The triple Olympic gold medallist admitted that of his previous Finn Gold Cup victories, this was the sweetest of them all for having won it on his home waters in Cornwall. “This is by far and away the best because I grew up and learned to sail here in Cornwall on these waters. Nothing else really matters apart from the Olympics so whatever has happened before – problems, issues, difficult situations – you just have to try and put them behind you,” Ainslie explained.

Here he is at it on the water:

… and again:

“I would say that particular moment ranks right up there with winning a gold medal,” said Britain’s greatest Olympic yachtsman, who wore the number 001 on his white London 2012 top.

“It was pretty emotional, so much effort has gone into getting the Olympics in London and it means so much to everyone involved.”

Typical champion, speaking like that.

It’s fair that we castigate so many aspects of these Olympics and maybe even the Olympics themselves the way they’ve gone but it’s a different matter with national heroes such as Ben Ainsley and Amy Williams, even Eddy the Eagle.

Just as our troops overseas are true heroes but the Blairs sending them there should be shot, so it is here.

Incidentally, for afficianados, the Finn class is a wonderful boat and though I never sailed it, I sailed its younger sister, the OK Dinghy.  It’s not an easy boat and you do need a certain bulk and the ability to shift your weight around judiciously.

It’s always sported the unstayed mast – that is, the mast which is unsupported by stays [or wires to hold it up] – and thus I imagine it’s a natural for carbon fibre today.

More than that, it is one of the original designs from the 50s and 60s, such as the Flying Dutchman, Sharpie and Tornado [all of which I've crewed on] which have stood the test of time, for the very simple reason that they are classic designs which actually work and have not been surpassed.  The Finn hull has altered very little since 1949.  It hasn’t needed to.

Why the fleximast?

Absolutely essential in monohulls and especially those with unstayed masts, as it flattens out the top of the sail in a blow and allows it to drop off a little. lowering the centre of effort of the sail and making the boat easier to keep upright.

That twist in the top of the sail also encompasses the change in dynamics of the wind as it makes its way to the tip – just look at aeroplane wings to see similar twist at the tip – it’s all about efficiency and during the golden era of the early wingsails, they were certainly fast but lacked that twist at the top, which they’ve been trying to engineer back in ever since.

Here is the physics of it – very interesting to scientific-minded people:

After four games of the World Chess Championship match in Moscow, which began on Friday, Viswanathan Anand, the titleholder, and his challenger, Boris Gelfand, have been unable to make a dent in each other.

All four games have been draws, and there has been little drama, as not one has lasted more than 40 moves. The game on Tuesday was 34 moves.

That’s right, folks – virtually nothing has happened.  Catch all the action by clicking the pic for the interactive chess viewer of one of the draws.

On the edge of our seats – Galfand tries his Gruenfeld, then batters our senses by “unleashing a laser beam of this bishop across the board”!  My sainted aunt!

Meanwhile, we cross to another scintillating sport:

You may need this:

Above – the old J Boats that once fought out the America’s Cup.  Not the fastest boats, they were the sleekest and most beautiful and though this is a replica, the overall look and feel – they seem so right to purists.

Below – the new AC72, the first one built – which will contest the cup in 2013.  Exceedingly difficult to sail, calling for the top ranked athleticism in the sport, the most skilful skippering and crewing and all modern materials, from carbon fibre to space age fabric – this is as advanced as the west can get in pursuit of sheer speed and efficiency.

Some say that that makes the boat worthy of contesting the pinnacle of the sport – the America’s Cup.  Others say they are monstrosities, something out of a computer, floating pontoons with wings.  The boat at the top might have sailed at 15-20 knots and the one below at about 40 knots – the one below would kill the other but would it do it in style?

Is the America’s Cup about money, tradition and style or about money, outright speed and cutting edge technology?

Your call.

The Quiet Man has a nice post up at OoL on the cyclists who jump red lights issue.  He quotes the survey:

More than half of cyclists have jumped a red light, according to a survey.  The offenders – some 57 per cent of bike riders – said their main reason for the risky manoeuvre was that it was safer to get ahead of other traffic.  Around 14 per cent said they go through red lights regularly or sometimes, the poll by the Institute of Advanced Motorists revealed.

He comments:

Ok, first off is the fact that the survey is by the Institute of Advanced Motorists, this means that cyclists are unlikely to get a fair hearing, though judging by the declared results it does rather look to the jaundiced eye of this motorist that a great deal of fibbing is going on too.

I thank him for raising that.  But he goes on:

Yet there are times I cannot blame cyclists for taking to the pavement, some roads are simply just too narrow and too busy to allow a comfortable coexistence, yet you can almost bet your bottom dollar that if road improvements are made it’s often to the detriment of the motorist. I also wonder just who the cyclists believe should pay for “improved cycling facilities on roads” I somehow doubt they believe it should be them alone.

That last part is fair – who pays?  Cyclists currently don’t, except through their council and other taxes and there is the answer really – they do contribute, just as the motorist does.  It’s just that they don’t pay road tax on their vehicles – footpath tax?  And if so, will you tax every child who rides a bike?

I’d be willing to pay a levy for cycle path improvement and overall facilities for cyclists, for sure.  In my impecunious state, I’d be willing to give £2.50 a week and if fully employed, £7 a week, if it was guaranteed:

1.  That the money would go direct to cycle lane and general infrastructure improvement in our area;
2.  I could have input on just what the money was spent on.

