By I was listening to a track by the rock band, The Yidz, called Kash for Klunkers. The title of the track (marked E for Explicit by the way) appealed to me, because the term ‘Klunker’ is used to describe an iconic part of mountain biking history. More of this later
Elastomers for my ATZ Cilo
Without getting too scientific, which would push the boundaries of my own physics and chemistry knowledge quite quickly, an elastomer is a type of polymeric material that can be repeatedly stretched beyond its original length with little or no permanent deformation. It can also be compressed repeatedly and still return
Cilo Mountain bikes and bears🐻
I’m riding up a tiny, Swiss road that has 27% gradient and it keeps going up at this rate for 3 kilometres. For a couple of months of the year, it’s impassable due to snow. It’s only a very narrow road with rough tarmac and it’s not used enough for
Rapid Prototype
I think that the most exciting sounding jobs are those that are in the field of design and prototyping, which then (hopefully) realise an exciting and iconic product. In reality, most of these jobs are about failure, although with a fast learning curve. This is what I call ‘failing forward’,
The Beach. On Any Sunday.
There’s a certain sense of freedom on a beach. It’s locked like a border between the land and the powerful sea. The beach can provide tranquility, interest in washed-up sea shells, dead fish, international litter and wood that has travelled the oceans, only to be finally deposited with a smooth,
What’s for pudding Mum?……..Stone?
To the non-geologically minded like me, the big rock that my bike is leaning against in the feature photo looks like a big piece of broken concrete. It certainly looks like it is full of the usual concrete ingredients like stones, and gravel, and sand and whatever else gets thrown
It’s the best thing since sliced bread! Really?
One of the very well used sayings that was quoted when I was a kid was ‘it’s the best thing since sliced bread!’, and it was always in reference to a new innovation or product. The first automatically sliced commercial bread loaves were produced on July 6, 1928, in Chillicothe,
The Dracula ride and Friday 13th 2020
At the beginning of the year, I had decided to do a bike ride I’d often thought about, but hadn’t ever got round to doing anything about. The bike ride would be a coast ride, about 2 hours-ish in duration and would end up with a great meal with my
Punk Maskara IV – The Swiss Spring Classic race
Cast your mind back through all of the cycling events that you have ever ridden in, and then pick the best one. Why did you pick this particular one? Because you won it? Because you did it with friends? Because the weather was good and the scenery spectacular? Because you
Oh Marin!….”Where were you while we were getting high?”
When Oasis wrote the lyric back in 1996 which I’ve used in the title to this post, I’m sure it wasn’t related to a bicycle, and the 2009 Marin Rift Zone I’m referring to certainly isn’t the stellar explosion ‘Champagne Supernova’ that the song was about. Some say, rightly or
