Last November, I had a stupid idea. I was due to be in the Lake District to take photos of the World’s Biggest Liar competition. Doing some research, I realised the pub was practically at the foot of the Wrynose Pass, the infamous ‘final kick in the teeth’ of the Fred Whitton sportive, which I’d photographed two years previously.

Naturally, I decided to take my bike. Considering it was November, there was a rather large amount of blind optimism involved. Luckily, I managed to go for a ride on the only dry day in the lakes in the past three months. I decided on a 35 mile route that took in the Honister, Newlands and Winlatter passes, starting and finishing in Keswick.

After the ride I had a sudden realisation – I wasn’t totally knackered. In fact, it seemed my body had barely noticed it, despite the fact I was riding 25% inclines with a 34-25 bottom gear (I’d been racing at Hillingdon – pretty much the opposite of the Lake District). While this sounds impressive, trust me, it didn’t look it. At one point I might have been doing 3kph – essentially a very painful trackstand.

On the descent back into Keswick, my mind started whirring. If I could do that ride without lactic acid burning my legs into submission, stick some appropriate gears on, give it 6 months of training, and I could do the Fred Whitton. This started me thinking – which would be harder, the Fred Whitton, with it’s short but vicious gradients reducing your legs to jelly, or the slow attrition that is climbing in the Alps?

After a call to editor Rob Spedding, I was committed to a Fred Whitton/La Marmotte double. It was at this point my friends started calling me crazy.

 Three months later…

I knew this couldn’t be good for me. It really, really couldn’t be good for me. The world looked different from down here, and I was viewing the tarmac rushing by from a new and interesting angle. I’d just hit a patch of diesel at 60kph and was sliding along on my shoulder. I don’t know how long I slid for, but I know it was long enough for me to look around while I was sliding. Luckily, my winter jacket was astonishingly sturdy (Altura, my skin salutes you!) The windproof front panel was not even affected.

The same could not be said for my winter tights, however. It turns out, I’d put my knee out to control the slide (imagine a superbike rider in a corner). There was a large patch of road rash on my shin, but that didn’t worry me. It was the hole in my knee that concerned me most. It was about 10-15cm wide, and was a few millimeters deep. All hint of skin was gone, and I can only describe its appearance as ‘fleshy’, with a long strip flapping about at the bottom of the wound. Years of BMX had taught me to fall properly, and I have that experience to thank for the lack of broken bones.

After posting this image to Facebook, a BMXer friend of mine (a man who considers roadies with the same disdain that Dennis the Menace has for Walter and the Softies), made the comment ‘Oh dear, you’ve laddered your tights!’

Then I thought about my bike. My brand new Boardman SLR 9.0, which has been loaned to me by the good people at Boardman Bikes for my endeavour. When the front wheel started to disappear to the right (it was on a long and gentle right-hand corner), I’d compensated and gone into a two wheel drift, causing the bike to spin around and fall to its drivetrain side.

Not Tom’s Boardman, not yesterday…

As the road rapidly approached, I’d tucked into a ball, braced against the coming impact without putting an arm out, in fact, sliding along the road, I was still holding on to the drops. The long and the short of it, as my clubmates inspected my bike, was that the only casualty was the mech-hanger, which had been scraped along the tarmac.

After a long, expensive taxi ride back to my home in Peckham (Sunday, rail replacement buses, don’t ask…) I dressed the wound and even took a quick bike ride to Dulwich Park for a coffee. I’d been lucky and I’d be over this quickly, I thought.

Waking up in the morning, however, I realised that while the former was true, the latter certainly wasn’t. My entire leg had swelled up to double its normal size and couldn’t be moved. The Fred Whitton was looking incredibly unlikely. A quick scan of the UK sportive calendar however, and I saw the Wiggle Dragon Ride. While the gradients may lack the vicious punch of the Lake District, the 130 mile length could make up for it.

A month after my crash, I’ve started riding and training again. Thanks to the wonder that is the hydrocolloid gel patch, my knee is almost healed, there’s just a scab the size of a 10p piece left, and the road rash is almost completely gone. After a week taking in around 250 miles, I feel I’m back to the level I was at pre-injury – even better perhaps. And now I’ve just got three short months to build the endurance necessary to ride the 130 miles of the Brecon Beacon’s vertiginous slopes which make up the Dragon Ride. Bring it.

