Riverport Du 2010

Ended up having a coffee at the Bike and Bean Cafe in Tatallon today. Fortunately the Bikes bit was closed. You know how I can get in bike-shops, even (perhaps espcially) small ones! The cappuccino was a bit disappointing; the coffee wasn't bad but it was just a mass of foam on top. I guess I'm getting too used to Zane's army of Special-Forces Ninja Barristas

That can't necessarily be a bad thing, can it?

I really enjoyed the Riverport Duathlon last Sunday. It was nice to race a TNS race for once. Quite a few people asked me how I felt racing instead of officiating. Well, I've not officiated too many TNS races this year, only three, even if I have done more running rces. Then again, I've done a few more higher profile events this season. I've said it before and I'll say it again. As "glamorous" as it may be to work the high-profile ones; to wear the ITU gillet-vest and stand on the blue carpet under a branded gantry, there are more smiles and fewer high maintenance Brazilian women at local events!

(By the way, if you were wondering, that's a good thing!)

The weather Gods had finally smiled on the duatlon. They had good weather, which they were (ahem) du after a couple of years of dreary and/or decidedly awful days.

I started the race out on the front row and tried to hit it from the gun. My race strategy in duathlons, as you all know is to run R1 like there's no bike, hold on during the bike and run R2 like I hadn't done anything else that day. This isn't due to anything other than a brutal assessment of my abilities. I can run, and not badly, and my cycling isn't anything like what it used to be. So, knowing I can lose up to five minutes during an hour's worth of TT, if I can peg back two or three minutes on each of the runs, well now it's a race.

Just because there is a bike-portion where really expensive bikes are used doesn't mean that this has to be where the race is decided and the runs are just inconsequential pro- and epilogues to the main event. If you feel like that then get thyself to BNS and do a proper TT. If you think that running is an integral part of the race, stay here.

And don't get me started on the people who whine about the swim in the triathlon.

So, I took off on R1 in, what you may call my accustomed spot, which you may remember from the inaugural 2006...

...and 07...

...and 09 (missed '08 but was there as TD so in a way I was still at the front of the pack for R1, just trying to stay out of shot!)...

See what I mean?

I think I need a new duathlon outfit!

I thought there was a gap, but after a few hundred metres Jamie Haynes - the Cyclismith winner, was on my heels. Never mind, it's always nice to share the work. We hit the 2km turn in a shade over seven minutes; no wonder it felt fast. I know, I know, the courses aren't wheeled etc etc, but this was clearly fast! Jamie pulled away from me shortly after the turn and made it look so easy. I'm not sure if I slowed up of if Chris MacKenzie speeded up, likely both, but by T1 Jamie had 14" on me and Chris was only 12" behind. I mean, 3:30s out of the gate? C'mon!

T1 was a mess. I think I managed to nail it in broad brush strokes, but the exigencies of fixed meant my cycling shoes had to be on and tightly buckled before I left my spot. Jamie was long out whilst I was still farting around with my shoes and Chris passed me in T1.

The bike felt pretty good. The 78" gear (42 x 14) was much better than the smaller gears I'd been using before and I manged a 33.8 kph average, a faster average than any of my outings on fixed before and a lot closer to where'd I'd be TTing on gears. There was an added advantage too; my overall cadence was lower, only 85 rpm, compared to the >90 on the smaller gear. Last year I span up the climbs but also had to spin down them. A speed of 45 kph on 75 fixed is a cadence of 125 (135 on 68") and it only goes up from there, so after spinning up a climb you really have to spin down the other side and there is no time for any recovery. On 80" fixed, 45kph is only 123 and it is easier to recover.

The climb of Grim Road is really a series of climbs, each only a few hundred metres long, followed by a short descent. It continues almost ladder-like for 8 kms. By the final couple of rungs of the ladder the gear was starting to feel a bit heavy. I'd been locked in a battle with Alan Miner for the past 10 kms or so and I was heartened by the fact that even though I was finding the hill hard, he must have been too as he wasn't pulling away any more.

