I found another picture of the Pashley rear rack for the TSR here
As mentioned previously, the new rack seems a lot narrower than the old APB's platform rack, at least when the bag is removed. Part of the rack is semi-permanently attached to the bag, which clips onto to the main rack chassis. This arrangement seems convenient, though it would seem to prevent the use of a fruit box or basket.
I'm no fan of fashion shows but Velorution, the trendy London bike shop and Moulton dealer, recently hosted a cycling fashion show called Pret à Rouler.
In the video of the event, shown below, there are several clips of a Pashley Moulton TSR 9. It's nice to the Moulton featured in such a stylish way.
If the show highlights anything, it's how there's hitherto been a serious lack of variety when it comes to cycle clothing, especially for those of us who are not pretending to be racers. Partly inspired by the Grant Petersen interview, I'm beginning to see what a silly practice the wearing of racing clothing is.When a motorist (boy racer for example) puts a spoiler or a body kit on his car, or installs bucket seats, most normal people think he's a twat, and rightly so! Imagine how they'd be viewed if the boy racers started wearing fireproof jump suits and helmets!But we cyclists are expected to wear clothing designed for top class professional cyclists... men who weigh 60kgs, with 5% body fat. Let's face it... lycra does nothing for 95% of cyclists... and it does nothing to encourage non-cyclists onto two wheels.
Part of me thinks that the proposed ban on lycra cycling shorts in Salt Lake City, Utah is not such a bad idea!
I welcome this new focus by clothing designers on cycle clothing. Needless to say, Pret a Rouler was a fashion show, and one rarely sees practical items of clothing at a fashion show of any description. I'm not sure I could ever turn up at work or even at BoA wearing a Dashing Tweeds outfit, however ingenious the weaving of reflective material into the tweed might be.
So let's hope that Pret a Rouler marks the start of a new generation in cycle clothing. Where one does not have to dress up to go for a ride. Where we cyclists can dismount and immediately look like normal people.
While we're waiting for the revolution, the internet must suffice.
For functional cycle clothing that would almost pass for normal clothing, try Swrve, Chrome, Rivendell, Bicycle Fixation or Portland.
Or even try the local charity shop, and get stuff altered to suit.
And if you must wear race style clothing, and to be honest it's difficult to avoid it for rides of 50km or over, try it in natural fabrics from the likes of Rapha, Woolistic or Ibex.
It's been a really wet summer, and so when I woke up to sunshine on Sunday morning, I wasted no time in jumping into my lycra, grabbing my GPS and phone, hopping onto my Pashley Moulton APB, and heading for the hills.
The area where I live is rural, 5km from Navan (population > 25,000). There are a number of national routes nearby.
My cycling playground is an area between the N2 to the east, the N3 to the west, the aforementioned N51 to the south. If I cross the relatively quiet N52 to the north, I have a free run all the way to the border.
With a little bit of planning, I can quite easily find routes of 100km or more without having to travel on a single national route or a busy road of any description. On my rides I encounter very few cars, perhaps as few as 10 per hour.
I usually plan my routes using a combination of Google Maps and the Ordnance Survey Discovery Series maps (usually 35, 36, 42 and 43). Google Maps is great for showing the roads I like to travel on. I avoid all roads that are blue (motorways), green (national routes) and yellow (busier regional roads) and I focus on the white roads (they look grey until you zoom in further).
Backroads in north Meath
Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com
The map above shows the route I took last Sunday. The profile looks like this
I consult the OS maps to find some hills or I use HeyWhatsThat Path Profiler. There are very few big hills near where I live. There are plenty of 100-150m climbs, and just a few in the 150-210m range. It's not too difficult to find a 10% incline, but they are mostly less than a kilometre long.
The "white roads" are usually very low traffic, and quite scenic. On occasion the road can be quite narrow with grass growing down the centre of the road!
These routes are perfect for a Moulton bicycle, with the suspension taking the edge off any imperfections in the surface, and making all descents exhilarating.
I usually travel without a map or GPS, unless I'm travelling a new route and I'm afraid I'll get lost, or find my self on a busy national route. Signposts cannot be relied upon in Ireland! Local youths seem to take sport in rotating the signpost to send you the wrong way. In recent years however, there seem to be lots more fixed (two pole) sign posts appearing, making them more reliable.
It's been a bumper couple of weeks... firstly Velovision Magazine arrived on the door, and as always it was an excellent read for bike lovers.
A few days later it was A to B Magazine.
And finally today, the issue 81 of the Moultoneer arrived. The Moultoneer is the quarterly magazine produced by the Moulton Bicycle Club. Membership of the club for 2007-2008 costs £15 for UK members, £17 if you live in Europe, and £20 for the rest of the world.
This latest issue is full of the usual Moulton goodies...
The Moultoneer also has bikes for sale (at a fraction of eBay prices), product reviews, directory of products and services for old and new Moultons, events list, etc.
If you own one or more Moulton bicycles, or would like to get into Moultons, it's well worth the subscription and I'd highly recommend it. For more info see the following links:
One small detail of the new Alex Moulton AM Esprit has thus far escaped my attention.
The trend in Moulton frame design in recent years has seemed to be move to a straight bottom tube, instead of the older style "knuckle shaped" bottom tube, as seen on the old AM and many other models. In recent years, the non-separable versions of the APB (fx8), New Series (pylon, speed) and the new Pashley Moulton TSR have had this straight bottom tube. More recently, separable Moultons (including the New Series Double Pylon and the Pashley Moulton TSR) have also had a straight bottom tube.
I expected that the new Moulton AM Esprit would also have this feature in the separable version, but as the photo below (from Dynavector) shows, the separable version looks very like the old AM.
Contrast this with the more elegant design of the non-separable frame shown below (again from Dynavector)