Not a problem.  How many cyclists is this overall, in my area, to tax?  I’d say not all that many compared to the drivers.  And who does the most damage to the roads – the cyclists or the drivers?  And let’s look at what the government wants – to reduce dependence on the car, which I’m fine with.  But to do that, they must put the money up front and that comes from the taxpayer, of which I’m one.

Then there is the aesthetic aspect – the more wimmin we get on bikes, especially in summer, the better.  [I'd be interested to know if Julia cycles to work.]  More seriously, the more women who ride, the safer it will become because the motorist will be forced to acknowledge the sheer numbers.

The UK has an appalling attitude to the cyclist, often with good reason but it’s more infrastructural problems which are the killer.  Sort these out and you’d get the European situation where bicycles proliferate and are regulated better in terms of what can and can’t be done with them, even in taking them on trains.

Quoting surveys at us to vilify us solves nothing.

[Any excuse, Higham?  Absolutely!]

Cholesterol? Never heard of it. Meanwhile, Chuckles sends his lunch:

Who’s is the healthier?

Jim O points us to the story of the Harvard Bookstore, where the new owner set up an on-demand printer/binder to see if he could leverage the opposite trend. People don’t just shop physically then buy digitally—they also shop digitally and buy physically:

Maybe access to the vast universe of digital content could also save the bookstore. Maybe the bookstore, while limited in inventory, could evolve in the digital world and become a destination where people had access to every digitized book ever published.

To truly compete, he would also have to solve consumer’s expectations for instant gratification and delivery. Jeff needed a complete production, distribution, and fulfillment model. He has likely shocked a lot of people by building one in his own backyard.

Essentially, Jeff installed a printing press to close the inventory gap with Amazon. The Espresso Book Machine sits in the middle of Harvard Bookstore like a hi-tech visitor to an earlier era. A compact digital press, it can print nearly five million titles including Google Books that are in the public domain, as well as out of print titles.

We’re talking beautiful, perfect bound paperbacks indistinguishable from books produced by major publishing houses. The Espresso Book Machine can be also used for custom publishing, a growing source of revenue, and customers can order books in the store and on-line.

You can walk into the store, request an out-of-print, or hard-to-find title, and a bookseller can print that book for you in approximately four minutes. Ben Franklin would be impressed.

Discuss.

1 Tuscany at San Gimignano

Italy is the one wine growing country in the world to literally have vineyards in every region of the country from north to south, east to west the islands, everywhere.

Ally all that with the country that grows more grape varieties than anywhere else and you have a mix that should satisfy all tastes in all categories of wine drinking.

Of course it’s not that simple and Italy suffered and gained more than any country from EU farming subsidies in the past, the infamous wine lake was largely filled by unwanted wine from Italy’s south, Appulia being the biggest contributor.

Fortunately that is in the past and for the south, it was a question of cutting back production and improving the quality or going to the wall.

They chose or were forced by circumstance to do the former and the south now produces some very good wines, mainly reds that can compete in the everyday drinking category with anyone.

Italy, as with France, sat on its backside for years with a take or leave it attitude to its offerings and again, like France, suffered as the New World ate into its market share with products the consumer wanted i.e. good quality wines, easy to understand labels, clean fresh flavours at a price that begged the question ‘why can’t europe do this’ and along the way introduced the screwtop, causing a lot of controversy at the time – most of it not upheld – and eliminating corking at a stroke, the number of corked bottles being up to ten% , although the reluctance of the Brits to actually take a bottle back or to ask in a restaurant for a replacement made the figure look a lot less.

2 At Loreto in the Marche

But Italy has upped its game in all departments of wine production and can now compete with the New World in all areas, and with the Australian dollar’s strength working against itself, Europe and Italy in particular is back in the game.

They still have issues in certain areas but it a huge move forward.

To my mind, it’s the regions where the differences lie, the older, more established ones on the world markets doggedly staying with what they thinks best.

To the lover of the great wines of Piedmont and Tuscany, not much has changed, the really good producers of Barolo Barberesco and ‘SuperTuscan’ wines have upped their game and compete in the same market as Bordeaux to a lesser degree, but this is an area where Italy still gets it wrong.

For years, producers, as for example in Burgundy, have been able to command prices that have been based on demand for a finite product and the ability to sell it regardless of quality. I personally have purchased Barolos from supposed great producers in great years when I would have been better off with an Aussie shiraz at supermarket prices.

The reverse is also true.

3 Piedmont

Where Italy should score is in the use of many of its lesser known grapes. There are many whites that are available but are still a bit of a lottery to purchase, as again the producer is not always a guarantee of what you get in the bottle.

Arneis, Greco di Tufo, Pinot Gris, Falanghina are only some of the whites that are different enough and in the right hands, make very good if not great wines. Even the work horse Trebbiano d’Abbruzo has achieved great things under a couple of producers – it’s a shame the usual offerings in this country are the out of fashion, e.g. Soave Orvieto Frascati, from producers supplying the supermarkets at a price. Versions of these wines can be obtained at a much higher quality in their homelands.

Pinot Grigio is however flavour of the month and amongst the dross are some good examples. An alternative but again out of favour is Verdicchio although (and I hate to plug them) Tesco have a good version on their shelves. Should anyone visit the Marche region the enoteca in Jesi is one of Italy’s best and shows what really can be done with this variety.

This is an area that Italy excels in – easy drinking low alcohol wines for lunch or just for drinking with a good book in your deckchair in the sun.

