A snow bike for the South Pole: Skiiing and biking all the way.

Helen Skelton a present day presenter of the BBC's children's show Blue Peter recently completed a 500 mile journey to the South Pole. As part of the BBC's Sport Relief charity event she completed the trip in 18 days on foot, ski, kite ski and snow bike.  I know the 'kite ski' sounds pretty cool but this is a bike blog so let's get back to 'snow bike'.

This is another story I discovered on bike friendly Core 77 so they have more details but here are the basics.  The  bike was designed by Fortune Hanebrink based on one he had created previously for polar guide/explorer Doug Stoup.

"Skelton became the first person to use a bike - with specially adapted wide tyres - as part of an expedition to the Pole.

She covered 329 miles by kite ski, 103 by bike, and 68 by cross-country ski.

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British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes said: "I take my hat off to Helen Skelton. I have to admit when she first told me that she was going to cycle part of the way to the South Pole, I laughed.

"But through pure grit and determination she has got there and shown that, yes, you can use a bike to reach the Pole. Her incredible efforts are a great example of willpower." - BBC story here."

"The tyres are designed to bulge over the rim to provide maximum stability and traction. They also allow a high degree of "flotation". This keeps as much of the wheel above the snow and ice as possible, so the bike hardly sinks in and only leaves a light impression. The wide surface area of the tyre does this by distributing the rider's weight over the width of the tyre. - from Stoup on Core 77"

Full Core 77 story here:  Core77

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Mr Lentzs Vintage Modern Bicycle Accessories

Think you have all you need with your Garmin, iPhone and Powertap?  

Think again.

Mr Lentz has produced three bicycle accessories to add some natural vintage feel to your ride.

 Above is the 'Wooden Detachable Bicycle Stereo' (case).

Mr. Lentz is building made to order detachable boombox/amplifier/case for you to do just that. Here's how it works...easily attach the case to your handle bar using the provided hand built wooden clip and p-clamp. Then simply unlatch the brass buckle, and plug your phone into the audio port. Turn on the music box on the side and start playing anything from your playlists, internet radio, Pandora, Hype Machine, etc... Close the latch and ride off into the sunset.

Mr. Lentz designed this case to be easily attached and detached from your bicycle in case you happen upon a sudden urge to picnic and would like to carry your case with you, wowing passers-by.

London Olympics to charge (breastfeeding) mothers double!

 

Molly at 15 months watching Wales v US rugby.

Yep, LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games), state that everyone entering ticketed Olympic venues requires a ticket.  This means that nursing mother's who take their children require a ticket for the child.  Some events have a 'pay your age' category for those under 16 years old.  The tricky bit is that the ticket allocation/lottery started over 9 months before the start of the games, meaning some women, who were not pregnant when applying, will have given birth by then and will need an additional ticket for the newborn - which may not be easy to come by, especially if the event you are seeing does not have children's tickets.  It certainly seems that LOCOG could have introduced the airline 'lapseat' concept, free for a child under 2 who sits on your lap, whether breastfeeding or not.  I guess they have security and health and safety concerns.

And Ok the 'breastfeeding' part of the title is misleading, I am just quoting form my sources you know. 

Those with very young children should note that their infant who will be carried asleep most of the time will enable them to go to the Olympics.  My four year old, who though fascinated by events and generally patient as a saint, would not be happy standing at the side of the Road Race route for hours.  Make the most of it.  Though if LOCOG do introduce free seats for breastfed children it is worth noting that Molly is still breastfed.

Breastfeeding rules and requires more support,  especially here in the US.

Contador shows support for his idol Kenny

photo by Bettini on Cyclingnews.

Cycling's National Champions jerseys.

I finally sat down to write a post I started thinking about this time last year.

The design of National Champions jerseys.

I have my images and quote from the UCI rulebook and figure I'll start typing and see if I can formulate my thoughts as I go.  Just one more Google search then I'll start.....damn.  One search too many.   "Inrng: The Inner Ring" posted a great article on this very subject on the 18th and talks pretty much about the same stuff.

I was just going to note how some National Champions basically wear the flag and sometimes it works, Sweden and Belgium for example, and sometimes it doesn't, the USA and Brazil.  Of course that's all a matter of aesthetic and maybe patriotic taste.

So here are a few photos, maybe some comments and the UCI rules.

Other than that please do go visit the Inner Ring to read my mind.

