Many people who have an interest in maintaining or building bicycles will have come across Sheldon Brown’s website. I have certainly referred to it many times obscure bike maintenance questions or to point people towards some sound, comprehensive and expert advice on how to perform a particular bit of maintenance. I have recklessly ignored his advice about Campagnolo Record track hubs though…
I was saddened to hear the other day that Sheldon passed away last weekend. According to his Wikipedia entry, it was from a heart attack.
Before I created this post claiming to coin the term exenger (to refer to ex-cycle messengers) last May, I checked Google for any prior mentions of the “word”. Apart from some results such as some German, Star Trek fan-fiction about the USS Exenger, misspellings of the word “exchanger” and expired domain name pages for exenger.com…there didn’t seem to be any results that related to cycle messengers/couriers. I’m not claiming that I am the first dude to ever think of this portmanteau…but I think I was the first to put it online.
Anyhow, I decided to do a the same search again and lo and behold, now the first four results are courier related. How about that?
Results 3 and 4 are from Bill Chidley’s Moving Target zine…a favourite blog that I recommend.
In fact, Bill has used the term exenger twice since my post according to the Moving Target blog search for “exenger”. Furthermore executing a Moving Target forum search for “exenger”, yields another 4 mentions.
Anyhow, little things amuse little minds but it tickles me no end that this seems to have happened. Maybe it will get in the Oxford English Dictionary one day??? More like the UrbanDictionary.com
Perhaps I should buy the exenger.com domain? Erm, maybe not.
Enough time wasted on this post…I’m off to cycle Mt Mattress.
“Well that’s my feat, I don’t want to diminish it/Came in third that’s a podium finish….Came in third, honourable mention/Booked my seat at the losers’ convention.”-The Fauves
Lines from “Podium Finish”, from one of my old favourites from Melbourne, The Fauves. I recommended clicking the play button on the player that I’ve embedded below to use as a soundtrack for this post. This and other b-sides are freely downloadable from their website.
Anyhow, this post is to inform you that I’ve added to my cycling palmarès in the past couple of weeks. For those of you that don’t know, a palmarès is the French term used in cycling that translates as “prize list”…so a list of wins, places and other notable results that you’ve had in past races.
I’m not that much of a cycle racer. Despite liking cycling a lot, I don’t have the dedication to train enough to race seriously. However, once in a while I enter a (semi) competitive event and have had a couple of modest successes.
This is how my palmarès (I use that term in the loosest possible sense) looked as of 2 weeks ago.
Not as impressive as it sounds. This was a short sprint held on the slightly uphill main drag of this outer suburb of Melbourne as part of a community festival.
I was pleased at this result in the CMWC, held just up the road from my old stomping ground in Calgary. I know I always bang on about this but I think that cycling 8hrs+ in constant rain (about 10° C) to qualify and then 5 hours in intermittent rain during the final is an achievement. I even finished ahead of Kevin “Squid” Bolger. It was an improvement on not qualifying for the final of the European Cycle Messenger Championships in London the previous year. At the very least, it’s a good war story to tell at the pub!
Over the past 2 weekends I’ve added a couple of distinctive results. The first of which is:
Other Results:
2007
5th 27 May. Gran Fondo Cymru (Sporting Route). Bala, Gwynedd, Wales.
Gran Fondo Cymru 2007
This event was held in Snowdonia National Park in Wales and last year, Gerard and I participated in the inaugural edition of this cyclosportive as detailed in the posts “A Hill too Far” and “To Ride or to Puke”.
In 2006, we did the 180 km/110 mile Gran Fondo route, but this year a variety of factors (not least laziness) meant that we were both under-trained for that distance…not to mention the Welsh hills! Therefore, we decided that the 60 km/40 mile route was the go, seeing as we’d already shelled out £25 to enter and also paid for accommodation.
Although this felt like a bit of a cop out for a while, the nearer the date of the event, the more it seemed like this decision didn’t seem such a bad thing when we saw the weather forecasts. The whole weekend was forecast to be one huge downpour with max. temperatures fluctuating between 1° C and 10° C, depending on when the Bala metcheck.com page was reloaded.
The profile you see above is downloaded from Gerard’s GPS unit and you can see that even though the distance was only 60-70 odd kilometres, there were still some hills to be reckoned with.
The first half of the route was into a stiff wind…at its worst maybe 30mph. Also, the spikes in the second half of the ride were pretty draining, exacerbated by the incessant precipitation and the cold conditions…probably about 3° C before windchill on average. I recovered quickly enough to have a strong run in the last 10km back into Bala to clock a time of 2hr 42min 54sec, placing me just off the “podium” in 5th. The caveat here is that all the super strong cyclists were all busting their butts on the 110mile Gran Fondo route and the 125 mile Super Challenge but not bad nevertheless. 5th out of 68 finishers, according to the official results sheet (85-ish starters).