4 Vineyards in Sicily

I left out the Gavis and the Fianos – both can be good but I always thought mostly overrated and a bit bland, a purely personal view. As I say, there are many others and all should be tried given the chance, you never know you could be pleasantly surprised.

Whilst on easy drinking, Italy’s light reds fall into the same category. Again it’s sad that the two best – Valpolicella and Bardolino – from around the northern lakes are also rarely seen. There’s a market for these lower alcohol wines, especially as everywhere else the alcohol content seems to be going ever upwards.

To the detriment of everything else in the wine as it becomes overpowered, once more, many other lighter reds are to be found but not generally here in the UK.

Reds, on the other hand, have their stars in nearly all the regions, outside of the obvious Barolo and the so called super Tuscans, both areas worth visiting for the scenery as much as the wine.

There are the Brunellos from southern Tuscany, Montepulciano also from near and a very good version in the Abbruzo, Rubesco from Umbria, the great Vinsantos of many regions, Rosso Conero from Ancona, Aglianico from Campania and more.

It is the south Appulia and Sicily that has progressed more than any others in recent years, the two main grapes Negroamaro and Nero d’Avola are being turned into wines that in quality and consistency are a match for the new world and gaining in acceptance all the time.

Appulia is the bread basket of Italy – the fens with sun – and as such, it’s the one area of the country that does little for me in the scenery stakes, that despite having some wonderful towns in Ostuni in the north of the wine region and Lecce and the Trulli town of Alberello in the south plus a southern coast to die for, Otranto being the main town.

5 Alto Adige

While I am talking about Appulia and this region of produce, it supplies over 70% of the country’s olive oil, also previously being poured into a huge EU hole, but do not be deceived into thinking only Tuscany and other select areas are capable of producing quality oil.

This region can and does match anything from those elite estates further north and at a lot less money.

Appulia is, by definition, the only flat vineyard area, apart from some in Lombardy in the country. Most are in rolling countryside, as in Tuscany or in the foothills of mountains from the alps to Etna on Sicily. Many more are like so much else in this country, the scenery the towns and villages – diverse and very beautiful.

The very north and south of the country are also responsible for two of the more different wines.

Marsala from Sicily is a distant cousin of sherry and the Valpolicella Amorone – the dry and Recioto – the sweet versions of the wine made from late picked and loft dried grapes to make a concentrated and potent version of the wine – these are of high quality and although a bit dearer than the standard product (in some cases a lot dearer), they can be superb.

This area, the Venetoand Friuli-Venezia Giulia, is home to the Prosecco grape, the base for spumante – never capable of matching Champagne but it goes down well as a Bellini.

Nonetheless, the Romans imported and developed vines and in turn spread the growing of them and the making of wine throughout Europe, for that we should be thankful.

6 A young in this case American woman, one of an increasing number of women winemakers worldwide.

The more interesting racing is around 14:34 so you might like to jump to there. Interestingly, these boats race within an electronic corral – their instruments tell them when they’re approaching the boundary and they’re penalized for crossing it. How sailing’s come on in the C21st.

Here’s a rundown on the new format.

1.  This outfit is discussed below

The BuzzFeed page on “68 Photos Of Badly Dressed Celebrities, Large Hats, And Drunk People At The Kentucky Derby” came my way and allow me to point certain things out before starting.

I know those sites which exist to tear everything down and I don’t like them because that’s all they do. It would be nice to think that our site here puts up many positive things as well, although not shrinking from pointing out rank hypocrisy when it needs to.

Our site is also committed to aesthetics, especially JD’s posts and you’ve seen the panoramas and photo spreads of the other authors.  I’d like to think that they contribute something to the debate on aesthetics and that our political posts contribute something to the debate on politics.

The next thing is that, looking at those photos, I must have only a loose grasp of what is and isn’t goodlooking because some of those hats seemed fine to me, at least in the context of the Kentucky Derby.  Sure the ladies portrayed were … er … well fed … and shouldn’t have been wearing unflattering outfits and you’re entitled to ask why they “shouldn’t” have.

The reason is that they were making fashion statements themselves.  If they’d been in ordinary outfits, they’d be not making statements and wouldn’t have been noticed, except for their elegance and beauty.  So, in actually making big statements, they obviously must run the gauntlet of aesthetic criticism.

The next point is that it’s tough on women in so many ways.  Ever scrutinized, especially for hypocrisy, just what can a woman do?  Not taken seriously so often, why need she prove herself when there are so many women just as competent, just as intelligent and capable as any man.  I’d hope that women readers here do not get the idea that women are all painted with the same brush – they’re not.

This site castigates a certain type and that’s it.  It zeroes in on a type and clearly doesn’t see the ladies who frequent N.O. as being of that type.

So, let’s look at these outfits and see what’s wrong or right with them.  The one at the top – not everyone can be svelte or 23 but well done to her as she seems a pleasant lady.  What’s wrong with the outfit?  The only thing I can see is too much red below without bringing the hat colour in as an accessoire.

2.  Simple – prostitute, let alone that white does not flatter the fuller figure.  In other colours, she might have come over as curvaceous but in these, she comes over as butch.  He’s dressed sportingly and wisely leaves white below but the shoes, the shoes.  Goatee’s not bad.

3.  Hat’s OK, doesn’t say much with that white band, lipstick is appalling but I can’t stand bright red at the best of times anyway.  Hat’s too flat – should have a slight angle.  Hope her dress is dark.

