Category Archives: Cycling

Rabobank: sponsor’s revenge for cycling’s doping scandal

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The Dutch bank Rabobank has ended sponsorship of the cycling team that bears its name. Its decision comes after seven times Tour de France Lance Armstrong was condemned as a drugs cheat.

Bert Bruggink, a member of the bank’s managing board, said: “We are no longer convinced that the international professional world of cycling can make this a clean and fair sport. We are not confident that this will change for the better in the foreseeable future.”

The only surprise is that cycling has any sponsors at all. The failure of the sport to tackle endemic use of drugs has been a scandal for years. Let’s hope that the new generation of professional cyclists show that cycling has a future. Bradley Wiggins is a better role model than the likes of Michael Rasmussen and Levi Leipheimer, disgraced former Rabobank riders.

Maps: icon to icons

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The maps we loved: the Vale of Glamorgan 1970s, mapped by Ordnance Survey

Last month, Apple came under fire for the poor quality of its new Apple Maps app for iPhone and iPad. The reaction showed how our idea of what a map is has utterly changed. A visitor from the 1970s would be baffled by the idea of a computer company producing a map – let alone the concept of having a map on a phone. They’d have thought it as crazy as a television making a cup of tea.

The map that opens this blog post is a section of the oldest map I possess. It’s the very first Ordnance Survey metric map of the Vale of Glamorgan and the Rhondda. (This 1:50,000 series replaced the much-loved 1 inch OS series.) It’s striking (for Wales) for its English-only place and geographical names: Cowbridge, for example, is unaccompanied by its Welsh name, Y Bont Faen, unlike on more recent OS maps. The map is titled The Rhondda, which is a curiously misleading description of a sheet that covers almost the whole of the Vale as well as many of the valleys of the Glamorgan uplands.

I was given this map as a birthday present in 1977. I used to have the earlier 1 inch OS map of Cardiff (a very different place 35 years ago), along with an even older map of Cirencester, showing the railway lines that closed in the 1960s. (I had fun comparing it with the 1990s equivalent.)

Paper maps have a special quality. In the dark, cold nights of January 1995, I plotted a cycle holiday from Ashton Keynes, near Cirencester, to the English Channel at Beer. It was a warming experience lying by the fire choosing villages and quiet coastal roads to explore the following summer – with a beer. Five months later, I took pride in the fact my friend Richard and I got lost just once in 325 miles when we followed that fireside-plotted trail.

But I mustn’t sound too wedded to the joy of the old over the new. I carried a dozen OS maps on that holiday. Twice we arrived at a promised (by the map) pub to find it didn’t exist. How we’d have loved the idea of carrying maps for the whole journey in our pockets. Along with B&B lists and reviews, weather reports, newspapers, music players and books… It would have seemed a miracle.

The BBC news website’s magazine (a great read, by the way) has a fascinating feature on the subject today. It’s a tad sceptical about the move to electronic maps:

“Digital maps may be shrinking our brains. Richard Dawkins has suggested that it may have been the drawing of maps, rather than the development of language, that boosted our brains over that critical hurdle that other apes failed to jump.”

That seems to overstate the case. But I do vividly remember drawing my own spidery maps of Lakeside and Cyncoed, Cardiff, soon after we moved home to Wales when I was seven in 1971. It was my way of making sense of my new hinterland. Most of the houses were less than 10 years old. Street names such as Farm Drive hinted at a more rural past (and there was a surviving farm house close to where Eastern Avenue now crosses Lake Road East).

Lakeside, Cardiff – by Google Maps. My version was more spidery

I’ll end on a cycling note. As I blogged in February, I love having digital maps on my handlebars, in the form of my Garmin Edge 800 GPS. But I’ll still treasure my printed maps. They’re part of my past – and my future.

Lance Armstrong: It’s not about the bike, it’s about the doping

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It’s hard when heroes turn into villains. Today I finally accepted that Lance Armstrong doped his way to an extraordinary seven successive Tour de France victories. The fairytale story of the cancer survivor who went on to dominate one of the world’s most punishing sports now looks like a grim story of cheating and drug abuse rather than heroic endeavour.

There’s still a chance Armstrong may be vindicated. But the fact he’s not fighting the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s case against him strongly suggests he knows the game’s up.

Over a decade ago, I was enthralled and inspired by Armstrong’s moving account of his battle against cancer, It’s Not about the Bike. It was one of my spurs to complete the Land’s End to John O’Groats ride 10 years ago. I knew all about cycling’s sordid relationship with drugs, notably the 1998 Tour de France’s Festina affair. (Paul Kimmage lifted the lid on this culture in Rough Ride.) But I believed the Armstrong line: he was the most tested cyclist in history. And every one had shown him to be clean. Karen and I followed Armstrong’s annual progress in Le Tour. I wore the US Postal team kit on several cycling holidays.

I admired his dedication as well as his success. I loved his account of winter practice in the French mountains: after a long ascent, he told his team to do it all over again, as he wasn’t happy with his performance. This when his top rival Jan Ullrich was piling on the winter kilograms.

One by one, his contemporaries were disgraced in doping scandals: Ullrich, Ivan Basso, Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis, Alexander Vinokourov, Roberto Heras… the list is endless. I blogged my disillusionment after Landis failed a dope test after winning the 2006 Tour. My post quoted a comment from a German broadcaster:  ”We have signed a contract to show a sports event not a showcase for the pharmaceutical industry.” A year later I wrote of the Tour de France entering last chance saloon as yet another drugs scandal hit. Yet Armstrong appeared the innocent despite similar allegations. It seems the appearance was a sham.

