Why does it always rain on me? (A recapitulation of my racing season 2016.)

Admittedly I haven't been very good at updating this blog lately. I've been out riding! And that's exactly what I would have been doing today as well, if it hadn't started to rain... Yes, I'm a bit lazy. Or, actually I'm not that lazy - I just don't particularly like riding in rain. You get wet and sweaty, the chain might start to squeak (depending on which oil you're using) and the roads get slippery, which increases the risk of accidents. So most times I simply try to avoid it.

Bicycles are a part of my everyday life, though. Usually I ride my bikes to school or just to town, or I'm tinkering with my bikes or checking other people's bikes and bike riding people on instagram. Or in real life, for that matter! Well, summer is almost over and so is the the racing season for me. It didn't really turn out as I thought or had hoped it would

The Göteborgsgirot race was big fun. As I wrote earlier I entered the 140 km version instead of the 70 km version, in a fit of hubris, but it went quite well. My goal was to finish with an average speed of (at least) 30 km/h, but I didn't succeed with that. Other than that it was really hard and a lot of fun.

Race face on! At the last moment I decided to go for the Classic look with aviator glasses, instead of a more contemporary look. Why are today's bike sunglasses so ugly?

This is what you end up looking like, if you forget to use sunscreen. To be honest I didn't think that I would need it but Hello cycling tan!

Then the Nationaldagsloppet race was cancelled. Too bad! I wanted to enter the 108 km version of it this year, but c'est la vie. By the information on their website I get the feeling that there might not be a race next year either, but we'll see!

And then Kalmar Grand Prix Open race, or Hansa Bygg Kalmar Grand Prix Open as it was renamed, was cancelled too. Apparently due to a lack of race stewards and motorcycle police. Well, I have some thoughts about that:

1. Did they really need 120 race stewards and motorcycle police? That does seem a bit much.

2. Anyway, part of the problem with finding 120 race stewards might have been that the race was moved from the morning to the afternoon and evening. On a Saturday. I think most people would prefer to spend Saturday afternoon and evening with their family, maybe going out to a restaurant, rather than standing in some countryside village, handing out water and bananas to sweaty middle aged men.

3. And the race stewards didn't even get any salary or compensation. Instead money was donated, on their behalf, to research on child cancer, which is very nice, but really... If you were to consider spending Saturday evening handing out water and bananas to sweaty middle aged men on ridiculously expensive bicycles the thing that just make you decide to do that might be... at least something more than a free t-shirt. Were they even to get a goodie bag? I don't know. But a couple of movie tickets, compression socks or something else would probably have helped.

4. To be honest I wasn't too keen on riding in the afternoon either. What do you do all day, while you wait for the race to start? You certainly don't want to do anything too exhausting, as you want to preserve your energy and force to the race. (We're talking regular people here, not professional athletes.) So you were to spend a whole day mainly just waiting. That would suck.

5. And lastly, the name. Kalmar Grand Prix is a good name, it sounds classy and honours the town of Kalmar. But Hansa Bygg Kalmar Grand Prix? I have nothing against Hansa Bygg, it's a construction company, they're probably good at what they do, probably not much better or much worse than other construction companies when it comes to environmental thinking. (The construction sector is one of the sectors which has the biggest impact on the environment.) I was even impressed with their managing director, when he gave a short speech at the prize ceremony for Kalmar Grand Prix Elit. He talked about how he wanted the company and the race to be assets for Kalmar, to be something that would make Kalmar a better town. Great thinking! But it's still not a good name for a race. Think about it. Guldfågeln Kalmar Grand Prix? (Guldfågeln is a chicken slaughter company, which happens to sponsor the arena of the local football club Kalmar FF - Guldfågeln Arena.) Hennes & Mauritz Kalmar Grand Prix? IKEA Kalmar Grand Prix? It doesn't sound good, does it? Think about it some more. Leonardo-Finmeccanica Giro d'Italia? Schneider Electric Tour de France? Loterías y Apuestas del Estado Vuelta a España? It doesn't sound classy, does it? It just sounds commercial, and even though races are commercial... My suggestion is to rename it to Hansa Bygg presents Kalmar Grand Prix.

