I Spoke Too Soon

Tomorrow, I’ll temporarily cease being a cyclist. Just for tomorrow, mind. My bike’s going on yet another visit to the bike shop due to yet another bloody broken spoke.

Aaaargh.

This is the fourth broken spoke I’ve had in as many months. An average of one broken spoke a month is not good – noone else I’ve spoken to *pun intended* about this problem has ever suffered as many (if, indeed, they’ve ever had a broken spoke at all). I found this latest casualty when I was parking the bike today. I could take it to the UCD bike shop and have it fixed, of course – but I get the feeling that the problem would just happen again. So, depending on the advice I get from the mechanic tomorrow, it’s a new rear wheel for me, and a slightly emptier pocket.

With every spoke that breaks I wonder what I’m doing wrong. I love my bike (the older, silver version of this) dearly, but it’s clear that the spokes don’t love me back. I moved house in April, and have been making much longer cycle journeys since then. The law of averages means, naturally, that more cycling = more chance of damage. There are some poor road surfaces along my route, too – Leinster Road, with its tarmac caving in under the weight of SUVs ploughing up and down it, being a case in point. But other people cycle these routes and cycle for the same distances as I do, and they don’t have this recurring problem.

I pondered whether the persistent spoke breaking was due to weight on the bike, but it seems that you’d have to be fairly overweight to put the sort of pressure on a back wheel that breaks spokes. I don’t ride the bike very hard, as far as I can tell – although I do admit to hopping off pavements from time to time. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I’ve read that not trueing the wheel properly after replacing a spoke can just continue to weaken the structure of the spokes and the wheel – but after the last spoke repair, my wheel came out of the workshop straight as a die.

And yet, my spokes are still giving up on me. At this stage I’m of the opinion that it’s bad bike karma, visited upon me as a result of the frustrated kick I once delivered to the tyre of the bike abandoned on the rack outside our offices, taking up valuable parking space and making it difficult for me to park my bike properly. Perhaps a final sacrifice to the bicycle gods of my hard-earned cash and my old back wheel will be enough to appease them.

A Cav-alier Tour of Ireland, stage three

Today’s Tour of Ireland stage took the riders 200k from Ballinrobe to Galway, via Louisburgh, Westport, Leenane and Connemara, with several climbs along the way. Yesterday Mark Cavendish added to his win in Waterford on Wednesday with a perfectly timed sprint finish in Loughrea – and today he’s made it three stage victories out of three, winning in Galway. Shane Stokes’ detailed account of the stage is available on Irish Cycling.

Today’s win bucked the predictions being made during the television coverage of the race yesterday, with most commentators agreeing that the Manx sprinter would find today’s course significantly more difficult and expecting to see the climbers coming to the fore.

Thus far, the Tour of Ireland has been really enjoyable – Wednesday’s and yesterday’s stages were of great quality, and each stage route has been well chosen. The late night TV coverage on RTE 2 (or ITV4, depending on your preference) has been great (and has nicely filled the gaping hole in my daily schedule previously occupied by TG4’s excellent Tour de France nightly highlights). However, the attitude of the national media towards the race has tended to make the Tour of Ireland feel a bit like some sort of occult gathering, known only to a small, select group of initiates.

Take sports bulletins on radio news, for example. I listen to Today FM in the mornings, and I have as yet still to hear so much as a mention of the Tour during their regular sports bulletins. Golf, snooker, changes in the captaincy of the Leinster rugby team (!) – they’re all covered. A challenging, competitive cycling event featuring some of the best known cyclists and cycling teams in the world, taking place on our doorsteps?

Not a whiff of it. RTE features a brief update on the result of each stage on nightly television news bulletins, but neglects to mention the fact that they’re screening extended highlights of the race later. The sports section of their news site is worse. Although Cavendish won the first stage at around 3:50pm on Wednesday, by 5:00pm RTE still hadn’t updated their sports headlines page to inform readers of the result.

As it happens, it fell to Karl of this very blog to get them to put something up. It’s not like it’s hard to find out who won. For the benefit of the RTE sports news people, though, who have obviously missed this, there are live daily updates from the Tour here. Yes! Live updates just a click of a mouse away! Technology is amazing, isn’t it? They haven’t learned their lesson, either. Their coverage of “Friday’s Live Sport” includes golf, snooker and the Eircom League. That’s all.

Now, here’s the thing. I know that the Tour of Ireland is not, in the eyes of most people, considered as a significant sporting event on a par with, say, the World Cup or something. But the fact remains that it is an international sporting event, featuring internationally renowned riders, and it is happening in Ireland, right now. So why aren’t the various organs of the national (and international, seeing as the BBC don’t have anything about it on their cycling news page) media giving it a bit more attention? It’s ridiculous to argue that the reason is that no one cares about cycling.