4.  Awful, simply awful.  But why?  That’s what puzzles me.  The light colour on the fuller figure, the broad-beamed cut, the plainness, the wrong colour for her complexion, the shortening effect it has on an already short lady.  Not flattering.

5.  You’ll need to tell me what’s wrong.  The bow?  Too ostentatious, artificial?  Browny-grey not good on a woman?  Don’t know – looks OK to me on a Derby-goer.  She’s pretty enough.

6.  That’s easy – fuller figure, made to look obese by the flow of the dress or lack of it and that white colour.  Cheap-looking shoes.  Hairpiece and shoes don’t blend.  Bit of grey sticking out below too like a petticoat.

7.  Seems fine to me although mauve/lavender is an older woman’s colour, her complexion too light for it, hat looks cheap, bouquet is OK.  Tell me what you see.

8.  Aaaaaggghhh!!!  I’m not even going to discuss him.  Yuk!  For a start [I lied], his trousers are half-mast.  Her – is it the choice of colour?  The cut seems OK, she matches and can get away with the white watchband because of the waist trim.  It’s her complexion with that colour which gets me.

9.  A bit gloomy but then again, it’s in the shadows.  Older ladies – black and blue is a no-no to some but to me, it depends on the shades.  ‘Twould be nice if she smiled.  Cleavage perhaps wrong after a certain age – like men in trainers.  Your call.

10.  Matches, in kid’s terms but the hat is a bit too cute.  Still, it’s the Derby.

11.  Where do we start – the hips?  The Hawaiian lea?  The colour with that straw-blonde hair?  The pale, washed out complexion, those knees and scrawny lower legs?  In the end, she’s not obese but the hips look broad indeed – most unflattering altogether.  And tries too hard, a la PoMo.

12.  No.  Not sure why at first glance.  White again?  With polkadots and large ones at that?  Aqua wrist band?  Red hair?  Overall gaucheness in her deportment?  Awful.

13.  The body scarring, the body scarring!!!  When will women learn that disfiguring themselves, scarring their skin tissue is gross, revolting?  On a big mama like that, it’s even worse.  The red she chose is also completely wrong for a black lady.  The pomada is washed out.

14.  Go for it, ladies.  They’re enjoying themselves – let’s leave them alone.

15.  Seems OK to me, apart from the backdrop.  The shot’s not too good but her shoes go with the dress and hat.  I don’t personally like the colour but that’s not the issue – her complexion allows it and she likes that floral motif.  Cut is OK and delicate enough.  Your opinion?

16.  Look, blacks are allowed to be loud and crass – he can carry it off and it’s so completely not meant to blend that it’s OK.  His sunnies, shirt and tie are fine for a black guy.

17.  The one on the right – have you no shame, sir?  Even at the Derby.  The one on the left – no!  You simply can’t do that any more.  Sorry but at some stage in your life, you need to accept that fact that dressing young doesn’t wash, especially with that figure.  The one in the middle has already been mentioned above.

18.  Sad to say to most ladies but this one can carry anything off.  White hat with blonde – hmmmm.  The thing which is clearly wrong is the watch and wristband.  Perhaps this is just a young girl who knows no better but the thing is – everyone knows she knows no better.  I think nooky would be about the only thing on men’s minds here.

Your take on the 18 pics would be appreciated.

There is one other factor.  Look at the pic below.  As a fashion statement, it’s not – both are dressed plainly:

The one on the right has the better body, the one on the left is too pear-shaped and big but she has panache the other simply lacks.  Just the way they carry themselves really.  How much effect does culture have on appearance?

[H/T Chuckles]

The rule is that it has to be “past the line”.  Not past the crossbar – past the line.   There does appear a lean to the goal frame backwards at the top.  The camera is not completely aligned with the line, that’s true.  To align it, it would need to move fractionally to the right.

That would have the effect of making the ball appear more “in”.  My feeling, looking carefully at this pic – not that this need be the only pic – is that there might be 95% of the ball over the line with very little doubt but that last 5% would require video tech.

There is also the issue of compression.  The ball would obviously go out of shape fractionally, due to the keeper’s hand.  He says the ball was on the woodwork but if it was, it was on the back and he “dug it out”.   The question again is if it was over the line, not the woodwork.

I think it’s over because there is no part of the ball protruding left of the woodwork, which itself is behind the line.

Often, a rig is great in that context, in that size, on that craft.  Try to transfer it and it doesn’t work, e.g. the windsurfer foil.  On a larger boat, the mast is not stiff enough for the weight of sail but what if a wingmast were to be the leading edge [only more curved]:

Tom Speer did a lot of work on partial wings and discovered that 10-15% of the total fore and aft length was a good size – not, 20%, not 50% – and that the only thing better was 100%:

As I’m interested in the simplest and cheapest cruising rig, the full wingsail is not only right out of the ballpark, costwise but its advantage in sailing, i.e. it will move over a large range of angles of attack, whereas a conventional sail must have the angle “just so”, is a racing advantage but a cruising nightmare.

What though if you had a 10% wing as your leading edge and ran a lateen sail like a crab claw? So you’d use a configuration like Gary Dierking’s, with a stubby mast set into the keel, not needing stays, then the two long “yards” would hang from that:

Where he uses straight spars, we’d use curved, more in a crab claw shape:

… but would opt to lose the crab claw efficiency for wingmast efficiency and replace the leading spar with the wing, getting back more to the windsurfer shape [at the top].  That allows for greater area and pulls the centre of effort lower [no huge amounts of sail waving about up in the air].

