Sunday, September 27, 2009

Monday, September 21, 2009

How not to glue a tub

Yesterday was the first round of the British National Trophy Cyclocross series, held in Budleigh Salterton in Devon; you can read a full report of what happened on the British Cycling website.
My race was pretty much over when I rolled a tub going into one of the steep banks, leaving me with a long run back to the pits. It was a shame as I had been riding in around 30th place which is actually pretty good for me.
So this week I need to go back to basics and re-gluing all my tubs. I think I went wrong by trying to keep things tidy and not using enough glue - with two thin layers on both rim and the tub I thought I'd be safe, but I wasn't. New tubs and new rims obviously need more.
Today's required reading: race.cx pro tub gluing technique, crossjunkie's tub gluing post, cyclocrossworld's features on tub gluing (part one and part two), plus of course re-reading the tub gluing section in Simon Burney's Cyclocross: Training and Techniques book. If that doesn't drum it home, I'm doomed.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Tour of Britain, London Stage

I went along yesterday to watch. It's always great to see bike racing in the city but do they really need to make the course sooo boring? It guarantees nothing will happen and you will get a bunch sprint, as happened in evey stage of this year's TOB. I think they need to cut out the huge long out-and-back along the embankment if they want the racing to be a bit more exciting.
Also, I counted 13 Police motorbike outriders, on this - completely closed road - stage. Are they just there to show off in front of the public or what? Maybe I'm just bitter that grassroots cycle sport is left to flounder with zero Police support while the elite is seen as a great marketing opportunity.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Fashion

My girlfriend Laura has just redesigned her blog and she's got a bunch of my photos on there. We did these and a few more last night for her latest post. Go check out The Things Laura Likes
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These shots are me having a play with on camera flash. I've not really used a flash on the camera very much in the past, but looking through fashion mags, it seems a pretty popular look - on camera flash against a white wall, you can't go wrong can you? I used a manual setting on the camera (1/80th, f4, 200iso I think...) and just set the flash on ETTL, although after a bit of experimenting I decided to overexpose the flash 1 and bit stops to get the wall bright white.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Building Wheels

I've got the week off work, the plan being that I'll do some training and I'll get my bikes and all my gear sorted for this weekend's opening round of the National Trophy Cyclocross series. The training part is going ok, and this afternoon I spent a few hours finishing off a pair of wheels I laced up months ago. Wheelbuilding is pretty dull, so to keep myself entertained I made this this timelapse video of the proceedings. I'm not the world's most proficient mechanic so there's about two hours of labour crammed into the 60 seconds you see here. Next job is gluing fours pairs of tubular tyres to four pairs of tubular wheels; it's going to be an exciting week...

Wheelbuilding Timelapse from Andy Waterman on Vimeo.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Holiday in Argyll, Scotland

I'm just back from a holiday in Scotland, these are some of my favourite photos from the week.

A fishing boat on Loch Long, near Ardentinny

fishingboat

Puck's Glen

pucksglen

Some old fella on the ferry, shot with the lensbaby


Loch Eck, after the rain

lockeckweb

Sunday, September 06, 2009

Scotch mist

Weather report
If anyone ever suggests to you that a training camp in Scotland, in September is a good idea, laugh them out of town.
We've been here 36 hours now, and as far as I know, it hasn't stopped raining the whole time. In fact it makes the weather forecast above, taken from Loch Fyne Fisheries, seem a little over optimistic. God knows what the rest of the week will be like, but I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of bike riding going on if it stays like this.
Here's hoping there's a lot of running involved at the Exeter round of the National Trophy cyclocross in two weeks...