Nutritional Needs of a Tea Shop Tourist

Cycling nutrition is a complex subject, and many large organizations spend a fortune on research and development before making available to the general cycling fraternity a range of tablets, gels, powders and bars. Maintaining the correct level of salts, fats, energy and other stuff is vitally important and even the dedicated amateur cyclist goes to great lengths to find the right balance.
There is however another breed of cyclist, the tea shop tourist, who would view the idea of entering a 25 mile Time Trial or a city centre Criterium with horror. This article is aimed at cyclists such as these.

I am on a diet!!

I know this because my wife told me .

Hence getting the right balance between input and output is I am told vital.
I also love numbers and among the stream of data that my Garmin Edge 800 feeds to me as I pedal along is one that shows how many calories I have burnt off. Now obviously as cyclists we do not want to suffer the dreaded bonk ( see Nutritional Breakdown ) where all our energy resources become totally depleted; and so, eating cake should be regarded as a necessity and NOT as a luxury or reward. So, in order to give you some guidance on the stuff you should be eating in order to maintain your nutritional balance, I have pulled together the following table from which you can pick and mix.

Toasted Tea Cake with butter   370 cals

Plain Scone                               140 cals

Fruit Scone                                150 cals

Jam and Cream with scone         LOTS

Mince Pie                                  320 cals

Flap jack                                   335 cals

Slice of Lemon drizzle                 399 cals

Choc raspberry brownie             390 cals

Victoria sponge                          599 cals

Rich fruit cake                            780 cals

Tara Carrot Cake with Cream     986 cals

Now obviously, one needs sufficient energy resources to get home from the tea shop, so you need to make due allowance for that in the amount of cake you consume. 

I hope that these guidelines will stop you from fading away when you next go out on a general meander on your bike.

A Life with a Brooks B17

One of the most popular posts that I have written for this Blog was all about the breaking in of a Brooks B17 saddle . That particular post was written about a black B17 that I had had fitted to my new Mercian Vincitore Special and was the second in my series of Brooks B17 saddles.  In the event the life ( with me ) of that particular saddle was short as I discovered that the riding position on a road bike was significantly different from the Specialized Sirrus Comp Hybrid, my original bike and the place where I fell in love with Brooks saddles.

The original saddle was a Honey Brown with Copper Rivets and both looked and smelt like the piece of handcrafted excellence it was.

The image above  was taken when the saddle was still relatively new and at this stage the score was

Brooks B17  6   -   My Butt    0

I bought this saddle in the spring of 2008 and sat on it constantly for the next 10000km of cycling by which time the saddle and I were coming to an understanding. I fed it with Neat Oil, wiped it down when it was soaked from the rain or covered in snow, polished the copper rivets and generally treated it with respect. In return it began to change its character, moulding itself to my butt ( or did my butt mould itself to saddle shape ?)

As I started cycling more, my friends introduced me to the algorithm of how many bikes even an OAP cyclist actually needs and so I started to acquire just a few more; all essential purposes of course, no luxury here. With these new bikes came a range of saddles including Fizik Arione and Selle Italia and so the Hybrid, and hence the Brooks B17, got less use.

Recently however I have been going through a period of forced maintanence on the road bikes ( I did  tentatively suggest to my wife that this probably indicated that I  might be in desperate need of another purchase, but the look of astonishment on her face and cries of wonder made me think that I might be better putting that idea on hold ) and so I have returned to the Hybrid and hence to Brooks.

I had forgotten just how comfortable my long lost love had become as she had matured into a grand old lady

I wonder if I made a mistake in exchanging the black B17 on the Mercian, perhaps there was a more fitting model in the Brooks range I should have chosen.

Anyway, off now to give her a polish and take her out for a trip to the local tea shop.

Real Steel.... Mercian of Derby

My last post featured some steel bikes that I had seen and started a bit of a reminiscence. About 45 years ago, just after I had left University, I started work at a Rolls-Royce plc plant in Raynesway and at lunch times, to get out of the office, I often used to walk down the road to Alvaston, buy some fish and chips and then wander back. There was, and still is, a bike shop in Avaston though I never paid it much attention, it was called Mercian Cycles . Little did I know then how much I would come to admire and revere their products. Time passed, my career progressed, I was moved to RR CHQ and I never thought about Mercians again; if I ever did before. I was too busy travelling the world, thinking about business opportunites and trying to do deals.

And then I retired.

Suddenly I would be home for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 52 weeks in a year. My wife was delighted and after about 2 days suggested that I bought a bike, she was obviously concerned about my health and thought I needed to get out more.
My first purchase was a very heavy, very old, very cheap  MTB and it lasted about 4 weeks before the rear wheel imploded with spokes shooting off like guided missiles.  It was then that I discovered Mercians.
A retired friend, who had been riding all his life and was a strict adherent to the N+1  principle regarding bike ownership showed me his collection and invited me to try them. One of these was a 1961 Mercian Audax

My love affair with Mercian had begun and Alan, seeing how smitten I was, offered to sell it to me. How could I resist?
The history of Mercians is well documented on their website but pure words cannot do justice to the feel and pleasure in owning and riding a hand built machine, using the tools, skills and crafstmanship which has been developed over decades and is still in use today.

The lug work on these bikes is exquisite, and as I heard more about about the beauty of hand built machines, made to fit perfectly the owner, a desire began to grow to have one made specifically for me.  I had learnt at work that projects needed an end date and so for me, the idea was to have a bike tailored just foe me in time for my 65th birthday, a Mercian Vincitore Special. The bike took 6 months to produce and a week before my birthday I received a call that it was ready.

I am told that the large manufacturers like Giant et al, have 6000+ bikes a year rolling off their production lines. I dont know how many Mercian produce but what I do know is that each one is invested with love and care that the big players could only dream of.

I now have 2 grandsons and I am giving their mothers strict nutritional guidelines to ensure that both grow to the exact dimensions needed so that they fit my bikes perfectly.

Mercians are forever

Do you have a Mercian story to tell?  If so, add it to the comments box and share it with others.

Steel is Forever

It was the first real day of summer in Derbyshire today and so off I went for a tootle around the local lanes.  There are many beautiful lanes in the countryside of Derbyshire but today's route is one of my favourites.
About halfway round the loop one comes to the bridge over the river Hilton in the  picturesque village of Longford. Next door to the bridge is the old cheese factory.This was the first cheese factory ever to be built in England and was opened on May 4, 1870 under the management of Cornelius Schemanhorn, an American cheesemaker. and the bridge itself is a favourite stopping place for cyclists.
As I pulled in there was an old lady , an OAP like myself, already present and soon we got talking. She had been a cyclist for decades and in her youth had, with her husband, climbed many of the Cols made famous by the Tour de France. In her case, loaded with panniers, and intent on enjoying the view, the ascent of these legendary peaks had taken her a day in stark contrast to the elite riders of the peleton.
As we chatted, a variety of bikes whizzed past, their pilots intent on getting the last ounce of speed from their carbon steeds. These bikes were in stark contrast to her bike

This Hetchins had been with her since the beginning, constructed from Reynolds 531 though modified now to have straight bars and a little mirror fitted as turning her neck was now problematical. With a double chain ring and just 5 cogs on the cassette it still did her proud and the friction change gears still sufficed.  No cleats for this lady as she still relied upon toe straps. The pump itself was also still original and the wheels with their 36 spokes were built to stand the ardours of touring.

As we went our separate ways I thought about her real steel as the young racers of today sailed past me on their lightweight frames with just enough spokes to stop the wheels collapsing.  Being warm I obviously needed to find a place for tea and as I cycled down a shady lane to the local tea shop I espied another vintage machine whose owner was also in need of a rest. What caught my eye was that it was a Mercian

Again constructed from Reynolds 531 and again with just a double chain ring. This bike had also been modified to have straight bars with the shifters on the bars though you could still see where the bosses had been on the down tube.