Now, if two of those were to be used – a larger at the front and a smaller at the back, mainly for navigational aid – picture this below with the lower spars down further towards the deck:

… then it needs one more embellishment.  You see, if you drop the foot of the sail closer to the deck but it extends behind the rear mast, there is the issue of how to get the boom over to the other side without lifting it high and dropping it again each time.

My solution is not to have a boom but a heavy boltrope instead, not unlike those used to tie up ships, sewn or tied along the foot.  It’s stiff enough to hold its shape as long as the sheet [line pulling the sail in], leads aft and down, plus a traveller system is used:

Not state of the art like this but one using two cables from the centre hull out to the amas.  So yes, I neglected to mention that this will only work on a trimaran configuration.  And that’s only for the mainsail up front.  The smaller sail behind would have a boom which would swing out from the one point at the stern and tack itself across.

The advantage over the gaff rig is less windage and a clean leading edge, over the lug in that there’s no loose leading edge sagging or flapping about, the rig is more rigid and yet allows the sail its natural curve.  It’s a much simpler rig than a modern bermudan, in terms of running rigging, it carries the centre of effort far lower, the “hockey stick” head allows a more square shape downwind and the wing can be dropped to the deck quickly – within seconds.

The N1 criticism of the crab claw though [or sails with two equi-length spars] is that it can’t be reefed [sail reduced].  This one can and the bolt-rope gets over the disadvantage of loose-footed sails -difficult to reef.   The crab claw uses brail lines which when tautened, ruin the shape of the sail and therefore depower it, an advantage at sea.  So our sail would have these too, also doubling as lazy jacks:

The disadvantage of the modern bermudan is that ultratall mast, needing bracing, invoking huge pressures on rig and boat and in a storm, that tall mast is swaying about up there, even without sail.  With this compromise design of mine, you get none of that, you don’t get the stresses but you get the efficiency in good winds.

Why haven’t people done this yet?  The answer is that people tend not to like hybrids – they tend to use the rigs which are common in that geographical area and look to resale value.  As I have no scanner, I can’t show my sail profile to you but imagine a cross between the above, blended into a rough crab claw, a lifting rig – also not unlike a huge genoa:

Now picture the leading edge not concave, like this but convex, led by a wing, which in turn hangs behind a stubby mast.  The short mast itself has windage but the wing hangs downwind and has clean air on its outer or lee side.

It would most certainly work but your obvious question would be – why on a cruising craft?  The answer is that such a sail has an efficiency of 1.5 or thereabouts on a reach over a conventional sail and about evens upwind – so less area required, less sailcloth overall.  Ease of handling onboard – halyard and sheet only, via a winch and only one major sail needing attention – the mizzen behind is small and virtually takes care of itself.

On a 37 foot boat, the 409 sq feet is not to large to handle, particularly when the wing simply lowers beside the boltrope and is tied down in a storm.  The expense is not in the sail but in the wing and that would take some construction but as you’re saving on labour elsewhere, it might as well go into the wing.  Also, if it did break, it could be lowered to the deck and repaired there with metal “splints” whilst a storm jib takes its place.

I can only see this working on a trimaran, not a cat because it requires rigidity at the three corners but if you did build a tri, then this would be your most efficient, for the lowest stresses and easiest handling of any rig used by sailors.

Now I just need a spare £20 000 which, as yachtsmen will tell you, is chickenfeed these days although admittedly, not for me.

And the hull shape?  I quite like the Scottish/Nordic double-enders.  Picture this at 37 feet, with low cabin and the rig mentioned above:

By the way, that would be the construction method too – clinker or lapstrake.

1 Old Velodrome Buffalo poster

Velodromes are simply tracks for racing bicycles, developed in the early 1880s in line with the fast growing pastime/craze that cycling was providing.

They soon expanded and became part of the sporting scene of the period. The very first velodrome was in Paris, the Buffalo opening in 1893.

The sport itself took off at such a rate that it soon became the number two sport in the USA and similar in many European countries, huge crowds attending the big meets with match racing between champions of both continents, along with an ever increasing range of events manifesting itself in the six-day races held on indoor board tracks in every major city.

The first six-day was held in London, the tracks for these were by nature smaller than the outdoor tracks being made to fit the arena they were contained in and fell mainly into the 150-250 mt category.

The outdoor versions were generally larger, with the earlier ones being anything up to 600mts although once again, in the USA, many temporary tracks were erected, these being wooden and would be dismantled after the event.

These temporary ones generally were smaller as smaller was cheaper and easier to find a venue for.

2  Maastricht

Those outdoor permanent tracks had either a concrete, cement, asphalt, even cinder surface.

Yes, some outdoor permanent wood tracks also went up but then, as now, the wood quality and maintenance decided the long term fate of these, something that is still proving a costly undertaking and in many cases a sad ending to some magnificent facilities, as the 1960 velodrome built for the Olympics of that year has proved.

Closed as early as 1968, this beautiful arena was finally put out of its misery a couple of years back.

The Meadowbank stadium in Edinburgh has only survived because of the forthcoming Commonwealth games. This has already been totally rebuilt once and now for these games, at huge expense.

As the tracks became smaller in those early days, so the design became more important. The banked turns serve two purposes

The first is to allow riders to keep their bikes relatively perpendicular to the surface when travelling at speed, though it is not possible to have the optimum angle or radius for outright speed, as not all riders are travelling at that optimum speed and can be all over the track and so the angle of the banking is compromised by about 10-15 degrees less than physics would have it.

