brian - December 2005

despite the weather, work still continues on the bruichladdich pier 'improvement' to accommodate shell's bigger boats.

doesn't actually look as bad (or as big) as i thought it was going to. still, plenty of time for things to get worse.

there you go. just a few days after recommending different bicycle books, the bike talk podcast from davis county, california, devotes a whole thirty minutes to the subject.

must be a west coast thing.

quick plug for my own website thewashingmachinepost

cycling plus magazine has made it their website of the month for december. almost makes up for getting well and truly soaked on yesterday's severely curtailed bike ride.

not that it's much help to the pixels, because i didn't have a camera with me this morning, but what a startlingly beautiful morning over islay. clear blue skies tinged with pink in the east as the sun came up.

just telling you this because the weather forecast for the week had lots of clouds in it.

nothing to with islay, but everything to do with cycling, one of the sport's greatest climbers and tour de france and giro d'italia winner charly gaul died in hospital on Tuesday.

sad day.

read more here

would you believe it? went out this afternoon for a quick pedal.

dry in bowmore, raining in port ellen.

the dangers of stuff on the road.

one of our intrepid crew managed to hit a water-filled bottle at the side of the road yesterday, fell off and broke his collar bone. and he'd only cycled four miles.

so keep at least one eye on the road when you're out and about - there's more than just potholes out there.

well, however pointless it may have seemed, four of us braved high winds and, at times, driving rain, for a pedal around the principality before retiring to the croft kitchen in port charlotte for coffee and mince pies.

brownie points to all who took part and major thanks to ish and jane at the ck for mince pies.

another ride on new year's day for anyone interested.

having looked at the colnago after sunday's mince pie ride, i could probably have received an agricultural grant.

if you're out and about on the bike this month, particularly in the uk, scrub it within an inch of its life when you get back home - or as soon as possible after.

you know it makes sense, and the bike will love you forever more.

the car can stay dirty:-)

for those of you hoping (or even expecting) a bicycle for christmas, just remember that you have to cycle it for at least two hours on christmas day and a further two hours on boxing day, just to make sure it's run in properly before the new year. (though i might just be making that up...)

and if you don't get a bike for christmas, my sincere commiserations

something i almost never get the opportunity to do - go out cycling for five consecutive days. usually work or weather conspire to prevent this happening, but so far this has been a good holiday from a cycling point of view.

as of today (when i'm back in the office for a few hours) i've managed over 200 kilometres.

and there's still more holidays to go:-)

btw congrats to tony and phil