The organisers of the Orbital Cycling Festival and the owners of London cycling café, Look Mum No Hands! are gleeful and proud to announce the LEZYNE Look Mum No Sleep! 200km overnight randonée, dubbed ‘Café to Café’.

Celebrating the beauty, simplicity and challenge of independent riding, the organisers aim to introduce audax riding to a new audience, targeting sportive riders who are looking for more of a challenge in a different riding environment. Entry to the event includes a day pass for Saturday 27th July to the Orbital Cycling Festival. Look Mum No Hands! will host a launch party for all of the riders and their friends on the Friday evening with beer tasting and promos by ‘Official Hydration Supplier’ – Dark Star Brewery.

Look Mum No Sleep! is sponsored by Lezyne – the brand of expertly engineered cycling accessories including lightweight pumps, tools, micro luggage and LED lights that perfectly match Audax and distance riding. UK Marketing Manager, Rory Hitchens said

‘We love the Look Mum No Sleep! concept and encourage more Audax events on the calendar that celebrate and help to popularise independent adventure riding‘

Audax rides are all about independent riding. Getting from A to B in a leisurely manner but with enough speed to reach the checkpoints at the required time and have your brevet card stamped. It’s not a race and there is no winner, the challenge is getting to the end of the route with a smile on your face.

Organiser, Jon Hazan said

‘Typically a randonneur is looking for a genuine independent cycling adventure and is up for something a little bit different and off the beaten track. We hope to deliver that experience for up to 300 riders on the LEZYNE Look Mum No Sleep!’ 

Starting at 9pm on Friday 26th July from Look Mum No Hands! on Old Street, London the route takes in Herne Hill and Box Hill before heading coast bound to Newhaven via Lewes. Hugging the coast until Brighton, riders will pass Preston Park Velodrome before climbing the South Downs for the first time en route to Poynings before bearing left towards Petworth before crossing the South Downs again via East Lavington and homeward bound to the Orbital Cycling Festival at Goodwood Motor Circuit. The full route can be seen on the interactive map on the event page. The first riders are expected to arrive at Orbital at about 7am on Saturday.

The brevet cards of all finishing riders will be put into a tombola at Orbital and prizes given out. For those who fancy a celebratory beer or Americano at 8am, event sponsors Look Mum No Hands! and Dark Star Brewery will welcome you to Orbital with a cheery smile and hot coffee or frothy pint.

Entries are now open to 300 riders by clicking on the ‘Audax’ button on – orbitalfestival.com  The cost to enter the LEZYNE Look Mum No Sleep! is £20.00 (Audax UK & CTC members) and £22.00 (non-members). Non-members 3^rd party insurance is included in the entry fee.

Original artwork by Eliza Southwood – www.elizasouthwood.com

Orbital Cycling Festival can also be found on Facebook and Twitter

LEZYNE Look Mum No Sleep! – Overnight Audax – Café to Café

In our new series looking at bike-friendly destinations, we will be visiting locations in the UK and abroad that have something special to offer cyclists.  Kicking off, we start with the Borders region of Scotland….

It rains in Scotland.  A lot.  Witness the Tour O’ the Borders sportive earlier this month.  That rider in the photo above hasn’t even reached the start yet, and he’s already drenched through.  The weather during the ride near the town of Peebles was described as “apocalyptic”.  Roads were deluged under several inches of water, riders were blown off their bikes and barely a quarter of the 1,000 cyclists who registered completed the longer, 70-mile course.

So lots of nice pubs and cafes are essential.  As are cosy hotels. 

After all, some of us are proud to call ourselves “fair weather cyclists”.  The rest of you are just stupid.

You see, I was registered to take part in “Sportive Apocalypse”.  But I’d seen the weather forecast.  Thirty mile-per-hour winds and torrential rain did not sound my idea of fun.  The forecast for the day before, a Saturday, sounded much better.  So as I’d booked overnight accommodation in Peebles anyway – at the Tontine Hotel, of which more later – I decided to travel down early and sacrifice the camaraderie and company of 1,000 other riders on the sportive for the safety and comfort of riding solo on dry, empty roads.

And the next morning, as I watched scenes like the one above taking place just a few yards from where I was enjoying a hearty full Scottish breakfast in the warmth of the hotel’s elegant dining room, I knew it had been the best decision of my life.

