Cyclist
In The Drops: Liam Gallagher’s gloves, mad shoe-socks, cool Chrome bag, To the Limit book and your next TV series
Since I’ve got you here, let’s talk the Cyclist Magazine Podcast. Because I host it with my right honourable colleagues Will and Robyn and this week we’ve had none other than Tadej Pogačar as our guest.
It turns out that Pog is every bit as lovely as he is on the telly, and our chat was every bit as interesting as you’d hope. We discussed Pogačar’s rivalry with Jonas Vingegaard, how he loves and hates wearing the yellow jersey, what he thinks of Remco Evenepoel, his race day prep, coming back from losing and his beast-level abilities.
We’ve also got a host of bangers coming up for you on the pod, with Ned Boulting up next on 3rd October, Peter Sagan on 17th October, Fabian Cancellara on 31st October and Joanna Rowsell on 14th November.
Anyway, personal trumpet tooted, I’d like to offer a few other stories that I’ve enjoyed sitting down to this week…
I’m terrible with dates, times and names, so our guide to the World Championships has been a godsend, from favourites to when and where to watch (this is the big weekend for the men’s and women’s road races). I’m also a sucker for a madly expensive bike, so our story on BMC’s new Teammachine R Mpc caught my magpies (£9,000 just for the frame anyone?), and I can’t turn down an inspiring journey that I’ll never do. Cue Nick Sanders’ latest round the world ride.
Nick has serious adventuring chops (check out our story on him and rival explorer, Nick Crane – the stuff they did in the early years was nuts), and this time around he answered the question none of us knew we needed answering: can you ride around the world on an e-bike? The answer is here, with some cool photos.
And then, some tremendously sad news. This week saw the passing of Bob Parlee, founder of Parlee Cycles, godfather of carbon fibre bikes and all round super-lovely guy.
Cycling owes a huge debt to Bob and his pioneering vision for a new type of bicycle. Without him you wouldn’t be riding what you’re probably riding now. I visited him once in Massachusetts, and it remains one of the highlights of my job. Rest in peace Mr Parlee, you will be missed.
But now, in that weird often callous-feeling way the news works, it’s on with the show…
Skinner Compression 2.0 sock shoes
Is it a sock? Is it a shoe? No! It’s… I don’t bloody know, a sooe? A shock? Skinners describes the Compression 2.0 as ‘fusing the functionality of a shoe with the comfort of a sock’, which is pretty accurate really (funny, that). They’re kind of like technical hiking socks with thin rubber soles.
The synthetic upper – made from Italian fibres no less, as these are the best fibres – feels almost like knitted wool, only it holds vastly less moisture when wet and is exceptionally stretchy, compressive even (funny, that too). The sole looks like ground-up car tyres fused together, only it’s actually made from ‘specially developed polymers’ and is highly flexible. Then inside is a very thin, removeable, lattice insole. The whole thing is antimicrobial, machine-washable and seamless.
So what are the Skinners for? Well, it’s probably easier to ask what they’re not for. They’re quite at home padding about a campsite, walking round the pub instead of in your cleats, barefoot trail-running, stomping about stony beaches, sailing, and wearing while you write reviews about them. But whatever, the general idea is these are super-robust, super-light and super-packable – they roll up like socks so you can stuff them in a bikepacking bag, kit bag or glove box in readiness for all manner of things.
- Buy Skinners Compression 2.0 sock shoes from WildBounds (£62.90)
To the Limit by Michael Crawley
I’m about two-thirds of the way through this book and I’m loving it. Michael Crawley is an anthropologist and ultrarunner – the perfect combination, one might say, to examine the meaning of endurance.
Did you know it’s considered downright antisocial to go running on your own in Ethiopia? Or that many Rarámuri, the people whose running legend spawned the barefoot craze, actually prefer to run in trainers? Crawley goes to great lengths to bring us such stories, travelling around the globe to interview endurance experts and participate in ultra-challenges himself, and the resulting book is packed full of brilliant tangential discussions, as well as answering the central theme: why do we do it?
The chapter on the Enhanced Games – a proposed Olympics-type event where doping is encouraged – is worth the ticket price alone, so too a brilliant discussion on why fitness trackers aren’t just potentially highly inaccurate, they might just be ruining fitness altogether.
- Buy To the Limit from Bloomsbury (£18.99)
Sealskinz Waterproof All Weather Ultra Grip gloves
What gloves does Liam Gallagher wear? No it’s not a joke, it’s actually these Sealskinz Ultra Grips. For real. The paps got him out walking his dog with a pair on, a dog that I’ve just learned is called Buttons and which Liam adopted from Thailand (he didn’t actually rescue it, that would have been one Niall Harbison, whom you can find on Instagram saving street dogs – maybe get one yourself).
