Voted least likely to mention elliptical chainrings

What The Pros Do With Their Old Gear

2007-11-29T22:29:00.000Z

Part One: Sell it on eBay, even when it's complete cack

It is, of course, the cement-mixer-damaged frame of a currently injured British pro. £15 postage? "Cosmetic" damage? We're sure this consistutes some kind of sporting fraud.

Tomorrow:
Part Two: Get your father-in-law to sell it at Manchester Regional Track League.

Predictor-Lotto becomes Silence-Lotto

2007-11-26T15:27:00.000Z

We actually really liked Predictor-Lotto's pink jersey that everybody else hated, not to mention our amusement at the fact that the suffix "-Lotto" instilled serious doubts about the product's ability to determine whether you were pregnant or not.

But now they're changing AGAIN, and all that will be gone.

The new jersey is described as being a purple-red colour, which is probably even less masculine than 2007's pink. And the product Omega are pushing now is "Silence", which stops you snoring. Or doesn't, if that "-Lotto" suffix is to be believed.

Matt Brammeier Update

2007-11-22T13:34:00.000Z

Matt Brammeier -- continental pro, British U23 national time-trial champion and the Becks to Nikki Harris's Posh (an analogy we're sure they'll both LOVE) -- has been hit by a cement mixer while out on his bike this morning.

He's now in hospital with a broken thigh, but word on the street is that apart from that he's okay.

While normally we'd use this as an excuse to complain about how Britain is a complete and utter joke, our main concern is extending our thoughts to one of British cycling's most talented rising stars. We're sure most of our readership feels the same way.

Here's wishing you a good recovery, Matt.

Tomorrow:
A return to less sobering thoughts, as Rebecca Charlton FINALLY puts her best dress on just for us.

Pre-Christmas Revolution

2007-11-19T12:10:00.000Z

But not the kind with men in berets claiming to represent the people. The kind with bikes :(

Bradley Wiggins was "the star" this time and all the kids were cheering for him after all that pre-Tour de France hype. He's nice, but he's no Franco Marvulli.

In actual fact, even though there were eight world champions, we didn't know who a lot of the riders were. It seemed very future-stars oriented, which isn't really our thing.

The racing wasn't bad though. The team pursuit made our accomplice quite happy. We almost felt guilty for dragging him away before he got to see the team sprint that it probably ended with.

The new track was quite clean too. They've got no excuse for letting it get dirty now.

The Germanese were there too. "Christina Vogel" is a sexy name, apparently.

Whatever happened to our lovely Yvonne Hijgenaar? :(((

But we at least managed the holy grail of cycling photography: A man taking a photograph of a man taking a photograph of some cyclists. We promise we didn't set this up, mainly because we'd hate to be associated with anyone who wears a red t-shirt or a press bib.

Official rating
A solid 6/10. Not a terrible night, but sub-par even for a pre-Christmas event.

British Cycling Employs Ricky Gervais

2007-11-16T10:42:00.000Z

There's a comedy riot over at British Cycling's report for the recent Pan American Disability Games.

For the most part it's just all the same unjustified wordy nonsense that turns up all day in our email inbox in the form of press releases while we're waiting for someone to send us special offers on Chinese viagra. Until, that is, you reach the curiously out of place photo of the beetle at the bottom of the page.

Controversy! The original caption said:

One of about 50 beetles that patrol the track infield - sorry it's not a great pic, I was shaking with nerves as it looked as though it was about to take my arm off!!

Awesome.

Tomorrow
We get equally excited by a different photograph of a beetle. In lieu of animals on bikes, we're accepting animals with tenuous links to cycling.

A Half-Hearted Write Up Of The Dave Rayner Dinner 2007 While We Wait For A Train

2007-11-11T15:45:00.000Z

We went to the Dave Rayner Dinner!

There were lots of famous people, and lots of possibly-famous people who always seem to be at those events. Even though we still bear him a huge grudge for ignoring an important email we sent more than a year ago, David Harmon was very good.

The dinner involved a meal, unsurprisingly. There was a menu. It listed the things that everyone ate, apart from the things that the vegetarian people ate.

