London Singlespeed Society

Ever since seeing Charlie The Bike Monger wearing a tweed cycling cap at SSUK this year (pictured below, mixing mojitos), I’ve been getting the feeling that tweed is going to be very big this summer.

I’ve just come across this rather interesting website – Dashing Tweeds.  They make a selection of modern tweed garments, some aimed at the sporting lady or gentleman.  What is particularly interesting is their use of a reflective material called “Lumatwill”.  It appears to be a Teflon coated tweed with reflective thread woven into it, creating the effect shown below when a bright light shines upon it:

The suit on the right looks like a particularly stylish way to cycle to work.

SSUK has come been and gone for another year and all that remains is to attempt to remove the mud that seems to have found it’s way into every nook and cranny of London Singlespeed’s kit bag.

A fabulous time was had by all, with Drumlanrig putting on a great weekend bringing together amazing food, drink, dancing and good times. There was a fantastic ceilidh band on the Saturday which combined with copious amounts of Bruichladdich and Charlie The Bike Monger‘s countryside mojitos meant for some interesting injuries and a bit of a hangover.

The riding was tough starting off with a 50k(!) guided ride on the Saturday and with Rik‘s trails challenging the best of us for the race guided ride with numbers on the Sunday.  London Singlespeed were packing water pistols filled with vodka which was liberally dispensed, easing the pain of some of the climbs.

It’s been great to catch up with friends from SSUKs past and we look forward to seeing them all again next year or preferably before.

Our thanks go to Tom, Jules, Kenny, Singular Cycles and the rest of the organisers and helpers.

Last night London Singlespeed was lucky enough to be at the UK premier of Seasons – a new mountain biking movie by film outfit The Collective.  It was excellent and shows the art of bicycle film making is forever improving – this film has seriously raised the bar.

The film is divided into four parts, each reflecting a season of the year.  A group of top competitive professional riders are followed through the year starting with winter training, competitions over the summer and winding down by riding with mates into the autumn. It’s all top stuff – if you can get into a cinema to see it, jump at the chance.

All this has put us in the right frame of mind (we hope) for this years SSUK championship which kicks off this weekend in Dumfriesshire way up north in Scotland.

Incredible. Not only do the Japanese have the best technology and a never ending supply of pimpy bike bits, they also appear to have converted missile silos to use as off-street bike storage. Want want want.

Seemingly as proof that if you throw enough technology at a problem, some of it will stick; the BBC have an article about the winner of the James Dyson Foundation Award for Project Design who fitted accelerometers and tilt switches to a cycling jacket which are in turn connected to a set of LEDs.  

The sensors change the colour of the lights in response to the rider’s movements – the ones on the back go from green to red when braking and the ones on the arms trigger when the rider raises their arms to signal that they are turning left or right.

The video below shows the jacket in action.  Sadly it looks like it’s still got a way to go as the lights don’t seem to trigger very reliably and the main panel will be obscured by even the smallest bag – fitting the brake lights at the bottom of the rear of the jacket would have been far more sensible.

The designer, Michael Chen, is planning on selling the jacket in the UK by the end of the year.  There is no news on whether he is working on a matching pair of gloves that light up like a Christmas tree when flicking a v-sign at the SUV that just cut you up.