3 Multi purpose at Bordeaux

The straights are also banked simply to make the transition from straight to banking with the area just prior to the banking becoming the transition point, making the steering of the bike easier as there is a constant radial position.

In recent years, the standardisation of tracks world wide has meant that there is little change between them now, as the optimum figures have been established. In the past, tracks with a bad transition area did occur, producing a ‘dead’ area that often caused crashes as the bike did not naturally follow the curve,

I only rode on one track that was mishapen – the old Butts stadium in Coventry, which had an exit after the first banking that threw you out to the middle of the track, all part of the game – this also has been demolished.

Two exceptions evolved in velodromes, though one is simply racing on grass, the best example being the permanent and only banked grass track I know of at Rounday Park Leeds.

4 Lovely new concrete track Giordano USA

The other were some rather special tracks again to my knowledge no longer existing that were built to accommodate motor paced racing. This form of cycle racing was there almost from the start of the sport and consisted of a rider following a roller attached to a motorcycle.

These were specialist machines in the old days, consisting of big V twin often JAP engined motorcycles with a single speed belt drive for smooth acceleration, the motorcyclist sitting far back with elongated handlebars to give maximum wind protection to the cyclist.

The teamwork involved in that was crucial to success, as accelerating as when attacking had to be within the riders capability because recovery with the huge gears used if you”lost” the motor. It was exhausting to say the least.

I was fortunate to see in 71 at Leicester in one of the last world championships for this class the dwindling band of specialists that competed in this event, producing an event that was amazing for the speed.

Over 70mph was reached and the skill involved over the 100 laps tandem racing is no longer with us. Lack of time, together with other factors (not lack of popularity) saw the demise in championship meetings.

5 Madison Square Garden NYC , from where the term Madison racing came from

The tracks for motorpaced racing are in places that it flourished and Germany is the best place to start. It had steeper bankings to cope with extra speed and indeed to keep up the average speed.

I was fortunate to see one already in decline in Wuppertal Germany and this had, in effect, two grades of banking – the lower part for ordinary racing and the upper part for the motorpaced events.

The upper part was near to 70 degrees. I know of no other track to have had such a steep banking.

With the standardisation of tracks world wide as regards championships – all now conform to 250mts and are indoors – there arises a problem.

Elite tracks are not available to the beginner as with the older outdoor tracks. The sheer expense of maintaining them and the smaller track space alone means less youngsters can find out if this is what they want to do, the steepness of the tracks also not an ideal starting point, so the demand for sensible outdoor low maintenance tracks is rising again but of course many of these old stalwarts have gone.

6  Beautiful 333mts outdoor wood track Hanover Germany

London is the worst area per capita. There were only two tracks when I was riding, Herne Hill in south London recently reprieved and resurfaced and years under threat of development, and Paddington where I learned to ride, a 500yd concrete track with shallow 10 degree bankings and like Herne Hill built in the 1880s, always popular, two meetings a week in the summer plus an occasional weekend meet.

Plans were afoot to upgrade facilties when the local populace decided to oppose and it went from a dream of the new to being demolished for a rose garden in ’86, despite all the other athletics, tennis etc being given new improved venues.

Tragic, this old track had not only served the cycling fraternity well, but also the local community as the community had grown around it over the years it also had a running track inside it, as many older ones did, utilising the space better and after the Commonwealth games in ’56 (christ I’m old), held a post games meeting of athletics and cycling with most of the big names from both sides appearing including Derek Ibbotson the world mile record holder.

A terrific evenings entertainment and a huge crowd – this is not something that I have seen repeated.

Other grander tracks existed that followed the wrap round an athletics – the old White City stadium, the 1908 Olympic venue was one and many may remember the old Parc des Princes in Paris, home to football and rugby as well as cycling.

The Tour de France used to finish on this track as well.

7  The sad sight of the derelict 1960 Rome Olympic stadium

The other problem with dedicated indoor velodromes is running costs. It is still not a big spectator sport, apart from Olympics worlds etc, so whilst the country could stand a couple of these for indoor racing, the continental approach of omni-sport stadiums such Paris Bercy are more financially viable.
France has, I believe, eight of these in regional capitals, hosting a variety of sports and other events, the same in Germany.

Dortmund is as good an example as any, with large removable sections of the banking making the inner area available for whatever it’s needed for. In Germany and other continental countries, these are the venues where the modern six-day races are held, not as murderous as the original ones that were the cycling equivalent of dance marathons but six days nonetheless.

The six day was revived in London for a period in the sixties and the track for that was a temporary structure of board sections as in ply. I have included a small you tube vid of one being built like this in the states.

The rush for ultmate wooden velodromes has created an industry with many going up world wide. Two companies, one German, the oldest and the designers of the Vigorelli in Milan in 1936 and the subject of my last quiz, and one created by an ex rider an Australian Ron Webb who rode for his country at world an Olympic level and also promoted cycle meetings.

The demand for basic facilities remains and despite the fact that wooden tracks are the fastest, good concrete can compete.

The ’83 world championships were held in Switzerland at the old Oerlikon track. Anyone who has travelled on Swiss roads has seen the quality of what the Swiss can do with concrete. The ’83 produced several world records at a time when this sort of track was being superceded for wood, so you now have a standardised 250mt track indoors that makes all records comparable.

It makes sense at that level, as before we had indoor and outdoor records, further confusion being added by records at altitude, such as in Mexico city.