There’s a well known saying in Scotland, that even in July you can experience four seasons in one day – all of them winter.

So the first thing to consider if coming to this part of the world with your bike is to brace yourself for the worst – then you won’t be disappointed.

But why bother if the weather’s likely to be rubbish?

Well, there are few places in the UK that can offer countryside this lovely: rolling hills, challenging climbs, empty roads (apart from the sheep), endless valleys, beautiful lakes and rivers.

Yes, Cumbria and the Pennines in England can match it for natural beauty, as can parts of Wales, but there’s one big difference – very few tourists bother to make the trip across the border(maybe it’s the weather), so you’ll find the roads wonderfully quiet.

And compared to other rural roads I’ve cycled on, they are remarkably well-maintained as well (well, the bits that weren’t washed away during Sportive Apocalypse are, anyway).

There are a number of attractive towns you could base yourself in, including Jedbergh, Kelso and Peebles.  The route of the Sportive Apocalypse started and finished in the latter, and would make a great leisurely day’s ride, including bun stops and/or a pub lunch in the picturesque, riverside village of Ettrick Bridge.  The full route can be found here.

While the road in and out of Peebles – though quiet – is a bit boring, things get considerably more interesting with the first of the route’s seven climbs.  The most challenging is the aptly-named Wall, a series of jarringly-ramped inclines that takes you out of the village of Ashkirk towards Ettrick Bridge.  And if you do decide to stop for lunch at Ettrick Bridge, go easy on the pudding, as the climb from there over Witchy Knowe is quite demanding too.

But it’s not all about road cycling in this part of the world.  The Borders is home to the internationally-renowned 7stanes network of mountain bike trails.  This includes Glentress, with its state of the art £8.5 million visitor centre and a range of runs to suit all abilities; and the more challenging Innerleithen, which this June is staging a round of the British Downhill Series.

I never got the chance to sample any off-road riding (did I mention the weather?), but an MTB aficionado friend of mine raves about this area, and particularly how suitable it is for him to bring his two sons, aged 10 and eight.

With all these quiet roads and gnarly trails, it’s no wonder that cycling is so popular in the area, reflected by a number of events that take place during the year.  The next notable one is the Tweedlove Festival – a 10-day celebration of riding on skinny and fat tyres – which takes place from 24 May.

The region even has its own dedicated and comprehensive website set up by the Scottish Borders Leisure Cycling Project, a pioneering scheme which other areas in the UK could learn from.  This contains a range of information about routes, accommodation, restaurants, cafes and other attractions aimed at touring and leisure cyclists.  (One particularly useful service is for transferring riders, bikes and luggage from one part of the region to another.  Useful for bad weather).

It was through the website that I found my accommodation for my trip.

The Tontine Hotel on Peebles High Street(pictured above) has 30-plus recently renovated rooms and offers secure bike storage facilities.  My room had a fabulous, firm bed the size of a tennis court and gave wonderful views of the town’s slate rooftops glistening in the rain.

Owner Kate Innes and her team couldn’t have been more helpful, nor more sympathetic as I watched the black clouds roll in.  (I wasn’t the only “fair weather” cyclist staying that weekend.  Kate said at least half of another party who had arrived for the sportive had also decided to have a lie-in instead after seeing the weather forecast)

The bistro and pub had a welcoming and relaxing post-ride atmosphere, while the restaurant – complete with huge windows looking out towards the River Tweed and ornate chandeliers – was slightly more formal.  The food – the same menu is offered in either the bistro or restaurant – was everything a hungry cyclist could wish for: decent portions of locally-sourced, good-quality produce.

Frankly, it would have been rude to rush my breakfast and give up my comfortable room just to ride 70 miles in the rain.

• The Tontine Hotel is offering a special rate of £80 per person for two nights’ B&B during the Tweedlove Festival.  More details at the hotel’s website here.

Destination Bike: The Scottish Borders

There are still places left for probably the most glamorous sportive in the world – if you can afford the eye-watering entry fee.

The Campagnolo Gran Fondo New York starts in Manhattan, rolls out over the George Washington Bridge, heads up New Jersey along rural roads to Bear Mountain State Park and finishes on the banks of the Hudson overlooking the most famous skyline in the world.

All this can be yours on 19 May for just a touch under £200 (not including your airfares, accommodation, etc. But it does include a high-quality, exclusive race jersey)

So far, 4,500 riders from 70 countries have signed up, but there’s still room for another 1,500.