Interesting factoid about Riverport; it's the Bermuda Triangle of Nova Scotia. Not that ships go missing there, although I have heard of many triathletes, duathletes and roadies who have mysteriously lost their legs on that loop. Rather it's the terrain. If it's windy, the there's a head-wind all the way around the loop (think about it). That climb on Grimm Road? It's a real-life Escher print! Starting at sea-level you climb a series of ramps, each followed by a short descent; it feels like snakes-and-ladders - up three, down one. Yet 5 miles later you emerge at sea level. Huh? Where was that nice downhill?

Like I say, spooky. Maybe I'll spot a flight of Avengers in the underbrush next year if I keep my eyes peeled?

T2 was a real mess; less haste more speed and remember to undo the drawstring laces before taking the shoes off in T1. My legs didn't have the accustomed zip coming out onto the road and it took a kilometre before I started to feel fluid. Compared to other years on fixed, I was a little more ahead inthe race and it was, consequently, quieter. I got Alan Miner back just before the turn and he told me there was nothing but empty road ahead.

Coming into the turnaround I saw Stephen Cameron ahead. Looking at the results, he'd come into T2 four minutes head of me; I took 45" off hin in R1 but he more than handily took that back, plus another three minutes plus on the bike. Yet he was slowly coming back. By the time Rt2 332 came back into view, he was definately closer. Mindful of my usual attitude towards sprinting for a mid-teens place, and then ignoring it I tried to find a finishing kick for the final 1300 metres. He slowly came back, but it was too slow. The last 500m were uphill, and I did a Jen Voight

Still, it looked to be futile; the gap was still too long, I needed another kilometer but I wasn't going to get one so I had to live with it. The calculus wasn't resolving and soon he'd hear people cheering "he's behind you" (what is this, panto?).

Still, I gave it everything! As we headed into the car-park he went the wrong way and headed back into TZ instead of down the finishing chute. Sportsmanship and honour dictate I should have let up then; he'd had the best of me, I'd been found wanting over the previous 35 990 metres and it wasn't his fault he couldn't navigate his way through the cones in the final ten (it does look confusing).

I'm ashamed to say I didn't.

I am, however, pleased to report he corrected his mistake in time and took the placing by one second. Chapeau Stephen!

I had the measure of a few guys who'd beaten me at DIFS and Cyclesmith. The larger gear helped me be more compeitive, as did the kickings I'd been getting from Mac Grant on the bike all summer! I finished the day 12th overall in 1:22, perhaps surprisingly 2 seconds slower than last year. The bike was quicker, but the runs were slower. Even if I had the 2nd fastest R1 and 3rd fastest R2 I needed them to recover from the 27th fastest bike (not even the upper quartile!). Swings ands roundabouts. Que sera sera. The age-group results weren't much better; 5th and no, Cozy-Beehive, there were more than five in my age-group! Still, 40-44 is clearly the age-group of death with a full four of the eleven spots ahead of me taken by my conferes, with a hefty number of 35-39s just champing at the bit to get into 40-44 and do some real damage. And by hefty I mean thin, fit and cut with slow-twitch muscles (you know who you are Shawn Amirault!)

Meanwhile a mile up the road (12th place was seven minutes down on first place), Chris MacKenzie passed Jamie on the bikeand took the race by 90" or so, courtesy of the fastest bike and R2. He always says I'm the better runner, but Chris is no slouch and is clearly better than me off the bike (as well as on it). As I said earlier; the run is integral to duathlons and you should play to your strengths! Chris clearly has two! Jamie Haynes was second, whilst Mark McMullen was 3rd thanks to so some solid splits!

Le belle had a better race, all kitted out in her swanky Team Canada uniform from Worlds. She managed to start the race in the bathroom, as in she came out of the school and saw the tail-end of the pack heading down the road. All fired up she (ahem) whizzed through the crowd and onto the heels of the pack, working her way up to lead the ladies race into T1 by the slimmest of margins.

Elmo, her custom Guru, was sulking, probably because she bought that new Condor. What went wrong? What didn't? Firstly we couldn't get her tri-bars on in TZ. Normally five minutes work, today it was all dropped screws, dropped shims, pinched cables and she ended up throwing them in the trunk in frustration as the equation "tribars or warm-up" started to be resolved out of her favour! Then she blew her front wheel in TZ pumping it up! Fortunately we had a spare in the car. Sure, it was an RSX Shimano hub laced to a 36 spoke 1990 vintage, box-section Mavic MA2 but it was 1) round 2) had a new tyre on it which was 3) inflated. Job done! Out on the course her chain was skipping more than Sarah Dobrowski, which was odd because it hadn't been doing that all week! She reckons that cost her a couple of minutes fiddling with derailleurs and trying to find a working (stable) cog-configuration.

