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Ok, so I went the long way.
Another lovely hazy autumnal weekend in Wallonia – shall we do the same as last week then?
Day-dreaming of cycling in Florence
I’ll be taking advantage of some lovely early autumn weather to cycle in Belgium this week as I have a few days when I will be at home for a while.
But all the while I will be daydreaming of Florence and Tuscany.
Glorious city of art and culture.
Part of the Tuscany cycle tour that I convinced Mrs Idonotdespair to take part in as a first tour, and strange girl still married me two years later.
The city in which my current adventure started when I was approached to consider joining ECF as a staff member, almost exactly two years ago.
So I shall be visualising rolling hills and cypress trees, olive groves and city walls. A city I love visiting and hope to go to many more times.
But these images will be the backdrop to my other cycling passion. Classic bike racing. This year’s World Road Cycling Championships that has got me more enthusiastic than for many years because there are so many angles and interesting battles to consider, especially now I am not just looking through a British filter, I have been listening to the Belgian and French build-ups as well.
On Sunday the team time trial gave a taster as Fabian Cancellara and Tony Martin led their team squads into action while Bradley Wiggins was away winning the Tour of Britain. The aerial photography showed stunning views of Florence that looked wonderful.
So on Wednesday I will be glued to the results as the big three go for it with all of them on form for the first time in two years, the proper rematch for the Olympics when Cancellara was injured and Martin maybe a bit off form.
Then at the weekend we have the road races. The women’s race is a bit of a formality, on this course it is impossible to see anyone beating Marianne Vos.
But in the men’s U23 there are some incredible young riders including Simon Yates of Great Britain who is a real star in the making and there is a resurgence in some of the other countries such as France, while the Italians have been known to pack 1-2-3 in the past. Throw in the wild cards who are still emerging in this age group and anything could happen.
Then on Sunday it will be hard to drag myself away from the men’s road race as the intensity builds up all day. I will probably have to go for a bike ride to distract myself or I will have spent the whole day in front of a TV.
I have no expectations of Chris Froome beating the star puncheurs of the classic’s scene. But Cancellara is on record saying that this is the race he really wants to complete his collection. Sagan is flying. Defending champion Gilbert is coming back to form and the Belgians were by far the best team last year. Vincenzo Nibali was not in full form at the Veulta but is on home roads in Tuscany. Will the Spanish all ride for Rodriguez? There is a brilliant group of young French riders coming through and yet they have selected cycling’s top gurner Tommy V to be the sole team leader. Loads of possibilities.
Much better than football – only 2 choices of winner!
Dreaming of Tuscan hills.
Tonight we rode
My son and I came back to the house and there was only one thing to do.
Glorious late evening light. No breeze worth mentioning. Eager dog ready for the off. We rode.
I was lifted up. Oh I needed this. So good to have all this on the doorstep.
And we were not alone.
Thanks Ben, thanks Murphy.
A quick return visit to Vienna. Cycling promotion at the FahrRadhaus and Radlager
Nice to be back in Vienna for a rapid visit after enjoying it so much in June. A bit rainy but in between showers lovely pre-autumnal temperatures which encouraged me out onto the city bikes. I was reminded by one of my hosts that I had been very rude about these bikes when I first used them last year. On one of the rides I did manage to pick up one of the original purple monsters with its huge over-gearing which made my dodgy knees ache but once I got the hang of it I learned that Vienna City Bikes are like a bag of sweets – pick them by the colour. (Always take a yellow one).
Two places I didn’t get to see in June were the FahrRadhaus and the new location for the Radlager, a great retro cycle shop and café that I wrote about early in my blogging days, way back in May 2012.
Radhaus is the City of Vienna’s official bike promotion centre which it has used as the base for Bike Year 2013 (Radjahre 2013). It as sign of the city’s commitment that this isn’t an unwanted cellar somewhere the wilderness, it is a nice piece of imperial architecture right next to the City Hall, the Rathaus (great wordplay in German Rad = bike, pronounced raat, the same sound as Rathaus, city or town hall )
I didn’t get a chance to come here during Velo-city so it was nice that my meetings for the two days I was in the city were in the Radhaus. It is a nice atmosphere, it doesn’t feel civil service, it feels like a promotional centre that gets cycling and cyclists. There are good displays of a wide range of city bikes and absolutely tons of printed matter, books, pamphlets, maps, guides, in fact almost anything you could want to take up cycling.
There are also mobile outposts of the Radhaus promoting cycling which seem to be transported by the biggest cargo bike platforms I have ever seen.