There was also an auction. It came with a list that looked like this:

The highlight was the original signed yellow jersey from Gino Bartali that was donated by Sir Jimmy Saville. Amazingly, it only went for £2,100. We'd have paid ten times that if we could afford to. No amount of money would be too high for that item. We bet Jimmy Saville's quite upset now then. Now then.

After that, a little bit more stuff happened, mostly involving not winning at the raffle. We got chips on the way home and listened to some drunk rugby players swearing, which was good because it proved that Harrogate isn't THAT posh.

Epilogue

We know we've got a sofa to sleep on, but which hotel room is it in again?

Aw shit.

Product Review Week: Livestrong T-Shirt

2007-11-08T15:33:00.000Z

Cures cancer, but also makes it look like you have breasts. It also seems to make the person to your immediate right rip their tatty old thong clean off from underneath their clothing, which, as demonstrated here, is at best a mixed blessing.

An alternative, similar joke that we'd never, ever make:
Something to do with Lance doing a "Robert Millar". Possibly supplemented by references to those gay rumours from the start of 2006. Maybe even a Photoshop of a transexual Olsen twin.

Product Review Week: Boots Well Something Bars

2007-11-06T13:09:00.000Z

We've forgotten the name, so it's a bit of a redundant review really. Since they're packed full of taurine and caffeine, the product is a bit redundant as "fitness bars" too, so it probably works out.

Thanks Wikipedia

The bars they sent across gave us erections that lasted for three hours at a time. Brilliant.

Official rating
10/10. Hard willies work well with tight lycra.

Product Review Week: Tesco Value Cycle Spanner

2007-11-05T15:52:00.000Z

At just £1.47, this had the makings of bike bargain of the century. Even more so than the bargain Jump TV got when they bought Cycling.tv for just $12m.

Incredibly, our review spanner broke the instant we tried to do a little spannering.

How noble of the otherwise monopolistic Tesco to provide an affordable reminder of exactly why you should be supporting your local bike shop.

Official rating
10/10. Tools that break as soon as they touch the thing they're supposed to fix are just SO cool.

Children Marvel At Lizard-Man

2007-10-30T13:09:00.000Z

That's it, children. Gather around. You won't find our underground lizard overlords so amusing when they're eating your parents and making you farm for flies.

Things we like about this photo

It's an animal on a bike!

The bike has disc wheels (and isn't made of carbon-fibre)

Its subject is LITERALLY the only dongaloid along the length of the Thames who isn't being a "living statue"

Our Favourite Rumour: Part Two

2007-10-26T16:43:00.000Z

Apparently Floyd's house didn't burn down at all. It was fairly unlikely, really, but a bit of rumour mongering is always a giggle.

Easy update courtesy of David Brower, Landis's unofficial information minister, and probably a jolly good guy despite the company he has been known to keep.

Monday:
Probably something about folding bikes. Birdy would be much more manageable adversaries than the people we've been antagonising recently.

Our New Favourite Rumour

2007-10-24T12:02:00.001Z

Some people have told us that Floyd Landis's house has burned down in those American fire things everyone is banging on about. We really hope this is true! Especially those rumours that his Tour de France "winning" jersey was one of the things that was turned to ash.

There's nothing like laughing at the misfortune of a bankrupt man whose career is in tatters.

Lazy Update Tuesday: Victorian Bicycles!

2007-10-23T16:01:00.001Z

Good old Victorian bicycles, the mainstay of every cycling-obsessed student's Cultural History essays. Women found freedom through the bicycle, which led to them getting the vote! The great class dichotomy, as cycling evolved from a hobby for the rich to a sport for the poor! That short story by H.G. Wells!

We're not sure why we had this page bookmarked on our work PC, since we already amassed huge library fines earlier this year as a result of taking out hundreds of books about the origins of sport and cycling, and really don't need to read anything more on the subject for as long as we live.

Incidentally, prior research is also the reason why we haven't even read the thing we're linking to! Relax, it's Lazy Update Tuesday, where nobody has to make an effort. Don't even click the link, just scroll on by.

Dope Free Friday: Mario Cipollini on "Candid Camera"

2007-10-19T15:25:00.000Z

It's probably not really "Candid Camera", since only Americans have ever seen it and is these days just used as a phrase used to describe the exciting genre of "being a complete dickhead to people and filming it without them knowing". Because you're probably not American, you can just imagine Beadle's About instead.