Lots of people care about cycling. Lots of people ride a bike every day, be it for commuting purposes or for pleasure. Lots of people spend their weekends taking their bike up and down hills, or out to the sea, or around the Phoenix Park. And those are just the non-competitive cyclists. Then there are the non-cyclists who enjoy the spectacle of competitive racing, be it road or track.

The key players in competitive cycling clearly think the Tour of Ireland is a worthwhile endeavour. Otherwise, teams like Columbia and Garmin Chipotle wouldn’t be here and wouldn’t be fielding some of their most important riders. So why can’t the media see it like that?

Why Visibility?

An article in today’s Irish Times – that appears to lean quite heavily on recent debates held on this blog – takes a comparative look at cycling in Dublin and Copenhagen, where apparently nobody wears helmets and everyone cycles aesthetically pleasing bikes. Why can’t we do the same in Dublin? Perhaps if we just ditch the unfashionable helmets and high-vis jackets motorists will cease to use cyclists for target practice. This argument closely follows a recent, much-quoted piece of research that essentially says cars go closer to cyclists who look like they might bounce comfortably off their windscreens like Tellytubbies rather than splat messily across them like a gnat, thus placing the responsibility squarely with the cyclist. Justin Mason has pointed out that it’s not as simple as it seems to wear ordinary clothes on a bike, concluding that a safer road environment is necessary to ‘Copenhagenize’ Dublin, and that ultimately it ‘takes dedication – and lots of wet weather gear – to ride a bike here.’

Live coverage

You can follow the latest in the Tour of Ireland via the live coverage (text updates) here.

The video footage I took yesterday of the Tour passing by, is here.

Tour Update

Today’s stage of the Tour of Ireland is over – Mark Cavendish won it in Waterford about an hour ago. (See the live text updates from the race here.) Highlights are on RTE 2 tonight at 11.15pm.

Tour of Ireland

The first stage of the Tour of Ireland kicked off in Dublin about an hour ago. I’ve just come back from filming some of it down at the Montrose flyover with my friend Neilo, and will post the footage later (with a commentary about how close we were to so much expensive cycling gear, and how tempting it’d be to lift it. Ahem). The first stage runs from Dublin to Waterford, and will be followed by another four stages up until 31st August. The guys on the Garmin/Chipotle blog have described the Irish conditions as ‘Wet, windy and lumpy.’ Check out their blog, and, if you can make it to one of the stages, get out there and lend some support!

Rider David Millar’s blog is here.

Cycling to Wicklow

A reader of the blog has emailed to ask about cycling to Wicklow Town. As I’ve never done it, I thought I’d put the question to the more experienced long-distance cyclists out there and see if anyone has advice for him. What’s the best route to follow to get there? (Is the N11 an unpleasant way to go, for example? Is the coast road through Greystones a better route, or are there back roads through the mountains that you’re better off using?).

I got my degree from the University of Bike

It’s all points this and course that and CAO whatever you’re having yourself in the news today, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m hopping on the news bandwagon here. As thousands of people across the country start preparing themselves for life as third-level students, now seems as good a time as any to set out some reasons (besides the environmental ones) why those starting college should seriously think about getting themselves a bike, as well as that all-important new set of Bic biros.

1 – Cycling saves you money

Initially, shelling out €250-300 to get a decent bike for the daily commute to college might seem like a lot. However, when compared with the costs of other transport options – walking excepted – the bike easily wins out. Take, for example, the Dublin Bus student travelcard. It’s currently €18 a week and, while this does represent good value, buying thirty cards a year will set you back €540. With that sort of money, you’d have a good quality bike, all the necessary accoutrements, and a bit of cash left over to cover the first service. Compare the costs of buying and maintaining a bike to those associated with car ownership, and the financial benefits are even more obvious. What’s more, with the right care and maintenance a decent bike should be roadworthy for years to come – so it’s worth looking after.

2 – Cycling saves you time

Until I moved recently I lived about a 25-30 minute walk, depending on the route taken, from UCD. It was hardly what you’d call a taxing distance to travel on foot, but when I started travelling in by bike I found that I was saving myself over half an hour a day. In essence, this meant that I could get up later and get home sooner. Two thumbs up from me.

The time-saving wonders of the bicycle are also evident when one compares cycling with travelling by bus. The bike allows you to travel directly, without having to live in thrall to a timetable. There are no waiting times, no queues, no dangling by the arm from the rail overhead because it’s 8am and the bus is packed, no transfers from one bus to another for those not living on direct bus routes to college. True, on a day like today the bus, no matter how crammed or rattly, probably seems like a far better option than struggling home through the wind and rain. A few choice pieces of effective raingear, however (a convenient post on this very subject is below), and you’re laughing.

