Nick Hand, pausing to catch a breath on his coastal cycling jaunt.
There’s something about Long Distance Touring that has an attractiveness for increasing numbers of people these days. By switching off the phone, packing up their panniers and seeing where the next road takes them, cyclists can find the time and space to follow their instincts, form their own ideas, and see the the world truly with their own eyes.
We can all agree that having one grandmother named Adeline might not be much cause for raised eyebrows. But having two, we can also agree, is surely a six-rivet conversational nugget of the very highest order. And so it came to pass that when Julie Hirschfeld opened a bike shop in 2010, the name over the door bore testament to this bizarre nomenclatural coincidence.
22 Nov 2011 | Posted by GARETH | Categories: Friends
Yes they “can”. Proofide stockist extraordinaire Condor Cycles in London.
Since its inception, only a handful of participants in our Dealers Of Excellence programme worldwide have even come close to attaining the maximum number of “rivets” Brooks can theoretically award to shops which tick a hefty requisite number of bicycling-related boxes.
One such establishment is the globally renowned Condor Cycles in London.
An incomparable vista. Riding the twisting, gravelly tracks of Chianti at L’Eroica. (Photo Dustin Nordhus, Cicli Berlinetta)
The dust has quite literally begun to settle once again in northern Italy, where a few weeks back Gaiole played host to a couple of thousand cyclists set on recreating the feel of a bike race entirely devoid of Carbon Fibre, Synthetic Isotonic Potions, System Pedals, or any other development conceived over the past thirty years to make a ride last less long.
Of course we’re talking about L’Eroica, and Brooks was once again a proud sponsor of the event. Shortly before this year’s instalment we managed to get in touch with our good friend Mark Reber, who was making the trip over from the United States. He kindly agreed to collect some of his impressions of the weekend and commit them to paper for us, while taking many fine photographs (MR), some of which are interspersed below with those of his friend Rodger Lynch (RL) and Dustin Nordhus (DN). Now read on…
Inflation in 1920′s Germany would have made this a Six Million Mark Bicycle.
A bike restoration project is one of those happy undertakings in which those involved frequently wish they’d never started, yet secretly hope will never end. In this regard we have some good news, and also some bad news reaching us this morning from Hamburg, Germany, where Nico Thomas and his two sons have recently applied the final revitalizing touches to a machine first ridden over 80 years ago.
(editor’s note: the following is the charming diary of five young people from Birmingham who approached us to support their charity ride from Birmingham to Berlin to raise money for Cancer Research UK. A video of this adventure is soon to follow.)
Grant Petersen, purveyor and fabricator extraordinaire of Rivendell lugged steel frames and sundry high quality bicycling-related stuff, has in the past weeks overseen some changes to his company’s website.
Its earlier incarnation was throughout a repository of good-humoured common sense; a place to visit if you were seeking expert advice on matters bicycular, or irrespective of subject merely hopeful of reading meaningful, well-written sentences. This made it exceptional, certainly, and perhaps close to unique among all commercial entities deriving from the central notion of two human-powered wheels.
In these respects, mercifully, nothing has changed.
A flavour of L’Eroica’s 2010 instalment from the Tweed Run‘s own Ted Young-Ing. (Bregan and Tim doing their best for the camera)
“The organization will not admit riders with farcical or ironic clothing or behaviour.” (Excerpt from the 2011 Rules and Regulations)
As autumn approaches, 500 lucky non-Italians are doubtless polishing their first generation Campa Gruppos, Proofiding their leather helmets and scouring vintage stores for a decent woollen maglia. Yes, Siena’s l’Eroica is once again soon upon us!
Brooks collaborator Ben Wilson was recently invited by the Crafts Council and the Victoria and Albert Museum to furnish them with a piece for their upcoming exhibition “The Power Of Making” which runs 6 September 2011 – 2 January 2012 at The Porter Gallery at the V&A.
The exhibition opened last week, and Ben’s “Pocket Rocket” (shown above) is now on display, along with ninety-nine other “exquisitely crafted objects”. (Well, a hundred if we were to count the one-off Brooks Swallow separately.)
When the young William Webb Ellis spontaneously caught the ball and ran with it during phys. ed. at the Rugby Boys’ Public School back in the 1820′s, he can surely have had no inkling at the myriad chains of events he would set in motion.
There is certainly much sporting history we can trace back to his actions. But surprisingly, one little piece of it, at least, is bike-related. So with the seventh instalment of the Rugby Union World Cup having kicked off in New Zealand this morning, we wish to draw your attention to two people for whom today marks the end of an eighteen month long cycling journey to be there. And we’re still not sure if they have tickets.
Nick Hand, pausing to catch a breath on his coastal cycling jaunt.