Why the steep cost?  Well, it is New York – this is the Kingdom of the Automobile, so all those road and bridge closures haven’t come easy, or cheap.

The cost of the closure of the iconic George Washington Bridge, plus other roads along the 105-mile route, together with the policing and security this entails, has cost the organisers half a million dollars.

Talking of security, that’s obviously a hot issue following the sad events at the Boston marathon.  Here’s what Gran Fondo organiser Uli Fluhme has to say:

“The race is held in and around the city that faced 9/11. Hence, security has always been our utmost concern since we founded the event. We’re working with upwards of 50 governmental agencies and various private companies to provide a safe experience for our participants. For the event, we’ll be engaging 200 police officers and 50 professional security guards.

“[Once registered], the participant receives a wrist band that will be put on by a GFNY representative after a positive ID check.  In addition to Port Authority Police, GFNY will be employing 25 security guards controlling and strictly enforcing access to George Washington Bridge.

“The Port Authority of New York/New Jersey runs an extremely tight and highly sophisticated security system that requires full compliance to their protocol from GFNY to be able to stage the start on George Washington Bridge.

“We are committed to provide our athletes a great experience. We will not let the act of potentially just one person destroy our passion and love for the sport of cycling.”

Rousing stuff.  All you have to now is go to the official website here, stump up nearly £200, then book flights and accommodation for you and your bike.

Don’t forget to send us a postcard!

Or you could just watch the official video:

Boston Marathon Bombs Don’t Deter Organisers of Gran Fondo New York

The end result is a bold artistic look with unmatched attention to detail and product functionality.

"Training too hard"

"They didn't seem happy"

Have Sky lost that loving feeling?

Celebrating 10 of the races & rides that will be a major part of the 3-day event on the 26^th to 28^th July 2013, Orbital Cycling Festival have released these cracking posters designed by Eliza Southwood.

Each of the events has been designed specifically for the Goodwood Motor Circuit location and will run alongside the Brompton World Championship and Brompton Treble on the same weekend.

With names like Tutti Frutti (scratch race), Hot Cog (fixed gear criterium) and Dirty Critter (cross race) the event organisers have injected some extra flavour and personality around the events that make up the festival.

There are options for road racing, time trial, cross race, fixed gear and an urban style paddock race. The events are open to men, women and youths. All of the events are competitive apart from the Sustrans & CTC Charity Family Rides on Saturday and Sunday.

Each of the artworks have been designed by celebrated cycling illustrator, Eliza Southwood, who has recently had work commissioned by Sustrans for the recently opened Two Tunnels Greenway in Bath. Her work was shown at the V&A last week and she is always a big hit at exhibitions hosted by the likes of Artcrank and Look Mum No Hands. Eliza will be present at Orbital, riding her Brompton and hosting art workshops.

For more information on the event visit orbitalfestival.com 

Orbital Cycling Festival release set of 10 event art prints by Eliza Southwood

Did you know a cyclist who regularly rides at high-intensity will live up to three years longer than a cyclist who rides for longer but at average intensity?

Or that a rider wearing nylon-soled cycling shoes will displace his heel up to 40 times more than a rider wearing carbon-soled shoes?  (That’s a lot of foot bending, i.e. wasted energy)

Or that Chris Boardman’s hour record would stand at only 33.752 km instead of 56.375 km if he had adopted a conventional tuck position with hands on drops rather than his “Superman” position?

No, neither did I, until an advance copy of Max Glaskin’s Cycling Science arrived in the post.

Science books appeal to two types of reader – the academically-minded, analytical type (aka geek) who dreams of algorithms and Venn diagrams, and the more romantic, prosaically-minded type who is happy to put up with all the jargon and graphs as long as there are some memorable factual nuggets to be unearthed.

I fall into the latter category, which meant I occasionally found myself floundering in a sea of technical data (usually, but not always, saved by a nearby lifebelt in the form of an explanatory diagram or two).

As well as the facts quoted above, I was reassured to discover another fact that I’m surprised wheel manufacturers don’t make more use of to sell their products – that a correctly tensioned rear wheel as light as 500g can support up to four overweight MAMILs, or 400 kg.

