Jarpz

In a sleepy rural stone-built dwelling house hidden within the deep rolling hills, beneath the dark foreboding skies of the north of England lies the most wonderful amalgamation of paint and cycling shoe that currently exists.

Better than Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.

The artist Charlotte Jarps or, to anyone that knows her, ‘that there artist Charlotte Jarps’, tirelessly prepares and paints pretty much anything you could think of, and things you probably wouldn’t, all over folks’ bestest bike kicks. Having carved out her own niche in a world that’s a bit shit, she works to turn the mere cycling shoe into wearable works of art. Under the watchful guidance of her dog, Rudy, the almighty Giro Empire is toppled single-handedly by the brush-wielding Jarpz rebellion, and the galaxy is set to live its best cycling life, free from the shackles of the oppressive stormtrooper-style plain white shoe. Or Darth Vader’s black ones. It’s not just Giros she works on, either. The Giro naming committee just leant me a cheap, lazy Star Wars reference, and they also happen to be my shoe of choice.

Lush.

Those of a certain age – post Bros and the bottle caps on shoes malarkey, but probably/definitely pre-goth – may remember when Doctor Marten’s boots were a thing, and painting flowers, flames, or the logo of now long split-up bands on them was a thing. Charlotte transcends any such nonsense, and isn’t old enough to remember those frankly ridiculous times. From Pop Art to Paul Smith-esque design, she produces work that may tempt you to buy more shoes for riding in and stick her work on the mantelpiece, as it’s almost too good to wear outside.

You shouldn’t do that. Charlotte’s art is most definitely meant to be seen and shared. And it will do wonders to distract from the frankly lacklustre appearance of your (or my) matt black Canyon. Riding chums will gaze at your shoes with envy, and your kudos will rocket amongst your peers. Zwift-style ride-ons will appear above your head, and you’ll become infinitely more attractive. They’ll probably make you smell like a freshly unwrapped copy of Rouleur, in which Jarps has also featured.

Roy Lichtenstein would approve. If he wasn’t dead.

When I have spare pennies – the cost of living currently is a crisis in this house – my shoes are off to Charlotte’s gaff. Until then, my space in her diary is going begging. For roughly two hundred bifters, you can have your own bespoke look blathered onto your pedal beaters. I strongly recommend you email her at hi@jarpz.com. But for those out there of a more artistic nature, you can purchase the Jarpz colour kit, a carefully curated selection of paints that will see you through most designs. You could even attend one of the upcoming workshops, held by Charlotte, and learn a new and exciting medium, painting your size mediums. Dates, times and places can be found on the website. You may even get to meet me on one. Possibly.

Sweet little aliens. Their poetry is awful.

(All images are ©️ Charlotte Jarps)

Monsters among us.

Sarah Everard was last seen alive on the 3rd March, walking down a main road in Clapham. Today, police have confirmed that found human remains are belonging to her.

What happened to Sarah Everard is fucking abhorrent. It has happened to many women before her, and will happen to many more women after her. And this has to fucking change.

“I’m not part of the problem, so I must be part of the solution”, the good men say. Well, shit, pal. It’s not enough. It’s not enough to not get involved. It’s the very opposite of enough. I’ve been hanging around with other blokes long enough to know that most men are decent, but the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. If you stand by and let it happen, you may as well not fucking exist. If you stand by and let it happen, then fuck you.

In the last week, men have asked women on social media how they can help them feel safe on the streets or in the park. These are, almost certainly, the good men. But it’s not enough for women to feel safe. They have to be safe.

Men must be active in fixing men. The conditioning starts early, with boys will be boys and other bullshit excuses, as if a child’s gender somehow excuses poor behaviour. Repeatedly excused micro-aggressions escalate to medium aggressions and, by allowing the medium aggressions, the door will, one day, be opened wide for assaults, rapes, and killings.

The aggressions are there. They’re visible. We know they’re visible, or else boys will be boys wouldn’t exist. It’s time to start recognising and stop excusing this behaviour. It’s time to call these fuckers out on it. It’s time for men to be actively involved in challenging and changing the behaviour of men.

This week it was reported that 97% of women have experienced some sort of sexual harassment. Ninty-seven percent. That almost certainly means that every man knows someone who’s perpetrated such an act. And if they’re being entirely honest with themselves, they will have seen the warning signs and ignored, or failed to understand, what they were seeing.

There are monsters among us, and they look like us. Be observant. Educate yourselves. Talk to your friends. Have a word. Have a lot of fucking words. Do not stand idly by. Do not leave it for someone else. Do it not just for women, but for men too. For your friends, colleague or your family. If you don’t, one day, it will be too fucking late.

If you do nothing, it’s also on you.

Pumpkin Pie

After some pretty shitty weather recently – not all that wet, just cold and windy – I found myself fed up of freezing my jiggly man-tits off. Despite being from Yorkshire, I’m not good with weather in the “generally crap” range, craving either baking hot sunshine, or Beast from the East-like blizzards.

Having reached Fuck That level when checking the forecast or looking out of the window, and nearly spending last year’s Christmas Rapha vouchers on one, I thought I’d have myself one of them there thermal jackets. A hundred and fifty notes ain’t exactly pocket change, but I’d had a good year, mileage-wise, and I didn’t want to spaff it up the wall just because it was a little unpleasant out. Besides, I liked the stripy Brevet jacket design.

