Despite there being no evidence whatsoever to prove it, acts of wanton cycling, such as riding through red lights, down one way streets or a short dash along a pavement to miss a dangerous junction, are more than likely responsible for the meltdown of the global financial markets, the rise of binge drinking and the MPs expenses scandal.

And it will come as no surprise to some if it transpires that cyclists were stood on that Grassy Knoll, are the reason men go bald, and faked the moon landings.

It’s heinous acts like these that’s made it particularly grating for readers of the Daily Mail that a “complete waste of my hard earned tax payers money” quango has recommended vulnerable road users – such as cyclists – should be greater protected as they go about their destruction of society by the introduction a “strict liability” policy in the UK.

The bastards!

Strictly Come What?

In short, “strict liability” takes the onus off the most vulnerable road user to prove that they weren’t at fault if they’re involved in an accident. For more accurate information about it, check out Road Peace’s web site.

So that’s it. Nothing too controversial there. Defending the vulnerable is a noble and worthy cause, wouldn’t you say? Well, somewhat surprisingly for the internet, there’s been an ill-informed shitstorm whipped up by this suggested change, and that’s all it is – a suggestion. Shockingly, the Daily Mail has been in the eye of the storm and chose to lead their coverage with a sensationalist headline to report the, erm, report:

“Motorists should be made legally responsible for all accidents involving cyclists, even if they are not at fault, say Government advisers.”

As Roy Walker more than likely didn’t say when he probably didn’t read that “It’s close, but it’s not right”.

Not happy with one misleading headline, to really fire up the mob, the Mail also published an ignorant opinion piece by Robert Hardman about what an “undeserving bunch of lawbreaking shits cyclists really are” – I’m paraphrasing there –  which amusingly includes the phrase “Lycra Louts” in its title.

Go on, read it. I dare you.

Despite opening his “strict liability” bashing piece by describing a situation in which he himself would actually have benefited from the change in the system, what really caught my eye was Hardman’s lovely comparison of cyclists and African paramilitaries:

“I prefer to think of them as the Mai-Mai, the Congolese militia who believe that they are endowed with magical qualities making them immune to bullets.”

OK, OK, Robert’s trying to be funny. I know. I know. Cyclists think they’re invincible which is why they all ride so recklessly. Very good. But all the same it’s a little strong to slyly compare people commuting to work (sometimes illegally on the pavement) with terrorists. I suppose I should be glad that he didn’t go the whole hog and call us “Nazis on Bikes”:

The healthier way to go to war.

The Cycling Terrorists Club

After reading Hardman’s article and once I’d finished my self-righteous, teeth-grinding, head-shaking and tut-tutting, I drew up my own, mercifully short, list of cycling terrorists organisations (just when you thought it Hardman’s article couldn’t do any more harm, hey?).

So, strap yourselves in for some fairly horrific pun based terrorist action:

Shining Cycle Path
Even Peruvian Communists enjoy a good bike ride, you know.

Real Tyre.A
Dissident group fighting for the freedom of Irish cyclists.

Cycle-Qaeda
Riding bicycles into buildings is so much less destructive.

Raleigh-ban
Bike brand specific cycling hardliners. Very keen on compulsion.

And you can open your eyes again now.

On the off chance that you’ve not laughed up too many of you major organs please feel free to add any of your own in the comments below.

OK, there’s a very slim chance he did but he probably didn’t.

Anyway, what he definitely did do was to write a review of the Tesla Roadster in the Mail on Sunday’s LIVE magazine which included a lefty baiting rant about hating herbal tea drinking cyclists and an anecdote about parping his horn at a group of cyclists as he silently sped past in the electric sports car. The sheer shock of him tooting his tooter, according to his story at least, forced the unsuspecting riders off the road into the hedge.

James Martin successfully catches the first of 1000 bikes to be thrown at him.