There are also some interesting findings about whether ultra-light wheels really make a difference to performance.  (Yes, but by switching from your bog-standard alloy rims to a pair of expensive, deep-rimmed carbons, what you save in energy expenditure – a scant one per cent – will be vastly outweighed by what you spend in pounds and pence.)

The book also explodes a few other myths that have kept top-end bike and component manufacturers up to their necks in Rapha luxury clothing for the last few years.

For example, if you’re a 70-kg rider serious about improving your speed, shedding three kilos of bodyweight will make you 14 seconds faster (over a 40-km time trial) than switching from a 10 kg bike to one that’s three kg lighter(and considerably pricier).  And adopting an optimised aero position on your existing cheap steel frame will gain you better results than upgrading to an expensive carbon frame.

It’s a handsome-looking, hardback tome, with nearly 200 glossy pages of thoughtfully-laid out text, photos and colour diagrams.  Six chapters cover subjects including bike design and geometry, frame materials, biomechanics, aerodynamics and “the human factor.”  There’s also an index of all the technical sources that were consulted by the author.

Of course, the science of cycling is a big subject, and inevitably there are some omissions.  I would love to have learned, for example, what causes the terrifying state of “speed/death wobble”, and how to deal with it.

And at times, some of the mathematical formulae used to explain various scientific principles were a bit dense for me, even with the “lifebelt” of a table of measurements and abbreviations at the back.

My own formula for a successful, universally appealing scientific book would be something like:

P  x  iF  +  d/g/c  –  J

where P is ‘pictures’, iF is ‘interesting facts’, d/g/c is ‘diagrams/graphs/charts’ and J is ‘jargon’.

Any book that meets that formula is destined for success, and Cycling Science comes pretty close.

Bikesoup rating: 9/10

Cycling Science, by Max Glaskin, £20, will be published by Frances Lincoln on 2 May.

You can follow the Cycling Science blog here and on Twitter: @CyclingScience1

Book Review: The Science of Cycling

The Paris – Roubaix “Hell of the North” is in danger of becoming the Farce of the North unless the responsibilities of riders and fans are taken more seriously.

Cyclists riding on pavements or grass verges, bunny hopping on and off kerbs or steaming across traffic islands is against the law in most civilized countries – so why is it allowed in professional bike races, when these areas are usually thronged with members of the public and the riders are travelling at upwards of 30 miles per hour?

I don’t want to rain on Fabian Cancellara’s parade or take attention away from his dramatic, cat-and-mouse tussle with Sep Vanmarcke on the banking of the Roubaix velodrome at the end of this six-hour epic, but the events on the Carrefour de l’Arbre sector can’t be ignored.

It was there that two Omega Pharma Quick Step riders, Stijn Vandenberg and Zdeněk Štybar, clipped spectators.  Vandenberg suffered a heavy fall while only Stybar’s bike-handling skills kept him upright as he was forced to veer across the cobbles and almost ended up head over heels amongst the crowd.

It’s all very well for Eurosport commentator David Harmon to blame the incidents on spectators “not showing respect”, but what about the riders showing the fans some respect? 

Is it really right that they cycle on the verges, i.e. not on the actual cobbled road surface, just because these offer the smoothest path, regardless of the fact they are also full of spectators who’ve been waiting hours for the peloton to pass?

Where does the riders’ territory end, and the safety of the fans begin?

Even away from the cobbled sectors – and during other races so far this season, not just Paris – Roubaix – we have seen riders take to the pavements and ride behind the lines of spectators.  They could be travelling at anything up to 40 mph.

Barriers aren’t the answer.  The infrastructure of most cities, towns and villages is clearly defined: the cambered Tarmac or cobbles are for vehicles, the pavement is for pedestrians.  As are the grass verges either side of the cobbles.  Why is this incredibly dangerous combination – speeding cyclists and static pedestrians, some of whom may be elderly or young children – allowed to exist?

It’s a bit like operating a pelican crossing in the middle of Brands Hatch during the British Grand Prix.

The demands of professional cycling are, of course, unique.  The arenas of road cycling are public roads.  It’s what makes it so accessible and appealing to so many fans(especially when those roads are somewhere dramatic like the Alps or Pyrenees during the Tour de France).

But the peloton should stick to the designated road, whether that’s a six-lane highway in southern France or a strip of bumpy pave in Flanders.  It should not be allowed to take short cuts on pavements or grass verges.  They are for pedestrians.  You wouldn’t expect a rugby scrum to spill over into the grandstand at Twickenham.