On my evening in the city I joined some of the cycling activists for dinner and then we rode city bikes around the city to the cycling quiz night.
Sadly I arrived too late to take on the local talent but I looked around our venue and realised I was in a nerds paradise, retro bike stuff and restored bikes all over the place amongst the beer and coffee. “Look like the Radlager” I said to my hosts, referring to one of the coolest bike cafés and bike shops I have ever been to in Vienna. (See previous post here)
“This is the Radlager” they said.
Doh!
I hadn’t noticed the names and logos around the shop so I hadn’t realised that the café had moved to a new much more central location. Maybe I was confused by the fact that more Moultons than I can possibly recall seeing in a small shop had moved in among the Colnagos.
I like it and it is now much more accessible to visitors so I do encourage any bike nerds going to Vienna to pay a visit to the Radlager as well as the Radhaus.
However I miss that gallery – it really was a great display.
I’ll treat myself to using that photo again. Enjoy.
How did I miss this at the time – David Byrne’s brilliant “Poem for Cyclists” (from 2011)
One of the joys of blogging and social media such as Twitter is the constant sharing. Little gets by the eagle eyes of the on line world, I am a bit of a newbie here so it is a complete delight when somebody comes up with a past gem that I didn’t see at the time rather than always chasing the new.
Last week I just happened to see a Tweet from journalist Carlton Reid who is always a good source and I couldn’t help but click.
The link took me to a 2011 Youtube which was apparently hand-filmed from the audience at the 2011 International Green Energy Economy Conference in Washington DC.
It is little wonder it is great, David Byrne’s book Bicycle Diaries is one of my very best cycling reads and a bit of an inspiration for this blog, he captures the feeling of cycling round cities so well. I have also had Talking Head’s “Once in a lifetime” on an old compilation CD that I carried round the world since 1986, so his music has been a companion too.
Play this full screen. relax. Breathe.
Doesn’t that feel better.
And it is the perfect follow up to the “14 best cycling movie clips” that I posted a few weeks ago. This filmed poem has an astonishing 45 cycling clips in just under 4 minutes. If I ever run a cycling quiz again I know where I am going to source my questions for the film round. I reckon I got between 10 and 15. Anybody out there want to claim a better score?
And of course it is now added to my Video Library of best cycling clips, which I do hope you have visited at some time.
Do not despair’s daily bike back on the road
After all the wonderful machines of two weeks ago at Eurobike I returned to the basics of my cycling life to replace my daily work bike.
I actually do more miles per year on this machine than any other, perhaps 3000 per year (4500km). Therefore there are rules. It must handle all weather conditions, be bounced on and off trains and yet it has to be so ugly that nobody could possibly contemplate stealing it. Weight completely immaterial, ability to carry significant loads essential. Puncture proof tyres.
I achieve this by getting old mountain bike frames or bikes and modifying them with recycled road parts from bikes I have had for up to forty years. The mountain bike setup lets me use fat tyres on very cheap steel frames and use of the parts is just common sense – and appeals to my more miserly side.
It has other benefits too. I have learned an enormous amount about creative bike building and repair as I have bashed and bodged various fits together over the years. I have also learned to curse the bike industry for lack of standardisation as I move from bike to bike discovering parts that don’t fit the latest incarnation.
The last bike was a Giant Granite that was left in a park in Reading, UK and picked up by a friend who recycles them. However after a several years and a Belgian winter it succumbed to a crack through the frame. Now it has been replaced by an unidentified silver machine with flaking paint and rusty spots for which the only evidence of origin is “Made in Taiwan” stamped on the bottom bracket.
Substitution of friction shift levers that I can mount somewhere on the frame is the issue I face every time so I can get rid of the mountain bike changers on the bars. Indexed shifters combined with the brakes are all very well if you have all the matching gear mechanisms and correctly spaced sprockets but that is never going to happen here. The rest usually works with a bit of fiddling and adapting.
I am quite happy with it on the first couple of rides to the station but I will probably need a longer/higher handlebar stem at some point. A 25km hilly cross country ride to work on Monday should confirm or remove any other niggles.
Total cost – €40 on E-bay for the run down MTB and a spare frame thrown in. That will undergo the same treatment to become my son’s student bike. Good value all round!
Charming Ravensburg, Germany
One of the pleasures of this year’s Eurobike was further discovery of Ravensberg, the town we stay at in the Allgäu region of southern Germany.
I stayed there last year and found it was charming town with an attractive car free town centre and a lively bustle of restaurants and bars. However because we only use the town as a dormitory I didn’t realise that there was much more to it than the streets between the station and the main central Marienplatz.