The fuckers were out of stock. Out of fucking stock. In late autumn. Rapha, you let me down. You let yourselves down. You let the nation down. I took to Twitter.

As he so often does, my good mate Angus came to the rescue. He may favour the eTap SRAM but, other than that, he can usually be relied upon to give those that ask an informed opinion on cycling kit. He can also talk for not just England, but the entire continent, and it’s fortunate that, during any phone call, he’s too busy nattering to notice if you’re having a wee. He invariably had something to recommend, with anecdotal evidence to support his suggestion.

• 

Angus talks for England. Even in France.

Once my ears finally stopped bleeding, I put ten pence in the meter, fired up the internet machine, and headed to Sigma Sports, who’ve always done me right and, debit card in hand, chucked £123.20 at the Endura Pro SL Primaloft Jacket II. Then I sat back and waited.

Given there’s some sort of killer virus pandemic thing going on, resulting in bike shops have been busy on unprecedented levels as folk desperately seek ways to legitimately leave the house, I didn’t wait long. A couple of days later (and after a few messages to and from Angus’ son, Joe, who works at Sigma and sorted out my NHS discount retrospectively as I’d forgotten about it), a postal packet arrived.

It weighed nothing. Fuck all. There was no way the contents of this insignificant little bag was going to keep me warm outside on a bicycle. Opening the package did even less to alleviate my fears. The jacket looked piss-thin. However, it didn’t have a single bad review, and even at first glance is clearly well made.

The jacket fit well, and the size guide was accurate which, having just bought a Castelli rain jacket, isn’t something you can always expect in the cycling world. I don’t know what it’s actually made of, as I don’t care. It could be made of jam, twigs, and a bit of grandma’s spit for all I give a monkeys, as long as no cute little puppies are cruelly involved, I’m good. Whatever it’s made of, it’s well-constructed. Not a stitch is out of place, and not a thread hangs tantalisingly close to being snagged on something to unravel behind me as I pedal along, blissfully unaware of an ever increasing nakedness, as you see in cartoons. The material is stretchy enough to allow for normal movement without feeling restricted, yet is close-fitting and not even slightly flappy. Also, unlike puffer jackets as worn by every bugger these days, the thermal bits are in just the right places, with the rest of the jacket consisting of a single layer, which allows heat to dissipate from the areas that would otherwise leave you sweaty and, ultimately, colder. The arms are also a decent length which, given that cycling is mostly an arms-out-in-front type activity, I’m not going to have a problem with cold wrists.

Out on the road, I paired the jacket with nothing more than a long sleeved Rapha Pro Team thermal base-layer, fully expecting to be doing a u-turn faster than Boris Johnson whenever young Rashford speaks. However, I got to the end of the road and was reasonably assured that even if I got no warmer, I wasn’t going to die of exposure, and ploughed on. Then something odd happened. I got warm. Not the sort of warm you get from exertion, only sustainable by being on the gas for the whole ride, but a new warm. A cosy, comfortable warm that stopped at comfortable, just where I wanted it. I actually smiled, for fuck’s sake. Weird.

• 

Must shave. White hairs.

Anyone who rides bicycles in the Chilterns will wonder what the utter fuck I was thinking buying a pumpkin-coloured jacket. The roads are filthy from October to March and, once out in the lanes, I was regretting my choice. Over a hundred quid on a jacket that’s going to look like a pig did a shit on it after one ride does not constitute value for money. I returned home covered in black road goo and, probably, actual excrement from farmyard animals and chucked the jacket straight in the wash before the shit dried, forever lodged in its orangey fibres. The fucking thing came out spotless. Utterly bastard spotless.

Seriously. Buy one. It’s like some sort of freaky wizardry, and it hurts my brain.

• 

Some fat prick in orange.

Four Hours in A&E

I’ve never reblogged something before, but this says many things better than I have done. If I can edit the post after reblogging, I’ll put some photos in it for you. I know you like photos.

The Road Less Travelled

I was driving home last night when I heard on the Radio 4 evening news that one of the top stories was a failure of emergency departments in England over the last week to meet the fabled “four hour target”.

The four hour target, which was introduced by the Department of Health in 2003, states that 95% of people attending emergency departments in the UK should be seen within four hours.

Or that’s what I hear every time there’s a news item relating to this target, so let’s clear up a couple of things.

And the first thing is that the four hour target states that 95% of people attending emergency departments should be triaged and seen and treated and moved out of the department within four hours.

I’m not quibbling the rights or wrongs of the target; we could go round and round on that forever. It’s an arbitrary…

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GRUPPO SPORTIVO GAZZETTA’S “RIDE FOR TBAG”

CONDOR FLICKR

I’m not sure Condor produce anything that I don’t like. At all.

I’ve just spent an hour lusting over the Condor Flickr stream. Check it out!

FIGNON/HINAULT

Two French riders of exception.

(From afleurdepeau.sport24.com)

Bike love

I bloody love riding this bike. Just bloody love it.

SAUSAGE!

Flashback (with no flash)

Olympic Velodrome, Sainsbury’s School Games, May 2012.

I’d blagged my way to a free ticket, presumably on the basis that I’d bring my camera.  That was the day I fully appreciated just how hard it is to take photographs of bicycle racing.  These little bastards are fast.

Fabio Close wears number 55, and the scars from a crash the previous day.