Living in the Cloud
Monday, 25 January 2010 18:26 | 
Author: Roderic Gill
There's this hill where I live... It's a world class Hors Categorie hill that ascends 900 metres over 11.5km. It's a beauty. Beautiful surface, stunning sharp corners and a stunning ride through a World Heritage Area rain forest. It's a road that connects the humid-nectar drenched coast with the green Lost World of New England's spectacular escarpment country.
It's one of Australia's most famous motorcycling hoon roads. But it's also a public road. Which means that the car trolls are always out in force. It's a magnet for pudding bellied baldies fantasising of youth long gone via the tin pot wallows of their mighty V8 mobile lounge rooms. It's the one road that should be a Mecca for serious road cyclists. But it's not. Because we would get flattened by the fatties living their wild fantasies of race hero glory. Going up the hill, there's too many places where we cyclists are vulnerable around each and every blind bend. Going down hill, no matter how fast we might go, the V8 zombies feel some kind of overwhelming urge fumed by the last fumes of their fading testosterone reserves to overtake. Even if that means that they end up cornering like someone's catamaran broadside to a gale. On two wheels and totally out of control.
Or so I thought until a surfer dude mountain biker broke the spell... Read more in this latest posting to Bicyclism Blog: Living in the Cloud
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How a Chorus of Ultegra Can Save the World Sunday, 03 January 2010 22:27 | Author: Roderic Gill
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Can Campagnolo or Shimano's second-tier type choices save the world? What's the game plan for these opening days of our new post failed-Copenhagen, post-Global Financial Crisis, post consumerist era? I make a plea for the uncoupling of that ugly orgy of ego and marketing as the new cornerstone of improved choices and genuine progress. There's two sides to the equation that has led us to this point in time where ecology and economics are now in a state of all-out war. There's two sides to the equation that produced the Global Financial Crisis and all those bailouts of banker bilge who, really, should have been left as ballast in a much needed new ship of statehood and progress. To find out if Ultegra really can save the world, and how to prove such an assertion mathematically, tune in to this latest rampaging post on Bicyclism Blog: 
I have a theory. Bicycles should never be given, they should always be earned. Desire breeds intent. Intent leads to preparedness and preparedness leads to mindful purchase. Purchase has a purpose. Purpose means there’s a plan. Is the plan to ride the road? To ride the trails? To stunt jump off walls? These intentions shape the choice of bike and all that supporting gear. Read the full post on Bicyclism Blog: