strangerpixel

London cycle commuting takes its toll on any bike. I’m currently on about 45 minutes per day, possibly my swiftest trip ever to and from work in this frantic bottlenecked city. My general philosophy is ‘ride it ’til it breaks’ - but this naturally can mean that I’ll be riding up Portland Place quite happily, and this will happen:

Severe, but not enough to prevent me from getting home (on a deflated tyre).

I’ve had worse. Last year, I’d been noticing strange cracking noises for months before I eventually inspected the frame, to discover this:

Andrew Gilligan, the chubby whistleblower of the dodgy dossier, has become a keen cyclist. Now a lean bike nerd, Gilligan wrote recently in the Evening Standard that he has lost 4 stone in just over a year. More interesting was what he said about cycling vs public transport:

‘I used to think I could put up with the Underground. It was only when I stopped using it that I realised how life-shortening it is… It wasn’t just the service… It was the crowds, the heat, the filthy air, the endless moronic announcements, the kids playing music on their mobile phones, the pushing and shoving, all of which delivered me to my destination in a low-level bad temper.’

‘Part of cycling’s appeal for me is that it is a last outpost of freedom in an authoritarian, CCTV city, essentially uncontrolled by anyone except the cyclist.

Happy biking AG.

The above is a new arrival to the strangerpixel cycle stable. Sweet, awesome - these don’t cover it. Compared to my Scott Expert (01?), this bike is like a rocket: quick, flickable, stiff under pressure, compliant over rough surfaces, sure on the descents. Classy. It turns heads.

When I test rode the Wilier about a fortnight ago, the unexpected feeling of power and speed on a climb were better than a year’s supply of Floyd Landis’s testosterone patches. It was so exciting I nearly burst a lung firing up Rosslyn Hill.

I pondered the Wilier’s rivals: efficient German engineering in the shape of the Focus Cayo on the one hand, on the other the undeniable quality of the US bike giant Trek. But I came back, remembering that first acceleration.