After a very pleasant breakfast with the in-laws at The Wolseley I made my excuses and skipped off to the Cycle Show at Earls Court exhibition centre. By 11.30 it was heaving with all types of geeks intensely discussing the pro's and con's of titanium, steel, gears, no gears, brakes, no brakes (you fools), clinchers, tubulars, lycra and leather (or was that just me?). It's the second year that I have been to it and, although not a bad few hours, I always feel a little disappointed in the fact that you get to see all this nice kit but can only buy very few things - the 'Retail Zone' was full of the usual bland stuff but packed with punters who were so horned up by the things that they had seen on the trade stands that they would have probably spent in the thousands if they had been able to. It's nice to see 2010 kit but it would also be nice to make it Britain's biggest bike shop for a few days. Apart from that gripe, I did like wondering around occasionally spotting a bored cycle star (Jamie Staff, Nick Craig (he won this year's Three Peaks and Nicole Cooke) doing their promo duties. I shan't do a long blog today about everything I liked (it will seep slowly from the blog over the coming days) but I will leave you with my favourite 2 non-kit pictures. A very strange man in his trike wheelchair (eccentric or not, 'kinky but wrinkly' is just plain creepy) and Captain RAAM himself, Jim Rees, pictured below attempting to cycle 1000 miles on a Watt Bike in four days on a stand built by spending £30 in Homebase. Team Inspiration is obviously operating on a tight budget.
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