RobSog

Global Microbrands: Kolová

There hasn't been enough cycling posts in these parts – must be to do with the fact that I've bought a new pair of running shoes, and/or I've been a bit reluctant to do serious miles on my carbon sex machine these last few weeks as it's been a wee bit dreich. And I've had shin splints to boot; so I've been a bit grumpy not getting my regular natural high – hence the lambic post.

Lightweight that I am, and coupled with the fact I'm in Praha this week, I've found 'cycling solace' in an undiscovered part of the bike world (to me at least) that again fits into Hugh's Microbrand braces (to me at least). This time it's Kolová – or cycle ball.

What's that by chumly, I here you cry? Here's the skinny:

'Played by teams of two on specially modified bicycles, the game is effectively a mounted version of indoor football. The catch, however, is that players aren't allowed to touch the ball with their feet or hands (unless goalkeeping). Instead, players use their front wheels to direct a 650 gram ball stuffed with horsehair towards the opposition's goal.' TimeOut

Now all I have to do is go see a game when I move here later in the month . . .

It's all about the bike

New steed ordered. Mmmmm . . .

It's not about the bike

Out for a short ride this morning over the Cambridgeshire alps, I'm sure there was just a hint of autumn in the air. There wasn't a 'nip in the air' so-to-speak to make me wish I'd got the arm warmers on, just the suggestion of earthy smells filling my straining nostrils. The landscapes that blurred past me (yeah right Rob) certainly had those slightly washed-out hues that a fully-ripe summer gradually gives way to around the beginning of August. With no hay-fever, no traffic (well relatively in central Cambridge thanks to school holidays) and good legs it was as they say in NZ, 'sweet as'.

Back at the studio it was difficult to knuckle down, especially when it was mentioned on the grapevine that we should start thinking about another Scottish mtb epic. Here's a pic from last year of Ian and Malcolm at the start of a great day at Glentress. Any takers?

Some of my best friends are machines

More snippets from the book collection:

In a carefully argued passage of his seminal work The Third Policeman, the Irish writer Flann O'Brien described a syndrome, to which he claimed country policemen were especially prone, whereby constant contact with one's bicycle over a long period could produce an unfortunate and irreversible molecular interpenetration between rider and steed leading, it was said, to an exchange of characteristic behaviour.

Thus the rider might be observed from time to time leaning against the nearest wall with arms akimbo in the handlebar position, as it were – and his bicycle, while not exactly being seen to move of it's own accord, might be found to have edged its way into a cosy niche inside the house, though everyone was quite sure its rider had left it outside the front door.

O'Brien advanced the belief that some riders might find themselves, if not alerted to the danger in time, more than one third bicycle by the age of 50. Applying this to the designer computer relationship we could envisage the former developing a tendency to converse in a series of clicks and bleeps, and the latter displaying all-too-human fits of the sulks whenever the designer leaves the console to attend a call of nature or make a cup of tea, having to be coaxed back into decent machine behaviour.

From a paper given at the Pira/RSA Conference on Design/Technology/Communication, London 1990 reprinted in 'A word in your eye', Reading University 1996. Ken Garland.