Just a low key Sunday blog post

First of all, the Giro d'Italia is now over and it was won by Alberto Contador, from Tinkoff-Saxo. Congratulations Alberto! (And you know what we think of hunting, so we won't bring that up again.)

Secondly, this Thursday I spotted a Merida Biking Team van and a couple of flags outside the hotel opposite where I live. Quite naturally I was intrigued, especially since a door on the hotel was open and I saw a mannequin in Lampre Merida clothing in there. So I peeked in, two guys inside spotted me, asked if I was coming for the lecture that was to be given, I said that I wasn't invited and that was pretty much it. These guys were really friendly, they told me that what was happening was that Merida was out on a "Bicycle Vasa Tour". The tour was quite short, they only visited Stockholm and Gothenburg and it is over now. During these evenings one could listen to a couple of lectures about training and diet/food, especially for the Vasa mountainbike race, which is in August. You could try some Merida bikes (some really expensive ones) and I also spotted that they were handing out goodie bags. The guys invited me, said that I could come if I wanted, but I couldn't so I don't know what was in the goodie bags. But I guess this is all cool. I only took a couple of photos:

Ride safe!

Giros present and past

It seems quite clear that Alberto Contador will win the Giro d'Italia this year, doesn't it? We're cool with that. Despite the fact that Alberto Contador hunts in his spare time and we're pro-animal rights (animals have a right to live too) we like Alberto Contador. However, we would be cool with Mikel Landa or Fabio Aru winning it too, they seem like alright guys. This far FDJ, which is our favourite team in the Giro this year, hasn't made much noice. Well, this Sunday we will see how it all ends.

Today though, we wanted to focus on another race: The now defunct Postgirot Open. Postgirot Open was a six to eight days long race held in Sweden, in the summer, between 1982 and 2002. To be honest it didn't attract the top riders, there were no Laurent Fignons or Miguel Indurains there... but Bernard Hinault participated once! And come on... this is Sweden! For Sweden it was an important race. Both Tommy Prim and Michael Andersson participated in it... and won. (Tommy Prim won it twice and Michael Andersson thrice.)

We're not quite sure exactly why, but lately we've become increasingly interested in this race. Is it just nostalgia? Maybe! But we really like the Tommy Prim sticker we wrote about here, and we like these postcards that we also found. Come to think of it, that's probably what started it: Finding that cool Tommy Prim sticker a while ago. Well, these postcards are a bit old but we found them quite recently and wanted to share them with you. So here:

This postcard is perhaps not that... special. Or should we say "aesthetic"? But it's still cool, since it shows the route of the first race.

This postcard however... How good looking is that? This one we just love!

As well as this one. It would look even better, cleaner, without the names and logotypes of the sponsors. But it's still really nice!

Were there no postcards in 1984? We have no idea! We have been thinking about seeing if it's possible to make bigger versions of the cards, perhaps in A4 or A3 size. (Of course it's all possible, but without the pictures looking all crap, pixelated and blurry.) We figure that they would make nice posters. If you think the same, or for some other reason want higher resolution versions of these pictures, just send us a message and we'll mail them to you.

Ride safe!

Eurodisco style!

As we have said before, and probably will keep saying, we like people who have a sense of humour about cycling. That's why we like IFHT who are posting videos on youtube. If you haven't checked them out yet, we have posted their videos here on our blog, we highly recommend it. We would also recommend MC Spandx, also known as Robin Moore.

Is this how Australians (he's Australian, isn't he?) see European, especially French, riders and European bicycling culture? We don't know, the music is horrible but it is pure genius, really funny!



"It's impossible to stop, when you start to feel it. Can't you believe it, that the whole world needs it?" Yes, we believe it. And we promise to return with much more European bicycling culture in the future, but in the meantime:

Ride safe!