Still imagining Jeremy Beadle? If you don't feel completely shafted by the standard of our TV presenters after watching this, there's something wrong with you. Fearne "Kitten Fart" Cotton isn't even in the same league, before you start emailing us.

The basic premise for the pank is that Mario Cipollini and a friend who's a bit too pixelated for us to identify are out for a ride, followed by a team director in the most emasculating car ever. Cipo is told that his bikes have been stolen by some people in a rubbish campervan, which then drives past. HILARITY ENSUES?!

You might want to fast-forward through the bits where the former World Champion picks up a boulder, only to demonstrate that he throws like a girl. He's probably had sex with every supermodel in Italy, so you're not allowed to laugh at him.

Trust Italy to make a hidden camera prank show that's presented by a woman in her underwear and takes things so far that the reveal still hasn't been done even after the celebrity has knocked out two incognito members of the production staff and is brandishing a blunt object as a weapon.

Official rating:
10/10. Here's the link so you can watch it yourselves.

Lists we should email to event organisers and freelance DJs, part one

2007-10-17T13:47:00.000Z

The top two Queen songs we never, ever want to hear at a cycling event ever again:

1. Bicycle Race
2. We Are The Champions

Other Queen songs we never, ever want to hear at a cycling event ever again:

All of the rest of them

Just because we haven't put an image up today, really.

Cyclingnews.com branches out into other, more lucrative areas

2007-10-16T13:40:00.001Z

Lazy Update Tuesday in all its glory.

A Trip To Wales

2007-10-15T11:29:00.000Z

Today is "Still A Bit Hungover But We Really Should Update The Website Anyway Monday"! We don't really have many of these Mondays, so when they do come around they're very exciting.

Incredibly, we went all the way to Newport just to check out Future Revolution and the new "feladrom" that the people of "Cymru" are bragging about. Neither were as good as Manchester's version, and we're not just saying that because we've gotten a bit nostalgic for the north all of a sudden.

But!

There were lots of dernies! Craig Mclean was riding one at one point, which was an obvious highlight. If the too-loud music and too-loud commentators were making you feel a little queasy, the introduction of several too-loud dernies and a lot of motor fumes in a not very well ventilated space should have have perked you right up.

Where "feladrom" is positively endearing, "vella drome" is just irritating. No red Sharpies were available for us to correct the spelling on all of the flight cases, worst luck.

And that's about all we saw. At one point we went and had a bit of a sit down far away from the noise and ate chocolate buttons and texted people who were more interesting, and then after that we just read a book.

Tomorrow
Photos from the Cycle Show! Plugging a camera into the computer and indiscretely updating the site from work is rapidly becoming our favourite extreme sport.

Cyclists Special

2007-10-09T16:39:00.000Z

A short film about leisure cycling! Paid for by the CTC and the British Rail Film Board, so you know it's going to be fun. It's in two parts, which are both here even though we were tempted to split it into two updates so we don't have to frantically search through our bookmarks at 5.30pm tomorrow trying to find anything at all to write about.

Tuesday is rapidly becoming the new Monday. It won't be long before we give up and just move the whole site to dopefreefriday.com

Bettini's bike stolen

2007-10-06T15:49:00.000Z

That's what the media does say.

Ahh, that was a nice easy update. Maybe we'll even backdate this to the coming Monday so we can have the day off. Lovely.

Dope-Free Friday: The Cyclist's Ten Commandments

2007-10-05T19:52:00.000Z

Surprisingly, there isn't one saying "Thou shalt not covet thy team-mate's bloodbag."

Pat McQuaid is already planning a way to bring these into the pro peloton.

Incredible developments at no-fashion-sense towers

2007-10-04T19:29:00.000Z

You've got to hand it to Slipstream for their services to American fashion: With their peculiar kit they've been doing their damnedest to make sure that Lance's long socks and Floyd's horrible Phonak jersey appeared comparitively pleasant to look at.

Deeming it impossible for anyone to produce something worse that the kit that was made by a professional designer, they've been running a competition to allow the general public pick their kit ofr 2008. We wouldn't trust the general public to pick their favourite number without accidentally making the choice that resulted in half of the human race declaring all-out war on the other, so it's a very bold move for Slipstream.

