Reinventing The Wheel

I first came into the organised side of cycling relatively late, in my mid 40s.

By then I had spent a quarter of a century working for one the best run companies on the planet, a cocoon in which pretty much everyone was dedicated to the pursuit of excellence.

So I had a bit of a culture shock when I encountered cycle culture. What I found was extremely conservative bordering on moribund. The past was worshiped and any change had, by definition, to be avoided.

I am exaggerating of course. There were individuals who tried, successfully on some occasions to break the mold (including three of my heroes, Obree, Boardman and Keen). B

 But my general point is valid and I offer as item #1 in evidence>> the bike wheel.

In just a few years has become fundamentally different in that it now has

• Much wider fatter tyres
• Disc brakes

This change is arguably the most important since the derailleur since it means the "road" bike can now become a "pretty much go anywhere" bike if you so wish. It's also become a "faster yet safer" bike in the process.

Bike pundits are salivating about these changes as are manufacteurrs since they will make a fortune since the new wheels are totally useless unless you buy a new bike.

It's at this point I have to say "I told you so". Not recently but over a decade ago when I first made serious use of a bike.

Wider Fatter Tyres

When I did my 2006 tour two things were blinding obvious to me.

• If I was going to ride 5000km over roads which I thought would be as crap as the UK I wanted to do so in some comfort.
• Comfort means speed. Basic physics means that if your bike is transmitting every nuance of the road surface to your hands it is wasting energy that should be used moving you forward.

So I splashed out and got the widest most comfortable tyres that would fit my frame, some Specialized Roubaix that cost a bomb but had a huge thread count and weird sizing that meant while they could fit the narrow wheel rims of the time they had a much bigger volume of air.

The roads turned out to be much better as it happens but the speed and smoothness of my riding was not something I wanted to give up.

So ever since I have always preferred wider bigger tyres. While I was Tting I did experiment with narrow once which mindless people had tested in the lab to "prove" they reduced rolling resistance. What we know now of course is that the test was meaningless, only valid if you happen to be lucky enough to only ride on mirrors. But it only took one 12 hour time trial on the A30 for me to realise my mistake. My whole body was smashed to pieces by the vibrations and I was lucky to finish with a full set of teeth. Oh and I was slower than with my preferred 25s.

Disc Brakes

Every thing about my tour was great except descending in the wet. All my extra weight meant that braking was extremely hit and miss and I was lucky to get away without doing anything more serious in the hitting line.

So when I got my second bike to ride fast on I went to Banjo and asked if they could convert the front fork of my Roubaix (which would now be only used for touring) to take discs. I was the only person to have ever asked for this, but they found a way by substituting a set of forks from a mountain bike. It wasn't perfect, no drops ofc but then they are not really needed on a touring bike. But it was a lot safer in the rain and much more fun to go downhill fast.

So I can say with absolute assurance that I was years ahead of the cycling establishment and it's head in the sand approach towards progress.

This has given me continued confidence to challenge accepted practice if I think its a pile of poo and based on nothing more than blind ignorance.