Well, anyway the race was cancelled. However, when I was in Kalmar on my holiday I learned that the Kalmar cykelklubb bicycle club were to organise a training round on the same day. It was a great initiative and it was great fun. They were really nice, I learned how to ride in a group, they were super cool with my mistakes and even though I said that I wanted to ride in a slower group we managed to keep an average speed of 31.2 km/h (Kalmar cykelklubb themselves claim that the average speed was 31.5 km/h, but that's not what my bicycle computer said.)

That's me to the far left. (As usual...)

I know that there are other races, I have been thinking about Tre Berg and Stockholm Velothon, but they are quite pricey and they would have required a lot of planning and some support, so... Maybe next year, who knows?

Race safe!

Goodbye Cykelcity

If you have had any interest at all in road and mountain bikes in Sweden you have known Cykelcity. Cykelcity is… Or Cykelcity was a chain of three specialised bicycle stores in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Lund. Now they’re closing down.

What the store in Gothenburg looked like, back in the day. (We borrowed this picture from Cykelcity i Göteborg. Hope that's OK!)

As I wrote Cykelcity was a chain of specialised bicycle stores, they only sold road, mountain and triathlon bikes (and, of course, clothes, bicycle parts and accessories). To be honest, they could give you quite an attitude. The first time I went there I was looking for a cassette for my 1988 Peugeot Mont Blanc, a six speed cassette. The guy behind the counter looked at me, said “No, we don’t have anything like that” and the other guys in the store started sniggering. That attitude. Some time later I saw, from a distance, a guy dragging his old bike into the store, only to storm out seconds later, still dragging his bike. When we passed each other I saw that he had a flat tire. I have no idea what the guys in the store said to him or what they did, but he was fuming. Cykelcity didn’t deal with old bicycles and they certainly didn’t deal with regular bicycles, but… just because you have a specialised bicycle store you don’t have to be a jerk.

To be honest I don’t remember what made me come back there. Maybe I was looking for something that I knew that they sold, or it was around the time that I started to put together my road bicycle. Anyway, now that I started buying specialised, expensive stuff I got treated completely different. The guys in the store talked to me, helped me and explained pros and cons of the products I were looking at. When I bought a complete Campagnolo groupset (well, almost – they didn’t have everything in) and Fulcrum wheels I got the royal treatment. I started accepting that Cykelcity is a specialised bicycle store, they sell and serve high-end road and mountain bikes. I still don’t think that you have to be a jerk, though!

And maybe it was that attitude that forced them to close down. When you’re treated badly it takes a bit to come back to the place. (Now that I think about it I think I might have been accompanying my friend Christian the second time I went there.) And rumour spreads, if you’re treated badly you will tell your friends to not go there. But there are also some other factors that I think have played a part:

1. It felt like they started focusing on selling triathlon equipment. I have to confess that as a bicyclist I am completely uninterested in triathlon. (As a human, I am a little fascinated by the sport, the effort and the athletes.) And aren’t triathletes sort of the unfaithfuls of the bicycle world? They only ride bicycles because they have to, not because they want to. They only ride their time trial bicycles really fast, they don’t take the time to enjoy the surroundings, the nature, your company... To be honest, I don’t take the time to enjoy all of those things either at times, sometimes I am just trying to push myself, riding fast and letting my body work… but sometimes I really just enjoy the sunshine! Anyway, there is a limited market for triathlon equipment, and I think that “regular” bicyclists are quite uninterested in that stuff.

2. They stopped selling brands that were sold in other store chains (like XXL). Crank Brothers, Sidi, Tacx… Officially they didn’t want to sell stuff that you could buy just anywhere, but I suspect that it was hard to compete with the prices of the other stores. For example, the distributor of Sidi in Sweden is in fact a Norwegian company, and XXL is a Norwegian store. It’s a pity that small, passionate shops always have to lose to big corporates!

