Terrific tarmac

There has been a slight shortage of snow here in Chamonix recently. At first I found this quite depressing. But then I remembered my bikes. Now I enjoy skiing, but I didn't realise how much I loved cycling until I went a month without riding a bike and then finally got back in the saddle. Awe. Some.
And in honour of that feeling, of the wind touching the back of my neck, of the rhythmic swoosh of the pedals, of the 'jesus it's gonna wash out' fear when I take a corner too fast, I've made a list of my top five pieces of tarmac.

1) Farringdon Street to Blackfriars Bridge, London, UK

OK so Farringdon street is a mess - the tarmac is pish. But the corner which sweeps you onto Blackfriars bridge from the traffic lights is fantastic. First it bends left and you get pushed up against the hoarding. Then you crank your legs, overtake the 'style over speeders' on the outside; a cab is close on your right as you swing back round to the right before the pristine tarmac pings you back left. There's a traffic light halfway through this motion where some people stop as they think it's for those going straight on but it's not, so you keep your speed and end up hooning it onto the bridge with a velocity that is easy to maintain right up to the apex. Supreme fun.

2) Servoz to Lac du Passy on the Route de Servoz, Haute Savoie, France

This is one of those brilliant descents which descends slowly so you need to keep pumping the pedals and the result is you feel like you are flying. The corners are mellow so you can get really low on the drops, knee out and take them at speed. It begins on an undulating woodland road then stretches out into a yawning race down to the plain of Sallanches, the Mont Blanc Massif leering at your back. The climb back up is also great - can be taken at a much higher speed than your typical Alpine ride so makes you feel like you are made of steel.

3) The D1212 from Flumet to Megeve, Haute Savoie, France
I ride this on the way back to Chamonix from the Col d'Aravis. You're slightly tired. It's been a long day. The road winds gradually uphill. Then when you get to the public toilets on your left it flattens out ever so slightly. Suddenly the bit is between your teeth again. You thought you were tired. Turns out you just weren't trying hard enough. So you push into a harder gear and start to move faster. By the time you hit the final right hand bend and come over the bridge into Megeve you feel like a freakin champion. And you've left the rest of the gang for dust because they were pacing themselves for the long ride back into Cham. Sweet, if temporary, victory.

4) Highway 12 from Lolo Pass to Kooskia, Montana to Idaho, USA

There is tarmac made for riding and there is tarmac made for living. Highway 12 is the latter. Creeping through the Clearwater National Forest it will bring you back to your senses in a way no other road can. You are encased by trees and traffic is pretty light leaving you free to smell the air, feel the coolness of the natural canopy and hear the sound of rushing water always to your left. Oh my stars it's an amazing road. I could ride this every day for the rest of my life and never feel like I was missing out on anything.

5) St Jean du Bruel to Treve, Auvergne, France
What I love about cycling in the Auvergne is that the region is bloody amazing for bike riding, yet the only people who seem to know this are 80-year-old French men in yellow and purple lycra. This piece of tarmac is 14km uphill - smooth, hairpin and muggy, through thickly carpeted hillside where the view is impossible to see. Then you get to the top, ride flat for a bit then take a left turning. Wow. The road drops away, seeming to carve out a path in the land as the ground opens up into a big chasm. The view from here on in is immenses - steep, jagged rockside that takes on a deep historic feel almost like as you ride you are chasing the centuries back. When you get to Treve you can have a dip in the river before the rest of the loop back to St Jean. The whole ride will see you crank out about 40km - so not long but you'll feel like you've seen all the world has to offer.

6) The bit under my wheels

Being without my road bike for a bit has made me realise that my favourite bit of tarmac is the bit that I'm riding. At any point. In any condition. God I love my bike.

Where's yours?

Nice new website

No not mine. But I just came across this one: www.jab-ride.co.uk about all things mountain bike down in the South East. Blah, blah the south isn't all there is to England and London isn't the only place in the world I know, I know, I get it. But the lads behind this seem pretty passionate about bikes. Plus they tweeted this pic of the new pump track at Esher Shore due to open in April, so they're worth bigging up in my book.

Run Rabbit, run

Me in Chamonix. Photo: Tom Humpage


I went out with my sister last night and we weren't on the bikes. God no. The last time she got on a bike was when I hauled her sorry ass over the Golden Gate Bridge on a tandem. So we went out and we got to talking and we both agreed that it's taken a while but we can no longer avoid the crushing realisation that: This. Is. It. This is it. You can hum the Strokes here, I find it helps. And this realisation reminded me of a sentence from Updike's Rabbit which has literally been on my mind for years. I paraphrase of course, but it's something like: 'somehow overnight I had morphed from being someone who had so much potential, into someone who could have been so good.' We decided, over our second bottle of Pinot Grigio (natch) that the morphing had indeed taken place. No matter, we both still had our health and wrinkled youth, besides what's the future when you have chilled white wine?

But as I ploughed into work this morning, a sole cool-clad cyclist in a sea of day-glo and bad, bad footwear, I got cataclysmically panicked. Agreed the hangover wasn't helping but let's just focus here people, yeah? Jesus I thought, I've missed the boat. I didn't even know where it was going, but it's gone. Look at all these people pedalling so fast on squeaking chains, flashing lights clinging to every orrifice, they're still racing to catch the boat – they can still see it. Me – I'm sat on the harbour wall with a big bag of chips, tenderly groping my extra fat wondering if it's worth trying to swim. Nah.

Back in the day before I morphed, cycling for me was amazing. It was challenging, every route a personal triumph. My road riding took me across America and through the Alps, opened up the landscape and a side of me that relished in the present and enjoyed overcoming obstacles. Mountain biking used to be about beers and berms, rock music and the closest thing I could find to mad, off-piste skiing. Even commuting was a great way to start and end a day, a chilled ride through one of the greatest cities on earth.

And I'm sorry to be depressed about it, because all the blogs I read are really upbeat all the time about bikes. And I'm still stoked on bikes and I think the chicks are amazing – 2010 is a wicked year for MTB for sure. But it's getting really boring have some over weight bloke get pissed off when I pass him on the way to work, and then try and sandbag me the rest of the way to Farringdon. It's quite sad the way the industry is so cliquey. It's frustrating the way mainstream journalism can't get its head around using experts to write their bike information; and it's so demoralising when it seems like everyone is so caught up outdoing each other with all the bollocks that they forget everyone is free to ride a bike however they like.

My mate Mark who runs GPM10 and re-inspires me every summer when I ride with him in Chamonix, says it's all just a load of bollocks and if you hang out in Cham with proper cyclists you rise above all that stuff. So maybe it's time to make the move. Plus he's like 46 or whatever, so has done a lot more morphing than me.

In the meantime I watched this montage of the TransAmerica trail from a blog on Adventure Cycling's website. I did this route in 2006, on my own. Wicked. I hope it's not the best thing I've ever done on a bike, but it feels like that today.

The Times wades in

Good article in The Times about cycling in the city following the news that a cyclist who killed a pedestrian received only a £2,000 fine, which gave everyone the chance to say how awful bike users are.

This piece is quite balanced and publicises the pretty dire statistic that 136 cyclists died on Britain's roads last year.