themanfromicon
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Bespoked 2016 weekender
Since first visiting the Bespoked Handmade Bicycle Show in Bristol a few years back the thought of riding to (and maybe from) the show has been floating around my head. I finally got around to it this year. One reason was that my friend Jo did a framebuilding course (that link is part one, the…
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The Shark [Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud 2016 ride #2]
Waiting in an underground car park early in the morning as rain falls outside. So starts my first 200km audax of the year, the second ride of this year’s Grimpeurs du Sud campaign (this ride has over 3000m of climbing). Technically the fourth, but I didn’t make the start of the first, or finish the…
![The Shark [Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud 2016 ride #2]](https://themanfromicon.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/shark-0383.jpg?w=1024)
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Road to Rouen
I was invited by the nice people over at Victor and Liberty to write something for their blog. They asked a couple of weeks before I had a day trip to France planned so that became the story. Click any of the images below to read the full post. As usual I go the…
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Epic Echappée 2016
Team DFL didn’t finish last!* *we failed to actually ride the whole thing, but laughs were had and beer was drunk. Team mate Mark wrote a full report over on Cycletech Review
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Kent Invicta Grimpeur [Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud 2016 ride #1]
A quiet, pretty corner of Kent, lanes tucked away between interlocking major roads. Two laps of the same circuit, first clockwise, then anti-clockwise. A tight loop, repeating place names on signposts, never reached and pointed in different directions. Identical roads, the same hills, but dissimilar when approached from the opposite direction. Those fast sweeping drops…
![Kent Invicta Grimpeur [Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud 2016 ride #1]](https://themanfromicon.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/tweaked-0027.jpg?w=1024)
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DNF
Standing under the heating vent inside Sainsbury’s Local in Crowborough, whilst a puddle of water forms at my feet, I stare at the map on my phone looking for the shortest way back to Lewes. I decided 5 kilometres back that I was going to give up at the next control. Little did I realise the…
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White Chalk Hills Ultracross 2015
Stretched out along the fence line, the peloton splinters into clumps of riders. Shadows tumbling down hillsides. Pedalling not against the gradient but the wind. Silhouettes scattered along the next ridge. The gate opening relay starts, the off road equivalent of through and off, keep riding, no time for gate faff, might even finish in…
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One frame at a time
A craftsman at work, a skill that is second nature: Cut, grind, file, clamp, fit, braze, weld. Repeat. Back and forth, here, there, this bench, that jig. Sparks flying from grinders, the flash and whoosh of the torch being lit, red hot lugs and smoking bottom brackets. A day of turning straight lines into triangles, into frames, a pile of steel…
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Rounds
The final chase. The last race of the night. A madison, an undetermined number of laps. The fug of the previous 40 laps of the dernies hangs in the artificially warmed air, suspended in the noise and the lights. The audible whirrs and whizzes of big, big gears, the rumble of high pressure tubs on…
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Greenwich Mean Climb 300km [Brevet des Grimpeur du Sud ride #6]
04:29, Dyke Road, Brighton, heading for London. Underworld are played on the radio in the car and two men in their mid-forties reminisce about coming home at this time of the morning rather than going out for a bike ride. 05:47, Blackheath, London. Applying chamois cream behind a bush on the edge of Blackheath. There…
![Greenwich Mean Climb 300km [Brevet des Grimpeur du Sud ride #6]](https://themanfromicon.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/tweaked-colour-14.jpg?w=1024)
the man from icon 