Graveyard Shift

Unseasonably low temperatures and weather fronts failed to relent through March and into April, so its been winter tights, booties, gloves, buffs and base layers as I’ve reclaimed the night. Sweeping through abandoned lanes between midnight and 2am unleashes a new dimension in riding pleasure and a genuinely better sense of perspective on life. Keyboard duties recommence at 9am until early evening whereupon a few TV/social breaks prove welcome.

Thus far, it’s done wonders for my mood and productivity. I’ve always found darkness the best time for evaluating bikes and equipment since it neutralises prejudice as we are guided by our senses. Riding blind, oblivious to whether a brifter is top flight or entry level gives a far more objective assessment of real world performance- I’ve often been surprised by how well budget components perform, even under some decidedly harsh contexts. Lower end derailleurs are a good choice for winter/daily drivers. First and foremost, they're relatively inexpensive to replace in the event of a bad spill and secondly, help disguise a bike's true worth from speculative thieves. 

Horsham based Atomic 22 sent me their revised tribe system, which are a set of sophisticated locking fasteners employing a unique key and can be “grown” to protect every component –including seat bolts, dropout hangers, bottle screws, quill stems and solid axles too. Precision made from aircraft grade titanium/stainless steel, they resist all the common forms of attack and go a long way to deterring the sort of crime where bikes are stolen, broken for spares and sold on through ebay/craigslist/gumtree etc. However, this doesn’t absolve the need for intelligent deployment of stout locks, location and street furniture.  

Took a drive down to Justin Burls the other week for a weapon’s inspection-for the benefit of global authorities, we’re talking titanium and beautifully brazed steel bicycle frames, not surface to air missiles or similar warheads. He’s been designing titanium frames with Torus bicycles and was keen to show me some new enamel badges and similarly exciting arrivals. www.burls.co.uk www.torusbicycles.co.uk/    

Testament to these exacting standards is “Old Faithful”; his first bespoke frameset dressed in the classic winter attire-old groupsets, Salmon Profil mudguards and smatterings of road salt. Those Rosso red two-pac painted Columbus tubes still ooze a quiet, timeless seductive refinement some fifteen years or so on. 

Cold doesn’t bother me per se, although I’m looking forward to some milder weather in order I can put these Revolution “tack” three quarter length baggies through their paces without donning extra long socks as a matter of absolute necessity. Statistically 3am is reckoned to be the most dangerous time to be navigating the road network, irrespective of vehicle (I’m usually cocooned in my duvet, cruising through the land of nod at this point in proceedings) but that aside, the standards of road craft demonstrated by some is terrifying, more so, the sense of bad driving being  a rite of passage and perfectly acceptable.

BBC three’s “Barely Legal Drivers” followed three sets of late teen/early twenty- something drivers who’s elephantine arrogance/ignorance goes a long way to explaining why insurance premiums are so high and accidents increasingly fatal. However, I was more gob smacked by  parental attitudes, which were largely accepting/condoning of excessive speeding, drunk/ hands-free driving (Oh bless, they’re clapping in time with the music). 

Seemingly desperate to reward their undisciplined offspring regardless, I strongly suspect said parents would blame a cyclist/motorcyclist or indeed another driver for being on the road in the event of a collision “S/he’s not at fault- you only have yourself to blame”.

Conscious of this drifting toward a tirade, my feeling is that we must all strive to continuously improve our road craft, irrespective whether we happen to be piloting a 15lb bicycle or fifteen tonne arctic.