I hope that the new generation of cyclists will discard the tainted world of Armstrong, Ullrich, Landis and Heras. All the signs are that Bradley Wiggins, Britain’s very first Tour winner, and his contemporaries are true, clean heroes. London 2012 was a fitting showcase for them. Yet there was one sour note. The disgraced Alexander Vinokourov won gold in the Olympics road race.

How will the allegations about Lance Armstrong impact his charitable foundation, Livestrong? So far, it seems to be unscathed. (It helps that Armstrong’s name is not the charity’s identity. The Jimmy Savile Charitable Trust has no such luck.) Time will tell.

Bradley Wiggins is wrong about bike helmets

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You choose – not the law

Bradley Wiggins is my hero. I take my cycle helmet off to his amazing feat in winning the Tour de France and Olympics gold within 10 days. But Wiggo is wrong to support calls to force cyclists to wear helmets.

I’m opposed to compulsion for practical and philosophical reasons. But at the outset I should say that I agree that it’s often sensible to wear a helmet. It’s just we shouldn’t be forced to do so.

Health and safety: the only possible reason to force people to wear a helmet is that it makes them safer and healthier. But there’s strong evidence from Australia that making people wear a lid (and criminalising those who don’t) leads to fewer people cycling, making for a less healthy society. It also suggests that cycling is a dangerous activity – which it isn’t. On average, 17 cyclists die a year, fewer than die flossing their teeth. (OK, I made up the bit about flossing, but you get the idea.)

Freedom: making helmets compulsory removes choice and responsibility from the individual. It also ignores the fact that risk varies according to where you cycle. It makes far more sense to let us decide when to wear one. If I’m cycling in the city or on country lanes with fast cars, I’ll don my helmet. If I’m pootling about in our quiet cul-de-sac, I won’t. The state shouldn’t make a criminal of a man going 5mph on a bike without a car in sight.

Supporters of compulsion say that few now complain about being forced to wear a seat belt in a car. True, but the risks are hugely magnified in a car. At this rate, we’ll see pedestrians in body armour within 30 years. And we’ll have to conduct a risk assessment before being allowed to walk down the stairs at home.

As Chris Peck from CTC, Britain’s national cycling organisation, said, ”Two thirds of collisions between adult cyclists and motor vehicles are deemed by police to be the responsibility of the motorist. Any legislation should put the onus on those who cause the harm, not the victims.”

Land’s End to John O’Groats 10 years on

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End of the road: Rob reaches John O’Groats, June 2002

Ten years ago this week, I set off on my bike from Land’s End at the south western tip of England. My destination: John O’Groats in the far north of Scotland. I was cycling the ‘end to end’ – in short, Britain on a bike. I reached my destination after 16 unforgettable days.

It was the fulfilment of a six year dream. Back in the summer of 1996, I read an article about the end to end. I was inspired to have a go, and bought a new touring bike the following year with that in mind. Bizarrely, a book about Charles Lindbergh’s feat in becoming the first person to fly the Atlantic solo provided the final prompt to stop dreaming and start pedalling.

Those 16 days in June proved an extraordinary odyssey. Not because the end to end is unusual: thousands do it every year. But because you see your own country in a very different way on a bike. You see the landscape, the architecture and the accents changing with every passing mile. My ride coincided with the 2002 football world cup, and the Welsh border was clearly marked by the sudden absence of England football flags!

Dentdale, Yorkshire

My favourite days? Discovering the beauty of Dent in north Yorkshire and cycling across the Cumbria border to the lovely town of Kirkby Stephen. Revelling in the eight mile downhill swoop from the Devil’s Beef Tub near Moffat in Scotland. Enjoying a beautiful day following Loch Linnhe to Fort William, before paying tribute at the Commando monument in the hills beyond Ben Nevis. And seeing Karen as she overtook me in her hire car near Thurso when she flew to see my complete the challenge.

Impressions of paradise: Loch Linnhe, near Fort William

The toughest days were early on. Cornwall and Devon posed a challenging start. On the second day, from St Colomb Major to Moretonhampstead, I crossed seven major river valleys. The next day, I could barely turn the pedals as I set off. Further north, I reached Clitheroe, Lancashire in a dramatic storm, and made waves as I cycled the last few miles to the camp site. It was flooded, which led to the bliss of a night in a hotel rather than under canvas.

I used the ride to raise money for a Welsh cancer charity, FaceUp, which helps people recover from the effects of surgery for facial, oral and neck cancer. I’d like to thank everyone who supported me, including the landlord of a pub near Carlisle who made a donation!

If you’ve ever dreamed about doing the end to end, do it now. You’ll have memories to treasure for ever.

PS: I did the 1,060 miles on my Raleigh Randonnneur without a single puncture. A tribute to a design classic. It now carries Owen’s bike seat…

Going Dutch: Raleigh Cycle sold

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The news that Dutch company Accell has bought Raleigh Cycle prompted a wave of nostalgia this week.

Many of us learned to cycle on a childhood Raleigh. My childhood coincided with the hugely popular Raleigh Chopper. I didn’t have one – I made do with the bizarre choice of a Raleigh Twenty. It was a classic example of the poor bikes produced in the 1970s, a  car-dominated decade that marked the low point of the cycling industry before the mountain bike sparked a revival.

Far better was the Raleigh Randonneur, a superb touring bike that starred in my Land’s End to John O’Groats ride in 2002. I didn’t suffer a single puncture in the 1,060 miles odyssey. I now use the bike for rides with our three year old son Owen – there’s a child seat where I used to attach panniers.

PS: I reminisced about some of my bikes – including the Twenty and Randonneur – in a post on the original Ertblog in 2009: Wheels of joy. And I’ve also posted about Land’s End to John O’Groats.