Big and small - Cinelli and FreeBird Velo

When we're not tinkering with our bikes, cleaning and polishing them, adjusting that tension screw one millimetre to the left or to the right, checking the tire pressure and heightening the saddle two millimetres we are always on the lookout for improvements to our bikes and new projects. A new saddle or new pedals to put on one of our existing bikes or a completely new frame, which marks the start of a completely new project, a new bike. We think it's the same for most cyclists. Actually we know it's the same, just judging by the number of bicycle manufacturers and suppliers of bicycle related products. Not to mention the discussions on various internet forums about everything from the exact composition of the carbon in a bike frame, to the taste of an energy bar. It is a bit of fun, surfing the internet, seeing what's going on in the cycling world, but perhaps we should try to forget what riding bikes is really about: Getting outside and doing it. Swinging a leg over the bike and start pedalling, whether it's a dusty old bike or a shiny new one. Yeah, sometimes we actually ride our bikes too! Perhaps we should try to think about the environment too and ask ourselves if we really do need that new bottle holder or those new wheels. We only have one earth, people, and the natural resources aren't infinite.

Dreaming, however, is just fine. In fact we think that people should dream more. We dream a lot, and some of those dreams are about new bikes and new clothes to wear while riding our bikes. Here are two of our favourites to dream about:

Cinelli

Cinelly has quite a following in the... well, should we say in the fixed-gear and single-speed world, among the connaisseurs or among the hipsters? A lot of people who ride fixed-gear and single-speed either do it on a Cinelli or want to do it on a Cinelli. And we don't blame them - Cinelli bikes are really good-looking! Take a look at these frames, for example:

This is one of their track/fixed-gear/single-speed frames, the Vigorelli. And the logo isn't misprinted - it's supposed to look like that. (We borrowed this picture from Cinelli. Hope that's OK!) 

And this is the Zydeco. (We borrowed this picture from Cinelli. Hope that's OK!)

Beautiful and supercool. Cinelli also makes components like handlebars and bottles, and they make clothes. And while the clothes are good-looking, sometimes they feel a little bit too aimed at posers. Or maybe it's the other way around? Maybe it's the posers that wear Cinelli, that make the clothes look really trendy, but not quite genuine? So we like Cinelli, but we're not superfans of some of the things that you sort of get into the bargain. But simply put, Cinelli is one of the bigger actors, with a real passion for cycling.

One of the smaller actors that we really like is FreeBird Velo.

Jenny Wilson, who runs the company, doesn't make bikes but clothes, mostly t-shirts. We love her designs, though we have no words to summarise them. Some t-shirts prints are just weird, others are simply genious. We really don't need more t-shirts, but either we might make an exception for FreeBird Velo just to have one or we'll buy one from the company next time we do need one.

We think this t-shirt is cute. (We borrowed the picture from FreeBird Velo's Etsy page. Hope that's OK!)

These socks are simply cool. They're sold out, which is unfortunate because we could really use a new pair of socks. (We borrowed the picture from FreeBird Velo's Etsy page. Hope that's OK!)

So maybe you're riding a new bike, maybe you're riding an old bike. Maybe you wear old clothes which work just fine or you've gotten a new wardrobe. Remember to have fun.

Ride safe!

Just a nice, green bike

Honestly, we don't have that much to say today. We spent the morning riding bikes. We will spend the afternoon cleaning and fixing bikes. It's not that interesting to hear about. And we won't write anything about the Giro d'Italia - it's better that you get your own opinion about it, from another source. So here:

Just two photos of a really nice-looking, green bike. We don't know who owns it, but whoever it is she or he must surely like her or his bike, because it is really in pristine condition.

Ride safe!

Giro x 2, Giro and Giro, Giros...

The Giro d'Italia is in full swing. It started yesterday, Saturday, with a Team Time Trial, which was won by Orica-Greenedge. Simon Gerrans was the first across the finish line, and after his injury-filled season 2015 his win felt both right and deserved. Today was a so called flat stage, from Albenga to Genoa. That was won by Elia Viviani, from Team Sky, and the wearer of the pink jersey tomorrow will be Simon Gerrans' team mate Michael Matthews. Good work! Although our favourite team in this years Giro is FDJ, which has Finnish road champion Jussi Veikkanen aboard.