Still, she came in 3rd lady overall, and as overall ladies winner Suzanne Ferrier was also in her age-group she was given the overall 35-39. Sweet!

Good day out for her! Tri-bars and Mavic Cosmics...who needs 'em anyway?

We had the boys with us, who were incredibly well behaved given that their morning consisted of hanging around an empty school-yard while a bunch of grown-up kids were playing silly buggers for a couple of hours. So afterwards we stayed on the South Shore, took the ferry over to La Have

Where we hit the bakery!

Yummm!

Thanks to the Bridgewater Tri Club for putting the event on; RDs Tom Rogers and Jen Worden, the local RCMP, all the voluntolds, marshals and officials. It was a great, nay perfect, way to end the triathlon season.

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Balls out

USA Cycling Masters National Road Championship
- Watch more Sports Videos at Vodpod.

Got to try and get myself sparked up to turn a pedal in anger tomorrow!

In a bit of a bike-mechanic mode right now. Well, the Lemond needs putting into racing shape for Sunday (Riverport) and Old Bess needs some serious work in advance of the start of 'cross season (October 31).

For a start, the Lemond. The headset was a bit loose, and I don't have those spanners. Actually, it's a threadless headset and as such only needs a 5mm Allen key, but I do find that fiddly and I prefer to leave that to the pros. Tony Lacopia (one of Nova Scotia's three enduro racing Filipinos) did the honors for me at Cyclesmith, disappearing downstairs with it to use a torque-meter.

He came upstairs and said to me "I need to talk to you about the headset" with the same manner, look and tone of a doctor coming out from OR, taking off his mask and cap, looking at the family and saying "we tried everything we could, but it was just too severe. We're sorry, but she's gone". Gulp, the Lemond is gone? Fortunately no. It turned out the headset was so badly pitted I practically had indexed steering (no, indexed steering doesn't actually exist, just think about it for a moment and you'll get it).

So the guys fitted a new one and Rob gave me the diagnosis; apparently there were no bearings in the lower race. This was a surprise; to loose one is an happenstance, two is coincidences, three is enemy action, but twelve? Conspiracy perhaps, but it would have to be a conspiracy on the order of a bad JKF assassination/Area 51 night out in Chris Carter's head. I can't even start to explain this one. Anyway, there are the required number of bearings in there now. It may be a bit heavier this weekend, but at least it will steer!

I also went for a new chain-ring. Last year 68" (39 x 15 left) me cruelly undergeared at Riverport. In fact here I am complaining about it.

I rocked out Cyclesmith and the Du It For Shelter dus (well, rocked out is a bit of an exaggeration, pebbled out perhaps) on 75" (39 x 14), which again left me a bit undergeared. So I've decided to up it to 80" (42 x 14). A bit of a learning experience. I cannabalised a 42 from an old Ultegra triple in the parts bin only to find the gear creaked every revolution! Apparently, chain-rings not made for singles/trackies are not always perfectly round! In other words they are ever so slighly biopaced! On gears this is no problem as the derailleurs take up the minimal amout of slack. On fixed all you get are awful grinding noises every pedal stroke!

I got a 42 down at MEC, and surprisingly enough, it was Fait Au Canada. I was pretty chuffed with that; it's not often you can get a legit, for real, made in Canada bike-part (your Cervelo wasn't made in Canada either!)

It certainly looked nice and shiny once it was mounted...

Strike one for the laws of unintended consequences, it even matched the silver-look of the Lemond's paint-job and everything.

An anodized black one would have looked awful, but I wasn't even thinking that far ahead! Matching componentry to paint-job - now that's hard-core!

I took it for a test spin and, so far, no horrible creaking sounds....

....nothing dropped off.

Apart, from the look on my face, a patella or two.

Will get to Old Bess later.

See you at Riverport tomorrow!

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Our kids read this?

There is a scientific paper somewhere that examines the psychiatric disorders that permeate Winnie the Pooh, but this is so much easier to remember (plus I couldn't find it on Google).

see more Very Demotivational

Which one are you?