Sadly his version of events have been deleted from the Mail’s Website so I stole them from elsewhere:

Twenty minutes into my test drive I pulled round a leafy bend, enjoying the birdsong – and spotted those Spider-Man cyclists. Knowing they wouldn’t hear me coming, I stepped on the gas, waited until the split second before I overtook them, then gave them an almighty blast on the horn at the exact same time I passed them at speed.

The look of sheer terror as they tottered into the hedge was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my rear-view mirror. I think this could be the car for me.

Brilliant, James. Just brilliant.

And his article has caused an ugly storm on the internet. Thanks to the wonder of Twitter and seemingly all the internet’s cycling Web sites every British cyclist has now read the article and become outraged by his now deleted words. In fact the shock of reading the article was so great I sprayed my Clippers Green Tea with Echinacea all over my keyboard!

Did it Really Happen? Did it?

Now, I realise this fact will amaze and shock you in equal measures: I’ve never met James Martin – but its hard to find anyone who’s not on HRT with anything nice to say about him.

Take the British Courts, for example. They ruled he was a liar. Back in 2008 his former stepmother sued him and won damages after extracts of his autobiography were published in a paper in which he labelled her the “ugliest women he had ever met” – oh, and he wrote some nastier stuff about her being a terrible witch of a stepmother that wasn’t as school boyishly funny so we’re under playing that.

However, what with this being the Daily Hate Mail I suspect that, as inappropriate as his comments were, James’ article was somewhat playing to the crowd. Was his encounter with the cyclists simply an exaggeration to add a touch of spice to his review? From my experience of Daily Mail readers, the tale of James’ Mr Toad antics could only have raised more self satisfied guffaws from the breakfast tables across the Home Counties if it had turned out the cyclists were, in fact, disabled, illegal immigrants.

Of course that doesn’t excuse him. His words were at best ill-judged and at worst an irresponsible admission of law breaking. Nor does his subsequent “sincere” apology – although apologies phrased as “Do you lot not have a sense of humour or what?” never seem particularly sincere to me – provide him with a get out of jail card.

But his claim that it was just a joke only leads me to believe that James either has a very strange sense of humour or he made the whole story up.

54,00 Complaints

Ross and Brand: A right pair of fuckers.

What’s interesting about this affair is how similar it seems to – the lazily named – Sachs-gate scandal that quite literally rocked the Daily Mail’s readership to its very stone-hearted core last year and yet how different the response of the Mail is.

On that ocassion the Mail embarked on a moral crusade to defend public decency – sadly it was too late to defend the chastity of Manuel’s Satanic Slut granddaughter, Georgina – which resulted in 54,000 complaints – 53,999 of which came from readers who hadn’t even heard of Russell Brand let alone the broadcast itself before the crusade began. But it also resulted in Brand and the controller of Radio 2 resigning and meant that 100’s, if not 1000’s, of Bridge Clubs had to cancel matches as their memebers stayed at home to write “Outraged of Eastbourne” letters to the Beeb.

Fast forward 12 months and when the Daily Mail publish an article – written by a BBC employee – containing a remorseless admission of “driving like a nutsack” that could, without exaggeration, caused someone’s death, they’re keeping tight lipped.

Harassment of the not so vulnerable elderly – oh no, no, no. Harassment of vulnerable cyclists- oh yes, yes, yes.

Has the Mail started a crusade to sack James Martin from its paper? Has the Editor resigned? Have they even mustered an apology? Has a monkey flown out of my butt?

This hippocracy is undoubtedly down to the Mail not really giving a flying fuck about cyclists – although if the truth be told, they didn’t give a flying fuck about Andrew Sachs or his granddaughter either they simply had an axe to grind with the BBC and a paper to sell. And they seem not to give one about honesty, transparency nor the decency that they previous did so much to defend. By demonstrating a level of journalistic integrity that you’d wouldn’t expect from a shoddy blogger they surreptitiously removed the offending words from the online version without so much of a by your leave, and closed the comments section’s flood gates to stop the deluge of complaints.

