I’ve been working as a consultant on a film recently, and a couple of weeks ago we all got together to begin shooting. Alongside my advisory role, which included assisting with casting, wardrobe, set design and production, I’m also doing some riding in the film, appearing as Jamie Winstone’s stunt double and as a bike messenger.

I won’t give too much away but the makeup was pretty amazing!

I don’t actually have a road bike, but what I do have it a Charge Filter Apex, which I ride both offroad and on as well as a Charge Duster. I’ve been out for a couple of rides with Mid Devon CC on the Filter, a cyclocross bike, explored all around Teignbridge and Torbay and found some brilliant offroad sections.

Yesterday I went out for a random adventure and wound up stuck at the bottom of a hugely overgrown bridleway, trapped by barbed wire. My only option was to sneak through a field so I ran the gauntlet past a farmer busy ploughing his field.

In 18 months of couriering, my poor Sidi’s never had to deal with the level of abuse they have here in Devon. Thankfully, the most expensive pair of shoes I’ve ever bought (i’m not counting the Vivienne Westwoods, as strictly speaking, they’re boots) are still going strong. I’m going to be product testing some more shoes over the coming weeks, so let’s see how they measure up against my faves.

Ok, so I was more than a little disappointed that I didn’t get a place in the Ride London Surrey 100, part of the of biggest ever festival of cycling in the UK. But not to worry, because there’s a whole heap of good stuff already in my diary.

First up, we have the Morvelo Citycross, which as the name suggests, is a cyclocross race in the city. Originally billed as taking place in a Mill in Halifax, the race has since been moved to a scrapyard, which may well be even more fun. I’ll be racing in the women’s category along with a bunch of undoubtedly fitter ladies, and Charge Bikes will also be up there with the real contenders. Hope to see you there!

Towards the end of March, I’ll be speaking at the Bikes V Design night at the Victoria and Albert Museum. I’ve always wanted to go to one of the V & A’s celebrated Friday Night Late events, and if reports from past events are anything to go by, this will be amazing. I spoke at the first Bikes V Design night last year at the Design Museum and it was a great.

After that, I’ll be nipping up to Edinburgh for the Red Bull Hill Chasers, so if I’m not to make a fool of myself, I’d better get some practice in around the hills of Devon beforehand.

Next up is a minidrome event in Toulouse, where I’ll be flown over to hang out with my buddies at Met Helmets and battle for supremacy on the tiny track. More info on that when I get it. The weekend after, I’ll be taking my first trip to an international standard indoor track, when I try a session at Newport Velodrome.

So that brings me to the mid of April and the Fixed Gear Exeter film night. In between all that, I need to fit in all my work, plus a few trips to various skateparks and get some mountain biking in. Good job I like getting up early!

MET FAT teaser from Met Board on Vimeo.

Sign up to the event from March 1st here, but get your entry in quickly as places are limited. More info here

I know for a fact that racing isn’t my strong point, but I like to try it anyway. Call me a masochist, call me stupid, but I like to give everything a go. So even though I’m better at chucking myself off jumps and down stairs, I decided to give the Morvelo Citycross a crack last weekend.

As it was a ‘citycross,’ I was hoping that my urban bike skills would balance out my lack of race fitness…don’t get me wrong, I’m no couch potato but cyclocross riders are seriously fit. Alas, it didn’t pan out like that, so if you’d like to find out why, read my article on the Total Women’s Cycling  website.

Charge Bikes just released this video of all the action at Citycross a couple of weeks ago, so have a gander and see what all of us got up too. The tiny kids at the start are so awesome, getting stuck right in! The war cry in the junior’s race is slightly disturbing though! Pete Trevis – Bell was absolutely having it on his single speed Charge ‘Cooker’, whereas I alternately smiled and grimaced my way around.

Things have been mega hectic with work, not least as the fourth issue of Coven Magazine is nearing completion. But grumpy girls don’t work well, so I always find time for a ride or a trip to the gym.

This week, I hit up Pro Cycle Centre for a session on the jump box and tried to get to grips with moving the bike around in the air, rather than just going straight. Seems like step one is complete, and now I just need to work on giving it a bit more welly.

Next up was a trip to Haldon on the Charge Duster. I thought mountain biking sucked when I moved here having spent hours grinding up hills at a pace to rival a snail. Turns out I’d never experienced the fun side and now that I have, I can’t get enough.

Yesterday I headed up to Churston Woods for some exploration. Amazing that such a beautiful place lies so close to my home! Next time I’ll take a tent, some beers, some kindling and sausages and make a night of it. Can’t wait for the year’s first camping trip!

Met Helmets just released this video of me giving some advice on racing on a miniature velodrome. As I am a VERY NAUGHTY GIRL, I keep accidentally referring to the event as a ‘minidrome’ when it actually isn’t, it’s a mini velodrome, ok? I also endlessly waffle about nonsense, so no change there!