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Editor Rob Spedding heads down to Enigma Bikes in Eastbourne to get himself measured up for our upcoming bespoke bikes feature and proof, if it were needed, that he’s related to apes…

I’ve always been lanky but have always assumed that my spindly limbs were perfectly in proportion with my round shoulders and pigeon chest. After a few minutes of having various bits of me measured in a small industrial unit on the outskirts of Eastbourne, East Sussex, it looks like I might have a couple of bodily anomalies after all. “Your arms are longer than the norm,” says Enigma Bikes’s frame building guru Mark Reilly. As my knuckles don’t drag along the ground I could argue, but Mark’s the expert and his observation is backed up by the huge database on bikefitting.com. This is the tool that Mark and many other top bike builders use to get the geometry of bespoke bikes spot on.

My, haven't you got long arms?

Mark’s typed my measurements – including shoulder width, torso length and foot size – into Enigma’s bikefitting.com software and it’s compared me to thousands of other people of my height. Where I hit the norm the measurements show as green, where I’m different it’s red. So, my arm length is red… “This means that I can tweak the geometry of your bike so that it takes this information into account and you get the perfect fit,” explains Mark. On screen he’s making small adjustments to the outline of an Enigma bike and changing details such as top tube length – it ends up shorter than the 58cm ‘off the peg’ size I tend to favour – top tube angle, stem length and reach from saddles to bar. I’m not going to pretend to understand it but it all makes sense… And once I sit on a ‘jig’ that has all the relevant measurements dialled in I’m happy. (And, more importantly, so is Mark.)

And this is the 'handlebar' right?

Of course, having a bike made isn’t just about getting the angles and lengths right so before my measuring session Mark and I chatted about the kind of riding I want to do on my Enigma. And the bits I want on it. And, most importantly, the material I want it made from. Now, unlike tech. ed. Warren I’m not really a bike geek so I’m not going into this with the dream of colour co-ordinated tubing, cables and spoke nipples. And I’m also not an out-and-out racer like tech writer Robin Wilmott so I’m not in need of a machine that’ll get me to the front end of the field… But I do know that want something that’s comfortable enough for big rides, climbs well but can provide me with plenty of fun in the twisty bits.

"Yeah, throw in some wheels and I'll take it..."

As for the material I was seriously considering going for steel as I’d recently had a lot of fun riding my father-in-law’s old Gios, however think of Enigma and you really do think about titanium. And Mark does a pretty good job of selling Enigma’s expertise in the art of crafting Ti.  I worry that my slightly vague wishlist might not be enough for Mark, but he seems happy. We agree on hand-built wheels – Mavic Open Pros on Chris King R45 hubs, a matching Chris King headset and Campagnolo Athena Carbon shifting. I toyed with Shimano Ultegra Di2 but as much as I like it, I’m not sure I need it. And, it’s a personal thing, I think Campag will just look better on a metal bike.  So, we’ve got the ball rolling – Mark’s going to send me the final confirmation of size and geometry. And then I’ll sit back and relax while Mr Reilly works his magic in the Enigma workshop. I can’t wait!

Meanwhile myself and ‘just’ 799,999 others are telling ourselves that we’re special and clever and cerebral because we’re watching The Killing 2 on BBC4 with subtitles and everything. In TV blockbuster terms it’s not popular, but boy do we think it’s good. (Although not as good as the first one…) And then there’s me and Tom McRae. I think he’s good. Ever heard of him? No. He’s not popular. Not like that popular James Morrison who I think is rubbish. Popularity then – when we’re talking, ahem, culture –  is mainly down to taste and everyone has different tastes. But what about actual physical product, surely popular goods are popular simply because they good?

To answer this question we called in the best selling bikes from the six brands you tell us top the popularity charts for UK roadies. So, we ended up with the Giant Defy 2 (£799), Specialized Allez Elite (£900), Cube Peloton Race (£999), Boardman Team Carbon (£1299.99), Trek Madone 3.5 (£1800) and Cannondale Supersix 5 105 (£1999.99). First up, the price range is pretty interesting – from less than £800 to just shy of two grand. Popular obviously doesn’t have to mean cheap…

Best Selllers © Russell Burton/Cycling Plus

As these machines are so popular it means there’s a very good chance that you, or your riding mates, own one. So, going back to the popular culture analogy I’ve been painfully flogging, should you turn up your nose when a friend proudly shows you their Defy 2 or Madone 3.5 in much the same way you might if they asked you whether you voted for Jason Donovan or Robbie Savage on Strictly Come Dancing?