So James Martin might not have fucked your granddaughter but he surely deserves the sack from the Mail just as much as Britain’s cyclists deserve an apology from the paper.

Naff. Naff. Naff.

I suppose, before I go any further, I should come clean here and confess that my feelings towards folding bikes are more than somewhat coloured by the fact my sister had one when we were children. It was truly a horrorshow of a bike – some sort of Raleigh, the cream finish offset delightfully by the white wall tyres on the tiny wheels. It had molded plastic grips that after ten minutes riding made your hands feel like you’d been holding on to a pair of curling irons. It was hard to make it “go” because the lever for the Sturmey Archer was stiffer than a teenager at a women’s beach volley ball tournament and even harder to make it “stop” thanks to a set of brakes that had so little power in them pulling the level felt like you were pressing a sponge against a jelly. It had also a basket.

And worst of all, my sister – being 2 years older than me – used to regularly kick my arse on it.

So, there, now you know. Phew, that feels better.

Anyway, despite this naffness – and my deep psychological scarring – the folding bike is now more popular than ever with quite literally 60 – if not 70 – percent of doorways on every train into London now made impassable by a folding bike. All of which might be a pain in the arse for commuters without their right trouser leg tucked into their socks, but is great news for the grandaddy of the folding bike - Brompton.

What’s not quite such good news for Brompton, is that the folding bike’s image problem is compounded by the fact that it’s also British built – a fact which essentially uses the unstylish, yet powerful, thumb of bad taste to shift the bike’s Sturmey Archer hub of naffness into third. Because, and I’m wildly generallising here, British manufacturing has struggled to do the whole “cool” thing, apart from a few exceptions, which means everything seems to be a little bit, well, naff.

Look! Alexei Sayle thinks so too:

“If the British had invented the Walkman, it would have been a teak box, covered in leatherette, with the headphones out of a Lancaster bomber”

Maybe it’s our pragmatism that makes us place function over form. Maybe we’re too rational and not emotional enough. Maybe we genuinely would rather be Richie than the Fonz. Whatever the reason, while we were out taking “country jaunts” on our drab Pashley’ Roadster Classic:

More tea, Vicar?

Our European neighbours, the Italians, were knocking out things of beauty like Coppi’s 1952 Bianchi:

"I've just shagged a nun."

What Are You Doing There?

But in the midst of all this naffness, almost behind our backs, something unusual happened. Something completely unexpected happened. Something involving Brompton turned out to be *cool* – the Brompton World Championships.

Obviously these *cool* Championships weren’t held in Britain. The first was held back in 2006 in Barcelona by the Spanish importer of Bropmton bikes. And despite not being able to find any reports or pictures, I like to think that each and everyone of those taking part were nonchalant chicos who whilst racing through the exotic streets of Barcelona each offer a casual “Hola, guapa!” to every girl they pass. Sounds like a reasonable, yet in no way over glamourised, and highly plausible description of events, doesn’t it?

Anyway, whatever actually took place in Barcelona Brompton liked what they saw enough to bring the event back home to the UK. And – would you believe? – in the process turned the World Championships from something that was exotic and cool into something slighly less so:

Some riders will try anything to draw attention away from the naffness of the bike they're riding.

After You. No, After You. No, No…

With its strict dress code of shirt, tie, and jacket the Championship was moved to Blenheim Palace – the home of the most British of Brits: Winston “Bloody British” Churchill – making it a Spanish fantasy no more but a quintessential British affair. A celebration of British eccentricity and our spiffing sense of bally-well humour.

Of course, in reality, it’s also a cynical marketing event hosted by Brompton – preaching their “brand messages” to the converted. Quite literally peddling naffness to people who are quite literally peddaling naffness. But we’re all too terribly, terribly  British to mention that, aren’t we?

