It’s getting more acceptance but do we need it? let’s be honest bike manufacturers are always looking for the next big thing to convince us we need to pat our hard earned cash on. Was the gravel bike itself an example of that? Having used it for some time, I try to give an opinion on the pros and cons. read more here. https://surlerivet.com/is-gravel-suspension-a-thing/
Wow, project Bianchi has been concluded and it was a win! A different shifting performance for a 1982 grinder and a great new look. Read the whole project here: https://surlerivet.com/project-bianchi/
I was doing so well keeping this site alive and then work rolled back in a lots of travel. Then the son showed me his phone, with an enquiry from a friend asking if project Bianchi was still alive!!!! Wow.
I had no choice but to act as 50% of my readers were demanding an update. With such huge demand and remorse at upsetting them, I recommenced my search for an age perfect 6 speed chain in gold, and that’s NOT easy. Back in the 70’s and 80’s, despite glitter and gold going mental on the disco scene, chain manufacturers had not gone bling. But finally, yes finally, my ebay search found this….
OMG – look at that!!!!!! Wow. And the lovely greaseproof paper…. Even better it’s on the way…. And I have done the maths and it should fit with its glorious 116 links. But I have a problem… It’s this….
In a world of Apple packaging and box openings on youtube today, did they have it sorted 40 years ago already? Look how wondeful that is! By opening it will I destroy the value (mute point – first pic shows it has been opened), like a rare Star Wars action figure?
Who cares? Well for the 50% of my readers who care, I’ll go through the install and then the test run when it arrives soon.. Thanks guy(s) for getting me going again…
It sounds melodramatic but perhaps one of the most significant moves in the future of British cycling has just been made. The effects will take a few years to be felt but the impact could be huge. Not so long ago the thought of a British Tour De France winner was a pip dream. Who would have imagined what was to come with the emergence of Team Sky, Wiggo, Froome, Geraint Thomas, Cav with project 35 and the surge of cyclists during Covid. Even with one section of the UK press trying to have a go at all cycling (DM) it was an incredible period and with so much talent still around, and despite the demise of INEOS Grendiers, a bright future. Except the future is not so bright….
It perhaps started with ITV deciding not to cover the TDF after 2025. Ned Boulting revealed he learnt the same was many of us did. Or perhaps GCN+ ending, which had provided all the pro racing coverage you could shake a stick at for approximately five pounds a month. It was this that got me into cyclo cross watching in the winter months. The final nail in the coffin however is Eurosport stopping cycling coverage. Whilst a pay for subscription, it was available several ways in affordable packages. However the owners, Warner Bros., have decide that cycling coverage with now be covered by TNT sports at a whooping cost of over thirty pounds a month. That means if you wish to watch pro racing you’ll be giving TWB near 400 pounds which has to be out of budget for most folks. Undoubtably viewing numbers will go down. In 2005 when the Ashes was on Channel 4, the peak audience was 8.4 million! 10 years later after a Sky purchase the viewership for the first English Test Victory over Australia was less that half a million and active players had dropped by 32% (stats from a great video I will link below). With less TV viewers the sponsors will have less incentive to continue, meaning less funding for teams. With viewership down participation is bound to drop. The is, simply put, no good news here at all. Perhaps sadly this week was the beginning of the end. I so hope not, and cycling is more than pro racing, but it definitely is an important aspect. Vote below to let me know what you think.
Video with more info available here.
Soooooo we did the vote thing and we got 7 votes which exceeded my expectations! So much so I decided to ignore it! Why? Next week RedBull publish their report on our trip to Le Mans, so I will be linking that here and them commenting on the next time the Suburban Suicidal Riders (SUR) are going. As project Bianchi has hit a problem I have written an update on that instead (scroll down for part two). The article on all the crap in the press about Paris car traffic having dropped massively due to Paris having become a cycling haven will have to wait. Cycling here is a haven here but not for what everyone is saying in the press… 🙂
Today got too wrapped up in cooking (!), working on the tandem (synchro chain tension with the assymetric front bottom bracket and a new front rack that looks ace) and a bit of ZWIFT. So I haven’t had time to write much so there will be a vote for next week. Knock yourself out voting let’s see if we can break a record of more than 2 votes.
We are also starting cycling phrase of the week, an attempt at irrereverant bosh. This week is based on some of the last weeks maintenance.
“Square taper axles and cotter pin, crank arm, bottom bracket combos…. WTF”
Oh and the 26 for the Bianchi arrived from the USA.
A 1982 Bianchi Nuovo has a 42/22 gear ratio! How can I make this period perfect and yet achieve the sort of gear ratio we expect or need in 2025? Am I being soft? Read more about it here. Project Bianchi
If you follow this site you’ll know I really enjoy Cade media’s content. It really is superb – for instance I thought their hour long pod casts would be too much and a bore. So wrong!!!!! Francis’s vlog in his Thailand visit, recently published on YouTube, has been exceptional. I totally recommend it…. Here is episode one.
One of the wonderful things about being into cycling is the breadth of things to enjoy. Be it doing something healthy, that might change life patterns or watching the latest pros race. Maybe it’s the bike technology and how the perfect machine seems to be able to be constantly upgraded both with and without the marketing hype. Maybe it’s just going round a corner and seeing a bank full of amazing, deep red poppies or a huge aqueduct to ride beneath. It’s perhaps competing with friends and foes (hopefully no foes) or just chatting as you ride along. There are so many aspects and to be honest I can tick all the above, some better than others.
One aspect is appreciating the history of bikes and bike evolution and hence a little “gift”. Sheldon Brown was no doubt a very interesting character.
He was born at the same time as my parents near Boston, USA. As a kid he would collect old bike parts to make bikes to sell, definitely where he started to learn the vast amount of information he knew about bikes. To say Sheldon was perhaps a bit eclectic – definitely nerdy – might be an understatement but he definitely seems to have been a very colourful character. Case in example his helmet (and perhaps the beard!). See the pic below:
In a world where perhaps social media has made everyone too self conscious, Sheldon rode with an eagle on top of his helmet. I’ll let the man himself explain.
My “Panache” is a plastic eagle which probably began life at the top of a small flag pole. It is a road find. It is held on to my new Giro helmet by a plastic zip tie.
This is a marvelous conversation piece, and has broken the ice on a great many contacts with strangers. Someone on the ‘net once said he thought it was cool, but that he could never do something like that, ’cause he still cared what people thought of him. Well, I too care what people think of me! I hope people will think that I am:
Sheldon even lived down the road from me in 1988/9 in the wonderful, wonderful Chevreuse valley, an absolute must for any Paris based cyclist.
I won’t go on too much. Go explore for yourself the massive amount of information on bikes and some info on the man himself. It’s possibly one of the most comprehensive historical bike technical references out there and basically just very interesting. Go explore here: https://www.sheldonbrown.com. Please leave comments on your thoughts below.
After 6 months and new article on how to upgrade a tungsten filament bulb on a bottle dynamo driven light system (because SO many people still use dynamos, really trying to go for the maximum readership here!!!). I’ll try and be better in the future so the hundreds on readers can really keep up on the last bike tech! No irony…. See the article here
Sur Le Rivet 
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