The answer is no – all six of Britain’s best sellers are excellent. As you’d expect, the more expensive machines on test – the Trek and Cannondale – are mightily impressive. In fact, both are serious contenders for our Bike of Year test. Perhaps more surprisingly the bikes at the other end of the price scale are also outstanding – the Specialized Allez Elite has, quite rightly, long been the benchmark for sub-£1000 race machines but the Giant Defy 2 is now a bona fide challenger to its crown. Obviously, I’m not going to reveal too much about the test – the magazine is on sale tomorrow – but suffice to say it proves that popular can mean good. Very good, in fact. And because these bikes are popular because you buy them it’s also reassured me that the great British public can show impeccable taste!

Cycling Plus January 2012 is on sale in all good newsagents and supermarkets from December 6. We’ve also got some fantastic Christmas subscription offers here. And don’t forget Cycling Plus is now available for Apple iPad and iPhone on Apple Newsstand!

The latest Cycling Plus yesterday

Click here to get £2 off the full ticket price of the The London Bike Show (the word ‘radar’ should show in the ‘discount code’ box). Offer expires on 25 December.

This year’s shortlist for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award has caused Jeremy Clarkson levels of controversy for not including deserving female champions like Chrissie Wellington and Sarah Stevenson, but at least cyclists will all be voting for Mark Cavendish…That seems to be the theory anyway. Voting for SPOTY takes place on December 22 but as soon as the shortlist was announced the #CAV4SPOTY campaign thundered into motion on Twitter with cyclists, cycling fans and even organising bodies adding the ‘hashtag’ to their tweets. British Cycling even has a #CAV4SPOTY countdown, with downloadable Manx Missile masks on its website.

#CAV4SPOTY (©Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images)

It’s all great fun and Mark himself is grateful and tweeted “MASSIVE thank you to everyone who’s tweeting #cav4spoty. I feel very loved.” But I have a large ‘but’ that some of you will no doubt think makes me sound, at best,  like a right miserable sod and at worst a dirty, rotten traitor – I might not vote for ‘our’ Mark.

First up I kind of object to the notion that because I’m a cyclist and cycling fan I should, therefore automatically vote for a cyclist. There can be no doubt Cav would be a more than worthy winner – the Green jersey at the Tour de France and the World Road Race Championship are incredible achievements but, controversial I know, cycling and cyclists aren’t the be all and end all…

It’s time to declare an interest of course. Before I became a cyclist, I was a runner and before I edited Britain’s best selling cycling magazine I deputy edited a rather large running title. I’m still a runner AND a cyclist but that means I have a more than passing interest in athletics. For my money and based on performances SPOTY should be a two-horse race between Cav and Mo Farah the World 5000m champion and 10,000m silver medalist. And were I to vote then I’d be sorely tempted to go with Mo.

#MO4SPOTY (© Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)

Why? Well while British cycling – both men’s and women’s – has enjoyed rude health over the past few years the same definitely can’t be said of British distance running. Other than marathon world record holder Paula Radcliffe UK Athletics, unlike British Cycling, has had few world beating long distance runners at it’s disposal for, well, decades… Before Mo, the last – actually only –  British man to win a medal in a long distance race at the World Championship was Jack Buckner with a bronze in the 5000m in 1987. In fact, such has been the drought of truly world class distance runners in the UK since the 1980s that when Farah set a new 5000m British record in 2010 he broke a mark set way back in 1982 by David Moorcroft!

And let’s not forget the Beeb’s award doesn’t just have ‘sport’ in the title. Both Mark and Mo are actually individuals who go against that old oxymoron ‘sports personality’. Cav wears his heart on his sleeve, gives great interview, has worked like a Trojan and made huge sacrifices (and the odd two fingered salute) on his way to the top. Farah doesn’t have that running/cycling sprinters ‘arrogance/confidence’ but is a bubbly, talkative and hugely likeable bloke. But like Cav he’s a driven individual – much of his success comes down to his decision early in 2011 to split from his long time coach Alan Storey and move his family to Oregon in the United States to team up with distance running legend Alberto Salazar. See he’s pretty good…

So, what do I do? Do I vote Cav? Do I vote Mo? Or do I abstain? Does it matter? Darren Clarke will win it anyway…

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Last year, Cav looked to be in with an excellent shout after a sensational Tour de France in which he took six stages, became the first Briton to wear the leader’s pink jersey at the Giro d’Italia and won the Milan-San Remo classic. Despite this he lost out to ageing – he’s one year younger than me… – Manchester United winger Ryan Giggs. Giggsy is, undoubtedly, a brilliant footballer but 2009 wasn’t by any means his best year ever. It felt more like a lifetime achievement gong.