Doing a 3 hour ride instead of an 8+ hour one had other advantages apart from spending less time in the freezing Welsh weather. It also meant that I wasn’t completely knackered like I was in 2006 and was able to enjoy my afternoon and evening more this year. The trip back to Oxford via Port Meirion was also quite pleasant…the sun came out!
However, I promise to train earlier and more frequently for next year’s GFC!!
Stay tuned for my account of extending my palmarès further by getting on the “podium” of last Friday’s Oxford Bingo Alleycat!
Hi I’m Ed the exenger — Photo by the inimitable Andy White @ fyxomatosis
“From short pants to cool hats and bags big enough to hold a filing cabinet, bike messengers everywhere have a unique style. Riding a bike through the crowded streets of any city requires a wardrobe of practicality and freshness that clearly distinguishes couriers from geared-up roadies.” pedalpushersonline.com
My recent post about the recent Oxford HGV death that” linked to Moving Target “the world’s most useless messenger zine” gained me a link in its sidebar (thanks Bill), making my pageviews spike upwards dramatically. This made me pretty happy as Moving Target is a site that I regularly read.
Now my post has fallen off the end of Moving Target’s homepage linkroll and my millions of page views are now back down to the usual tens of thousands only. So, I thought I’d attempt some blatant traffic driving and discuss the rising popularity of the fixed gear bicycle and the concept of the fakenger/posenger/ex-enger…inspired by the fact that the fakenger article on MT is its most popular apparently, so I thought I’d sell out. I can’t wait to see my Google Analytics stats go psycho!…or not.
Here is the Urban Dictionary’s definition of fakenger and posenger.
I admit it, I am a posenger (exenger). I once worked as a courier and it was one of the best times of my life. However, I haven’t delivered a package since 2001 but I’m dressing more like a “courier” now than I did when I was actually picking and dropping. Also, in 2003 almost two years after hanging up my pager, I obtained a fixed wheel/gear bike which is in direct contrast to the courier ghetto bike that I used when I was on the job.
I thought I’d attempt to coin my own term for it though, exenger… ex-Messenger…to try and differentiate myself from the hipster masses. Whaddaya reckon?
Associated with the fakenger/posenger meme is the rise of the fixed gear (or fixed wheel) bicycle AKA fixie. I’ve noticed quite a lot of internet talk about the fixed gear bike trend/craze/fad. I’ve also noticed that there are definitely quite a few more fixed gear riders on the streets of Oxford than in previous years, which I guess isn’t surprising given the coverage in publications such as Cycling Plus and also the influx of students from the USA now that term has started and the weather has improved.
I did a search on Technorati the other day and discovered that there was a big spread in the New York times last Sunday about fixed gear/wheel bicycles. Does this mean, as Iconic’s blog suggests that riding a bike with a fixed wheel has jumped the shark?
Couriers and the accoutrements of the profession have long percolated into popular culture viz. Crumpler (and other brand) courier bags becoming ubiquitous, Kevin Bacon’s Quicksilver movie and numerous articles about “urban assault riders” with “kamikaze, counter-culture” lifestyles being examples.
So, couriers have long had cred and cachet but now it’s become a damn sight easier to obtain the paraphernalia. Anyone can walk into their local Specialized dealer and buy a Langster fixie for £399/$600 or a Kona Paddy Wagon (£450) to get that special Zen, courier feeling…notwithstanding the fact that a lot of couriers don’t even ride fixed bikes. There are also an abundance of courier (shoulder) bag makers on the Web that will ship their wares to any location to help you complete “the look“
My take (probably not surprisingly) on it is that I think it’s fine to mimic the courier thing…one less car and all that. However, in a bid to big myself up…with only a little digging it’s possible to discern the exengers (like me) from the fakengers who have never been a working courier. In your face fakengers…vive l’exengeur!!
Despite all that, the messenger “look” is a darn sight better than golf chic being the new punk, in my opinion…and as Iconic says:
“if, in a year, fixies are no longer hip…well, enjoy the great prices on cool bike gear.”
I might have more to say on the matter later but that’s all for now. Time to ski Mt Mattress.
If you’ve delved into the eclecticism of this blog at any point, you’ll know that I quite like cycling.
Here are some facts that you may or may not know about me and cycling:
My first bicycle was a little, yellow Star Flyer that I had in New Zealand. It had stabilizers/training wheels for a while. The coolest thing about it was the AM radio on the bars and the grip that made a motorbike noise when you twisted it.
I won a little, local race called the Montmorency Hill Climb in the year 2000 in Australia. This isn’t quite as impressive as it might sound but it’s still an achievement.