Anyway, with £400 tickets helping Oasis gross a predicted £400 million for their reunion tour, it’s fair to say Liam could probably buy any gloves he wanted, which tells you a lot about how good these Sealskinz gloves are.
Think of the Ultras as a refined classic, building on the original ethos of a woolly-type glove with a stretchy waterproof membrane*. Refinements come in the form of a soft merino-wool inner and tougher polycolon (unfortunate name for a girl) outer. The palms and fingers are printed with a silicone pattern for grip, and the tips of the index finger and thumb are woven with touchscreen-compatible fibres.
The grip placement works great for cycling as well as holding dog leads, remaining grippy enough in the wet too, and having tried various iterations of Sealskinz gloves over the years, I’m pleased to report the fit is much improved. That is, there’s enough stretch and room to make a fist but not so much length in the fingers or material in the palm/back of hands to impede dexterity.
*20,000mm waterproof rating to be precise, which is up there with the Gore-Texs of this world. For reference, Gore-Tex is 28,000mm; anything over 15,000mm is considered ‘highly waterproof’; anything under 5,000mm is really just water-resistant; and that rating is derived by sealing off a 1-inch column of water with the intended material pulled taut, and that number in millimetres is the maximum height of the water column before water starts leaking through.
- Buy Sealskinz Waterproof All Weather Ultra Grip gloves from Sealskinz (£45)
Chrome Industries Camden 16L backpack
As Chrome bags go, the Camden almost feels ‘regular’, but for many, that’s a good thing. I’ve long been a fan of Chrome’s super-rugged backpacks (I have two on the go spanning the last 12 years, and counting) but as my partner is always telling me, they are ‘too much bag’. Now, I don’t think such a thing is possible, but I concede that they’re heavyweights in the backpack world, and that sometimes more nimble backpacks need apply. Which is where the Camden comes in.
At 16 litres this is a daypack/small-commuter-type bag, but it can still fit plenty in and in plenty comfort, thanks to lots of useful inner pockets. There’s a padded 15in laptop sleeve, internal bottle holder (which stretches up to fit a classic bike bottle), and a bunch of others for phone, wallet and pens (if you, like me, still carry a pen; if not, use it for your CBD vape). Then on the outside are three zip pockets, two large ones on the front and one smaller, soft-lined one for glasses on the top.
The whole thing is made out of recycled 400D nylon, which is lovely as it’s more eco-friendly, but also because 400D is ripstop, lightweight and natural water-resistant. The Camden will survive a decent shower. The overall weight is just over 600g, which means nothing to nobody until you think that my Chrome backpack of choice, the Bravo 4.0, weighs 1.3kg.
- Buy Chrome Industries Camden 16L backpack from Chrome Industries (£95)
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What we’re into this week… Television
Winter is drawing in, so that means sofa-sitting-series. Here are two I like and one that can do one.
Under the Banner of Heaven (Disney+) Andrew Garfield is a Mormon cop solving a grisly murder (like pretty bloody grisly, and I don’t grizzle easily). Things to like: Mormons are very interesting to me. I have also been to Salt Lake City/Utah, the home of the Mormons and where this is set, and we all love saying ‘I’ve been there’. There are also some fun, analogous timelines, a great sense of picket-fence-America weirdness, and I learnt some stuff about Mormons. Because, as I say, they are people of interest. I went to the Mormon Library in Salt Lake City and they researched my family tree for me, and I went to the Salt Lake Tabernacle church, which is sort of like their worshipping lair. So there.
The Perfect Couple (Netflix) Nicole Kidman simply hasn’t aged (her face is beguilingly youthful – she’s 57 you know) in this Agatha Christie-style whodunnit. This got loads of good press, but in truth I can’t understand why. It’s OK, you’ll end up watching it, but by the end you’ll wish you hadn’t bothered. The reveal is pants and the characters are deeply unlikeable, and not even in a fun way – you just hate them and care not for their outcomes. Bono’s daughter, Eve Hewson, is great, but you’re better off watching her as Becca in Bad Sisters (Apple TV), which is genuinely brilliant.
Kaos (Netflix) OK, so I’m only a four episodes in, but Kaos is pretty good, bordering on great. It’s the Greek myths retold in a kind of 1990s modern day, with Jeff Goldblum as Zeus, who is highly anxious he’s losing his grip on power. It’s a comedy of sorts, a bit silly in places, a bit grotesque or gory in others, but somehow it’s eminently likeable and the story is superb. Because let’s face it, these are stone-cold banger myths we’re talking about. You don’t hang around for thousands of years being retold unless you are a fantastic tale.
So there you go. Another week over. Now get to the pub.
The post In The Drops: Liam Gallagher’s gloves, mad shoe-socks, cool Chrome bag, To the Limit book and your next TV series appeared first on Cyclist.