This time we stayed in the delightful Hotel Obertor which is actually built into the city walls and the Obertor (upper tower) itself. A few morning photos don’t quite do it justice but it is a great location.
And just beside it was another tower, known unusually as the Mehlsack or “flour sack”. Great name, especially as it had a much more imposing name of the White Tower at St Michael when it was built but locals nicknamed it because of its shape and colour and the name stuck.
Apparently the town almost completely avoided war damage because it was of little strategic importance which is why it is so well preserved. Another time I must try to have enough time to do it justice and I recommend it you might do the same. Good restaurants and hotels too.
For more about the cycling in the area too see last years’s post here
Out to lunch in Brussels by bike – we should do this more often
It has been a stunning week in Brussels. Sunshine almost all the way.
Tempted by the weather and a visitor we changed our usual habits and went out for lunch by bike on Tuesday. I mean we are a cycling organisation but frankly being positioned next to a popular Irish pub and lots of the EU districts cafes means we rarely stray far when we nip out for a quick bite.
What a good idea, rustling up a couple of folders and some Villo! public bikes for visitors and those who walked in so 14 of us could set off in convoy to a delightful Sicilian run restaurant just far enough away from the political bubble to be friendly and relaxed.
We all agreed “let’s do this again!”
Not despairing at Eurobike 2013 – the cycling industry’s family gathering
This year’s reflections from the world’s biggest bike show. No, not the Tour de France or the streets of Copenhagen where cycling itself is on show. This is the biggest show of bikes, bits and all the associated services that go with them in the world and it attracts an enormous range of visitors and companies to Friedrichshafen in southern Germany. (Keeping the rough rule that my professional work stays distinct from the blogging my work at the show can be seen over at ECF’s news pages here.)
I have to be honest, am not someone who can get excessively excited by the promised benefits of a new carbon weave or the relative merits of some enormously expensive braking system over another. There are many cycling bloggers and journalists whose raison d’etre is bikes and bits so I have to leave judgement on the merits of the products to them. This year I was even so busy I didn’t even get a single test ride which was a little bit frustrating.
My “Do not despair” thoughts are all about people and atmosphere with the occasional showstopper moment thrown in. I do like bikes as art or design and to be fair to our industry colleagues there are plenty of occasions when the exhibits have some “wow factor”, but to me that is aesthetic as much as technical. (Not all bike show exhibits are eye catching for the right reasons – remember this moment of madness from earlier in the year?)
It is essentially a trade show, business to business, so its primary target is manufacturers, bike shop owners and their wholesalers who come to sort out what bikes they will be selling in 2014, what the components will be and where the trends are. On the Saturday it also opens its doors to around 20,000 cyclists, mainly from Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
The overwhelming impression you get from Eurobike is just how big the bike industry is when you see it on a global scale. This year Eurobike had 1400 companies, 2000 journalists and 45,000 trade visitors putting well out ahead of the other two main shows at Taipei and Interbike in the US.
It is also home base for Europe’s biggest cycling market Germany so there is a lot of focus on how cycling in Germany is going in any given year. As my regular readers know I am very excited about how cycling in Germany is growing, I think their cities and cycle touring have a formula for success that is bringing results.
Now it is very clear that this importance has the highest level of political endorsement in Germany because the star of Eurobike this year wasn’t a piece of technology or even one of the celebrity riders like Tour de France breakthrough star Markus Kittel. They were all swamped by the appearance of “Angie”.
Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany. With respect to our French, British and Italian friends she is almost certainly the most powerful politician in Europe and in Germany she has superstar status. Various coincidences of the German election campaigning season meant that Eurobike fitted her schedule but the overwhelming mood of the show was that this was a breakthrough moment for cycling in Germany. Nearly 18 months ago I wrote about President Ma of Taiwan coming to open the bike show at Taipei and declaring himself to be Taiwan’s number 1 cyclist.
At the time I was able to reflect that this couldn’t happen anywhere else in the world, it was entirely due to the business clout of the Taiwanese bike industry.
How wrong I was, and how pleased I am about it too because it is a real coup for cycling in Europe, not just in Germany. I was very pleased to get a place in the room for the opening because it was a bit of a superstar moment for us policy wonks too.
Angie herself was somewhat of a surprise package as well. One of our journalist colleagues said she “stole the show”. I think I have only every seen this rather sour-faced, serious woman who is set on bashing her own and other people’s economies into shape. So when she got up on stage, smiled a bit, relaxed and told a few modest local jokes she had the whole room in her hands. It even worked through the rather overwrought translator who was breathlessly trying to keep up through our earpieces in a horrible monotone.