I was a cycle messenger/courier in Calgary for a spell in 2001. It was only for 9 months, so I’m still technically still a rookie.
Being a cycle courier was an awesome job which changed my life…I thought I was into cycling before 2001 but it was nothing compared to after couriering in Calgary.
I thought about working in London when I arrived in the UK but decided against it.
I competed in the European Cycle Messenger Championships in London in 2003.
I was 23rd in the 2004 Cycle Messenger World Championships in Edmonton.
I have three bikes at the moment. They all have names.
One of the tenets of my life that I try to abide by is, “An International Man of Bike shall never be anchored by the mundane”. It’s debatable as to whether blogging about it automatically nullifies that statement or not.
In point 3 I mentioned that I am technically still a rookie. Here’s a video of someone who is definitely a “vet”. Kevin Bolger, New York City’s most famous messenger….
AKA – Visiting the Burge-McCrackens and cycling 185km (115 miles) in a day.
Above – Part 1, Distance: 67.0 km. Total Ascent: 1000 m
Above – Part 2, Distance: 52.0 km. Total Ascent: 950 m
Above – Part 3, Distance: 65.0 km. Total Ascent: 975 m
Damon and I signed up for the Highclere Castle Cyclosportive – South Downs Challenge that was held on 20 August. The route profile can be seen above (taken from the official site) and you can view a map of the route too. The loop started and finished at Highclere Castle in Berkshire. The castle is the pile of the 3rd Earl of Carnarvon who keeps the pantry supplied with beluga caviar and the woods stocked with pheasants by hiring out the castle for the weddings of Premiership footballers, pop starlets and glamour models.
A party the weekend before (see previous post) probably wasn’t the best preparation for a 185km bike ride but we’d been on a 100 miler to Cheltenham and back to Oxford the weekend before, so that would have to do.
It gave me a chance to go and visit Seb Burge and the rest of the Burge-McCracken clan; Lizzy, Dylan and Toby as they live only a 15 ride from Highclere Castle. It was enjoyable to catch up with Seb who I know from Melbourne and who works at the same company as I do in Oxford. In fact, Seb introduced me to Kate, as he knew her via mutual friend Ben (another Melburnian). Ben had shared a house with Seb and he’d also worked with Kate at one point.
Above – Seb and Toby
Damon, Dylan, Seb and I played a bit of frisbee and Aussie Rules footy on the village cricket ground and later grabbed an Indian takeaway (I had a Lamb Biryani) before getting an early night so as to get an early start for the ride.
Damon and I had perfect timing by inadvertantly jumping the queue because we cycled to the start line through the side entrance, reaching the start line about 30 secs before the first group was allowed to start. We joined that group, allowing some cheetahs to launch immediately off the front. We were generally content to tag along in the group, trying to avoid the slippery parts of road surface caused by heavy rain the day before. At one point, a cyclist at the head of our bunch hit just such a damp patch of road around a corner and hit the deck quite hard. He seemed more worried about the bike though, so was probably OK in general. We held onto the quite fast moving group quite well until Damon got a puncture not too long before the first food station at Petersfield, having made quite good time in the first 62km, despite stopping 15 minutes for the puncture.
I felt quite good on the next 53km leg to Mottisfont Abbey, saving time by bypassing the water stop near Winchester. We averaged just under 26kph for this bit but not being in a group had sapped my strength a bit.
The next 30km really kicked my butt though because even though it was reasonably flat, I had a recurrence of my belching/stomach problem that I had on the Gran Fondo Cymru. This caused my pace to slow considerably and the bit circling the SE of Andover was a bit crap. Thankfully having learnt that Barney Gumble style belches would improve my condition, I was able to recover for the final sting in the tail; the ascents of Inkpen Beacon and Walbury Hill in the last 25km. This improvement in form meant that rather than the demoralising feeling of being overtaken, I was able to catch up to a few cyclists who had passed me during my bad patch. There was even one point where a dude tried to overtake me on Inkpen Beacon but I was able to hold onto his wheel, pass him and then burn him off…this felt good.
Damon was going even better than I was, so after the last water station, he took off and finished at the Castle about 5 minutes ahead of me. I figured that I averaged 25kph in the last third of the ride, despite the bad patch and the hills. A slight annoyance was that for some reason my timing chip didn’t register, so I don’t show up on the official results list. However, I was able to work out my times based upon Damon’s. The fastest rider finished about 2hrs faster than we did!
After devouring a burger and some pasta at the finish line, we headed the 6km back to Seb’s to get our bags and then the extra 6-7 km to Newbury’s train station. The next day (Monday), it felt like a dwarf had been punching my thighs the whole weekend and the commute to work was done at a crawl but by Tuesday, my legs felt like TREETRUNKS!
The end to another Damon and Ed cycling adventure.
