For a British rider, racing the Tour of Britain is always great. There is a familiarity, an ease almost, you get when racing at home that you just can’t find anywhere else, no matter how well, or how far you go to adopt another country as your homeland.

Growing up in the UK as a racing cyclist, until very recently, meant that from an early age all eyes had to be focused on other countries. The races here meant nothing. Europe was where the teams were, it was where the riders were, and it was where the races all happened. Your whole concept of racing bikes was based on a European dream. It might well have been a dream that you loved, but it is one that you could never know as well as the people who really truly belonged there.

The real difference was that the European guys don’t start by seeing the roads of the Tour of Flanders or the Tour of Lombardy as part of a race; they start by seeing them as a route to school, or the best way to a friend’s house. Those races, the roads and the landscape are simply part of those riders.

For the British rider racing abroad, those places couldn’t exist without cycling; you’d arrive on a foreign shore and see the world through the eyes of a bike rider and you can only ever understand so much when you only have one angle to look from.

It gives the home riders, the Europeans who own the rights to all the really big races, an advantage that no amount of wind tunnels can replicate, and no amount of GPS files can account for. It allows them to understand the area they are racing in so intrinsically that they always have the upper hand.

The same is true for the British riders when the pro peloton comes to them. The tables are turned at the Tour of Britain, and it makes for one occasion in the year when you really feel at home, and you start to see things the way the Italians do at the Giro, or the French do at the Tour.

It’s not just where the road is going to go, or when climbs might arrive. It is knowing that the weather is about to change, or that there will be parked cars in the next town. It is about knowing how heavy the road surface in the country is, and how hard you can hit it. It is about understanding Dartmoor and how tight a squeeze it’ll be through the lanes of Devon or Somerset. It’s about knowing where the topof Haytor is…

You understand your roads like no one else because you’ve lived on them. Every road sign, every mile marker, and each painted line – all markings that make clear and perfect sense.

And yet it goes further still, a bike race isn’t just about the four hours of the day you spend racing from one line to the next. It also includes the logistics of getting from one place to another, eating dinner, finding your way around another hotel, and getting some rest.

Knowing where you are, knowing that you don’t have to think twice when you check in, or go to ask how the Wi-Fi works, nor not having to worry about the roaming charges on your mobile phone, makes the whole thing so much easier.

There are the fans too. The fans here are your friends, people you know and who know you. Having a few people from your club come to the start to wish you luck is a thousand times better than the experience of having a demanding autograph hunter thrust six pictures of you in your face and saying “SIGN!”

I used to think that being a British rider at the Tour of Britain was like having the party at your house instead of going to a party at friends: You could enjoy the plaudits for being the host. But it’s not; it is better than that, because when the party is at your place you always have that worry that someone is defacing a painting, or defecating in the garden.

There is none of that stress when the Tour comes to your country. There is no worry that the place will get trashed, because fortunately you know that someone else has it all in hand, and you can just enjoy the rare privilege of racing at home.

Tom Southam

It's been a month now since we launched the #MamnickChallenge incentive and I've been overwhelmed by the response via both both social media and emails, people sharing their photos and stories both on and off the bike. 

Since the domestic cycling season is almost over and the regional Hill Climbs start, here's a fitting piece that Melanie Armstrong sent me regarding her own challenge.

Rather you than me Mel! 

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July 2013 marked my third year of cycling. Each year I have tried to set a goal / challenge of some sort and this year I thought I would enter some hill climb time trials.

Last Sunday saw me trying the first of the year, long hill 4.4 miles with a steady average gradient of 3.3%.

As Dan and I set off, I could not help but question all my training, had it been enough? Had I really put the effort in every session? No backing out now, there was no point wondering, just be in the moment.

On arrival I suddenly felt intimidated, findingmyself in a sea of top end, stupidly expensive carbon bikes, with Zipp wheels as standard.

My aluminium frame appeared heavy and cumbersome in contrast to their plastic fantastic steeds.

After checking over Tracey (my bike) it was warm up time. This is a critical part of any TT and the car park was a buzz with the sound of rollers and turbo trainers kicking into life. Riders were generally sporting overly large head phones, lost in their own world of power ballads.

I opted for a 5 minute ride round the streets, but found all the nervous energy had left me feeling ravenous. Heading back to the car park I sat in the car eating a cheese sandwich with my legs dangling in the sunshine; not sure this constitutes as a professional warm-up but it did the trick for me.

Before I knew it my time had come. The moment I had feared the most was before me, the dreaded clipped in track start. As I lifted my foot of the ground I panicked, wobbled, but I need not have feared because the marshal was great.

Off I went, there may have been some great views but I could not see them. All my awareness was focused on the two metres of tarmac in front of me. The only noise was my heavy laboured breathing, with little thought other than ‘keep a good pace don’t blow up.’

Just as my heart was bursting, my lungs aching and a rising panic that this hill was never going to end, the finish came into view (thank Christ). Up a couple of gears and kick for the line and that was it, my first hill climb was over. My emotions change to elation with a feeling of being punched solidly in the chest….. Bring on the next hill climb.

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Thanks Mel.