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Keeping it real

Relaxing, mellow jangly-guitar indie soundtrack, a seemingly non-Type-A attitude to cycling, mockney narration and nary a tri-bar, shorty-short or bare-sholders-and-arm-warmers combo in sight. This should make me feel happy and glad to be a cyclist, it should inspire me, and indeed it does. However it starts with two of the words in the English language guaranteed to make me come out in a cold sweat. Unsanctioned. Unmarshalled.

Brrrrr.

Still recovering my wits after the weekend.

The relay was really enjoyable. The weather was a bit grey and misty for the first six legs, but in the 12km stretch of leg#7 the sun came out and we finished under sunny, blue skies.

As relays go, this was a pretty calm one. No real dramas, no traffic accidents, no medical emergencies; for the first time in a couple of years I didn't have to scrape anyone off Rte #3 (you know who you are).

Perhaps the atmosphere on the road was a little more restrained than in years past. Maybe it was the damp weather during the early legs, but the roads seemed more subdued.

As an official/marshall (who knows what one's real designation is at a Gonzo event) it did feel a bit strange. The last event I was officiating at, three weeks ago, was a world championship, where I had the full weight of the International Triathlon Union behind me, should I have needed it. Fast-forward twenty-one days and its the Rum Runners, with the full weight of Nancy Holland behind me, should I have needed it.

The trick is to remember where you are. At Worlds you can be a lot more picky and generally have a zero-tolerance attitude to anything. At Rum Runners (well any provincial level event) you have to relax a little more. smile and let a lot more "stuff" go. If you do this, and I did, you'll enjoy it a lot more. Nothing's going to run your day like thinking constantly "but at Worlds we did this....". That's not to say that you shouldn't use your experiences and knowledge to try and improve delivery of local events, not at all, but at the end of the day it's not Worlds, it's not going to be closed course, barricaded, chip-timed, branded, dope-tested and catered with officials' only loos so get over it. It'll be more fun this way anyway!

Besides, there are way more smiles at Rum Runners and fewer high-maintenance Brazilian women.

As far as the running goes, HRC-A went out to win the barrel, and win we did. A consecutive four-peat, possibly an unprecedented feat in RRR history (it depends on how you define team).

We won five of ten legs (#1, #3, #4, #7, #9), and were second in three of the ones we didn't win (#6, #8, #10). We were in control from the beginning of leg#1, when Greg stormed off the front to put us in the lead by five minutes and we never looked back. Oxford at 8 gave us the occasional scare within a leg, but were never consistent enough to get close to us in the overall. Les boys de St Pierre et Miquelon weren't the force we thought they might have been. As with Oxford, they had good individual runners, but not ten. We put half an hour or so into Oxford, who were second overall on the day. Third overall were the Runners Attic crew from Yarmouth. Many triathletes on that team! Kudos to the guys and Denise, bigger kudos to team captain Jeff Courish for herding the cats, and, of course, thanks to the Gonzos for the show.

There's little to say about my leg. I started on the wrong side of the group (on the outside) and had to hop, skip and jump to the front of the pack when Mark blew the horn. I didn't see anyone else for the rest of the leg except for a runner from Tyrone Grande's ZX team who came up on my shoulder after a kilometer and stayed there for another two until he was gapped on the climb by John A MacDonald HS. That was all the excitement I had and it was just "one foot in front of the other, repeat" from there on in.

The idiot-box gave a pace of 3:43/kilometer which I think may be the fastest pace I've ever had for a "long" race (17:24 at the NSAC 5K doesn't count). So much for Phil "Tact" McElroy telling me I was looking a bit "heavier" than I did last year. Bitch!

Does this traffic cone make my arse look fat?

What can I say? I have my mother's thighs. The only problem is she used to ride the kilo for East Germany!

The next day Rami Bardessey wanted to go to Truro to support a fund-raising event for Chris Cashen. The two of us, plus la belle, piled into the minivan we still had after RRR and drove up to Truro (don't worry Nancy, we covered the extra gas we used). We got to Truro for about 10:30 and got a couple of hours in on the Cobequid Trail beforehand. It was a gorgeous day, sunny but windy. Rami and I floated out with the tailwind to the site of an abandoned Acadian village before turning around (we seemed to be running out of trail anyway). He gave me a right proper kicking on the way back. Just what I needed three weeks out from MDI (meant non-sarcastically). It was a little shorter than perhaps it could have been, but the 4:20 average pace made it a 2 hr marathon pace run at a pace I'll be lucky to hold on the hills of Acadia National Park. Plus it rounded off a high-miles eight days, 115 kms (over 70 miles). Time for a taper methinks.