Meanwhile, some 1570 kilometres North, the Göteborgsgirot bicycle races were held. Yesterday was the road bike race, 70 or 35 kilometres and today was the mountain bike race, 37 or 25 kilometres, as well as two races for children. Although we have become more and more interested in mountain biking lately (or should we say re-interested?) members of our club (only) took part in the road bike race.

And this is our level of ambition: To have fun.

Winning medals was of course nice too, but we maintain that having fun while spending time with people you like, getting fresh air and exercise is the most important. Our motto is Alla ska med, which roughly translates to Everyone will come along. We ride at a speed that the least fast of us can keep. Incidentally the slogan Alla ska med was used by the Social democrats here in Sweden, but as they stopped using it in 2008 we think it's OK for us to use it.

Ride safe!

How To Be A Road Biker

We like people who have a sense of humour, so we like Canadian IFHT. We linked one of their videos - Mountain bikes vs Road biker Rap battle - some time ago, here.

Here's another of their videos:



And yeah, we have quite some stuff to tell you, about bicycle races, products that we have tried, tested and valuated, bicycles rescued... But at the moment we're a little bit busy so all that will have to wait.

Watch the video, have a good time, be nice to each other and don't take bicycling too seriously. It's supposed to be fun!

Ride safe!

K-Edge chain catcher

Don't worry, we're not turning our blog into some kind of "unspecified ads/for sale". You could see this as an opportunity to get your hands on a great little product, but also as a product review.

So, to take it from the beginning I had a problem when I had assembled my road bike. Every now and then, when I shifted from the bigger chainring to the smaller one the chain would jump off. Kind of like it couldn't stop on the smaller chainring, but wanted to keep on shifting down. I think you understand how annoying that was. Not only did it make me have to stop and lift the chain back onto the chainring, it also scratched up my frame. Since I only ride steel bikes, not carbon, it didn't really damage the frame, but it scratched the paintwork.

What to do? I found out that there are these nifty little things called "chain catchers" and bought one from K-Edge (K13-001 Braze-on Chain Catcher, if you want to know). It was the most expensive option, but... it was totally worth it. After I had installed it my chain hasn't jumped once. And since it only weighs 10 grammes you don't even notice it's there.

I bought the chain catcher in black, because that was the colour available, but quite recently I found out that this chain catcher also comes in blue. Since my bike is silver and blue (see it here)... You get it. So just yesterday I replaced the black one with the blue one. It looks perfect, the hue is almost the exact same as the bottle cage, and if it works as good as the black one did, which I am confident it will, it's just perfect.

So: K-Edge Chain catchers. They're a really good investment, to protect your bike frame! The only objection against them is the price, they really are quite expensive. (And no, we're still not sponsored - we have to buy everything ourselves.) However, here's a chance for you to buy one of these chain catchers at half the price. A brand new one costs € 22.45 - € 23.37 (from two big bicycle products mail order companies) but I'm selling mine for € 10. It's in very good condition, like new, except for where the washer has scratched the paint. The bolts and the washer are completely unused. If you're interested, let me know. If you want another colour, though, you have to buy it somewhere else. Painting it yourself is might not be a very good option, but I haven't tried it, so I could be wrong! And anyway, I would never recommend against DIY.

Ride safe!

Giro d'Italia 50th edition commemorative stamps, from 1967

As a sort of continuation of the last blog post, here are all (?) the stamps that the Italian post issued to the 50th edition of Giro d'Italia, in 1967. We think they're all beautiful.

Ciclisti in salita/Cyclists uphill. Just as a note: Grain Edit (mentioned below) writes that the best climber wears il maglia verde - the green jersey, which signifies the best climber in the mountain stages. That's not really true. The best climber wears il maglia azzurra - the blue jersey.

We borrowed these images from Grain Edit. Hope that's OK!

Ciclisti in volata/Cyclists in the peloton (Note that the cyclist in the front wears il maglia rosa - the pink jersey (that the general time classification leader wears))

Respect to the artists Consolazione, Cuzzani and de Stefani. And thanks to Kadi, who tipped us about all the stamps.

Ride safe!