If you'd like to share with me your #MamnickChallenge, just drop me an email. 

thom@mamnick.com

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The Mamnick Challenge is now in full swing with people getting out there sharing their experiences and finds with me.  

I wanted to do my own challenge to commemorate the launch of the #MamnickChallenge and so last week I set off with Mark and Des to complete a 100 mile tour of the Peak District. I've done some long rides this year but have fallen just shy of 100 miles, so that was the aim. I also wanted to do 10,000 ft of Peak District climbing in a single ride. Riding the back wacks in the Peak District means a fair amount of climbing and in my experience that means for every ten miles you cover, you can expect to climb 1,000 ft. Which means a 100 mile ride should involve 10,000ft of climbing. Just to be sure, we set off at 7.30am and headed north-west towards the steeper climbs of the Dark Peak.

We stopped for breakfast in Holme Firth before we started the ascent of Holme Moss, a climb that the Tour de France will visit in 2014. It's cracking climb with a challenging gradient that is also wide open, leaving you exposed to wind. Once we reached the car-park at the top, there is a cracking descent down onto Woodhead pass. We crossed the pass and rode onto the B6105, another cracking road that winds
it's way over to Glossop. There are some great view from here looking down onto the Torside, Rhodeswood and Valehouse Reservoirs and you can see Oldham and Manchester in the distance.

After another quick descent into Glossop we then climbed Chunal, dropped into Hayfield and took turns on the front pushing our way over to Newtown and into Whaley Bridge. Here we refueled with a can of Coke and I popped some flapjack in my pocked just incase I came unstuck when we arrived in the Goyt Valley. We headed into the Valley by taking the broken road at Fernilee that runs next to the Fernilee Reservoir opposite Nook Wood. It's not the most pleasant road but it's nice to mix it up rather than riding tarmac all day and beside, it's less of a climb rather than dropping in from Embridge Causeway, which is a blinder of a descent, but the last time I did that climb up to it I was so tired it took the enjoyment of the Goyt Valley scenes away
and with another 50 miles left to ride we took the easier/rough-stuff option just to be cautious.

After deciding to miss out Longnor we left Goyt Valley heading on over to Earl Sterndale and through Crowdecote, we then threw on an extra-loop heading further south on the road to Sheen, which looked like it had a population of 10 people. This ride lead us all the way back down into Harrington. From here the ride started taking us back north, past the Tissington trail and towards Monyash.

So far we had visited 4 counties; Yorkshire, Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire and I was feeling surprisingly fresh upon reaching Great Longstone Edge so I pushed on up, which was probably a mistake as there was another 20 miles left to ride home and this took a bit out of my legs.

I was confident we would have ridden 100 miles before we returned to Sheffield but just to be sure, we missed the gliding club over Abney (the one through Grindow) and headed into Hope valley onto the flatter, longer road that takes you up to Hathersage. Upon arriving there and getting some fruit, the mileage was at 98.9 miles and I know for a fact that it's another 12 miles to Sheffield. It felt good knowing we'd made it, but had we done enough to have climbed the 10,000 feet we we're hoping for?  

I crawled up Surprise view out of Hathersage and up to Fox House my legs started to come back. I had a second wind after descending onto Abbeydale road on the home-straight and even managed to sprint for the 40-30 sign with Mark only slight beating me (as usual). The sun was still shining down at 5pm. It was a warm evening which helped compliment the occasion.  

We returned home and I ended my ride. I'd been in the saddle 7 hours and 20 mins. I had ridden 108.1 miles. We had climbed 10,104 feet and I then proceeded to put some of the 5,000 calories I'd burnt back into my system. Needless to say, tomorrow I would be resting.

Bill Strickland is a writer and since discovering him, I've found his perspective on all things bike related to be both refreshing and inspiring. When Bill agreed to take on the Mamnick 'Quiz', I jumped at the chance to send over the questions.

Which are your favourite stretches of road to ride on locally and what is it that you like about them?

Favored roads flower for me new every year, fade away, return, pass, return again in new combinations with others, and sometimes a battered road gets fresh black pavement and I — we, really — ride and ride and ride it so often we notice the day the finish becomes porous and starts absorbing water again and we know, then, because we have been given to know by so many seasons of riding these roads, that in a year the crumbling will begin. Sometimes I ride a street backward to custom, and damn if there is not almost always the revelation of a house I have never seen or forgot ever seeing, or a dog cocks its head at me as if I were a distant relative rather than the cyclist he chased the length of his lawn just yesterday, or I see the creek appear from under the road rather than vanish into it, and all of this seems important to who I am and why I ride. I could not ever say why, but there it is. But I have a favorite, a route we call Powder Valley because in its central section it dips down into and through a rift in the land that gives it its name, on a winding and dark cool road with a sprint sign at its exit and, beyond that, in the sun, a choice of gravel roads and dirt climbs, and a great old cemetery, and the farm on the corner of the next part where years ago we came upon a fat strong old farmer in overalls weeping because his sheep had been killed in the night, then a rolling rolling road that sits full in the sun steaming where it straightens out and heads straight up in an awful grind that has cracked every one of us who has ever ridden it, then a descent as gradual and long and, if you stay on the pedals, as fast as the climb is awful, right past a baseball stadium with a wooden fence and a 485-foot centerfield and a beagle buried under third base, and just past that the worst and most fun climb of the whole route. There is nothing much to the ride, really. There is for me mostly the intimacy I have with it, the feelings it has given me, the states of being it has put me into and pulled me from. I have tried to write about it a few times. One day I’ll get there.