Maybe the quirky rules, the location, and the prospect of another day away from the family is a spot on recreation of your average Brompton rider’s experience of community by train/bike – but it’s not mine. So here are a few ideas I’ve had to make the event a little truer to the my train/bicycle commuter’s experience:

• Before the race, the competitors are held in a cramp, smelly, and searingly hot compartment with their face pressed into a stranger’s armpit for 45 minutes.
• Instead of clapping and cheering on the participants, the crowd geer and throw insults at the riders as they pass.
• Taxis pull out into the path of riders at various points around the course.
• The event is only held if it’s raining.
• To win the race, each competitor MUST hold open a door for someone – even though you’re the one with the bike – AND have shouted “Wanker!” at someone along the course regardless whether it was actually them in the wrong or not.

Let’s hope they bring these in for the 2010 event to make it proper British, innit?

Don’t I Know You From Somewhere?

Bringing a bit of the Spanish cool to last year’s Championships was ex-Pro Roberto Heras:

Roberto Heras injected some, erm, professionalism into proceedings

What was most startling about his participation in last year’s event is just how much of an improvement to your performance an effective doping programme can really make. With it, you can win a Grand Tour, with out it, you can only finish 2nd in a fold-up bike race.

And speaking of recovering drugs cheat not performing at their best, Floyd Landis finished 25th in the recent Tour of Utah:

Landis about to have his ass whooped for a 2nd time by Williams

After being beaten by Utah Jazz’s Deron Williams in a pre-race publicity time trail, Floyd Landis carried his form into the race proper, finally being beaten by 24 other riders. Jolly good show, Floyd.

If someone’s not knife-criming you in the face then they’re voting in a buffoon to run the place presumably on the off chance he’ll do something funny. Which, as I’ve mentioned, is just mean.

And on top of that, it’s not the nicest off places to ride your bike either. Don’t believe me? Take a look at these bike-shed of horrors:

• Sometimes London can be busy and noisy and riding a bi-swicle can be fwitening.
• Sometimes the paths just turn into canals.
• There’s nowhere you can leave your bike without it being stolen – even under your bottom.

Actually, that last one sounds genuinely horrifying.

So to try and make the experience of riding a bike through the Hell on Earth that is London a little more enjoyable, some jolly lovely chaps (and/or chapesses) came up with the idea for Ding Day:

Ding Day 2009 - Boris Johnson gave it a ringing endorsement. A-huh. A-huh.

Yes, Ding Day. All over London on Wednesday, 9th September whenever a cyclist see a fellow cyclist they will give them a little ding-ding on their bell in the hope that, in the words of Ding Day’s organisers, they’ll be “creating a harmony around London’s cycling community”.

Which is all very laudable and on the whole “a good thing”. After all, one of the nicest things about cycling is the sense of belonging to a group. And I think we can all agree that when you’re out on your bike getting a “Hello”, a nod, or even just a raised hand over a brake hood from another rider is nice.

Which is why I can’t help feeling that this is all a sad reflection of what life living in London is really like – you have to organise a special day, have it endorsed by the Mayor – Boris Johnson says “…Ding Day is a welcome addition to spreading the word about the joys of cycling” - just to get cyclists to acknowledge another cyclist.

Whatever next? A special day to stop people hitting strangers about the face and neck with your D-Lock?

Anyway, Ding Day says that through its day full of ringing bells, it aims:

To create a fun experience for cyclists and locals in and around London, with the hope of creating more of a sense of community amongst fellow cyclists, including commuters, parents, children, basically any cyclist young or old. It’s free and open to everyone.

Yes, saying “Hello” to someone else is free and open to everyone. Marvellous, isn’t it? But a word of warning from poor-little Minette Marrin, before you get carried away and start ringing that bell all willy-nilly at strangers:

When I protested at one of these dicers-with-my-death by primly ringing my bell, he got off his bike and was so frighteningly nasty I didn’t dare touch the bell again.

Hmm, London is a mean city.

Garmin-Slipstream put out his blood values for both haemoglobin count – the concentration of oxygen carrying protein in red blood cells – as well as, what’s becoming the de facto measure of cheating, his “Off Score”.