This year Mark has, after a slow start, had another pretty fine season – five stages at Le Tour and becoming only the second British rider to win the points jersey at the Vuelta a Espana – so he should again be in with a chance of winning. My, pretty safe, bet is that he won’t.

Vote for me!

Cycling doesn’t really register in the minds of the wider public. Only two cyclists have ever won the award – Tom Simpson in 1965 and Sir Chris Hoy in 2008. Formula One, athletics, boxing, Winter Olympic sports and football obviously mean more to Brits than bikes. Is Amy William’s skeleton gold more deserving of an award than Emma Pooley’s World Time Trial gold?

Of course, it could be argued that it’s a pointless award – although most recipients do seem to be genuinely moved when they win – and then there’s the whole ‘Sport’ and ‘Personality’ thing. (Cav is one of the few who qualifies for the latter.) As a cycling fan I would like to see Mark win, but he’d probably have to win the Tour de France for that to happen. I’ll vote for him, of course, but then there’s also part of me that’d love to see darts legend Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor win it too!

We’re not entirley sure what ‘Contracts for Difference’ are, but IG Markets is the leading provider of them and, as a new official partner of Team Sky, they’re offering anyone in London’s Square Mile next week to take on Wiggo, Thomas and Ben Swift on some Watt Bikes.

The three Team Sky pros will be at Broadgate Circle, London, EC2 from 10am for the Square Mile Cycle Challenge and anyone who takes them on is in with a chance of winning prizes including a replica Team Sky Pinarello FP1 bike. If any competitor is able to beat a Team Sky rider, they will receive an official Team Sky Pinarello Dogma team-issue bike, worth over £8000.

“Cycling is currently going through a renaissance and we believe it has a specific appeal to our target audiences,” says Tim Howkins, CEO of IG Group. “We hope that our commitment to Team Sky will help them continue their pursuit for success, whilst helping IG Markets promote its products to a growing audience both here in the UK and across the globe.”

Bradley Wiggins and Tim Howkins, CEO of IG Group

The ‘IG Markets Square Mile Cycle Challenge’ will take place between 10.00 and 15.30. Registration is open to everyone and must be completed in advance. To sign up to race, please visit www.igmarkets.co.uk/cycling.

For non-competitors who would prefer just to soak up the pro race atmosphere or cheer on their mates, Eurosport’s David Harmon will be on hand to provide  race commentary while live footage of all the action will be displayed on a big screen. Spectators can also take advantage of a free bike service and can get autographs from Team Sky.

The Herne Hill Velodrome, in the London Borough of Soutwark, is the oldest cycling track in the country – it was built in 1891 – and the home of the 1948 Olympic Cycling Championships, but it now faces closure due to deterioration and lack of funding.

Despite it’s poor condition, the track is still widely used by riders from all over the capital, so an alliance of residents and cyclists has been formed to it from closure.  Quite rightly they point out that there is no alternative track in London for the hundreds of children who ride and race at Herne Hill. In the past, that has included Bradley Wiggins, the three-time Olympic gold medallist, who began his competitive cycling career at Herne Hill.

The Campaign is the brainchild of Hillary Peachey, a local resident whose children use the site regularly. She says, “It seems shameful that, with 2012 approaching, London cannot even sustain the facilities it has. That is why we are calling on Londoners as a whole to save this precious resource.”

Campaigners aim to secure the future of the site and make it a viable long-term facility for all, including local residents and schools. Hillary adds, “We are going to find a viable, sustainable and environmentally sensitive solution. The only given is that it must be cycling-led, inclusive and work for the entire community.”

Peter Cattermole, whose club runs the site currently, says, “If you came here on a Saturday and saw hundreds of kids bombing around the track, you’d think it would be criminal to lose it. Anyone who cares about kids, cycling or the environment should come to the public meeting.”