 The same question for roads anywhere in the world?

I guess I tell people the Tourmalet is my favorite climb, but that is only because I got frites once at the top in one of those moments when whatever food you ate would be the best food you had ever had, and because once I actually put a folded gazzetta down the front of my jersey, and because once I climbed it in fog, and because once I descended in what I still think might have been my most frigid day on a bicycle, and because I rode it bad and good but never in between. But I had more fun on Hautacam. But when I climbed the Kapelmuur in the shadow of the cross of the church at the top, to keep traction we bowed our heads over the steepness of cobbled hill like penitents. But, I mean: the Arenberg. But there are others, many others, and for reasons I reckon I will never know there is no favorite in the sense that there is no road I would trade Powder Valley for. I hope for other riders the same someday.

 What is your most memorable moment on the bike or involved with cycling?

I am going to cheat here, because I did a lot of hard work once trying to explain something so inexplicable. I said:

I have climbed and descended the Tourmalet in fog and freezing rain, switchbacked up Alpe d’Huez, climbed Luz Ardiden as the Pyreneean sun melted the tar. I have been blown sideways on the exposed stretch of Ventoux where Tom Simpson died. I have ridden cobbles with Johan Museeuw, and bumped shoulders with Eddy Merckx as we spun along European lanes. By bicycle, I’ve delivered medicine to the sick and dying with doctors in Mozambique, where no truck or car could go. I have experienced so many life-changing moments on so many great rides that I cannot assemble a list of them with any sort of sensible ranking.

But the greatest moment of my cycling life happened in what was probably a single second, just a few miles from home, on a road I ride nearly every day, in an instant my daughter, now 13, says she no longer remembers but that comes to me at unexpected times as a sound that repeats itself until it becomes a hymn, a hosanna, a tactile sensation that suffuses all that I am.

It is from a story I wanted to call “Whooooooom” but which ended up just being titled “Whoom” (and which you can read here: http://billstrickland.wordpress.com/short-nonfiction/whoom/).

Do you agree with Mickey Goldmill's advice to Rocky that 'women weaken legs'?

It’s only in rest that we really become stronger — all else is about tearing ourselves apart enough to make the recovery worth a damn.

We are in the midst of a well publicised boom in cycling in the UK at the moment. Has it affected you? Do you have any thoughts about why it has happened and whether it will continue? Do you see any negatives to the increase in popularity?

I have survived two cycling booms in America. Neither had much effect on me as a bicycle rider, but as a fan of professional racing the first formed me and the second finished me. I say “finished” not in the sense that I’m done being a fan but I’m fully shaped and sealed and colored. I’m going to wear and stain and chip away here and there, and come out worse for it all in the end but maybe with some kind of dignity granted to me by time. When something goes boom, things break.

All cyclists, whether they race or not, seem to obsess over the weight of their bikes. Why do you think this is? 

I think aerodynamicism is the current obsession, or the coming obsession. Seems beside the point to me, anymore, as does bike weight. I think obsession is good, though. Too few people are obsessed anymore. Plenty have become so habitualized as to imagine that they are obsessed, whether it’s with social media or television or pornograpy or whatever, but gluttony or lust or loneliness or a fear of being bored is not obsession. Grams are a good enough thing to count, when you consider how much tallying we do of seconds and minutes and hours and days and months and years and how much good that does us finally. Is it better in the end to know that we lived to be 97 years and six months and five days and nineteen hours, or that a Super Record derailleur saved us 17 grams? Neither does us much good.  What I look for in a bike: life. How much life does it have, and what kind of life? By which I mean spirit, I guess. Maybe personality or energy. I know when it’s there, I know when it’s not, I know when I like it and when I won’t, and sometimes I can tell if a bike will like me. Or, anyway, I hope that’s how bikes look at me. If they’re obsessing over my weight, I am in trouble.

Do you approach riding, or ride your bike, differently now to when you first got into cycling?

I laugh with my friends on a bike, and I talk about whatever we want to talk about, and I ride out to eat at some restaurant or to drink at a bar, and I race now and then, and I see if I can’t break myself on some cycling adventure or dare, and I play dumb games on bikes (coasting races, or granny-gear sprints, or to see who can catch the most falling leaves), and I take my shot at figuring out existence and how to pray or why, and I meet people I otherwise never would, and I ride off hangovers, and I ride off frustrations, and I ride just to feel the wind some days or the sun or the rain, and I ride to feel like a kid, and I ride because I am aging, and I ride because after all this I have some sort of wisdom about the ride I can share now, and in a life of riding for so many reasons, I can see now that sometimes I ride just to ride. That seems like some big philosophical statement but it is pretty much just putting words to what I did when I was a child and have never stopped doing.