She did apologise for not being a cyclist, explaining that when she was 15 the Russian soldiers in the forests around her home stole her bicycle, but apparently that wasn’t the reason she had a political reputation for not liking the Russians!
As well as the political clout the other stars of a business event are of course the business leaders, however their presence is much more low-key. It isn’t the impression I get from reading about other industries like cars or IT where the CEOs are put on a pedestal. No Steve Jobs moments at Eurobike, Here you are quite likely to bump into the CEO of the world’s biggest bike company casting a paternal eye over his company’s display (Tony Lo of Giant) and the others are out and about on the floor.
Product wise the E-bikes remain the place where the biggest buzz is happening, especially in Germany. Bernhard Lange, President of the German manufacturers’ association ZIV was even able to tell Angela Merkel that cycling has delivered her target of 1 million electric vehicles on Germany’s streets although the ferocious political leverage that the car industry has here meant that she quickly had to tell him that they hadn’t meant that.
One of my favourites was actually British, the GoCycle is a very stylish folding E-bike which I am actually hoping to test in Brussels in the next few weeks.
As I whizzed around the booths there is always room for some stylish carbon and huge arrays of mountain bikes but fortunately right in front of our booth was the Eurobike award winners’ section so I was able to sneak over and take a look at some trend setters.
Among them my first look at a Surly fat bike which was a pretty eye-catching. I have seen increasing mentions in US blogs about them and in the winter of last year I could almost have done with one in Belgium.
Very, very stylish cloth coated saddle from Brooks. Since the company was saved by Selle Royal I think they have done a great job bringing Italian creativity to this most traditional of British icons. It is cotton set on vulcanised rubber – pretty much unique.
Häse’s recumbent cargo bikes were very popular in the bike tryout area and were a distinctive sight all over the expo..
Unfortunately the scale of Eurobike does provide the other overwhelming impressions of Friedrichshafen show and an almost permanent talking point amongst the attendees. Once inside the Messe (exhibition centre) it is busy, but well run and efficient. Outside is chaos. There are not enough hotels so people stay up to 30km away, but this in turn means they largely need to drive to get to the show. Some of the veterans have booked the same hotel for about 15 years to keep a place and other experts from the mountain bike festival scene enjoy the camp site instead. However most just drive – on Thursday the queues to the West were over 20km long.
It would be nice to think we could all ride in on the great network of cycle paths or get the plentiful shuttle buses but even the cycling advocacy world knows that getting your way in and out from the countryside in good shape to stand and meet people all day isn’t practical for everyone. Many try to avoid driving, including me. However even with a relatively straightforward journey I managed to mess up one day and required 3 stages of public transport to get back to my hotel at 10.30 pm. Instead of rich Swabian cookery I had a burger from a well-known fast food brand at Friedrichshafen station which really did not sit very well. Not my finest hour.
However bad it gets it seems Eurobike is an addictive draw for the global bike industry and it looks likely to remain the key show of the year. Increasingly it is growing on me. I genuinely believe we have a very special business, I like the personalities of that community, even the most battle hardened CEOs of stock market listed industrial conglomerate seems to smile more when engaged in the bike world. But at Eurobike they are also surrounded by thousands of company owners for whom running a bike company is a multi-generational passion which has been passed on for as much as 100 years. From bike shops to giant companies like SRAM and Shimano we still see the founders intimately involved in many companies, still bringing the energy they had when they started out.
It never feels like that when I work in any other sector, long may it continue.
Lakeside landscapes and villages – Upper Austria’s Attersee
Gallery
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I am sure many bloggers and travel writers hit the same problem as me. I have been home weeks from a trip and published several items about the holiday, especially the cycling and the food. However I keep coming back … Continue reading
Jardins d’Annevoie. Water gardens of Wallonia
Another enjoyable Belgian summer day out at the Jardins d’Annevoie.
This delightful place is a few kilometres north of Dinant, in the valley of the Meuse as it runs north between the French border and Namur.
Since the eighteenth century the gardens and chateau have been in the hands of the same family who have built an elegant network of gravity fed lakes, ponds, waterfalls and fountains in various styles representing the various fashions of formal gardening in the intervening 250 years.
It was tranquil and relaxing when we took friends to visit, like so many places in Belgium it is largely unknown outside the country and only gets busy in the height of summer.
