsession as part of a much longer quote and is applied to the yearnings of the neo-realist cinema movement. It is translated thus:

“And we live because we cannot afford not to, because that is life.”

I’ve always felt it’s something to be reminded of on a daily basis and being an Italian quotation, it felt right to have it on the bike. I hope Dario appreciated the sentiment of it.

Complete Specification

Frame: Stock 52cm geometry frame Pegoretti Marcelo 2010 model with custom spec paint (Bianco Segnale RAL 901 with black details and hand-written quotation)
Fork: Mizuno Carbon
Headset: Chris King NoThreadSet
Handlebar: Deda Speciale 44cm
Stem: Velo Orange 120mm +/-6 degree 31.8mm via Fresh Tripe Bikes
Seatpost: Kalloy Uno 29.4mm
Saddle: Selle San Marco Rolls Forato

Drive Train

Bottom bracket: Shimano UN-54, Square Taper JIS, Italian Thread
Chainset: Stronglight Impact 165mm 50/36
Chain: Wipperman Connex 10X
Cables: Jagwire Pro Racer
Shifters: SRAM Rival
Front derailleur: SRAM Rival 31.8mm Band on
Rear Derailleur: SRAM Rival
Brake Callipers: SRAM Rival
Brake Pads and Holders: Swiss Stop Pro Green
Pedals: Speedplay Zero Stainless

Wheels/Tyres

Wheels: 32-hole Ambrosio Excellight rims laced to Shimano Ultegra hubs with Alpina F1 spokes, built to order by Harry Rowland
Tyres: Challenge Criterium Open tubular 23mm