3. And, of course, it’s hard to compete with the choice on the internet. Most stores and shops can order the stuff you’re looking for, but it’s just as easy and often cheaper to order it yourself. Small special products might be impossible to order from the local stores (try offset brake pad holders – I had to order them from a factory in Taiwan) and again, the prices on the internet can be really competitive. What you lose when you buy your products on the internet instead of supporting your local shops is the help that the local shops can provide, the expertise that they actually have. I won’t go deeper into this, this discussion is ongoing in the bicycle world, but what I can say is that I try to mix, to only buy the stuff online that I can’t find in the local shops. But I admit that it is hard to resist good prices.

4. Lastly I don’t know if it’s an effect of the competition from the internet-based stores, or if it’s simply the fact that when you know and have seen what can be bought online, the choice in the Cykelcity store seemed a bit… limited. There weren’t that many shoes, that many jerseys, that many helmets… And for some reason Italian brands were especially limited – Santini, Nalini, de Marchi… However, that could be due to the Italian sales and distribution chains, I guess. (We love Italians and the Italian cycling heritage here in Ensliga Bergens cykelklubb, but the Italians really are a handful in some aspects.)

5. Talking about Italian brands: A specialised road bicycle store chain that doesn’t sell Campagnolo? Come on! About two years ago Cykelcity took the decision to stop selling Campagnolo. Officially it was because Campagnolo products simply didn’t sell that good anymore. I don’t know if that’s true, but Campagnolo will always be a part of road bicycle history and if you have the means you simply have to sell their products. If you run a smaller, independent bicycle store it’s harder, especially since Campagnolo used to resist OEM sales, but... Well, we just don’t know the truth. But the text that Cykelcity wrote in their (physical) catalogue when they took the decision to stop selling Campagnolo was crap. (And we have to admit that we love Campagnolo!)

I bought this Campagnolo polo in the Cykelcity store in Gothenburg a couple of years ago.

Oh, and everything I have written refers to the store in Gothenburg. To be honest I have never even visited the stores in Lund or in Stockholm, which will continue to exist. One day I probably will visit them, though, especially now that I have this soon-to-be-vintage cycling jersey from Cykelcity! (It's pretty good-looking too!)

We wish the staff of Cykelcity all the best for the future. Be nice and ride safe!

Here’s the Swedish text, found on their website:


Vi drar oss tillbaka efter 35 år

Då var det dags att avsluta det som påbörjades 1982. Efter 35 fantastiska säsonger tackar vi för oss.

Vem kunde tro att vi skulle få vara med om en sådan fantastisk resa när vi slog upp dörrarna till vår butik i snöglopp i Lund 20/2 1982.

Veckorna innan vi öppnade skulle cyklar monteras. Vi hade fått hem Campagnolo, Selle Italia och alla andra tillverkares produkter som behövdes för att montera cyklarna.

När vi monterat 3-4 cyklar insåg vi att det mesta vi köpt in gått åt till att montera cyklarna, då blev det lite problem. Vi måste ju ha lite på hyllorna också annars ser det ju helt tomt ut, hur löser vi det?

Efter lite klurande kom vi på att om vi skriver ett litet E på lådorna ser det ut som om vi har hur mycket Campagnolo och annat som helst på hyllorna. E?

Kom nån som ville ha en Nuovo Record bakväxel gällde det att ta en låd utan E för E:et stod för empty, d.v.s. lådan var tom… Som tur var blev det ganska snart inga lådor med E på längre..

Det har under åren kommit och gått en otrolig mängd produkter som gjort det till ett sant nöje att få jobba i branschen, en del fantastiska, andra kanske inte lika fantastiska…

Det man kan konstatera är att det har varit otroligt kul att få vara med och följa utvecklingen inom branschen.

Det ska bli spännande att fortsätta följa utvecklingen, men framöver kommer vi göra det från läktaren.

Att ha förmånen att få jobba med sin hobby är få förunnat och vi ser tillbaka på alla åren med ett leende. Man brukar säga att det ska vara kul att gå till jobbet och vi har verkligen haft kul, varje dag.

När man tänker på alla människor man mött kan man inte annat än att le. Många profiler har passerat genom åren och vi har kunder, leverantörer och kollegor som har blivit vänner för livet.

Nu är det som sagt dags att tacka för oss, och vi ser fram emot att få lite mer tid över till andra roliga saker som inte riktigt hunnits med under åren.