I have to recommend the restaurant with its terrace overlooking the gardens too, the locally caught trout was delicious.
Web site here
I am part of a United Nations led global cycling conspiracy – allegedly. Fun podcasting in LA
A few weeks ago I enjoyed the experience of becoming a cartoon. Now I became a podcaster and discovered I was part of a global conspiracy all at the same time.
I enjoyed this media experience when I joined a great bunch of cycling promoters to become part of the Biketalk podcast series on Los Angeles KPFK 90.7 FM via a phone-in earlier this week.
It was quite US focussed as the main aim was to discuss how bike lanes can get rolled out across the US, especially for the frustrated co-host Josef of Flying Pigeon cycle shop in LA who has clearly been hitting some really nasty brick walls in his local advocacy.
I’ll therefore forgive one of my co-speakers who suggested 80% of Europe was no fun to be a cyclist because we don’t have segregated cycle lanes everywhere, but you get the drift.
This could become a regular series – I’ll keep you posted.
Josef’s blog and link to the podcast here
Blog posts I wish I had written – this time “14 best bike scenes in movies”
Why 14?
No idea. But Ross McG in the Metro has put together a 14 of the best this week because he heard about the possible Lance Armstrong movie coming soon.
I know it has been done before, but I really enjoyed his list.
I’m not to steal his thunder because all the Youtubes are up on the Metro site here but I’d like to prompt the debate. Somehow I want to add most of his clips to my video library.
Likes? Well his number 1 was one of the first clips I put in my cycling video library, so it has to be my winner too.
Jason Statham on a BMX bike was surprisingly fun even if I wouldn’t watch a Jason Statham movie if you paid me. I was more interested in considering who did the stunts – was it one of the top trials riders?
Strangest clip? “A Scanner Darkly” was a new one on me. Cartoon cluelessness about cycling channeled by Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr. What were they on?
And finally a special mention for a very special clip.
I do a lot of public speaking about cycling and I have a fond place in my repertoire for Stephen Spielberg. When you give someone a bicycle for the very first time you give them wings, you give them the nearest feeling to flight that many of us will ever have.
It takes a great storyteller to capture that. When I want to inspire an audience I remind them that the moment that Elliot takes flight on his bike in ET is the closest anyone has ever got to filming to the moment we first rode a bike. That is precious, that is the gift we bring to the world. We make people fly.
So that is the one clip I will play today.
Can you identify Wallonia’s most famous citizen? Come to Dinant
There is a cruel and extremely patronising saying in English “bet you can’t name five famous Belgians” which is a rude way of decrying the impact this country has had on the world.
However when tested sadly most of us can’t. Especially when we discover detective Hercule Poirot doesn’t count because he is fictional and cyclists are banned from rattling off anyone other than Eddie Merckx on the grounds that nobody outside our world has heard of Rik Van Looy.
Hergé, Rene Magritte?
A recent trip to Dinant in Wallonia threw up a name who deservedly needs to be on any list of people who have made an impact on the world far beyond their shores.
Where would my “Music to ride Bike By” be without Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street”, Pink Floyd’s “Us and them” and the Clarence Clemen’s solo on Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s “Jungleland”?
What links these seemingly disparate pieces of music? The saxophone. Invention of Alolphe Sax from Dinant in 1846 which makes him by far this region’s most famous son. Best saxophone solos ever? That’s a topic that keeps lots of lists going on the blogosphere.
Dinant itself should be an attractive place in the valley of the Meuse south of Wallonia’s capital Namur but it has a slightly down-at-heel atmosphere which reflects the economic reality of southern Belgium. Things are fairly tough in a region that once depended on coal, steel and shipping down the river which still acts as a freight route. Tourism is doing its best and the riverside is being gentrified to complement the Notre Dame Church and the imposing Citadel which overlooks the town. 
The dark grey stone doesn’t help the scene, it looks slightly overcast even on a bright day. By far the most colourful scene in the town was the bridge named after Charles de Gaulle because the future French president picked up a war wound here during the first World War.
Here Sax was being celebrated with a colourful display of 28 painted saxophones, each painted to represent a country of the EU and the EU itself.
It is nice to go somewhere else this year where you just end up smiling and humming to yourself, it gives Dinant that something special, and I would much rather be in a place that should burst into a chorus of “Jungleland” than the “Sound of Music”.
Web site Famousbelgians.net agrees, they have Sax at number 2 after Eddie Merckx in their role of honour. That is almost perfect for Idonotdespair –cycling followed by music. Bring it on boys.
I Do Not Despair 