When I was about ten years old, my younger sister and I pried up an iron sewer lid and tried to lift it away and instead dropped it on her hand. I think we broke her hand. I know it was a mess right away: black and deep blue and a disturbing purple. I asked her not to tell on me. Once when I was about twelve I pushed in the cigarette lighter in a car I’d been left alone in, and when it was all heated up and popped I took it out and stuck my index finger on the coils and burned my skin away in a sickening and stomach-turning smell that was stronger to me than the pain I felt. I didn’t tell what I’d done. When I got a bike and started riding for real, not just around the neighborhood like a kid but to go out on rides for the purpose of riding, I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing, what it meant, how it felt, who I thought I could be. These days I write about all of it, some of it veiled or stuck inside another story but I tell it all. I guess that’s the only difference.

Who has been your favourite pro riders over the years and why?

It always comes back to Fausto for me but I wasn’t there. He’s like a religion, old, sacred, something to which I humble myself. Marco Pantani is the prophet who lived at the same time as me, the one who knew god and the mysteries of such and came back and showed us, or tried to show us, and set himself on fire for us. That’s the reverent answer, and it’s true but there’s another answer. I live around all these guys who were pro racers in the States in another era, in a time when the life of bicycle racer was like that of a barnstormer’s. They lived together, six or seven or eight or fifteen of them, and every weekend they would pool money for gas and get in a car or two and drive to some race and in a combine win enough money to get to the next race and put a little away and win that race and get to another one and put some more away and come home and buy groceries and pay rent and do it all over again. There was no salary for these guys, no guarantee except how much they knew they could count on each other, and they learned some uncountable number of ways to win bike races because they had to win to eat. They cannot tell you all they know about how to win a bike race; it is just who they are, and it comes out unknowing and natural when they ride, and I consider it one of the great privileges of my life to be able to turn a pedal with them. Whatever it is and however much it is I happen to know about bike racing, it comes from them. These racers, American crit racers of the 1970s and 1980s, the ones who just managed to make a living, they are my favorite pro riders of all time.

What was your favourite era of professional bike racing?

Right now, today, I can watch more pro racing live or archived than I ever could at any earlier period of my life. I — all of us — can hear directly from just about any racer in the world through social media. We can ride the same damn bikes they do, find and buy with a few clicks the same gear. Check our speeds against theirs on climbs. I enjoy goading myself into a fugue of longing for days when jerseys were simpler, when our dope was la bomba instead of stem cells harvested from babies whose mothers had great mitochondria, but as great as nostalgia is, our reality is amazing.

Mudguards, mudguards and mudflaps or racing bike with clip on guards through winter?

I use fenders for town riding and commuting. We all used them for a winter once here, where I ride, then we got over it. I have nothing against fenders on the road bike, and I understand the sense of it. We just grit our teeth and blink hard and spit out of the worst and go on with wet asses through the winter, maybe because we believe we deserve it, or maybe because we know we don’t. 

Do you enjoy a cafe stop or do you prefer to ride straight round?

Miller High Lifes in the afternoon sun on the outdoor tables of the Basin Street, Chimay Blues and fries with sauce on the patio of the Spinnerstown Hotel, ristretto at the bike shop in town before and after a ride, the awful time we did jello shots at the Bally Hotel before climbing Kulp’s in the winter (and, carrying them in our pockets, found they’d disintegrated from the sweaty heat of our ascension), stops at Kuklis’s house, where he has a soda machine fixed to dispense beer, the turkey-and-cheese in Topton taken half to go in foil for later and half eaten right there as I stand at the rail and watch a train rumble by — the ride is all that happens on a ride and not just the riding, and the stopping is as important to me as the starting.

Assos, Rapha or neither?

When I first came to Bicycling and went to my first trade show I went to the Assos booth and said, “The magazine has ignored Assos and I think that’s wrong and we should review one of your jerseys and put it in our pages,” and Tony Maier said that, thanks anyway, but he knew his stuff was the best and didn’t need us to tell him so. A few years later, he fed me little square Assos chocolates in foil, and gave me little Assos espressos in little Assos cups, and told an afternoon’s worth of great stories about the old days, and I reminded him about when we’d met and he looked concerned then I told him he’d probably been right at the time, and he laughed. I was at a concert in London with Simon Mottram and Slate Olson once, Jack Johnson and someone and maybe someone, and Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhal were there, and we were backstage or in some area for very important people, and someone’s sister wanted to go out and watch the show in the crowd and I’d had enough and went, too, and we stood there and the music was great, and the next day I went off to do the first part of the Rapha Crazy Bet. I have a leather Castelli café-racer jacket. Sometimes I just smell it.

Do you prefer to get your head down on main roads, keeping a good tempo going on the B roads or get onto the back wacks? What about the rough stuff on your road bike?

I prefer to not prefer. The editor of Bicycling South Africa, Mike Finch, was in town for a visit, and we went out for a ride at lunch and without considering it much we did a nice gravel climb and he said, “What is it with you Americans and gravel?” I think he had fun anyway. We like to head over and do a loop on the velodrome in the middle of a ride now and then. Our big weekly throwdown ride happens primarily on one of the busiest streets around. We race cyclocross at night in a compost site. I saw a beast in a cornfield bordering a foggy road on which no car ever came past or upon me; though it stood to watch me watch it, I never could guess what the beast was.