Now calling it the “Off Score” makes it sound a little more Terry Thomas – “Your Off Score’s really not on, you absoulte scoundral!” – than it probably is. Here’s how Garmin explain it:

The Off Score, which takes into account the relationship between haemoglobin and reticulocyte concentration is currently used as the reference point for assessing an athlete’s blood profile. Since reticulocytes tend to decrease when haemoglobin is artificially high, the combination of a high haemoglobin and a low reticulocyte raises the Off Score.

Not quite as funny as it first sounded, I think you’ll agree. Maybe closer to some of Thomas’ later work but certainly not up there with Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or Monte Carlo or Bust.

Anyway, much was also made of Bradley’s weight loss in the build up to the Tour – in the 9 months prior to the Tour he lost 7 kilos. Which although might not win him the crown of “Weight Watchers Slimmer of the Year” it’s no men feat for someone who’s not actually a fatso. Of course, for the anti-doping cynics out there this is a hard fact to believe – and Bradley’s partly responisble for this. Judging by the account in his autobiogrphy Bradley used to be an almost Flintoff standard drinker and his cake consumption is estimated to be the same as that of a single woman in her early 40’s.

Which is why Garmin have been forced to release Bradley’s cake and beer intake levels for this year’s Tour:

Bradley Wiggins releases beer/cake values taken during and immediately after the 2009 Tour

At first glance, you might think that this is simply a pathetic attempt at humour, very badly done in Microsoft Paint – you’d be wrong, though. It was actually done using Adobe Photoshop.

As you can see, during the whole of the Tour both his beer and cake intake were very low. There’s only a slight blip plotted on the cake line when Bradley accidentally ate half a croissant. No-one is quite sure how this happened, although it’s currently believed that a member of Saxo-Bank may have spiked his porridge with it. His consumption levels stayed constant until he hit Paris and, as clearly shown above, beer imbibment rose markedly and he Katona’d it on the cake front before returning to a more normal level.

There we have it, categoric proof to support Wiggins’ weight loss based performance increases. We can only hope this will be enough to satisfy the doubters or, at the very least, stop them moaning on and on and on for a couple of weeks.

Do my thighs look extremely powerful in this?

That’s right, your clothes:

Nicole Cooke, the Olympic and world road race champion, is likely to spend the rest of the season racing in GB colours after the collapse of her Vision 1 team.

Come on, give her a break. Just because she’s a woman surely there was something you could have written about other than the clothes she’s wearing!

And this year brings the returns of two particularly heinous  drug cheats – Floyd Landis and Alexander Vinokourov. Boo! Hiss!

Interestingly both of these riders could have been back sooner. Vino was caught blood doping in 2007 and only received a one year ban. And Landis was caught “Spunk doping” at the 2006 TdF whined “I didn’t do it” like a child all the way to the CAS so his 2 year ban didn’t start until September 2007.

Anyway, with their return to the sport, they bring the dark cloud, or at the very least the purple haze, of doping back to a sport that’s trying desperately to clean up it’s image.

Fortunately, it seems cycling can rest easy and not worry that these two’s will further sully the reputation of the sport they helped to all but destroy as both Landis and Vino’s comebacks have been nothing short of ridiculous.

Utah Sinners

Landis has hit the headlines again as he tries to promote the Tour of Utah. He’s done this by having a double-header (fnar, fnar) with the Utah Jazz’s Deron Williams – a handicapped bike race and then a basketball penalty shootout thingy.

Here they are pretending to literally duke it out before metaphorically duke it out. Do you see? Do you?

Commentators are still baffled as to why cycling fails to attract ethnic minorities

Brilliant stuff really.

Landis now riders for a US based outfit called OUCH – apparently named after the noise you make ripping a testosterone patch off of your nutsack. For the cycling leg of the challenge he was to school Williams in the finer points of time-trialling – which he foolishly did a little too well as Williams beat him, albeit with a 60 second head start.

