Are you a Velo Sister?
Well if you live in London and are of the female persuasion why the hell not!?
The cyclist and women’s cycling attire designer Anna Glowinski of AnaNichoola has started up a British Cycling affiliated club for like minded ladies. It will be sponsored by the AnaNichoola brand. It’s early days but Anna says she’s currently working on designs for the club strip and if her past and present clothing and accessory ranges are anything to go by then it should be stunning (no pressure Anna). As you may know from previous reviews Nancy and I both ride in AnaNichoola clothing.
So if you are in the general area why not come along for the ride and be part of the club from the starting gun, they’re a relaxed bunch.
The club meets weekly for training rides in Regents Park, London – all abilities are welcome. The rides follow a chain-gang format led by the MuleBar Girls, giving the riders a chance to learn bunch riding skills and after a gentle group warm-up the riders split into groups according to speed. In the fastest group ladies can get in some race training and in the slowest group no member is left behind. In true MuleBar Girl style, there is a social at the pub after each session.
If you are involved with or run a cycling club or team, male/female, any age, discipline or country then please get in touch with Cycling Shorts, we’d love to hear from you. We want to tell our readers worldwide about what you get up to and where and feature it in a new club & team section on the website.
Free gloves and discount for members from AnaNichoola and Club jerseys and badges coming soon when you sign up!
When and where:
*every Monday in Summer daylight hours 7-8 pm, Regent’s Park
*Meet at the bandstand by the inner circle
*If you are late find us riding around the inner circle
*Feel free to post any rides you are doing to see if any of the Velo Sisters want to join you
You have heard me mention the lovely folk at Wheels for Wellbeing before in a blog last year. The charity helps people with and without disabilities into cycling, hand cycling and other non-traditional cycling activities. Because of the serious hard work the team and volunteers have put in it’s been shortlisted for the National Lottery top 10 funded sports projects.
We want to try and help them win so we are asking our readers to take one moment of their time and click to vote for WfW. Your vote could win them a £2000 cheque and an appearance on British National TV. You don’t need me to tell you just how useful that sort of money and exposure is for a charity in these hard time. So please take a minute to click and vote, don’t forget to tell your friends to vote to!
My pal Mark Sullivan found this gem in the depths of the internet and I had to share it with you. It takes me back to my childhood and putting drinking straws on my spokes.
This short film by Stephen Meierding is made with bicycle parts, it’s quite mesmerising.
A short film created using bicycle parts.
Created by Stephen Meierding
Opening Title Design: Mark Mccormick
Camera Assistants: Shelly Rangsiyakl, Johnny Huttenberger, Jesalee Go
Winner of Bike Short Film Festival Spring 2012 in NYC
While the wind and rain are lashing the UK we are preparing to switch our collective attention away from our sinking Noah’s Ark to mainland Europe for the greatest cycling race in the world…. with the pavé of the Champs Elyse looming in the distance. Some riders will just hope to make it round the last few bone shaking kilometres in one piece while a hardy few who suffered at the back through the mountains will be licking their lips with relish at attempting to take the glorious final stage at an astonishing pace (one particular Manxman springs to mind).
…But lets not get ahead of ourselves, before the cobbles comes an array of stages from the pan flat to the ridiculously steep and impossible mountains that us mere mortals get breathless just gawping at before we attempt to slowly plod up. Most wouldn’t even consider clipping their feet to a bike frame for a pain filled single effort to the cloud covered peaks.
I’m getting prepared to immerse myself in the epic vistas that will appear before my eyes. I’ve treated myself to the new limited edition howies KOM T-Shirt and placed an order for the rest of the set so I can celebrate each stage profile in style. I’m resigned to the fact that I’m never going to win my own yellow, spotty or green jersey… it’s ok really, I’m over it. ;D
So I feel it would be wrong to buy a replica jersey to wear, I’m not keen on being one of those people that buys their favourite teams statically charged ill fitting replica shirt, at least my T-shirt won’t look odd when I’m out and about, it can be worn any time of the year… And as you may have noticed the shopaholic in me is justifying the purchase, my partner would normally respond to such a justification… “I’m sure it was a bargain too!”. I’m comfortable just celebrating the greatness of the tour with my new t-shirt (which was a bargain!), turbo trainer and friends. I like to get some miles in while I’m glued to the action (when time allows), I don’t like the idea of just slobbing while watching TV, I never have, it seems so wrong particularly during a bike race. I get restless legs. I have to ride, and since I’m still not sure if I’ll make it over for some of this years stages I thought I’d get organised, fingers crossed I will be there, I have my bag ready! For some of the weekend stages we’ll gather the gang together for a Tour celebration of food and festivities.
Us Brits are feeling nervously excited as this year could be Wiggo’s, there are so many variables in the Tour de France and I wouldn’t want to jinx it for him but we are quietly confident that he can step on to the podium and hopefully take the top step. We have great pride in Cav’s Rainbow Jersey too which he’ll be sporting in this years Tour, it’s been 46 years since a British rider has done this so it’s turning out to be a fabulous few years for GB riders. It’s been a long time in the making though with a huge amount of blood sweat and tears from the guys. They seem to have adapted well from the huge success of their track days and some of that training and discipline seems to have been brought into their road training.
Obviously we all have our favourite riders and teams from around the world but in the true cycling spirit I get behind all the riders. Friends of mine who don’t watch or take part in cycling really don’t understand this but it’s the way the cycling community is. So good luck all!
Back to my tour preparations… what are your plans this tour?
You may remember our earlier article by Alex Murphy on the Restless Ride that he and a number of howies staff and friends took on the night of the Spring Equinox Across Wales. Here finally is the film featuring author, cyclist and howies fan; Rob Penn.
The Rest Less Ride took the peloton of 16 riders from the west coast, all the way to the east. They cycled unlit back-roads riddled with pot-holes, gravel and barrier-less hairpin bends. They passed through deep dark valleys, through forests and up mountains, in a race against the sunrise.
The Rest Less Ride celebrates the pleasure of cycling and the friendships it forges.
For the launch of the new partnership between the heavyweights that are Team Sky and Jaguar, Cycling Shorts was very kindly asked by Jaguar to provide questions to put to the Team Sky riders, we only knew in advance that Cav would definitely be there so we supplied an array of questions for him and a hefty selection for each of the other Sky cyclists and management.
On the day it turned out Juan Antonio Flecha and Mark Cavendish would represent the team for interviews, but we had plenty of questions for both of them. Unfortunately our collective technical and hard hitting questions didn’t quite make the cut, which is to be expected at a corporate event they tend to go for mass appeal, but our fluffier questions were used.
Questions by Nancy, Darren, and the two Paul’s (Harris & Sloper).
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Jaguar, Team Sky, Mark & Juan.
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