What do you think about Strava?

It is a crystal ball that can divine why people ride a bicycle.

What do you think about Sportive rides?

If I ever had a chance to stand at the home plate of Wrigley Field and try to whack a baseball over the vine-covered brick wall and into the bleachers, I would take it in an instant. If Fitzergerald leaned over and showed me a typewritten page and asked if I wanted to go ahead and finish the last sentence, I’d damn sure give it go. 

Do you have any cycling pet hates?

It’s not so much hate I have as beliefs. I just tried to write about this a little:

I don’t know all of the way, or where it is going or where it began. I know who is off it. I generally know who has a chance to find it, though I have been mistaken plenty about that. I know that you find it by paying attention to the people who have been on it before you. I know that the way I ride is the way I live, or else the way I live is the way I ride—I don’t know anymore except to know that the two are bound. I know the way of the way is real, though I don’t know if it is important, or if it will survive long, or if many people care about it anymore. I know I’m on it. And I’m know I’m thankful to be so.

The whole thing is here: http://bicycling.com/blogs/theselection/2013/08/16/the-way-of-the-way/ And that speaks to the next question in the list as well: (Are there any cycling traditions that you think have been, or are being, lost as a result of changing attitudes and behaviour? And are we better off or worse off as a consequence?)

Cotton cap or helmet?

I wear a helmet on most rides. Not all. When I don’t, I almost always wear a cap. Back when I started riding, no one wore helmets. I still have my first cap, a SunTour. I rarely wear caps under a helmet. Sometimes I fold my favorite cap in thirds and put it in my left jersey pocket and put it on when we stop at the café, or after the race is over and we’re all hanging out in the parking lot. I don’t know if we cyclists need helmets or not. But I think that cycling needs caps.

The benefits of spinning a low gear compared to mashing a high gear is often discussed. Putting aside the serious, physiological and mechanical aspects, what cadence you think looks right?

I always shot for 90 to 100, settled for 80, succumbed to 70, perished at 60 or below, bounced at 120 or above. For pure aesthetics, 90 seems to me as beautiful an abstraction and actual motion as any else we have.

White, black or coloured socks?

Commitment to what it is matters more than what it is — and knowledge. Know what they mean, and when you wear them, mean it.

Frame pump or mini pump?

My heart is a frame pump; my hands are a CO2 canister. A mini pump is some kind of terrible compromise I often make.

What do you like to talk about when you are on a ride with friends/team/club mates? Do you prefer to keep the subjects lightweight or get your teeth into something contentious or controversial?

The sound of a ride is something that is too little talked about or thought about. Forgetting for a bit the working of the bike and wind and the ambient sounds all around us, I like the banter of good riding friends at ease, and the simple natural chatter about nothing at all, and when a ride lapses into a companionable silence. I like the miles-long conversations, too, the rhythm of them and how the terrain is as much a participant in the dialogue as the people. I love the double paceline when you talk to your partner as you work your way up through the line, then, if the line is going, drop to a few words when you’re at the front, then peel off to each side and drift back and, if the line has an even number of riders, you fall in beside each other and continue where the talk left off at the front, or if there’s an odd number you slot in beside someone new and start all over, or else sit at the back alone with your thoughts. I like speaking a few words to people as you drift back. I like bravado, and funnily false bravado, and I like the one-sentence (or less) admissions of suffering or worry or even fear that come unprompted in a tired moment. I love the confessions. I love how we remark about the same features of our rides over and over and over, that we hate this hill, or we like this stretch, or this damned wind never stops right here. I like it when a great rider tells me something important. I like it when a new rider reminds me of something I’d forgotten. I love trying to piece out how the end of a ride should go. I love the little nod of the chin or the slap on the thigh or the barely voiced phrase that lets me know the break is going. I love telling the rider in front of me about a car back, and that rider passing it on up, and on up and on, the alert going in that way back to front, and from the front the riders pointing out holes or gravel or dead animals. I don’t much like fighting, but I’ll go ahead and do it.

Who would be/is your perfect tandem partner? Would you ride captain or stoker?

I never like these who-would-you-invite-to-dinner questions. I’d rather be asked who I had dinner with. But I have an answer here, courtesy of my riding friend Jeremy: “I’d ride with myself,” he said once in response to this very question. “I know what I think I’m like as a cyclist, but if I rode with myself I’d find out what I was really like.” That was on a long, long ride.

Bill has written many books, my favorite being the Quoatable Cyclist, but he's also the author of Ten Points: A Memoir, Tour de Lance, Mountain Biking: The Ultimate Guild to the Ultimate Ride and On Being a Writer. He co-wrote We Might As Well Win with Johan Bruyneel and is the editor-at-large for Bicycling magazine. He has also published stories in Rouleur, Embrocation Cycling Journal and Backpacker to name but three. 