On the way out I was joking that Rami would have an impromptu stab at my "soft" Cobequid half course record and at some points we were going as fast, or faster, than the race-pace that got me the win. Eek. For the record, my 1:20:20 still stands, but it's clearly at Rami's mercy!

After the run, we ended up at Chris's fundraiser, which was for the Brain Repair Centre here in Halifax, where Chris did much of his recuperation. Rami was the epitome of an Elite athlete; talking to everyone, listening, posing for photos, there was no-one "too small" to talk to him. True class. He even gave one of his Boston trophies to Chris.

Like I say, class.

I have to say that I was inspired by Chris. He's determined to get back out there and race. He know's what it will mean, but running itself is reward enough for him. It's not about medals, trophies, wins and records. It's about doing what you love.

He did say he has a tandem bike in the shed, and he's getting out on a recumbent now too. If you ever need a pilot for that tandem Chris, give me a shout and it'll be an honour to do it for you.

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It was like that when I got 'ere gov!

Wow, it seems the blog has made it through one whole year. I wonder how many blogs make it this far; just like a new-year's resolution one can see how a blog can soon run out of enthusiasm and steam. I think this nearly happened to this blog too, grinding to a near halt last winter. Well, we made it through and I thank you, both of you, for sticking with it.

The intent was a fashion-y type of blog. I think I tried, but whilst we always come back to socks in the end, I think I've failed. Thanks to Stacy Juckett-Chestnutt who brought "fitness fashion police" to our attention. This is how it should have been done. Click on the link, but might I humbly suggest a pair of sunglasses and possibly a kidney-bowl before you do.

Instead, it's turned into a chronicle of my racing endeavours, general bike porn and coffee punctuated with the occasional sock. So as such it would have been more accurately called "caffientated-croissant-addicted-fat-boy-cyclist's-view-from-the-back" but to be honest, it would have been quite tiresome to have to type that in every time. Even so, I'm pretty sure that URL is still available, so keep your eyes peeled.

So, a sock. If there is one thing that I am constantly told is that there aren't enough socks. I've been keeping this one for a special occasion, and I think one's first birthday probably merits such an occasion. This was seen in Condor Cycles, and I promise you it is a for-real item;

Yup, you read that right; a sock kit.

Also Yup, that's an Assos product, as in "luxury body" Assos. Obviously they didn't read Fatty's letter!

The Sock Kit rather charmingly rolls out to reveal a bunch of socks, one for each season or part of a season (or part of season) and each in it's own labelled compartment.

Is it me or are people getting dumber. This pack comes with a reference guide, each compartment handily telling you the correct conditions under which to wear these socks. This boggles my imagination; if you're at the point in your life you can afford a speciality "Sock Kit" then surely you are at a point in your life where you can dress yourself without printed instructions. Maybe it's a manifestation of the "why did this happen I wasn't told" culture we're told we're in, the one where people no longer take responsibility for ther own actions. It's always someone else's fault. Not so much mea culpa as mundi culpa. Is this provided perhaps in deference to an inability to stick one's head out of the window to assess the weather and so if your toes are cold, it wasn't your fault but had to be someone elses? It couldn't be me!

Thirty-two is just a tad optimistic!

I know what you're thinking; early summer and late summer in the UK need separate socks? We could start with a "summer" as being distinct from a generalised blending of Spring and Autumn and do you really need special socks for the two week interregnum?

I can only imagine the poor, confused stock-broker who buys the kit, wears the socks indicated by the Assos/Met Office nomogram and gets cold feet anyway. How can this be? Assos assured me these were the right socks for the day!

Doubly so should it be a Canadian stock-broker. Check out the "winter plus" socks, rated to a mere -6C, or a pleasant autumn morning as we say here.

At least they were all white!

