What is there to say?

It's Your Ride from Cinecycle on Vimeo.

Watch it (turned up loud) and scream on the inside. This is why we ride. You can't get that feeling anywhere else. 

The great New Zealand cycleway

-- It won’t fix the economy, but it’s on the right track

The naysayers reckon New Zealand’s too wet, its people too old and too fat for a cycleway. But the givers of these views should first be tested for Coronation Street watchers, scoutmasters, and Atkins dieters, whose memories are rich with drive-throughs and hot grease and nights frantic with fancy creams doctoring cottage cheese thighs and wasp nests hanging from ham hock arms.

Questions:

Q: Will building a national cycleway fix the economy?
A: No it won’t. But if you think government spending is going to fix the economy then it’s time you got on a plane to Australia.

Q: Does New Zealand need a national cycleway?
A: Of course it does. 

Q: Will it attract more tourists?
A: Yes it will. Just ask hostellers on the Central Otago Rail Trail.

Q: Will New Zealanders use it?
A: Of course they will. We own 1.2 million bicycles. Cycling is New Zealand’s most popular activity pastime despite cyclists' fear of getting the bash. The ability to ride without traffic and driver intimidation will catapult cyclist numbers.

Q: Will a cycleway get cyclists pedaling the length of New Zealand?

A: In most cases it won't, just as motorists don't drive to Invercargill just because a road goes there. But the opportunity to access a safe cycling passage, or adventure, at various points the length of New Zealand is priceless.   

Q: Should New Zealand taxpayers fund first-class tickets to Australia for naysayers?

A: Yes they should (though with a little help from McDs and KFC, who benefit regardless).

Q: When I say naysayer, does it conjure an image of a fat person?

A: Of course it does.

Q: How many naysayers own bicycles?

A: None.

Bonjour from New Zealand

-- A letter to March Cycling Sauce winner Cycles Laurent 

Hello there from New Zealand.

I am writing to tell you about your growing international reputation.

I contribute to a cycling blog called Chopper Guard and each month our readers nominate their favourite example of bicycle advertising.

Our special interest is wheel-women (bicycle lovelies, as we call them) and we celebrate the winning nominations in a monthly posting called Cycling Sauce.

I am pleased to tell you that your handiwork has been chosen for March Cycling Sauce.

The story accompanying the picture is, well, a fabrication, so we’d really appreciate the full background. What is this lovely girl’s name? Are you still in contact with her? Where is she now? Were you at the photo-shoot? Did it drive new sales? Will you put all the photos on flickr?

Also, we are about to open a gentlemen’s bicycle club. One wall has been allocated to Chopper Guard bicycle lovelies. So we were hoping you could send us a poster, or magazine cover, of your rather marvellous advertisement.

Please let me know and I'll send postage details. 

In the meantime, keep up the great work.

Vive la France!

Thanks and regards,

Lester

'Careless' truckie: Update

-- Desmond Wilson, 45, the truck driver charged in connection with the death of a senior police officer, pleads not guilty

Traffic safety expert and Police Superintendent Steve Fitzgerald, 57, was killed last year cycling home from work, on Petone’s Esplanade, by truck driver Desmond Wilson. Could have been me. Could have been any one of us.

Cycling Sauce: Chopper Guard Bicycle Lovelies

-- March Sauce - The Cycles Laurent Girl 

I know, it's not yet March. But what's a few days between friends? Hat tip to third generation Paris cyclery Cycles Laurent.  Apparently Grandad is still in charge of marketing. Love your work, Papy.  This month's prize for spotlighting bicylce marketing excellence goes to Lunn Ave rider PM. A passed expiry date scroggin bar is on its way to you now.  

Vive la France!

Make pain your friend

-- A jolly good thrashing can be strangely satisfying

Heading west in the empty dawn we rode apace through Kingsland and New Lynn. Missingham muttered something about the time and very soon we were speeding through Henderson Valley’s stifling humidity and into the rising hiss of cicadas. Heavy sweat of forest all around. Goddamn, we hadn’t even arrived and I was heaving like a pack-a-day sumo wrester.

The deal was Mountain Road repeats, but just how many? What could the body take? It was an experimental ride. A ride to failure and its full consequences.

The climb’s early stages allow a rhythm and silent conversation: Stay on top of the pedals, that’s right, feel the flow, relax, you repeat to yourself. Then the fucker rises up and snakes into the upper reaches of the misted valley. Ahead, the narrow road, its coarse surface bulbous with tree roots, disappears into forested steepness. It beckons the rider to a nasty intercept by invisible officials responsible for unhitching comfort and watching it slide down the valley.

In the saddle, out of the saddle, gravity bleeds life from the legs and the shoulders sag under terrible weight. Lungs fight to expand. Questions creep in: Are my brakes rubbing? What’s wrong with me, horses don’t sweat this much? Then doubt: Hell, there’s a place to stop.

But on you go, in a world smaller and concentrated and hitched to torment and fatigue. It’s now a survival trip, where time struggles behind a normal clock tick; each pedal stroke a victory over turning back and an arse kicking dished up by gravity and evil cycling forces found at 15 percent gradient. How long can this go on?

The top, obscured by a sharp corner, arrives suddenly. This NEW PLACE, a breakthrough to effortlessness, like a climbing airliner slicing heavy cloud into sparkling blue. The relief of effortlessness floods the body like morphine.

Twice more. Missingham had spoken.

Taking it on the chin

-- Double chin.

You'd be angry too if you had a chin like Cadel's. Ok, so I'm no Cadel fan. His Angry Man Thing is so goddamn alienating. I read that it's just a nervous act, a gross overreaction to public scrutiny,  and underneath is a Free Tibet T-shirt and patter of dogs. But don't touch his dog. Give the man a break, for goodness sake. But fuck, that chin. I said but fuck. Sorry about that.