The best way to contact Bill is via twitter - @TrueBS and read you can read more of his writing at TrueBS.com and bicycling.com/strickland

The official name of this road is Wheatlands Lane, but local cyclists usually refer to the climb as Bubnell (therefore it became the name of one of our garments). As usual, some of these Peak District climb entries are based not only on their difficulty but also scenic qualities and quietness and for this reason Wheatsland Lane is featured. If you've come from Hathersage, Froggatt or Baslow, it's a great little rolling back-wack that I can honestly say I've seen about 4 cars on, from all my time using it. Due to other roads in the area running parrarell or leading to the same place, it's not very often used by other transport, leaving you and your friends to enjoy the road and the passing views of Bramley and Toost Wood. 

It's a short a rolling road with a gradient of only 4% for about 1.5miles and riding at a social pace, it will take you less than ten minutes, with a short descent winding around the farm that leads into the steepest part of the climb, you can use your momentum to push over in the bing-ring up to  Hassop (where this road leads). From then on you've got the option to take on the Great Longstone Edge climb or head over to Monsal Head / Cressbrook. 

Every cyclist, as at one time or another, must have had a jersey collection. For me, these started taking up too much room in my home and I ended up selling a large majority to help fund the first Mamnick Backtor shirt, but some of these were held back for one reason or another. Some held sentimental value, some are price-less and others are still getting worn. 

Here is a few stories behind a few of my favorites jerseys. 

Although now slightly too big for me, this Castelli jersey must of been made for an amateur team. I can't seem to find any information about the 'CLUB LEVATI' team. A simple striped back design with the iconic Castelli scorpion on the chest. This is one of the first jersey's I purchased when getting into the bike a few years ago.

Another jersey that I am struggling to find an ID or year for, even though it's laced with prestigious sponsors. Peugeot, Mavic and Clement make an appearance on the jersey, yet through hours of scouring the net, I can't seem to find any information about the team, which somehow makes it cooler even cooler. Due to this being made from a rather lightweight lyrca, I very rarely wear it, but something inside me won't let me let it go.

A small piece of local history in this rare Raleigh jersey, as a both local sprinter Mark Walsham and Malc Elliot rode for the team in 1984 (the year I was born). I have since bumped into Mark on Beeley Moor last summer and sometimes see him riding in Cutthorpe valley. One of the best homegrown sprinters of his day, with a great 'kick' that could put a few good bike-lengths into the best of the them. Malcolm Elliot is probably the best known and most successful cyclist from around our way. Starting at Rutland CC, the Raleigh-Weinmann team was his first professional team. He went on to win three stages and the points classification in the Vuelta de Espana and rode the Tour de France in 1987 and 1988. Malc still holds the record for the Monsal Hill Climb, a time he set back in 1981 on a place you may have seen appear through-out the year on the Mamnick Instagram. 

This is an ex-pro jersey from 2001 and used to belong to CSC rider, Thomas Bruun Eriksen. It says his name on the back. I found it in a Sheffield charity shop for £4. I only noticed it had the name T B Eriksen on the back a good year after wearing it, which is a bit of a cycling no-no. Another great jersey by Castelli that I still wear now and again, especially through colder months. Also, CSC-Tiscali is the team that one of my favorite pros used to riders for - Carlos Sastre.  

This jersey was given to me as a gift and keep-sake, something I'll never let go of. It was the jersey that belonged to another local rider and hero Chris Walker. Chris wore this jersey on stage one of the 1991 Milk Race, which he won, and keep the yellow jersey for the remainder of the race. A piece of UK cycling history and one of the coolest teams of past years - Raleigh Team Banana. It's Chris's name embroidered in the back of the neck along with the jersey manufacturer, Santini. 

Many cyclists own two bikes; a summer bike and a winter bike. The summer bike is the best bike or the race bike. Where the money is spent and where the love and attention goes. It is kept in tip top condition and polished regularly for the delectation of its owner and his club mates or friends.  The winter bike has as little money spent on it as possible and is often neglected. It's a workhorse whose job is to soak up the big winter miles in rain, sleet, salt and snow. To spare the summer bike when the road conditions are damaging.

My winter bike, a steel framed Olmo, had that kind of beauty. It was given to me by Tony not long after we first met. It's been my winter bike, my pub bike and, with a pannier rack and Carradice bag fitted for carrying clobber, my work bike that's taken me to the local factories I now work with. It's been a work-horse, featured in blog articles and in Q&A's and has even been exhibited at a gallery.

I use the past tense because earlier today, the frame broke. I'd had to gently ride the Olmo 15 miles back home, riding carefully over pot-holes and bumps hoping it would get there, which it did. It's outside my backdoor as I write this. I'm sentimental and I'm sad that the Olmo is broken. But I will take the components off and put them onto another frame to make a new winter bike and that way part of the Olmo will keep going with me.

RIP Olmo.

As a racing cyclist, which results are you most proud of and why?

You know I find this a hard question, funnily enough. For me the real success of my career wasn’t one result or another, it was becoming a proper European professional cyclist, at a time when British riders didn’t become professionals.

Making that leap was what I always wanted to do, and it took so much to do it that I can barely remember the results that got me there… I didn’t really have much room for thinking about that stuff, I remember putting a divisional championships medal in the bin of a sports centre because I just didn’t see the point in carrying around a piece of metal – it was just stuff I didn’t need.