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Rum head-winds

Two very windy days on the bike. Yesterday was just a block head-wind around Purcell's Cove. You know it's going to be bad when climbing the hills on the way out doesn't actually feel hard and you spend the time going out wondering exactly how hard it's going to be once you make the turnaround. Once Mac Grant and I did Sambro in the crazy windy and at one point on the back side of the loop we came around a corner and were stopped dead by the wind.

Today wasn't quite so bad, blustery and changeable, but still a net tail-wind on the way out and the corresponding head-wind home. To make matters worse I decided, pig-headedly to do it on 68" fixed. Maybe it's my way of cramming my miles in. They say you spend 30% of any ride free-wheeling. Fixed, obviously, changes this.

I will say this, I do find fixed quite useful in a head-wind or a climb. Instead of spending all your time and focus on hopping up and down the cassette trying to find that "magic" gear, you are left to concentrate your focus on getting the pedals up and down, around and around. Very Zen.

As long as your choice of gear was a judicious one. And you likely chose your gear last night in the shed!

I'm sure if I was a real, focused, goal-driven triathlete (or athlete of any description) I would have finished the ride off with my remaining Shot Bloks and for a treat used a little more powder in my post-ride protein-shake. Good job I'm not! I finished off at TIBS instead, where else. My heart, well stomach, was set on an almond croissant, but they were out, so I plumped (plumped being the operative word) for the proscuittio and cheese. Rounding out a 2500 cal ride (according to the Garmin) with a 2500 croissant is just good maths. No?

It was washed down with a cappuccino. Not normally my poison of choice, but a 'spro seemed to be a little "much" and an Americano would have been too much volume.

A big weekend this week with the Rum Runners Relay. Halifax Running Club A (HRC-A) is going for the barrel for a fourth consecutive year. no team has ever won four in a row, so statistically we're doomed. Lies, damned lies and statistics however, we have a good team going forward here. You take a list of winners (overall, age-group or both) from RNS events this year; Rami Bardessy, Denise Robson, Nick McBride, Greg Wieczorek, Ray Morehead, Shawn Deleu and Hugh McIssac and (God help you) me, and that's the core of the team.

We are in for a fight this year. Oxford At 8 have been gunning for us for a couple of years now and have made it clear we are in their sights. Of course, to be their sights, they have to be behind us! Oh well, perhaps HRC-Ladies can give them a run for their money.

I think they must be worried has they are claiming (apparently) we have recruited ringers for the team. I can go on record publicly and say that everyone in the team is a club member or has been running with the club for months. No-one has been included on the basis of "they ran with the club one Thursday evening on February, that makes 'em a club member". We've always been scrupulous with this.

The other unknown is the team from St Pierre et Michelon. For a tiny speak of nothing, these guys always bring a good team. The last time they were here was my first time on the winning team and they pushed us close. It looks as though the threat to us may come from without rather than within.

I got new shoes yesterday for the upcoming month of madness; a race every weekend I think for the next month, perhaps three if the 'cross starts on schedule. Mizuno Presicions. The same shoes I've been in for a couple of years. For some reason, the blue-and-white ones aren't around any more and so Dana at A1 sold me a pair in red-and-black.

As comfy as they may be, I'm never going to be able to match those with anything!

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Bikes, glorious bikes

Here in Halifax, we are pretty much a Cervelo and Trek town. Down in Yarmouth you'll be riding a Giant. A few have Gurus or Marinonis from Montreal, and these (sometimes bespoke) bikes are about as exotic as bikes get here.

Fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with a Cervelo, Giant, Guru, Marinoni or, God help you, a Trek, but travel opens the mind. For a real bike junkie, someone who values a well proportioned frame or a neat lug just for the the sheer aesthetics of it, then a trip to London is like going to one massive Hamleys

Of course we went to Hamleys as well;

The "kid in an, er, toy-store" look was pretty much the same whether we were in Hamleys or Condor.

In fact, outside Hamleys I could swear I saw a Marinoni. For a split second it seemed so normal, "Oh look, there's a Marinoni" before logic kicked in "How did that get here?".

Before we got to London there was Edinburgh. There was plenty of bike-porn on display at World Du's. However, past a bit of surreptitious bike-fondling on the morning on the age-group race at the TZ entrance bike-check, which was really touching-up-under-the-guise-of-checking-brakes-bars-and-frame-number, I wasn't in a position to take any pictures.