The competition is now closed, and the winner picked. We've not had an official press release from them or anything, but word on the street is that this is the successful design:

It's not too bad, actually. Maybe you can sometimes rely on the general public, even if it's only in situations when you'd like the most nonthreatening option to be chosen. It's definitely something we'd wear. Especially if they sent us the full kit for free for "reviewing" purposes. Hint hint.

Look at the wide, child-bearing hips on the thing though. It must've been designed by one of those fat birds who're always riding the track.

Stefan "Poopants" Schumacher

2007-10-02T17:13:00.000Z

Stefan Schumacher has been excused for his peculiar pre-Worlds blood test results because he had diarrhoea. And also because Germany is at the center of a campaign to completely discredit anybody whose name appears when they type cycling + drugs into Google, and so they can't possibly have anything bad come from internal German Federation tests taken on the nation's most impressive rising talent. But mainly the thing about poo.

We've always liked Stefan. He looks a bit odd, but he's also the boy who knocked Hincapie off in the final day of the 2006 ENECO Tour to take the overall, then looked upset on the podium while we were jumping for joy in front of the TV at home. And now we like him even more, since he's joined the school of thought that suggests any excuse is instantly credible so long as you make it so embarrassing that you wouldn't possibly have made it up.

Well done Schumi, but we've been doing this for years. In our mid-teens we managed to miss lessons for every single teacher in secondary school by using variations on a story about a penis getting stuck in a jam jar. And in university we managed to miss a whole week of lectures by claiming we'd been locked to a trash barge by a transexual prostitute in Amsterdam.

If this whole situation doesn't spark hundreds of cycling fans worldwide phoning in sick to work describing how they're doing "dribbley bum wees" then we really despair. Take it, use it. It really works.

The Sexiest Things In Cycling #2

2007-09-28T12:33:00.000Z

It's Dope-Free Friday, which means a rapid search through our bookmarks to find something interesting to write about, because otherwise we'd have to put something up here on No Update Weekend or Can't Be Arsed Monday, and that's just not something we're prepared to do.

Bikerfox then. The joke is that he's not sexy but says he is. Which is pretty much the same thing as us saying his website is funny, even though it isn't.

We bet he's American.

Guilt Free Thursday: Calshot Winter Track League

2007-09-27T14:38:00.000Z

We don't really know where Calshot is, and we're trying to avoid learning because it sounds all Southern and would ruin our tough Northern veneer. Apparently the Calshot Track League is pretty much operating at a loss and needs more support from local cyclists, which sounds like just about every other track league in Britain, really.

Because it's getting late in the afternoon and we actually forgot we were going to take the unprecedented step of writing two updates today, we've not got anything planned to write here. We don't even have a proper press release, so we can't just copy and paste that. We DO have an entry form that we were presumably supposed to upload here, but we're not going anywhere near it because we get enough Word documents to deal with at work.

But you should definitely go to Calshot Winter Track League if you live nearby or whatever. One of our London colleagues informs us that it's very fast and less than two hours from central London, which are presumably supposed to be good points even though they sound like very bad points.

Further literature: How the proper cycling media does these reports. We'll get the hang of it soon, maybe.

Next Guilt Free Thursday:
We'll promote some more good causes. Feel free to email us about your event/company/poncey sculptures; it'll make a nice change from all the "you're just compensating for having a small penis" nonsense we normally get.

Guilt Free Thursday: Strike Bikes

2007-09-27T12:43:00.000Z

An important figure in the cycling media recently mocked us for saying that this site was anti-capitalist. But it's true -- we once looked at the pictures on the Wikipedia page for Noam Chomsky. To prove our alliances are entirely moral, here's Strike Bikes! They're a group of striking workers who occupied their factory and have resumed production of bicycles to make their own microcosmic socialist paradise. You can buy them online, or you can be A FUCKING SCAB and buy a Trek or whatever. Related news article / The Strike Bike itself.

It all sounds a lot like the plot of a Ken Loach film. Maybe even a Sergei Eisenstein film, but then you'd have to understand that footage of a horse followed by footage of a rolling wheel is supposed to imply a bicycle.