That was the way that I was for a time, I left a garage full of trophies in France, I lost a national championships silver medal somewhere along the line too… So it was never results, but what I managed to make of myself that I look back on proudly now.

Which are your favourite stretches of road to ride on locally and what is it that you like about them?

All of my favourite stretches of road are by the sea. I like them because having grown up by the sea (in Penzance, Cornwall) it is something that I really enjoy having there. I don’t surf, or swim in it, or anything like that; I just like having it in the background. 

The same question for roads anywhere in the world?

Answered above.

What is your most memorable moment on the bike or involved with cycling?

My whole adult life has involved cycling in some way, so it is hard to say. But my first pro World’s in 2004 in Verona were a pretty big deal. I’d ridden the Worlds as a Junior on the same circuit 5 years before, and going there as a pro was pretty special. My team made me a custom GB paint job bike, the works. I think there were 300,000 people on the climb or something & the noise was so loud you couldn’t talk to the rider next to you. 

Has racing affected your relationship with the bike? If so, how?

Racing never affected my relationship with the bike – because I wanted to race as soon as I took the sport up. What affected my relationship with the bike was stopping, and realizing that, shit – I can just go for a ride, and it can be pleasant, it can be easy, it can be short and fun and I can go wherever I want. In a way I have it sort of backwards I suppose. 

Do you agree with Mickey Goldmill's advice to Rocky that 'women weaken legs'?

No. Most of my best rides were done in order to show off to women. 

We are in the midst of a well-publicised boom in cycling in the UK at the moment. Has it affected you? Do you have any thoughts about why it has happened and whether it will continue? Do you see any negatives to the increase in popularity?

For me the boom couldn’t have come at a better time. All of a sudden there are opportunities for an ex-pro to find a career that is still linked to the sport. In my case the standard of the cycling press is unbelievably high compared to other sports, and I really appreciate the fact that not only can I make a living writing about cycling, but that the publications I do it for are top quality and for a really discerning audience and you know, Charly and I can write a book like Domestique, and actually sell some!

The downside for me is the fact that I miss cycling being a quirky European sport a little, if I’m honest. It’s like the band that you love suddenly being played in every café and hotel bar in the country. But, that’s cool – it never belonged to me. I have no more of a stake in it than anyone else. 

All cyclists, whether they race or not, seem to obsess over the weight of their bikes. Why do you think this is?

Cycling is the perfect sport for obsessives. There is always something to change, some new part to buy or way to save weight. At pro level I found there were two types of riders – those that spent every waking moment obsessing over kit to go fast, and those that gave not the slightest shit and just wanted to go fast. I fell into the latter category. 

Do you approach riding, or ride your bike, differently now to when you first got into cycling?

I’ve always sort of been the same really. I just like to go out on my bike and ride it. When I was racing I had to conform to following training schedules, and doing certain sessions and using a heart rate monitor etc but I was always a little uneasy with that. Now I am exactly the type of cyclist I always wanted to be. I don’t use a GPS, I don’t time my rides: I just head out and come home some time later.

Who has been your favourite pro riders over the years and why?

Gianni Bungo. Pure class, I love watching the way that guy rolled such a low cadence, but had so much power. Plus I was really into the Gatorade team kit.

And later on Oscar Friere. I met Oscar a few times, we had dinner after the World’s in ’05, and he said to me, “How many races have you done this year?”

I counted and added a few extra in, thinking it would look better to be racing more, “About 60”

He said, “Oh, I only did 11.”

I think I must have laughed, because he added straight away, “I won 7 of them.”

He was such a cool bloke, and his wife was lovely too. Drove a Vauxhall Corsa the year he was first World Champ - just didn’t give a fuck, he was content to do his thing. 

What was you favourite era of professional bike racing?

All of it up until 2000

Do you think Bradley Wiggins looks cool despite his long socks or because of them?

Wiggins looks cool man, in his own way. 

Mudguards, mudguards and mudflaps or racing bike with clip on guards through winter?

None. 

Do you enjoy a cafe stop or do you prefer to ride straight round?

I love a brew stop. I always stop in company. 

Assos, Rapha or neither?

I’m a Rapha man, obviously. I’ve known Simon (Mottram) since I first met him in 2005, and I love what they’ve done. There are some seriously talented folks working there and they consistently make great looking stuff that I want to wear. 

Do you prefer to get your head down on the A6, keep a good tempo going on the B roads or get onto the back wacks? What about the rough stuff on your road bike?

You mean the A38, right? Hah. When I was training I always stuck to bigger roads, you don’t train well in lanes. Now that I just roll around, I stick to the lanes for sure. Rough stuff is OK too, can’t avoid it when you ride with Oli Beckingsale, actually. He loves taking a detour through a wood or some such nonsense… 

What do you think about Strava?

Rubbish, dangerous and anti-social. Pin a number on if you want to race.  

What do you think about Sportive rides?

Great, if you want to go and ride with a big group, but again – if you want to race pin a number on. I never understood the psychology of people that clearly want to race but fear failure so much that they do other events where if they lose there is seemingly no consequence. It’s the same with testing; ‘I’m only racing myself’ – that’s great, but you’re actually not.