Affären i Lund är såld och nye ägaren kommer att ta över verksamheten 15 juli. Namnet blir fortsatt CykelCity och vårt cykelmärke Columbus kommer också att vara kvar. När det gäller garantier och service på produkter köpta i Lund så tar nya CykelCity över ansvaret mot uppvisande av kvitto från CykelCity i Lund.

Nu tömmer vi butiken inför ägarbytet 15 juli så passa på allt ska bort i vår Super-Rea!

OBS! Alla värdecheckar och presentkort hos oss måste lösas in senast 15 juli!

Affären i Göteborg kommer att stängas efter sommaren. Det betyder att allt lager kommer att säljas ut under sommaren i vår Super-Rea och affären stängs senast 30 september.

När det gäller service av alla våra sålda cyklar och eventuella reklamationer på alla sålda produkter kommer detta hanteras av Sävedalens Cykel AB 1956 Göteborgsvägen 46 Sävedalen. Vid service och ev. reklamationer krävs att kvitto från CykelCity medtages och uppvisas.

OBS! Alla värdecheckar och presentkort måste lösas in hos oss innan vi stänger affären!

35 år! Vi vill tacka alla våra kunder, leverantörer, kollegor och vår personal för alla dessa fantastiska år.

Håkan och Anderz

Norwegian National Cycling Team spotted!

This Sunday I spotted a car belonging to the Norwegian National Cycling Team here in Gothenburg. Where? Outside the (Norwegian) outdoor recreation and sports equipment chain store XXL, of course!

For quite some time Norway has had many successful bicyclists, both road and mountain bike, while Sweden and Finland (we're Swedish and Finnish, OK?) just haven't had that many. Thor Hushovd, Alexander Kristoff and Edvald Boasson Hagen are three examples of really good Norwegian road riders. We would argue that, for example, Jussi Veikkanen from Finland and Fredrik Kessiakoff from Sweden are great road riders too, but they have retired from professional cycling.

There are, however, riders in both our countries that we think have many victories ahead of them.

(We borrowed this picture from Lotta Lepistö's twitter page. Hope that's OK!)

(We borrowed this picture from Emma Johansson's home page. Hope that's OK!)

(We borrowed this picture from Sara Olsson's blog. Hope that's OK!)

Lotta Lepistö from Finland, for example. We have mentioned her before and you can read more about her here. From Sweden we have Emma Johansson (read more about her here) and Sara Olsson (read more about her here). Time will tell if we're right, but we are impressed by them already. And no, we don't know where they shop their sports equipment. ;)

Ride safe!

Will this turn into some architecture blog?

No, we promise it won't. These are just some photos from our latest bicycle ride, some eerie, some inspiring.

 

Ghost bike

 

  

Fold for bicyclists, as a consequence of that fatal accident

(Motor) traffic routes take up so much space

It's said that this gasometer will disappear in the future. It has been out of operation since 1993, but at the moment there are peregrine falcons breeding there.

 

Some kind of military boat transporting device?

 

Containers turned into art

A sauna in the Frihamnen harbour area. We haven't tested the sauna yet so we don't know if it's any good. As for the design, the jury is still out.

 

Ride safe!

Bike thieves should...

Die? Be locked away in prison cells? Be locked to a bike stand with bike locks? Or get understanding and sympathy? We at Ensliga Bergens cykelklubb are not advocates for hard, severe punishments. We believe that crime is a sign that something in society is wrong, most people who steal do this because they need money and/or use drugs or alcohol. We get that, and we feel sorry for all people who are in that situtation.

Still, when our bicycles are stolen we just get furious. About a week ago someone broke into the bike storage room of our block of flats and stole my Orange Clockwork mountain bike.

As you can see it's an old 26" hardtail, so it's really quite out of date. What's more, it's made of steel. It also has a custom paint job and has been renovated, so it's instantly recognisable. In conclusion, it's not really worth a lot of money, but it's the mountain bike I've got and I like it. I would like to keep it.

