weeknotes: the cycling edition
Eyup.
We made it to Friday, kids. Time for another weeknote.
I'm Dave Graham, increasingly lapsed book tempter on all the socials as @dakegra. I'm easily distractible with a hot beverage and cake, or a cat.
Or dogs, tbh. Amber says hi.
Reading
OMG I FINISHED SOME BOOKS OMG.
Finally got to the end of Joe Abercrombie's The Devils, and very enjoyable it was too. It was also 600+ pages and whilst it was great, it was also quite... episodic. Our heroes (if you can call them that) went from dire situation to even more dire situation on their journey. It felt a bit like the author was going 'what bad thing can I throw at them now?', having enormous fun making them suffer, prevail, then looking at the next set piece.
That said, it was a proper page turner and apparently the first book in a trilogy/series? Excellent, sign me up.
This morning I finished listening to Ned Boulting's The Accidental Tour-ist (read by the author). Really enjoyed that too, I like Ned's writing and love cycling, so it was right up my street. Sad to think that his twenty year stint as commentator on the Tour de France comes to an end this year as ITV have let the rights lapse. Sad times.
I did also pre-order a couple of books. Oops.
First up is Jackson Ford's upcoming The Bone Raiders. Big fan of his books from the very first, and excited to see a new series on the way. This was an exclusive Broken Binding edition which looks gorgeous.
Also looking gorgeous is the long teased 'Green Book' from the guys who bring us The Road Book, a cycling almanac. The Green Book turns out, to exactly nobody's surprise, to be a retrospective of Mark Cavendish's illustrious career, from his first professional win in 2006 through to his monumental, record-breaking 35th stage win of Le Tour de France in 2024. Still brings a tear to my eye whenever I see a clip of that stage.
'The Cav Book' as it is now known, was a limited edition, slipcased, signed by Cavendish himself. Truly a collector's edition, with the pre-sale going live at 10am yesterday (at time of writing) and selling out in hours. I have never clicked an order button as fast as I did when the email dropped. Super excited to get my hands on a copy. As you can probably tell.
Watching
Speaking of cycling (it's almost like I plan this), I am very much looking forward to Le Tour kicking off in Lille tomorrow. The kids complain that I'm always watching the Tour, but it's three weeks of the year when I will be glued to the tv, avidly scouring stage reports, listening to various podcasts (Never Strays Far by Ned Boulting, David Millar and guests is great fun) and browsing bike websites for my N+1 bike. Bliss.
On the subject of bikes, I have an old mountain bike in the garage that I used to commute to work on, and took on a glorious trip around Ireland with my mate a long time ago. The bike is a bit knackered and in need of some TLC and I have a vague plan of making it a project to turn it into a gravel bike (kind of a road bike on steriods). It's been a project for about five years now though. I need to start making lists of what bits I'd want to upgrade (most of them). And see how much it'd cost to get sandblasted and powder coated...
Listening
Glastonbury was on last weekend, and whilst the mere thought of going to the festival with a billion other people gives me the jitters, I love catching bits on telly.
I also get irrationally annoyed by 'the flag people' (edited for broadcast as my version is much more potty mouthed) who lurk at the front and get in the way of the view. I have Strong Opinions about this, and hope that they get back to their tents to find that they've been overrun by ants. You know, those little bitey ones.
Ahem. Where was I? Oh yes, music. In no particular order, I watched:
Biffy Clyro (brilliantly sweary)
Wet Leg (brilliantly odd)
Wunderhorse (pretty good)
Snow Patrol (dependable)
Scissor Sisters (utterly fabulous)
Lorde (bold choice to play her new album in full, but solid set)
Pulp (great, took a while to relax but good fun)
The 1975 (for about 20 minutes before deciding it was Not For Me and that the lead singer seemed like a bit of a dick)
Alanis Morissette (iconic)
Supergrass (good fun)
Oh, and The Prodigy. Not my usual thing, but I clicked over to see what was on, and emerged blinking from the far end of a stunning cascade of sheer noise and energy. The version of Firestarter where Maxim just stood and didn't sing, but had the giant animated neon outlines of Keith Flint on the big screen was a tear in the eye moment. Phenomenal.
It's on iPlayer, go check it out.
The Consumed
I was in the office for a couple of days this week, so it was a lot of meal deal lunches. And when you get a meal deal, you always have to maximise value and get a smoothie. It's the law. I saw this one and couldn't resist. NAKED FIRE MACHINE. I mean, c'mon.
Photos
Daughter got back from her holiday in the south of France this week and brought me a present.
An espresso mug with cats on it! Two of my favourite things! Nice (literally).
Other things
Whilst in the office I had a game of chess with one my colleagues. I'd been playing online with a bunch of people and getting roundly thrashed, so stepped back and did some online lessons (did you know that you can learn chess on Duolingo now?). Part of my issue was that I was just looking at the board and making a move and not really thinking about any kind of strategy. And when you've got 5 or 6 games on the go it's so easy to just get the alert, fire up the app, make a move and go back to what you're doing.
Mike suggested a game in person, where we could discuss what was happening - my game had improved a lot since the early days, but he was super patient and offered a ton of advice along the way. Take your time, figure out what you would do if it was your opponent's turn, can you capture or attack anything, and if so, does that work out in your favour, that sort of thing.
It was great fun. We'll be having another match soon. In the meantime, if you're on chess.com and fancy a game, I'm dakegra on there. Let’s have a game!
Right, that's it for another week. I'm sure I've missed something along the way. I should really start keeping a note of stuff I want to talk about...
But until next week...
Smooches
D x
I'm assuming that you subscribe to Ned's substack? I thoroughly recommend it in the unlikely event you haven't.