Do you have any cycling pet hates?

People who call themselves bike racers and skip turns on the front on a training ride. I mean for fuck’s sake, how do you expect to be any good if you can’t put your nose in the wind in training? 

Are there any cycling traditions that you think have been, or are being, lost as a result of changing attitudes and behaviour? And are we better off or worse off as a consequence?

Everything has changed post-Lance. Like it or not the sport has been dramatically Anglicized over the last fifteen years, and I expect will continue to do so. With that has come a different set of rules, and a different way of doing things.

The whole attitude shift to tolerance to doping has happened. In Europe they have a very Catholic way of dealing with the bad stuff – go into a box, tell someone quietly, and it’ll all be OK. Most Europeans are happy for cyclists just to get on with their shit – ‘We don’t care what’s really going on, let’s watch the race – now, pass me the pastis.’

In Anglo-Saxon countries, we have the puritan roots – ‘is he cheating?’ ‘Is this fair?’ ‘Ohm well, I did cheat, and now I feel bad about it, so I’ll denounce everyone else.’ And I think that preoccupation with drugs and ethics and all this stuff is really fucking the sport. Not so much in terms of having cleaning the sport out – which, if it has happened is really great, but the hangover is the tit-for-tat air of suspicion that is going to linger for at least five to ten years.

And doping and the press attention has also caused this whole separation between riders and journalists and the public. Where now, for fear of scrutiny teams are hiding behind press officers, and press are told who they can talk to.

It tightens everything up and the sport suffers for it, you know soon they will cordon off the sign on area at races, and instead of me being able to go down and wait for Zak Dempster to get off the bus to say ‘good luck mate’ at Paris Roubaix, it’ll be like Monaco; VIP areas and God-knows-who swanning about like it’s F1. Corporate hospitality, VIP passes… let’s put a barrier up here and keep the plebs out… and that will be a real shame in some ways.

Cotton cap or helmet?

Cotton cap. I don’t even own a helmet. 

The benefits of spinning a low gear compared to mashing a high gear is often discussed. Putting aside the serious, physiological and mechanical aspects, what cadence you think looks right?

About 70-80 rpm – watch a video of Bugno or Tonkov if you want to know what that looks like.  

White, black or coloured socks?

White, unless you are well tanned and it is wet – then you can rock the black socks. 

Frame pump or mini pump? 

I don’t carry a pump, believe it or not. I just ride a flat most of the time. 

What do you like to talk about when you are on a ride with friends/team/club mates? Do you prefer to keep the subjects lightweight or get your teeth into something contentious or controversial?

I normally ride with Si Richardson (ex Sigma Sport rider) and I used to think that he had very differing opinions to me about everything. I recently worked out though that he just likes debate – so no matter what I say he’ll take the contrary opinion. This leads to things getting pretty deep, usually to the point of me saying there is no point to human existence and that our species is doomed, and him saying otherwise.

Who would be/is your perfect tandem partner? Would you ride captain or stoker?

I don’t know which one is which… I’d say my old man probably, because we share DNA. Surely that would mean we’d be in pretty good sync.

Tom and Charly's book 'Domestique' can be purchased from Random House here.

The humble cotton cycling cap is one of the finest designs in cycling.
It can be found in the same design top drawer as Tuillo Campagnolo's
quick release and rear derailleur and John Boyd Dunlop's pneumatic
tyre.

Yet with the advent, and subsequent ubiquity, of helmets it's almost
been forgotten. The majority of cyclists now have no idea of its
function and see it as some kind of anachronism when worn on its own
(rather than under a helmet). Speculation about the reason for the
cotton cap on cycling forums range from pre-helmet head safety to
keeping bald men's heads warm under their vented helmets. The fact
that people with those ideas aren't laughed off their forum is a sign
of how bad things are for la casquette. The few remaining cotton cap
wearers however know and cherish it's form and function. For them,
going for a ride without a cap would be as unimaginable as going for a
ride without cycling shorts.

When riding, and especially descending, in heavy rain the brim can be
adjusted so the rain doesn't hit you in the eyes. The same goes for
hail and snow. When it's hot, the cap keeps the sweat and salt from
your eyes. The cotton soaks the sweat from your brow and, with the
brim adjusted, the sweat runs to the tip and drips off. When riding in
hot climes in summer sunshine, the hat keeps the beating rays from
your head and the short brim acts as a sun visor.

As well as forgetting what the cotton cap is for, generations of
cyclists now have no idea how it should be worn. As with any design
worthy of its salt (or salt soaking ability), the cotton cap matches
its function with form. But only if it's worn in the time honoured
style. High on the head with the brim low at the front and some loft
at the back.

The point at which the brim is too low becomes clear when adjusting it
while riding - if you can't see up the road, it's too low. The amount
of loft possible at the back will depend on the wearer's head and the
cap's size. Whether a rider chooses to wear his hat with maximum loft
will depend on how confident he is rocking that look. Look at photos
of the pro's from the golden age of cycling (roughly 1940 - 1980) to
see how it should be done.

The cap should never be pulled down tight, baseball cap style. The
reason should be obvious to anyone who checks in the mirror.

By Antoine Ventouse