Hairspray and handlebars

Cycling thrives on insider knowledge, like many other sports. One tip I’d never heard was that hairspray should be an essential part of a cyclist’s tool kit. Well in their workshop at least. Every struggled to get handlebar grips to slide on and then stay in place? Well not with hairspray – it lubricates the bar allowing the grip to slide on, then sets preventing it from swivelling off.

My daughter’s trike (a very stylish red Giant since you ask) is now ready for action. Let’s just hope she doesn’t change her mind about the style of grips!

This is probably going to be of more interest to fixed-gear Hoxtonites than three-and-a-half year olds concerned about their old, perishing handlebar grips.

UPDATE – it turns out this isn’t insider knowledge anymore. Font of all things cooled and fixed, Fresh Tripe are also in the know.

Complete the set: astronaut, deep sea diver...

…bike messenger comes next in the list of uninsurable, yet now apparently “cool” professions. So you’re a 25-35 year old metrosexual looking for the next hip thing to sink your disposable income into – well it’s fixed gear cycling. And it’s official, two barometers of what’s up and coming have informed me of this. BBC 2’s Culture Show and trend forecasters (yes such organisations do exist) Future Laboratory both say that cycling’s officially cool.

The Culture Show had a 10-minute piece on alley cat races and followed some footage of a group messengers on a cycling-cider drinking-camping weekender. The theme was one of family, fraternity and f&#k it I like riding bikes. They’d have done it regardless of the Beeb’s camera crew.

Future Laboratory by contrast tells people who used think they were cool what kids (usually) are about to think is cool so that the un-cool people can make money from them. If Future Laboratories say that something’s going to be cool, then sometime, somewhere for someone it will – like palmists however some of the details can be a little vague.

Future Laboratories demographic profiling ranges from the sensible to the sublime: “Generation Jones”, “Rolodex Teens” and my personal favourite “Muffragettes” describing the rebirth of feminism – apparently. According to the blurb, fixed gear bikes are now “the defining fashion accessory for a new tribe of young urbanites” – you wouldn’t hear Madame Zola, your local palm reader utter that phrase.

But wait a minute, do we want cycling to be cool? Surely just making it normal would be better. Anything that gets people on bikes is a good thing, but sustained change comes from desire not diktat. Cool implies it’s fashionable and today’s achingly cool must have is tomorrow’s charity shop staple.

In fashion loose-waisted, generously cut practical dungarees are always going to lose out to skinny, low-rise denim. Because you’ve got to be thin enough to wear it; it’s exclusive. So it’s an obvious extension that fixed gears would become cool over a sensible bike, one with brakes, say.

The fashion industry’s already nibbling at the world of two wheels sleazily pimping it to help it sell more overpriced clothes under the banner of “eco-awareness” and this "all the kids are riding pencil thin retro steel frames with spoke cards" stuff doesn't help.

Sheldon Brown, seldom down

I learned today that a man who lives in a place I've never visited, who does not count me among his friends and whose life has not intersected mine has died. I do not feel wracked with grief, perhaps if I had met him I would, but I do feel a sense of loss that goes well beyond a selfish frustration that he will no longer be posting his musings on the internet.

My only access to Sheldon Brown was via his website and his writing reeks of a man with a passion not just for cycling but for life. Like many people I was fascinated by his advocacy of fixed gear cycling and only today, when I saw the BikesnobNYC posting I delved more deeply into his blog discovered the many facets of his life. His devotion to charting this makes for fascinating reading. There isn't that furtive feeling when a private diary is discoved, this is a genuine interest in another human. Perhaps that's guff, but Sheldon Brown writes with an impact that many copywriters can only dream of.

With regards cycling, it appeared that Sheldon didn't allow himself to be pigeon-holed into road/fixie/mountain biker categories. His stable of bikes was as varied as his off-the-wall ideas for modifying them

• a BMX tandem for his children
• a fixed gear mountain bike
• a fixed gear tandem
• a bike with two sets of handlebars

Every now and again the internet actually connects humanity in a positive way and for me this has been one of those events.