That’s the good part. The part I’m not convinced about is that lack of diversity that we all took for granted in the past and more importantly the every day affordable track in regional centres to give those who want a track career in cycling a start

They do exist, but not enough of them.

8 I make no excuse for including an old club mate of mine Dave Handley(left) world championship bronze medallist in the sprint in a very close finish on the old Paddington track:

She’s retired – too many injuries, lost the urge as a result.  Sad but it happens.  She must never be forgotten.  One commenter wrote:

I love the Winter Olympics, it’s so much more fun than all that summer nonsense. Amy, you were a great winner for the UK, congrats on what you have achieved, and good luck in whatever you choose to do next.

Absolutely – the Winter Olympics is the real deal.  Clearly I’ve never done skeleton but I have done luge and that’s intense enough to empathize with her, particularly as winter sports have never really been our bag at the level she was operating.

The magnitude of this win, beating the winter nations at their own game, lifts it out of Eddie the Eagle territory and into genuine contention.  No praise is high enough.

Relive her triumph below – wasn’t it a nice gesture by the German girl too:

What is it with beef?  You can have a meal with chicken – yep, it’s nice.  You can eat roast duck – yummy with julienned cucumbers and onion, in a pancake and with hoisin sauce.  That’s better.

But it’s only beef which causes you to stay fed, to stay full, to feel you’ve really had a meal. And as MHlists says:

Most people consider turkey, chicken, and fish healthy, yet think they should avoid red meat—or only choose very lean cuts—since they’ve always been told that it’s high in saturated fat.

But there are two problems in that thinking. The first problem is that almost half of the fat in beef is a monounsaturated fat called oleic acid—the same heart-healthy fat that’s found in olive oil. Second, most of the saturated fat in beef actually decreases your heart-disease risk—either by lowering LDL (bad) cholesterol, or by reducing your ratio of total cholesterol to HDL (good) cholesterol.

And besides being one of the most available sources of high-quality protein, beef also provides many important nutrients such as iron, zinc, and B vitamins. So the idea that beef is bad for you couldn’t be further from the truth.

We’re being given so much contradictory garbage these days – hey look, beef has fed the warrior and the schoolboy [and girl] for millennia – what’s with the modern preoccupation with “not healthy”?  If anything’s not healthy, it’s the sedentary lifestyle and the worry of modern life.

And another thing:

Red wine prolongs life: scientists uncover how ‘miracle ingredient’ boosts body’s cell energy

LOL – you might have unwittingly [or not] contributed today to bringing more Aquarians into the world. 

1. Minestrone soup with croutons a la Higham;
2. Main dish *:

3. Steamed [stewed] apple with various spices and blackcurrant yoghurt;
4. Coffee and various biscuits and chocolate.

Later:

Use the remaining slices of toast with double gloucester cheese and greens and polish off the wine, as I’m doing now, typing to you with great difficulty here. Need a bit of a lie-down methinks.

In the shadow of the workhouse:

Memo for next time:

1. Get cider to take us through the afternoon;
2. Invite lady.

………..

*  Taken with the MacEye which involved setting up a cloth on the bread box and putting it close to the laptop.

This little boy is the son of seven times World Professional Sprint Champion Antonio Maspes, he is standing at the bottom of the banking of the most iconic velodrome in the world, it was host to ten new world attempts at one event all successful between 1935-1986, it is also a renowned rock venue having hosted the Beatles in 1965 and almost everyone of note since.

Questions

1 The name of the velodrome.
2 In which city it is.
3 The cycling event that had its record broken ten times.

Not forgetting this one, which is pretty heroic:

or should that be “heroinic”?

Referring to Wiggia’s earlier post on Australian wines, I’d like to add a few things, perhaps too many for a comment on his post.

Australia’s Hunter Valley on the East coast was regarded as the home of the sweeter wine and the Hermitage in Western Australia, with its drier soils, was regarded as the home of the drier variety, which was my preference.  Whilst a big Chateauneuf du papes can’t be beaten for a big occasion, for easy drinking – many of these drier wines were the goods.

From those days in Australia, I remember Wolf Blass was one of the first to really make a name for himself but he was also known for making the wines more formulaic, for the appellation to be more closely controlled and thus Australian wines gradually became known, worldwide, for their consistent quality.  That is, they didn’t set the world on fire but they were much of a consistency, perhaps not as good as the really great old country wines but head and shoulders above the average rubbish coming out of the old world, including France.

Critics say the marketers were the only reason Australian wines were bought by more and more.  sorry but for all the marketing in the world, if the wine is not up to scratch, the wine is not up to scratch.  You can’t fool a wine-drinker that way.

Wine areas of Australia:

Anecdotes?  Where do I start.  Three in particular stand out in my memory.

You know “wine, women and song” – well all my major wine drinking had a “woman” component in it, the perfect nightcap to a good evening of wine and romance.  WN1 was she who accompanied me to most of the infancy of the new “Australian push” worldwide and with the winegrowing areas just up the road, in Ozzie terms, we’d take many a trip to the Barossa, to the Adelaide region and not forgetting Swan Hill and the like.

1.  One winery I remember we were following the chap along his counter, as he let us taste this one or that.  suddenly, he just disappeared.  There was a certain component of us being sloshed in that but we must have stood, slack-jawed for sometime and then, just as miraculously, he reappeared, passing it off as a momentary aberration.

2.  There was one road in the Barossa which had many wineries on it.  We’d decided we’d be too sloshed by the end so we planned out our intake and visitation, visited the nearby Condottieri and grabbed various pastries – strudles etc. – then hit the wineries.