3 – Cycling gives you more options

As noted above, with a bike you aren’t stuck to a timetable. However, in the case of the student moving to Dublin, or moving out of home before starting college, the bike offers great flexibility when it comes to the dreaded accommodation hunt. Cycling students can live anywhere within commuting distance of their chosen college, and therefore aren’t limited to the usually highly sought-after accommodation in the immediate vicinity of the university. For a student relying on walking or on public transport, somewhere that doesn’t have direct bus or rail links to college and is an hour’s walk away might not sound all that appealing. When that distance between home and college is translated into a half hour cycle, it suddenly becomes an option.

4 – Cycling = good for the body and mind

Alright, so for this one there’s no practical or physical evidence, apart from personal experience and that of fellow cyclists. However, I’ve always felt that my daily commute has been good for my brain as well as my body. All that fresh air and oxygen pumping around the body helps to make you feel more alert, and sometimes being on the bike allows me time to think over things – be it stuff that I’m working on, books that I’m reading, blog posts I plan to write or just life in general. That said, though, it should be noted that concentration is of the essence when cycling – but that in itself must surely be good for the old synapses. All those who I inspire to start cycling here can thank me when they get their first-class honours degree via a nice cash donation.

Anyone who gives it a go will quickly realise what a positive impact making cycling your main mode of transport can have on your life. I feel sad when I read of UCD’s plans for more car parking space on campus, with little reference in their grand plans for the future to, say, secure bike parking areas with CCTV and a security presence, or even to expanded bike parking facilities that won’t just become targets for bike thieves. More student cyclists in Dublin’s – and indeed, the country’s – third level institutions would mean more people to put pressure, not only on college administrators, but also on city and town councils to adequately provide for cyclists and their bikes.

An Unse(a)ttling Tale

During Critical Mass in Seattle at the end of last month, an incident between a group of cyclists and a motorist led to the motorist knocking down a group of cyclists with his car and some of those cyclists slashing the car’s tyres and breaking its windows. (Read the news report here.) Two cyclists were charged by police with harassment and criminal damage, but, astoundingly, the motorist does not seem to have been charged at all.

Critical Mass, for a long time the most visible means of demonstrating cyclists’ rights to the road, does seem in the case of this incident to have helped escalate the tension, to the degree that the motorist freaked out due to feeling mobbed by haranguing cyclists; his blind panic is obvious from the accounts. Yet the police reaction has seemingly been to automatically blame the cyclists. But what’s the solution to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again? Or is such an incident the concrete staging of the kind of motorist versus cyclist war that some cyclists actually desire? In this rare case there really were more of ‘us’ than ‘them’. Dave Moulton has posted about how Critical Mass should be abolished here.

An alternative cycle, Ride Civil, took place in Seattle a couple of weeks ago. According to its website, it ‘promotes civility between motorists, pedestrians and cyclists’. Meanwhile, Critical Mass is regrouping and petitioning local officials with its account of the incident. (Good overview of the incident, including differing accounts is here, including an amusing regionally specific quote from the motorist: “I’m gay, the person with me was a lesbian and we were attacked by eco-terrorists. It’s the most Seattle thing that could have happened.”)

There’s a Seattle Post-Intelligencer interview with Dave Reeck of Ride Civil here.

Rainy Day Cyclists #12 and 35

There was a strange moment during RTE News’ report on the flooding of the N3 last night. In between shots of the road in question, the camera focused on a teenager, wearing no waterproof gear to speak of, perched on a bike and watching the attempts to get the flooding under control.

I could easily imagine the chorus of “You’d be mad to go out on a bike in that weather!” from living rooms across the country. And I probably would have agreed, had I not been a cycling commuter in the midst of recovering from the thorough soaking I was treated to on my half-hour journey home.

My experience yesterday, and the tropical rain we’ve had (and will, apparently, continue to have for the next while) got me thinking about cycling in the rain. The truth is that, regardless of the state of their mental health, the vast majority of regular cyclists will frequently have to pedal on through heavy rain – be it for fifteen minutes or, in the case of those who earn their living on their bikes, a full working day.

The wet weather requirements of a city messenger are clearly quite different to those of the morning and evening commuter, who can afford to carry the bulky raingear and spare clothing that would slow down a courier. However, the basic concerns remain the same: how to stay as dry as possible – and cycle safely – when it’s bucketing down, you’ve only just started your journey, and every motorist you see appears to have a particularly smug look on their face.

Naturally, the main consideration for any cyclist anticipating rainy weather should be the acquisition of some decent waterproof gear. I purchased an Aldi cycling jacket for about €15 in May, which has stood up to the heavy rain of the past few days successfully. As for the lower half of my person, I currently practice the spare bottoms method – wearing old tracksuit bottoms and runners to and from work, and changing into less dingy apparel for the working day.