To stay open, the Velodrome will need corporate and private funding, together with volunteer support. The campaigners are hopeful of getting it. “Cycling is one of the most popular sports in the country. If we pull together, we can save this amazing place for future generations,” says Hillary.

For more information on the campiagn to save the Velodrome visit www.savethevelodrome.com and sign up to its Facebook page.

Car drivers thought that only mad peasants rode bikes and cyclists would argue that anyone who needed an internal combustion engine to move their wheels was an evil, planet destroying lunatic. Six of one, half a dozen of the other…

Times, of course, change and now cyclists and drivers live together like one happy sitcom family…okay…they don’t but we mainly, kind of, get on. Or get on with it. That’s mainly because – and whisper this quietly – a huge number of bike riders also drive cars. And vice versa.

You already know this, of course, as you probably also have a car. Sure, you’ll use the bike whenever you can but you can’t take a fridge to the dump on a Colnago can you? (If you say yes the I want pictures.) Anyway, the point of all this waffle – and there is one. Sort of – is my purely anecdotal evidence that bikes and cars are getting ever more entwined.

First up, I saw this article by Top Gear’s James May – a man who, you might think, would be as much a fan of cycling as he would be of speed cameras. It turns out, though, that TG’s Captain Slow is a massive fan of the bicycle. “The bicycle might just be the greatest of all inventions,” he says. “It empowers the human machine.” couldn’t have put it better.

But more than May’s article (and, incidentally, TG’s Richard Hammond also rides. No proof that Clarkson does) I saw ‘compelling’ evidence of bike/car synergy at two car dealerships last weekend. Car dealers are struggling to flog their wares with latest figures from The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders indicating that new car sales fell by 22 per cent in October. Once they would have used fields of burning wheat and a soft rock soundtrack to boost sales, but my dodgy finding is that they’re using bicycles…

Driving – sorry not riding – past a local Audi dealer I noticed that the centre-piece of the showroom was an A6 estate complete with a Specialized Roubaix sitting on top. A day later, and this time on my bike, my head was turned by a Scott Speedster proudly strapped to the roof a brand new BMW 120d. The message is obviously buy this car and you can be cool enough to own a road bike. Or maybe there are some special offers on: Free luxury German motor with this two-wheeler…

As the pro peloton arrives in Milan on May 29^th to complete the 2011 Giro d’Italia, a group of amateur riders led by a pro from the Rapha Condor Sharp team, will be setting off from Turin to follow the full 3,496km route of the race under the banner of ‘Gran Corsa d’Italia’. Ahead will be three weeks of fully supported riding, including mechanical and medical support, a dedicated soigneur, signed routes and feed stations, as well as a pro rider accompanying the group on each stage.

Participants can ride a single stage, three or five day blocks, or the whole three week ‘Gran Corsa’ for the challenge of a lifetime. With a limited number of places available, the only entry requirements, other than reasonable fitness, are an ability to raise a significant amount of money for The Prostate Cancer Charity, and to cover the costs for flights and half board.

In return will be a tour through the spiritual home of cycle racing, including transfers between stages and pre-booked accommodation, organized and fully supported by Classic Tours and the creator of the Cent Cols Challenge, Phil Deeker. In addition, there will be access to special edition Gran Corsa kit and bikes from Rapha and Condor.

Sharp UK’s managing director, Paul Molyneux, who helped raise £80,000 for The Prostate Cancer Charity as part of a 4-man team completing the Race Across America in June, commented, “This is just the kind of challenge we all sit around looking for on chilly November evenings, to give us a reason to train through the winter. The Giro has a real romance, and with next year being the 150^th anniversary of Italy’s unification, the organisers have chosen a route that takes in all the highlights. What better way to discover the beauty of Italy than through pain and suffering on the Zoncolan!”

For more information, visit the event’s Facebook page. Registration should be up and running soon!

Don’t get me wrong, as editor of Cycling Plus I’m a very lucky man and get to ride some of the latest and greatest road bikes out there and I love it. Yesterday, though, I dusted off my own 2009 Viner Perfecta and took it out for a couple of hours.

Me and my Viner. We're very good friends...

It felt fantastic – yes it’s handles wonderfully, responds instantly to every pedal input etc etc…but it wasn’t that. It was something else that brought a huge smile to my face and warm feeling in my stomach. It was simply the fact that I was out on my bike. Riding. Simple things eh? Go on, go for a ride. Now!