I did not find the owner so do not know the bike's history but it made me think that these old bikes both had a history, a story to tell and I wondered if the modern machines constructed from Aluminium, Titanium or Carbon would ever be loved in the same way.

And, still wondering, I mounted my Mercian and pedalled off home.

Local Bike Shops - Birkins Cycles

As I started doing some research for this series of posts on Local Bikes Shops in Derbyshire  I was quite amazed at the number of such shops which exist(ed). The last article talked about Wylds which opened for business in 1928 and continued trading for almost 70 years.
And the increase of the  number of shops entering the market seems to show no sign of abating. One of the latest to open for business is Birkins Cycles which is on Sutton Lane, Foston. Let's get one thing clear from the start. The owner is Tim Watt and the place gets its name from the land on which it is situated, Birkins Croft Small Holding. Tim opened for business in December, 2012 when he took a large garden shed and converted it to a work shop. Obviously a cyclist himself, I think it is fair to say that he proved to be no elite cyclist and discovered that he enjoyed tinkering with bikes as much as, if not more than, riding them.
He now provides three lines of business,  Servicing, Repairs and Restoration and from the number of bikes waiting attention then the business seems to be going well.

Being a pretty small enterprise, Birkins do not stock spare parts or accessories but buy them in as and when required. For me the most interesting part of the business is the restoration side and when I was there Tim was working on a 1970s Dawes Galaxy which had been stripped down and the frame resprayed, the forks and stays chromed using local craftsmen for these specialized tasks.

Like many local bike shops, Birkins are keen to promote cycling in the local community and are helping to set up and support Hilton Cycling Club as an umbrella group for local leisure cyclists.
Whilst Tim has ideas of where he would like the business to grow, that is for the future, and for now he is happy just consolidating the business and providing lots of tender loving care for a steady stream of restoration projects.

I am hoping to visit Mercians for my next post in this series, a Local Bike Shop with a World Famous reputation.

The Novice Bike Mechanic and Wheel Rims

Am off later today to see a Local Bike Shop for a tour of the workshop and a chat with the owner, but I will report back on that in another post.

Those of you who follow my blog will realize that I am a bit of a numpty when it comes to bike maintenance and repairs, but I am trying to do more things myself just to learn a little more about the machine. As part of this self education exercise I am stripping down ( though a proper bike mechanic would say I was just cleaning the easy bits ) my Specialized Sirrus Comp Hybrid, my first bike, and replacing the worn out bits. Given that the front tyre is now almost transparent I thought it could do with a change and whilst at it I would give the rims a good clean as they were looking a bit black and stripey.

Despite my efforts using boiling hot soapy water and then cleaning with rubbing alcohol, the streaks remain.

Closer inspection shows that these streaks are in fact very shallow grooves. I knew that brake pads sometimes leave deposits of the pad on the wheel but I suspect from looking at this that the pad has had grit embedded which has subsequently scarred the rim.
I dont know if different pad compounds are better but I think that perhaps I should be examining the pads more frequently and looking to remove grit which has become embedded.
These Alexis Rims are 6 years old now ( I say rims but the rear wheel rim cracked long ago and I had to buy another wheel ) so perhaps wear and tear is to be expected

Wylds Part 2

Tomorrow morning I am off to talk to Tim Birkin who runs Birkin Cycles, so watch this space. However my last post generated some interchange on our local Cycling Network and Mark had a story to tell, which I thought worth repeating

I had my second Raleigh 753 from Paul in 1980. 
It was stolen from Alvaston around 1983. 
TWO weeks ago it appeared on ebay in Long Eaton! !!!
I now have it back. 
Now fully stripped currently undergoing full nut and bolt restore Inc full respray Inc original decals. 

Mark reckons it will be fully operational in 5 weeks..though I doubt the engine is quite as powerful as the original version shown in the first image!


I am also off to Mercians soon... so, if you own a Mercian, have a story then please get ready to share it when the article is posted.