Maybe Landis agreed to take part in this challenge because he’s a benevolent soul who genuinely wanted to promote the Tour of Utah. Maybe he did it to keep up with the Armstrongs. Or maybe he did it to remind us that he’s not just the Tour’s highest profile drugs cheat, but a bit of a loon as well.

What ever the reason, it’s made him look like a fool.

Maybe I’ll Just Slip In Through the Back Door So’s Not to Be Noticed

If Landis’ return made him look like a fool – Vino’s has made him look like a complete nutcase.

Taking delusional self-belief to the next level, he wore the most amazingly awful jersey I think I’ve ever seen. In the Kazak national colours it was adorned with a photo of himself – himself! – and the slogan “Vino 4 Ever”:

Wracked with the self-loathing of a convicted drugs cheat, Vino gives himself the old up-yours

Even if he’s turned up completely naked after OD’ing on viagra he’d have come across as less cocky. Truly astonishing.

Although this custom jersey may be the clue as to why it’s taken him a year after his ban finished to get back on the bike – it’s clearly taken Vino’s mum a very long time to make.

What’s even more amazing is Vino beleif that Astana will not only want him back but actually need him back.

What I think is clear from both Landis’ and Vino’s comebacks is just what a long time 2 years is in sport and just how much cycling has moved on since they were banned. And regardless of what each of these riders might think, I don’t think the world of cycling will be a better place with them back.

French Cycling's become a "three flusher"

Or more to the point, down one of these:

Confounder of many an English child desperate to go

The effect of this is there for all the world to see, the French haven’t won their own race at their own sport since Laurent Fignon and his pony tail did it back in 1984.

And in those 25 years, and 25 Tours, many a French riders and their carzy terrible hair have lined up on the start line, their hearts full of hope only to cross the finishing line in Paris wearing only their tear-stained jerseys – and matching shorts, of course. Oh, and after 2003, helmets. And shoes and socks, yes, shoes and socks. And gloves, don’t forget gloves. Most of them wear glasses now too, don’t they? Really, what I meant is, no Frenchman has won the Tour in 25 years and it upsets them.

France 6 – Britain 9

Well, this year things have got a little bit worse for them – they’re only able to select 6 riders for the World Championships.

But before we laugh too heartily, we should spare a little sympathy for them. Because cycling is to the French what cricket is to the English – despite each inventing our respective sports but neither of us can beat the Dutch at it.

And it’s this belief that the sport is in some way “ours” that raises the level of expectation, and with it pressure, for success and makes it so much more disappointing when the Australians inevitably win.

To be fair, the French more likely than not couldn’t give a flying fromage about success in the velodrome – it’s their singular lack of anything remotely resembling a “result” in the Classics and the Grand Tours that’s got their French knickers all in a knot.

All of which means that despite taking 3 stages at this years Tour, French riders have performed so badly in the last 12 months, that they will only be able to select 6 riders for the World Championships. Frances disappointment at this abject failure was surely only compounded when they discovered that the British qualified for the full 9 riders.

Which leaves me feeling a little sorry for, the French National Team Manager, Laurent Jalabert. Jalabert has many claims to fame:

• He’s the subject of the most famous Tour de France photos ever taken,
• He’s the  second best French rider to never win the Tour (after Pou Pou)
• He’s the third most famous person with a name that sounds like JaJa (after Zsa Zsa Gabor and Jar Jar Binks)

To which he can now “Managing the biggest bunch of sadsacks that France has produced in many a year”. Despite the gloom he seems in philosophical mood, telling French sports daily L’Equipe:

“It’s very disturbing,” Jalabert told French sports dailyL’Equipe. “This does not mean that we are already beaten, but it says a lot about the true position of France in international cycling. I hope this will at least provoke some thought.”

We can only hope that as disturbed as he is, during his period of thought, Jalabert is still sane enough to not listen to Bernard Hinault. As in his pre-Tour interview, you know the one that made Lance Armstrong type the word “Wanker”, Hinault’s take on the situation in French cycling was as follows:

“There are champions who become like civil servants when they turn pro. You have to put a knife to their throats to get any results,” Hinault said. “The French earn too much money and don’t make enough effort.”