I have to say, I was more taken by the tandems in the paraduathlon, but I am a self-confessed retro-grouch. The only bike I took pics of was this Trek (not sure if it's the Speed Concept or the 7 series) at the "sports expo", which was a small pop-up tent outside registration selling Rapha jerseys and power-bars. This is the one with the Kammtail tubes, integrated brake and Draftbox.

No denying it looks fast, but you'll never catch me on one! Green? With my eyes? Naaah

Counterintuitively, the bike-porn of the trip started after we left World Dus and got to London.

There are a lot of bikes in London. Plenty of foldables, like Bromptons, which makes sense as well as the species we are used to. I think the success of the British team at the Olympics; think Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins (before he, ahem, "became" a Tour rider), Shanaze Reade and Victoria Pendleton (schwing) has popularised cycling in a way no amount of traffic calming could ever do. And London is aggressively traffic-calmed now. The weather helps too; in four years in London I rode in the snow a handful of times. It's hardly ever too cold to ride and cycling can be a viable, 365 days a year transportation option. Plus there are all those studies (are there really that many studies or is it just one study reported a bunch of times) showing that a bicycle is the fastest way around central London.

I felt a little like a biologist on a field-trip to the jungle; able to see an categorise all of Bikesnob's cycling types in their natural environment; the hipsters, the roadies, the triathletes, the beautiful Godzillas, the bike-salmon, the retrogrouches and the contraption-captains. Stuff you don't really see in Halifax, with it's token example from each category. And yes, I am well aware I just implied that "Bikesnob; Systematically and mercilessly realigning the world of cycling; BikesnobNYC. ChronicleBooks, pp223 as a text-book. Just read it and see why!

Not surprisingly, the public face of cycling in London has changed in twenty years. Condor Cycles has moved across the road from it's pokey little shop-front I remember to a larger, airier building with one floor given to accessories and one just for bikes. I could swear that Evans Cycles had just the one shop in sarf London, in fact I think a club-mate used to be a frame-builder there, but now there are Evans all over London and even all over the country.

We'll start at Evans first.

A bit more of a chain-store feel;

You see that yellow l/s jersey in the window? I got it! On sale (but of course). It's got a crash-dummy theme to it, which is fitting because that was pretty much what the guys in the Crest CC called me once upon a time. It may be cliched, but's it's surely time to play, in honour to the jersey, the Primitives...

Sorry about that, but it had to be done! Anyway, it's more uplifting than the alternative!

It was nice to see a Colnago; they have a bit of a mythic status to us here in Nova Scotia; the bikes you read about but never see. Some of the Colnagos had Colnago-branded brakes; cool huh?

Even if it's no more than a bog-standard, repainted stock Ultegra dual-pivot. However desirable the bike, I understand Colnago's after-sales service to be less than stellar :(

Apparently it's mandatory to have a bell on your bike, so every bike from the urban runaround costing a few hundred to the dog's-bollocks racer costing many thousands, had a bell on it!

Interestingly, they were not under the same compunction to sell a bike with two brakes, as many of the fixies had only one. Then again, the Highway Code does recognise the fixed-gear as being a brake in it's own right....

Top-tube brake-cable clips! How old-school is that?

I should have bought some :S

Quite literally next door to Evans in Spitalfields was the Cyclesurgery, which was depressingly nondescript. I did see this Brooks leather bag/satchel thingy and had to be lured out of the store by a hot salt-beef bagel.

There used to be a bike-shop in Kilburn run by a famously taciturn and grumpy Irishman who considered himself the "gatekeeper" to cycling. Or put it another way, legend had it he wouldn't sell you what you wanted if he didn't think you deserved it. For completeness, I Googled it but couldn't find it; I think it might have become a Cyclesurgery and that Irish bloke is likely well pissed off as they sell Campy Record to City types with high disposable incomes whereas in my day you had to beg to get a Stronglight TA crank-set!

Condor is the real deal, a boutique retailer. If you want a Condor, your options are to get thyself to the south end of Grays Inn Road, and that's that. They are also the co-sponsor of Rapha Condor. Condor used to be "my shop" back in the day. I still have wheels built by Monty at Condor and 20 years later they're going strong. It's Monty's 80th this year and they say that when the TdB finishes in London later this week, the British riders are forgoing the end-of-race party and going to Monty's 80th instead! Yup, the guy has that much pull in the British cycling scene.