Remember, not all those fans will be road racing experts.  Some will be novices, or merely curious bystanders, who have no idea of the speed the peloton will be travelling at.  During Paris – Roubaix on Sunday, we had the sight of people forced to take refuge in doorways as riders sped by on the pavement.

The UCI has to make sure riders respect the boundaries between “road” and “pedestrian areas”, whether they be pavements, grass verges, etc.

Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before we witness a tragedy, and the death of a spectator or rider.

Those Paris – Roubaix Crashes: It’s Time For Riders To Show Fans Respect

Has Peter Sagan overstepped the mark with his behaviour on the podium after the Tour of Flanders bike race?

Previously the young Slovakian has celebrated winning races with gorilla impersonations or wheelies, but his reaction on the podium after finishing second to Fabian Cancellara risks bringing the whole sport of professional cycling into disrepute.

After six hours in the saddle competing in one of the toughest races on the cycling calendar, Sagan decided it would be a good idea to grope one of the podium girls.

It was demeaning and humiliating to his victim, and embarrassing to the rider himself.  After all, he’s 22, not 12.

This isn’t about professional sportsmen as role models – God knows anyone who follows professional football will have given up on that a long time ago – it’s about the far wider issue of women in sport.

Just when the exploits of Laura Trott and Team GB’s other female Olympic track stars gave some credibility to women’s cycling, Sagan actions have highlighted the dark days, when women at bike races were purely for decoration.

Podium girls are undoubtedly a leftover from less enlightened times, but they exist across the whole sporting spectrum, from Formula One to figure skating.  Yes, it’s a flaky tradition, a cultural “house of cards” just waiting to be swept away in a tsunami of universal disapproval, but until then it remains part and parcel – love it or hate it – of our favourite sport.

But what is unique – and ultimately shaming – is that even in a world of self-obsessed millionaire F1 drivers and footballers, it’s a professional cyclist who has exposed the whole charade with his crass, juvenile and deeply insulting actions.

Maybe it signals the end of podium girls?   If so, then that’s probably a good thing.

After all, would you want to carry out your prize-giving duties if there was a risk of being assaulted by some sweaty, stupid Slovakian?

And while Sagan the Sexist was single-handedly dragging our sport back to the dark ages, just across the Channel on the banks of the River Thames, an amateur athlete was reminding us of how dignity and sport need not be incompatible.

After winning the Boat Race, the Oxford captain’s priority was to publicly thank his sister for helping him get through a difficult year.

Sagan The Sexist Drags Cycling Back To The Dark Ages

Believe it or not, the photograph above was taken on the east coast of Scotland at the end of February.  It’s been snowing ever since.  And I’ve just read that the current spell of freezing weather may last until the end of April.

So probably not the ideal time to be reviewing a new range of T-shirts from Glasgow-based Route Clothing.

But if I never get a chance to wear them in warm weather, there’s always the gym.  Company founder David McNeil swears you can wear their bamboo T-shirt for days, and do as many sessions down the gym as you like, and it still won’t stink.

Yes, I did say ‘bamboo’.  It’s the priciest of their range – £30 – because it’s a natural, sustainable fibre alternative to cotton or man-made polyesters that doesn’t retain body odours, even after prolonged usage between washes.  And having worn mine continuously for almost a week – all in the name of research, you understand – I can vouch for it being a pong-free zone.  And it’s got a wonderfully soft and comfortable feel to it, not as ‘heavy’ or ‘stiff’ as cotton.

It’s just a shame the bamboo T-shirt has the most boring design on it – a bicycle wheel, yawn, compared with the marginally more exciting bike frame motif on their conventional cotton T-shirts.   But it does come in the snazziest colour – ‘eggplant’.  (If you’re not into vegetables with American names, you can choose charcoal, above)

The rest of the range features T-shirts made from Turkish, Indian or Egyptian cotton, in black or indigo(above), and all priced at a not inconsiderable £26.

I hope for Route’s sake that summer arrives sooner or later.  Until then, there’s always the gym.

Bikesoup Rating: 4/5 for the bamboo material, 3/5 for the design and price.

You can check out the full range at Route Clothing’s website.

Route Clothing: T-shirts That Don’t Stink….