Presumably Hinault is speaking from experience here, as aparrently during the height of his career, The Badger wasregularly threatened with being hit over the head by a spade then dumping by the side of the road to make it look like a car had hit him. And remember, these were the pre-2003 days, before compulsory helmet wearing in Pro races. A much more severe threat.

Even so, threatening to kill your riders if they don’t perform seems a little extreme to say the least. Here in the UK we like to leave that job to other road users. But then, it doesn’t seem to have done our riders any harm, so maybe Hinault does have a point.

And like Shimano, my current return to the sport I have finally replaced my old Ultegra SPD-R’s with shiny new 105 SPD-SL’s. Which say less about how little I like to admit I’m wrong and more about just how tight I am.

You see, I bought my Ultegra SPD-R’s (which is Japanese shorthand for “Racing” and currently I’m about as close to “racing” as I am being the first black woman in space) about 20 minutes before Shimano launched the original SPD-SL’s (which is Japanese shorthand for “Super Lightweight” which is much more accurate description of me). Despite annoying me quite a bit I wasn’t about buy another new set of pedals. Which left me clipping in and out of the pedal equivalent of the LP. And like the LP which some claim gives music “a warmer” feeling the SPD-R’s gave me a warm feeling on the balls of my feet which more often than not progressed into a unbearable burning sensation.

This used to be a Shimano Ultegra SPD-R. No, really it did

But it wasn’t terrible ergonomics that made me buy new pedals, it was a threat to my well being which over the years has proven to be of even greater proportions – my dog. After surviving 2 years hibernation in a cupboard it only took one night with my dog for shoes to end up like this:

2 years in a cupboard, 2 minutes in s dog's mouth

So it was actually deciding I couldn’t bring myself to ride my bike with a dog’s chew toy strapped to each foot that’s made me part with some more of my hard earned cash. Although not too much cash as I’ve only gone for 105’s.

Now as every Club Cyclist knows, your groupset says a lot about you as a rider – and I’ve long held aspirations to be an Ultegra-man. Ultegra says “Serious racer but not delude enough to buy Dura Ace” and that’s who I wanted to be. But now, although in cycling terms I’m not exavtly “over the hill” I can very nearly see the crest of it (although I’m secretly hoping it’s just a false flat), I’m being a bit more honest with myself. Because in reality, I’ll never be more than a 105-man. So that’s what I bough.

Freshly packed 5 minutes after picking

The first thing you’ll notice is how much bigger the new “SL” is compared to the old “R”. That what, as Shimano puts it, “creates a highly stable interface between the shoe and pedal” you know “in a super lightweight design”:

It's evolution happening right before your eyes

Are Those New Shoes on that Table?

So along with the new pedals I bought a new pair of shoes too. The more eagle-eyed of you will have noticed that my old shoes were made by that well repect shoe manufacturer Shimano. This might paint me as someone who knows nothing about cycling what so ever – but that’s only half true. On my first daliance into the world of clipless pedals I foolishly bought an incompatible shoe/pedal combo and had to, somewhat shamefacedly, return them to the store. I decided on that day to not take any more chances and just buy Shimano, what could possibly be wrong with that?

Anyway, enough water has passed under the bridge since I last made a fool of myself in a bike shop so I decided to be brave and buy a non-Shimano shoe. It’s these Specialized Elite Roads:

For a pound off you can get last year's

If you look closely, you’ll see that the button to release the micro adjust strap is all black and boring and not red and funcky like the one on the 2009 shoe. This, the guy in the shop tried to convince me, was because these were the new 2010 shoes. I strongly suspect the actual reason is that these are the 2008 shoe which would explain both why they not only look worse but also why they were a whole pound cheaper.

Either way, after only a couple of rides on this new combo, they seem to be much more comfortable  and the shoe and pedal definitely feel like “they perform as a single ultra-efficient component”. Which is nice.