Last week, when I got into the bike storage room in the morning, though, it was gone. Just gone. Fortunately I went to the back of the house to see if there were any traces or evidence of the theft and then it stood there. I don't know what happened, if the thief had tried to steal the bike but was interrupted or if he had planned to come back later and pick up the bike then. I got the feeling that someone had been sleeping in there, in the storage room, and maybe had had to move the bike to be able to sleep there, but then why had he put the bike on the outside? Or had he planned to sleep there, and then just taken the opportunity, because the bike looked shiny and fancy (I had just cleaned it the week before)?

I don't know and I don't really care. I took the bike up the the flat and kept it there until yesterday when this lock

arrived, from Bike 24 in Germany. Now my mountain bike is down in the bike storage room again. Locked with three sturdy locks, of which this one ties it to a central heating pipe. It's crazy, though - this is my eighth bike lock, my sister has two and these locks are distributed on four bikes, each bike is locked with three locks. (No, it doesn't add up. Let me know if you're interested and I'll explain how it works.) My most valuable bike, both because it has cost the most and because it is my most treasured bike I have to keep in the flat if I want to get a good night's sleep. It would be nice if it didn't have to be this way.

(We borrowed this picture from Dustin Quasar's Flickr page. Hope that's OK!)

Ride safe!

Postgirot Open 1983

This is Part 3 of our series "Postgirot Open" where we will mainly show some memorabilia that we have found about this race. We would like to tell you anecdotes and stories about this race but unfortunately not much has been written about it. Anyway, not much as far as we know, but if you have some tips, feel free to tell us!

Anyway this is a postcard from 1983. Perhaps the race was gaining momentum and becoming more known at this time, because this post card is more worked through than the cards from the year before. Actually it is a small piece of art, really cool. Again, or still, frame mounted gear shifters and generally all old school style. The back of the post card simply tell us that Postgirot Open was the biggest bicycle race in Sweden. (Duh! Was there even any other stage races in Sweden?) The winner of the race was, as in 1982, Tommy Prim from Sweden.

Ride safe!

Trying out new bicycle lanes

Or rather, trying out new bicycle lane material.

Some time ago I had the opportunity to test ride new bicycle lane material, that SP Sveriges Tekniska Forskningsinstitut/SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden are working with. The test was done at AstaZero's testing grounds, about twelve kilometres from the city of Borås. Before the test all the participants had to sign a contract of secrecy, and we were forbidden to take photos of the inside the grounds. But Ensliga Bergens cykelklubb has always fought for freedom of the press, for less secretiveness and for the public's right to know, so I will break the contract and tell you all about it! I also snuck in a camera and took photos during the test, in secrecy, when the test conductors looked away!

No, seriously I asked one of the test conductors if I could write something about it here, asked her a couple of questions which she replied to and she also included some photos. Thanks Ena! All I had to do in return was to tell you that there were two test conductors, Ena Cupina and Martin Arvidsson, and that all the photos were taken by Ena Cupina. And as you can see in the photos there even was a news reporter and a camera man from a TV station there so, the test really wasn't that secret. What is secret is, of course, the compounds and materials they are working with.

So, there were five types of bicycle lane materials or, to be precise, five different compounds being tested and the goal of the test was to get opinions of how the lanes feel to ride on. This opportunity was the winter test, and it will be followed by a summer test later on. The compunds were tested for different aspects: how they felt when accelerating and riding, how they worked when you brake, how they felt when turning and swinging and "general feel". The only real miss that the test conductors did was being out too late when finding test participants, just two days ahead, so there were only twelve participants there. On the other hand the test took longer than anticipated and it got a little bit stressful at the end, so maybe that was only good. A more even mix of women and men would of course have been preferable too, but then (almost) all the participants were keen bicycle riders who know how a good bicycle lane should look and feel.

This is really important work, for the safety of bicyclists everywhere, so I am really happy to have had this opportunity and I look forward to seeing the results out "in the real world".

 Me being interviewed by the news team.

 A wintery landscape. This was some weeks ago, but by the coast spring was already on its way.

 

 Me being asked questions by Martin Arvidsson.

 To the left you can see my favourite lane compound. It looks a bit different, which I think is really good, because it would mean that eventually people would start recognising this as a bicycle lane, and not walk on it or park their car on it.