My sense was as much as I loved, love, Condor, it's sold out a bit, to (literally) fat bankers buying $10 000 CAD carbon wonder-machines to be strapped to the back of their BMWs and driven out to the country for a 20 miler and then calling themselves cyclists. People who are trying to buy into cycling without doing their apprenticeship, sans fait le metier. I remember Condor as a place I went to when my inner tubes were beyond patching and I actually had to buy a new one, rather than paying someone to change my flats for me! The Condor Rapha club seems to exemplify this culture of buying into cycling to me; a place for rich people to spend their money on expensive memberships, expensive bikes and expensive clothing (any and all of which I would give my eye-teeth for) and pretend to be cyclists on "epic" Rapha rides. And by epic I mean out of iPhone range.

They still have their soul and still cater for the couriers and other, skinnier types with unironically shaved legs. I heard of a promising junior who had a tab at Condor (get now, pay later); in other words Condor were literally banking on him to make good and wouldn't necessarily hold the price of a new pair tubs against him. Such people are a million miles (and probably a million pounds) away from the banker buying the Rapha/Paul Smith tweed. Perhaps the corporate market is what they have to do to be able to do what they do.

Condor sells many Condor branded bikes; steel, aluminium (note the extra 'i', we're in the UK now), carbon and titanium. Frame-sets or complete builds. Road, track, urban, cross or mountain. Sure, they stock a token Trek or Cervelo but they pale next to the Condors.

First thing you see walking down the stairs are the fixies.

Don't know about you, but I'm not sure about the gold rims and matching chain on that one nearest the camera;

The Specialised Langster Tokyo Edition has a lot to answer for! Besides, if you didn't like gold rims, take your pick

Of course, a fixie needs a gear, and Condor have their own range of gears, all with the logo etched on

A little deeper into the shop, a Condor TT bike; aluminium frame and 105 gruppo for a grand (sterling). not bad for a bike you'll only ride ten times a year

On the seat-tube, the Condor Eagle is in red, white and blue. Made me come over all patriotic

Getting to the very back of the shop is the good stuff; you've been tempted by the fixies of many colours and the good-value builds and even a cyclocross bike or two but if you survive these almost biblical trials at the very back is the mix-n-match section for the real snobs, sorry, I mean connoisseurs.

These are two titanium frames; the upper one is a 49cm track frame - 50% off, the one underneath a stock Moda

Some of the frames are sourced and built in Italy and sold in England, hence the decal on the down-tube

God who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet indeed!

The Moda is nude titanium, really sweet. In ye olden days (which to a triathlete means before Greg Lemond won the Tour de France with aerobars) Condor made steel frames with fancy lugs; in homage to this the Moda has the lug-work etched onto the bare metal before varnishing

Any frame needs a gruppo and below the frames were cabinets with full gruppos; this is a case full of Campy

Call 999 immediately!

The Moda caught la belle's eye. Good job Condor was one of the first shops we visited in London as every conversation for the next three days ended up with "so, that frame-set then". We decided she should at least try out the frame to see how it fit her; after all it wasn't WSD and she could have been all over the place! Even though they didn't have a 49cm Moda built up, they had a bike-fitting gizmo thingy dowstairs at the shop;

which interestingly was made in Canada.

She got a full hour of bike-fitting from a nice guy called Conrad, who as well as helping fit the bike, spent a little time slagging off Cervelo, which was interesting, as the mark-up on a P3 is greater than the mark-up on an own-label frame so really he should have been trying to sell us a Cervelo. Then again, that would be like selling coals to Newcastle.

The deal was done; there was no compelling reason not to get what I was assured was "the frame of her dreams". Then again, she did ride a Y-Foil for a few years, so exactly what entails a "dream" is open to interpretation. At least we agree on the Moda!

Conrad asked us to come back on Friday so they could pack the bike. When we got there it was all ready to go; in a Cervelo box! Bastard! He assured la belle she was now also the proud owner of the cardboard box with the highest environmental footprint in the world.

That pretty much concluded the bike-porn aspect of the trip, but we sat in a cafe and reflected on building this bad-boy up, it underwent an identity change and is henceforth to be known as the Silver Lady.

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