 Australia

 Brazil

 Great Britain

France

Belgium

The five above show the 'traditional' designs used by the respective nations for years.  Well the Brazilian jersey seems to have looked like that for ages even though it looks pretty modern.  The British, French and Belgian, amongst others,  have used their flags simply since their introduction and haven't changed much since the days of Poulidor.

LIFECYCLE: 365 days in the life of a bike in NYC

This is a little experiment by Red Peak on behalf of Hudson Urban Bicycles in NYC.  They locked a fully equipped bike to a bike rack and left it there for a year, photographing it once a day.  Strangely it took over 6 months before anything started going but the inevitable happened.  Though to be honest anyone frequenting the rack would come to the conclusion it had been dumped or forgotten about.  Not that it gives you the right to steal it as opposed to informing the city....

London Olympic Park, Anish Kapoor and a Unicycle.

My family and I just spent 3 weeks over in the UK.

Here are a few bike related photos for no apparent reason.

First off when driving into north London, which anyone who spent ten years living south of the river would declare as the great unknown, we found ourselves amongst the Olympic Park.  I was actually pretty surprised at how urban it is.  I mean there are major roads driving through it, or should I say sunk below it. Everyone we spoke to in London said they are planning on staying away from the Olympics, I think it is a fear of transport nightmares and crowds.  I have to saymy wife and I were planning to spend some time there to maybe watch the Road Race or TT, I think we have changed our mind.  Partly due to those concerns but this trip also reminded us how different life is with a 4 year old and even though she is an absolute star it would not be right for us to expect her to sit at the side of a road in a crowd for a couple of hours+ in order to see some bikes.

I passed the camera back to Sarah and this is the result.  'mmmmmm  

'Tomorrow, We Ride....' by Jean Bobet

What a great read.  I picked it up over in the UK and devoured it in a day or so.  Jean writes about being the younger brother of Louison Bobet ( three time Tour De France winner and 1954 World Champion), becoming a pro-cyclist in his own right, their entwined careers and the sport itself in mid century France.  Jean's writing (and the translation) flows smoothly and somewhat romantically.  It's striking how much Jean knew his role and his capabilities within the peloton, how much he respected his brother and loves the sport.

To be more precise, on Sunday mornings we rode.  The level of motivation varied from one week to the next.  If I reminded Louison, 'We're riding tomorrow,' I was stating the obvious: that was the routine.  If Louison called, 'Are we riding tomorrow?' it would take a little persuasion to overcome his hesitation.  If, on the other hand, he addressed me with 'Tomorrow, we ride,' I knew that it would be like old times, in training......With the wind at our backs, the intoxication was such that we almost took ourselves for the Bobet brothers.  When the wind turned, we were somebody else entirely.

Louison Bobet: Moments of his career.
Uploaded by PaquirrinTopModel

Ludwig Von 88: Louison Bobet for ever

Uploaded by Alvinox73

Yeah French punk about cycling greats!

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A 'Cycling' 50p coin for the 2012 Olympics

I just returned from a few weeks Blighty where I ate too many biscuits (cookies).

Another gem of an article dug up from a newspaper or maybe too many hours web surfing is this. 
A collection of twenty nine 50p coins each one featuring a design celebrating the 29 sports at the games.  Can you believe there are only 29 actual sports?  The designs used on each coin were chosen from contests open to the public.

The cycling coin was designed by 16 year old Theo Crutchley-Mack and bloody nice it is too. 
He is interviewed here on the Royal Mint website: Theo Interview.

Here is the 'gymnastics' coin which also really stands out from the others.

More info and pictures of all the coins and more over at the Royal Mint.

2012 and British cycling

I have said before that 'The Sun' is not exactly a quality newspaper but it's great to see stuff like this anywhere.  It's 2012 and Olympic year in the UK, it's also the Queen's sixtieth year as queen so the UK will be emblazoned in the Union Jack like never before.  Looks like cycling is being heralded as the forerunner for sporting success this year.  Finger's crossed.

An aside: as a Welshman it's always a bit of a bugbear that the Union Jack being a union of English, Irish and Scottish flags contains nothing relating to that of the Welsh - bast#rds.

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'American Heritage: The great Bicycle Delirium'

This book almost jumped off the shelf at me a few months ago.  One of those rare finds in a thrift store.  One of the reasons we go to them, other than the hundreds of used childrens books we buy.  

Some great illustrations and the 'Barnum and Bailey' advert is just mind blowing, well worth more investigation.

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