Halfway through, we’d had it and my car was tending to wander [this was before the days of political correctness]. I don’t know where we were but we just pulled over to the side of the road, attempted to put out a picnic rug and have our pastries and dessert wine, ended up making love and I don’t recall too much more than that.

3. We were back at the hotel the following evening, enjoying a lovely meal in their restaurant. We’d got about a third of the way through the second bottle, she gave me a look, I gave her an “is the Pope Catholic” look in return, we grabbed the bottle off the table, burst into our room, flinging off the gear and the rest you can imagine.

Australian wines pack a powerful punch. I do miss her – she was the one I mentioned elsewhere who had this habit of sitting quietly, then suddenly doing something to you whilst you were driving. I feel a man can’t get enough of that sort of thing.

The whole wine experience in Australia, from the valleys and the vineyards to the table is so pleasant, so much fun and the warm sunshine brings out all the best feelings. The old families there had attempted to recreate the hillside culture of la dolce vita, the long tables were groaning under the weight of food and wine and it used to be a good scene. Who knows how the PC spoilsports have wrecked it today though.

1 Penfolds Grange Hermitage

In the world of wine, Australia can be credited with kicking the old world so hard in the everyday drinking stakes that they have taken over twenty years to see the light and are still recovering.

When Australia entered the market in a big way some 25+ years ago the choice for a bottle of affordable wine to go with the Sunday lunch was a selection of unimpressive [to put it mildly] French wines, mainly of area provenance or named after the local co-op winery. A pretty dire Chianti that was purchased on the strength that one could turn the bottle with its raffia holder into a tablelamp as seen in Italian restaurants of the era, or a Rioja that was usually far too old and as was the wont at the time normally well on the way to becoming vinegar it really was that bad a choice for the man in the street who was so restricted in his buying choice.

I forgot to add in fact I tried to forget completely the appalling Mateus Rose so loved by the ladies of the time.

2 Yarra Valley Victoria

When the first Australian wines appeared it was not easy for them to make inroads into what was a very traditional market, plus there was not the plethora of books, magazines and newspaper columns that exist today on the subject – it was hard going and dismissed by many on the grounds that they couldn’t possibly know about wine being so ‘new’ to it, despite having had vineyards for a couple of hundred years, and they themselves had to haul themselves up from producing cheap fortified wines and the like, but they learned from it and put the experience of the good winemakers that they had (many of course with backgrounds in wine from the old country) and basically started from scratch to end up with as modern an industry and as well served by the expertise they now had as anywhere in the world.

3 Adelaide Hills winery

It hasn’t stopped at the everyday level of drinking either – fine wines, a few that existed before almost unheard of outside of Australia started to appear alongside the pioneering Grange Hermitage by Penfolds.

The likes of Peter Lehman, Brian Croser, Murray Tyrrell and others pushed up the quality level in all regions and became a match albeit with a different style for most of what was being produced in the European homelands.

4 Charles Cimicky winery Barossa

Despite an ever widening portfolio of grapes being used, the two varieties that still rule the roost are Shiraz or Syrah in Europe and Chardonnay for white wines even the overoaking of the latter in the earlier efforts had been bought under control and with these two varieties, the overall standard is very high indeed.

Now other varietals are becoming more commonly available in reds – Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache are now of very high quality and Pinot Noir, Petit Verdot and others are appearing more routinely

In whites, Semillon and Muscat have long been produced and are in many ways the most individual of the Aussie whites. Sauvignon Blanc has yet to reach the quality of their neighbours in New Zealand and the same goes for Pinot Noir, yet there are the Reislings for whom Tim Knappstein in the Clare Valley north of the Barossa is probably the best example.

5 Barossa vines

On my visit there a few years back I was fortunate to have the time to visit most of the wine growing regions but one thing for me stood out above everything else – the astounding quality of Shiraz in almost all the wineries we went to, it is still king in Australia.

What is difficult to imagine, considering the impact they have had on consumption here, as has the rest the new world subsequently, is the small size of the vine growing areas relative to say the Languedoc in southern France that is actually alone bigger than all the Australian vineyards.

The vine growing areas vary from the gently rolling countryside of the Barossa, the flatter areas of the Margaret River and Victoria to the Steeper slopes of the Hunter Valley and the Adelaide Hills.

6 Henschke winery Barossa

To give a list of favorite wineries would be to long to give justice especially to those Shiraz producers, but for those who just wanted to sample what Australia can offer, two make a good stop as both have restaurants as well as offering a large range of different wines of high quality.

D’Arenberg in the McLaren Vale makes a good stopping place and I also liked Chain of Ponds winery in the Adelaide Hills, but there are many more all catering for the visitor with more than just wine, to all those who can make it , enjoy and don’t forget the “stickies”.

7 100 year old Shiraz vines Barossa

On both sides, the most strident and uncompromising things were being said. What’s wrong with people today? The defence of killing horses was “people like the element of danger”, “more horses die elsewhere” [the holocaust argument] and “oh we’re going to ban racing, are we, just because two horses died?”

Five actually, in two years.

The other side says, simply, “Ban the whole race.”

Not one person, not one, suggested that Becher’s Brook be fixed, on the grounds that it is more dangerous than the rest. One good thing which many did say was that the field should be reduced to 20 or so – there could be a run-off for the final race.

Why can’t adjustments be made like that? Why does it have to be all one way or all the other?