All the participants and one of the test conductors - ten mamils (including me), two women and one normal guy!

Ride safe!

Helkama White Power

Being politically correct really isn't something that Finnish bother much with. We would say that the Finnish are neither more nor less prejudiced or ignorant than anyone else, we simple bother less to use terms that are certain to not offend anyone. That said, should you be offended by something a Finnish person has said you don't have to hesitate telling her or him so. He or she will not have said it to hurt you, will have a very pragmatic attitude towards it all, will apologise and stop using the word. This is generally speaking of course, there is sexism, racism and homophobia in Finland, just as in most, if not all, countries. (So maybe we can skip the whole discussion about prejudice in Finland here. This is, after all, a bicycle blog.)

Probably, however, it wasn't a sod it-attitude towards political correctness that caused the Finnish bicycle brand Helkama to name one of their models...

(We borrowed this picture from the album "Welcome to Finland" on imgur. Hope that's OK!)

Most likely it was a case of the marketing department not being really aware of what this term could mean. This model came in the early 1990's, a time when a negligible share of the people in Finland were foreigners and when the internet was pretty much unheard of. Still... Wow.

Ride safe!

Giant ATX 777, part 2

Or "The end". Every bicycle has a story, but sadly this bicycle's story ends here.

After having reported it to the lost propery office of the police, waited three months and having gotten a letter stating the bicycle was mine I got to work on it. With a liberal spraying with anti-rust spray, the use of force and a list of swearwords I managed to get the pedals and the crankset off. A couple of days later I took the bike with me to the Cykelköket bike kitchen and, again with liberal spraying with anti-rust spray, the use of force and with the help of a Greek guy I managed to get the bottom bracket out too. (Never spray anti-rust spray on a bottom bracket that you plan to use!)

Then I could measure the distance from the bottom bracket shell to the rear dropouts with a piece of string, and state the the frame was actually bent. The left side was about three millimetres shorter than the right side, and there was a crack in the chainstay that looked quite worrying too. Too bad, because I was starting to like this frame! It was aluminium so it was very light, and though white is a terrible choice for bicycle frames (they start looking dirty within minutes) the frame felt like it could be a lot of fun.

But that's just the way it is. So:

Adieu, Anonymous Giant ATX 777!

 The crack in the chainstay.

Nope, it's not OK anymore.

Ride safe!

Hooray!

This is our favourite motorised vehicle in the whole world.

The City of Gothenburg (or, rather it subcontractors) has begun to clear the roads and the bicycle lanes of the gravel that has been lying in heaps all over. Hooray! It's spring and our première ride shouldn't be far away now!

Ride safe!

(Car) Dooring

(We borrowed this picture from melbourne cyclist. Hope that's OK!)

Today we would like to discuss a very important, and very dangerous, topic: (Car) Dooring. Yesterday we read about Alberto Paulon, an Italian chef, who died a little over a year ago, in Melbourne, Australia, after being doored.

Alberto Paulon and his fiancée at the time, Cristina Canedda. (We borrowed this picture from The Age. Hope that's OK!)

Alberto Paulon was riding his bicycle in the bicycle lane, when a motorist swung open the car door right in front of him, he hit the door, was thrown under a truck driving next to him and died lying on the street.

We have nearly been car doored a couple of times. Thankfully we haven't had any real accidents and hopefully we won't have any either. But motorists or passengers swinging their car doors open without looking is potentially life threatening, and being near that happening is enough to get your heart racing a little.

As cyclists there isn't that much we can do, without having to be sticklers for the letter of the law, or just quite annoying people. We can train our reflexes and powers of reaction. We can tell motorists that they should always check their mirrors before exiting (or look around before entering) their vehicles, if they're doing it while we're passing. And we can try to influence our politicians to spend more money on safe bicycle lanes and tell officials about dangerous places, where this phenomenon occurs or could occur. Because it really is better to be annoying than dead.

Ride safe! And spread this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMooBzAUyKY

The cyclist in this video reacts exemplary. Our reactions have included swearing, shouting and/or flipping the bird. Because we have gotten scared. (We borrowed this picture from youtube. Hope that's OK!)