Yes! Instead of cracking on with Issue 4 of Coven Magazine, I set up a tumblr filled with lovely pictures. Follow us if you like!

I recently went down to Charlton FC to find out more about the brilliant bike loan scheme which London Cycling Campaign and On Your Bike have been implementing with Greenwich NHS.

For a meagre £10, anyone in Greenwich can try a bike for a month, access support and training and just see how cycling works out for them. The ten quid also includes membership of the LCC, which gets you third party insurance, legal advice, a subscription to their mag, and helps fund campaigning for safer streets.

Chances are, if you’re reading this blog you probably cycle and maybe you didn’t think twice about getting a bike, but the people I met were scared to try, had no money or space for a bike or just didn’t know how to begin cycling in the capital. The change this simple machine made to their lives was profound!  If you’d like to know more about the scheme, check out the latest issue of Urban Cyclist and head over to London Cycling Campaign’s website for more information.

Would you like to see this kind of scheme where you live?

On the way back from the Citycross event in Halifax a few weeks ago, we  managed to squeeze in a private session at Redditch skatepark. Damn, that place is amazing! I love wooden skateparks, I love big transitions, I love having loads of space and I love having a park to myself. JOY! Now, please can I go back?

I’m generally pretty satisfied with my lot – I work hard doing things which interest me and I spend as much time as possible cycling and cuddling my four cats. I always have plenty of good food to eat, enjoy time in both the countryside and the capital and I have several bikes to ride. Yep, I’m lucky and I appreciate my good fortune.

So on the whole, I don’t spend my time longing for what others have, or dreaming of bigger, better, more etc. Sure, I wish I had a garden and a bath instead of a shower but if that’s all I have to complain about, well, I don’t have anything to complain about. To put it plainly, I’m happy with my lot.

But then…I went and upset the balance…

It started off in Afan Forest when I was riding and writing an article for Coven Magazine. For the first time in my life, I rode a full suspension mountain bike, courtesy of Skyline Cycles, and oh yeah, it was an Orange 5. Cue, a terrible hunger for an all mountain bike, because  hell, that bike was FUN. Previously, I’d been more than happy with a hard tail, dammit.

Just to make things worse, I’m now testing a really rather special road bike for Total Women’s Cycling, the Trek Domane with Ultegra Di2 electric shifting group set. I decided not to check the price before I rode it, thinking I’d rather not have perceived value cloud any judgement. Don’t get me wrong, I knew it was a fancy bike, but I didn’t know the price. So anyway, I took said bike for a test ride the other day (after two agonising days of it’s staring at me from the box – I was on deadline for Coven Magazine) and holy shit, I loved it. I was blasting up hills doing mental arithmetic, figuring out how I could get one of these, how long it would take to pay for etc… Then when I got in, I checked the price and felt really, really bummed out about the fact I will never own one of these bikes and I’m going to have to give this one back.

So now I’m filled with yearning, with envy, whereas I wasn’t before. POOP!

I’ve finally learnt, that doing absolutely no training whatsoever DOES actually hinder your performance. Who’d have thought? I mean, it makes total sense and I’m not sure why I didn’t see it before.

I guess it’s because all the things I’ve learnt in the past, everything I’ve progressed in has been so fun, that I didn’t even realise that was I was doing was in effect, training. Putting those hours in when learning tricks on my fixed gear or BMX was training in a way, I just didn’t know if at the time.

Back when I was a pro-snowboarder, ‘training’ was laughed at, even frowned upon, in fact taking anything seriously was just ‘not done.’ And when I started learning tricks on my fixed gear bike (and then my BMX), I did it with light-hearted abandon, I certainly wouldn’t consciously make a decision to ‘train;’ I just accidentally found myself spending a lot of time learning things. Training was for other people, not for me. Actually trying, well you shouldn’t really, should you?

Over the last year or so, I tested my no training theory. I signed up for a few races, sure that training wasn’t strictly necessary, that I was just naturally fit. I entered the races confident that I would do reasonably well, but with a carefully nonchalant attitude in case I didn’t.

And guess what, I sucked  and I hated being it!  I didn’t like being slow, I didn’t like being at the back and I didn’t like the fact I couldn’t breathe properly and felt like dying. Being shit, is well, shit!

So I made a pact, not to be scared of trying nor of training. I’ve begun riding more, consciously riding more, and pushing myself on purpose. I want to be faster, fitter, stronger. And it’s amazing, I can feel it happening! The only problem is, that with only four weeks to go until the 180 mile London Revolution Ride in May, I might have left it a little late!

But we all have to start somewhere, and now that I’ve decided to get tough, I’ve got some races and rides in mind. I’ll keep you updated on my progress!

I dreamt up the idea of Coven Magazine whilst riding around day dreaming when working as a courier for City Sprint. There’s something about cycling that makes me daydream, particularly riding fixed – I guess the repetitive nature, the ceaseless pedalling sets my mind adrift.

Once I’d decided I wanted to produce a magazine which wasn’t all about being thin or what pointless reality TV stars are wearing (or not!), I wasted no time in getting it going – the first printed copy was in my hands three months later when we launched at Red Bull Studios.

A year has passed, and now issue four is here. It wouldn’t have been possible without all the brilliant people who contributed their words and pictures. So a big thank you to you all. Nor would it have been possible if I’d have spent my money on fun stuff rather than printing, but that’s another matter.

Self publishing is brilliant but tough work… I hope you’ll take a look at our latest issue and think the long slog has been worth it! If you like what you see, make sure you grab a printed copy from one of our stockists from Wednesday.

Way back when I’d just become fixated with riding fixed gear in London, Charge Bikes sent Alex Rankin along to shoot a film all about me riding the Charge Plug in the city.

It was a really fun time, people were so amped on getting together to ride; it was like when I first started snowboarding – if you saw another person riding fixed (or a snowboard), you’d say hello.  We were beginning to explore the possibility of learning tricks on a fixed gear, bike polo was getting bigger and everyone was talking about fixed gear.

I mention in the new video that fixed gear was ‘new’. Just to clarify, I meant new to me, and new to the vast majority of people… Yep, I know track bikes have been around for an age!

Anyway, hope you like the new video. In it, Alex asks me what I’ve been up to since the first video, and discovers that a lot has changed.

If you’d like to watch my first Charge Bikes video, you can find it here, and if you’d like to see the second one, it’s here. The third one is here.

I recently wrote a guest blog post for Kansi, bemoaning the seriousness with which some of us take our commutes. I didn’t even get started on the way some people ride, (particularly along hipster highway, aka Old Street – bonkers!), I just had a light-hearted look at the differing attitudes of cyclists in the UK.

If you’d like to read the post in full and work out whether you fall into the category I’m poking fun at, look here! I can certainly tick off a few of the defining characteristics of this breed of cyclists myself!

I’m not gonna lie, I’m so, so stoked on this cycle kit I’m doing with Milltag. I came up with the pattern myself, loosely basing it on rugs, then I  farted about on illustrator for hours copying and pasting triangles. I CAN”T WAIT to see this in the flesh, but for now, it’s up for pre-order.

We decided to make the kit available to both men and women, and although Coven is a women’s magazine in content, I think good design is universal. Anyway, I hope people like it! The bib shorts and the jersey are £70 each and we’ll be shipping worldwide, so get in! Pre-order here

Hidden away in the heart of France, I’ Isle Jourdain is a small, unassuming town with a big secret. Just an hour by train from the bustling metropolis of Toulouse, a city it took us an hour and a half to cross by bus, I’ Isle Jourdain is one of those delightfully perfect little places, just a small parade of shops, a market square and a handful of boulangeries.

I’d have been happy enough just to while away the weekend sipping espressos and nibbling delicate pastries, such was the charm of the place. But L’ Isle Jourdain has more to offer than talented patissieres; this delightful town also boasts its own permanent miniature cycling track, housed inside a museum dedicated to cycling, Veloscope. There’s also a disused outdoor track and a fully automated wake boarding set up on one of the beautiful lakes.

I was in town to compete on the mini velodrome in an event hosted by one of my sponsors, Met Helmets, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled to arrive. The sun was shining, the hotel was lovely (I was so keen on our room, I’d have happily moved in) and all I had to do was enjoy myself and ride around in circles! We decided to celebrate by drinking copious amounts of fabulous red wine – we picked a ten euro bottle from the shop, which must have been roughly equivalent to a twenty quid bottle in the UK, such was it’s velvety richness.

The next day, we headed to the velodrome to try out the track, heads slightly fuzzy. I’ve ridden Red Bull’s minidrome three times so I knew what to expect, having done quite well in the past (as well as having crashed out!). The Veloscope ‘drome was a little longer and slightly less steep than the Red Bull one, which you might wrongly assume makes it easier to ride. In fact, I found the extra length made it incredibly fast and you were able to build up greater speeds, so the only thing limiting me was guts – I could pedal as hard and fast as I felt comfortable with, it wasn’t ever a case of wanting to go faster and being unable to do so.

After a mishap in the qualifications, my lovely Charge Scissor was out of action, so at the very last minute I had to race the final on a borrowed bike – thanks Damien! I actually found it a hell of a lot easier to ride than my Scissor, which had an insanely hard gear and massive tyres… so I’ll bear that in mind next time.