Here’s my slightly belated account of our sporting challenge on 29 May.
Gran Fondo = “Great Ride” in Italian
Cymru = “Wales” in Welsh
“To ride or to puke?” was the subject line of Damon’s email to me a couple of days before we were due to participate in a 180km / 110 mile bike ride in the hills of Snowdonia, North Wales as first described here. He was desparately trying to recover from illness in time to be able to do the ride.
To his credit, Damon didn’t bail and although he didn’t feel well enough to do the 180km Gran fondo route, he completed the 65km Sporting route in a really good time for someone not in top form .
We (Kate, G, D and I) set off from Oxford the day before the GFC for the 170 mile drive to Bala in Wales and stayed at the Bala Backpackers which was cheap, clean, central and quiet enough to get a decent kip.
In training, the furthest I had done was 165km (my first 100 mile day) which partly included a 100km event organised by Audax UK the long distance cycling association. Also threw in a few 120km and 100km rides in, trying to find all of the hills in the vicinity of Oxford. A favourite loop of 80km is captured in this blog post. Another favourite is the 50km loop to Brill in Buckinghamshire as visualised here.
We three set off from the Leisure Centre in Bala and immediately hit an incline on the way out of town. For the first hour or so we caught the wheels of some fast groups including one with several members of the Reading Cycling Club. Soon enough, Gerard and I bade farewell to Damon who continued on the Sporting (65km) route.
At the first food stop, the amount of pasta consumed in the previous 2 days seemed to catch up with me and the urge to find the “facilities” became an imperitive…so much so that I didn’t realise that I was using the ladies’ section of the toilet block!
Anyhow, Gerard and I continued north-west towards the coast, climbing the Llanberis Pass into a killer head wind. We unfortunately didn’t have the benefit of drafting a group of other riders until the last bit of the long, exposed drag from Betws y Coed to the Llanberis climb. I stopped to take a photo of Gerard approaching the top of the hill at Pen y Pass and got engaged in conversation about cycling with a Czech tourist…”I used to have a bike almost as good as the pros, but that was about 20 years ago”.
The headwind buffeted us all the way to Caernarfon, where there was a timing point at the castle. We then headed back inland and benefitted from a tailwind for most of the trip back to Bala. The toughest hills were yet to come, however.
As the road rose upwards, I didn’t feel too bad and was able to pass most of the cyclists that began the longer and steeper climbs with me. Unfortunately, I felt like complete crap at the top of the killer hill that led to the second food stop and spent a very uncomfortable time feeling like throwing up. I couldn’t eat anything and almost couldn’t even choke any water down…not good on such an endeavour. I decided to press on but about 1km out of town, I had to climb off the bike again…contemplating having a big spew.
“Who’s dumb idea was this anyway?” Oh yeh, that would have been me.
After 5 or 10 minutes by the roadside I emmitted 2 gigantic belches and that seemed to do the trick. We pressed on and in contrast to other reports I’ve read, the last 30-40km, which included some fantastic climbing up a single-track road with 15 percent gradient descents, felt like a relative doddle. After I’d descended to Llanuwchllyn and hit the southern end of Lake Bala, I finished the last 10km strongly.
Even though I haven’t done all that much cycling since then, it’s whet my appetite for more…Damon, Gerard and I are planning some more long distance cycling for the remainder of the summer!
Potentially few blog posts over the next couple of weeks as Kate and I are headed off to the Western Isles of Scotland for a couple of weeks this Saturday.
In my last entry, I mentioned that my cycling form is pretty good. The reason for that is that I’ve been training for the Gran Fondo Cymru, on 28 May. This one day bike ride is modelled after the European Gran Fondi (in Italian) or Cyclosportives (in French). The most famous of these being L’Etape du Tour where amateurs get a chance to ride the route of one of the stages of the Tour de France. This type of ride isn’t really a race (although you do get an electronic timing chip), they are more of a sporting challenge.
The Gran Fondo Cymru is being held in hilly North Wales, in the Snowdonia National Park. The route profile above shows you that there’s some tough climbs (3575m of climbing) along the 173km/108 mile route.
I’ve been training with Damon and Gerard who are also doing the ride with me. The longest ride so far…165km/100 miles in the Cotswold hills, north of Oxford. I also went out with the Oxford Triathlon club last Sunday with a colleague at work who is an Ironman triathlete.
Anyhow, the Cotswolds while a bit bumpy are not a patch on Snowdonia (named after the highest peak in Wales, Mt Snowdon)…so wish us luck, I think it’s gonna be hard!
As the Gran Fondo Cymru site says:
“There is little doubt you will know you have done it and can leave your dancing shoes at home for another occasion.”
Above – Me in the Main Race final of the 2004 Cycle Messenger World Championships…I finished 23rd.