As Coven Magazine sponsored the women’s category I was slightly embarrassed to win, seeing as I’m the Editor, but I was also very pleased as I got to take home a trophy! Big thumbs up to Met for having a women’s category, it’s so important. Yes, there were fewer women than men, but if we ever want more women to race, we have to make them feel welcome. And a big thanks to Met for getting me over for the event. Love you guys.

Here’s the video of the event.

I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge, even when I know I’m not good at things, it doesn’t put me off one bit. Is it strange that I’ll enter a race even when I know I’ll come near the bottom of the pile, that I’ll do things I’m hopeless at without caring a jot? When I tell people what I have planned, ridiculous things sometimes, they often ask me why I do it. It is odd that I just thrive on challenges, rather than accomplishments?

Who knows the reason, but whatever it is, I found myself saying yes when London Cycling Campaign asked if I’d like to ride the London Revolution, a 180 mile, two day cycling event. I said yes, even though the most I’d ever ridden was 50 miles, I said yes, even though I don’t have a road bike. And I said yes even though I wasn’t entirely sure I could do it.

That was two months ago, when full of spark and vigour about the ride ahead, I eagerly downloaded the training plan, positive that this time I would actually train for the ride. For no one can ride 100 miles in one day without training, can they?

The first week of training went swimmingly, I easily fitted in the required training, enjoying slow, long, easy rides at the weekend, and intense bursts of interval training during the week. I thoroughly enjoyed making time for training, as I love riding my bike, whatever the circumstances. I even squeezed in a couple of spinning classes. But then life got in the way; I had way too much work to do, a magazine to produce, articles to write. (I also had to go climbing, surfing, ride my BMX, play with the cats etc, but that’s another matter).

So here we are, several days from the ride, and I haven’t done the training. How will I cope with riding 100 miles in one day, sleeping in a tent and then cracking on with a further 80 miles, including a trip up the infamous Box Hill? My will is strong, so even if my legs aren’t, maybe, just maybe I’ll be ok. As long as there isn’t a head wind! It’s a shame, because honestly, I love feeling my body getting stronger, I love getting tougher and faster, I love exercise, I actually enjoy putting the work in. I just never seem to have time.

Just how do other people manage, do you have to put the rest of your life on hold?

Who on earth decided to make an 80’s BMX inspired folding bike? And is it madness or genius? I decided to take a test ride to find out.

The eye catching F20 is a limited edition, fun filled machine designed by Martin Hawyes of British folding bike company, Kansi. When I first saw it, I actually laughed, I mean what an odd idea, a cross between a folder and a vintage BMX! But accompanying the laughter was one great big grin; there’s just something so fun-looking about this bike and you can’t help but warm to it immediately.

The bike comes with original blue Skyway wheels and is all decked out in a complimentary colour scheme. In keeping with the BMX theme, it’s rolling on a  set of tan wall Odyssey tyres and boasts a pair of retro looking grips. Sadly it doesn’t come with matching frame pads, which would make infinitely more awesome, but a quick google did uncover some on ebay!

Like a BMX, this is a single speed machine, the one gear meaning you’re unlikely to need to do much in the way of maintenance. It’s also a cinch to adjust the seat height, so unlike a BMX you can actually sit down and pedal. The upright riding position and short wheel-base made the bike really easy to manouver and it felt sturdy and reliable without being heavy or clunky. I also enjoyed the fact you can wear a dress with this bike – the top tube is so low that you can totally get away with it.

As it’s an 80’s inspired BMX, Kansi have thrown in an original 80’s brake that is utterly useless, so losing that was the first modification I made. I also thought it kind of spoiled the look of it, but it’s probably only on there to make the bike road legal. The rear coaster brake was more than adequate and pretty fun too –  I’ve never actually ridden with a coaster before and it took me by surprise at first but I quickly learned to really enjoy it.

Whilst there are a lot of good points about this attractive looking bike, it’s not without it’s faults – the gearing at 46:16 is just way too spinny and I found that really frustrating. I just really wanted to go fast without spinning out and I couldn’t which was maddening! A friend of mine suggested that this might be my problem rather than the bike’s, saying that ‘perhaps that I was too strong,’ but as the gearing works out at around 55 gear inches, I reckon most people would agree that it’s just too light. If you like pootling/dawdling, maybe you’ll be fine.

But I haven’t yet touched on the best thing about this bike, which is the fact it folds (and unfolds) in seconds; a couple of clicks and you’re ready to ride with no faffing and no headache, it’s SO simple. I would like it to clip together slightly more sturdily – it unfolded itself whilst I was trying to get a bottle on wine from the top shelf in Tesco but perhaps I was too hasty in my effort to nab the last bottle of Sancerre. In truth, it’s quite big for lugging around a busy supermarket but for commuting and travelling, it’s spot on, and fits into the luggage rack easily.

Like many kids growing up in the eighties, I had a BMX of my own, the brilliant Raleigh Burner, complete with yellow Skyways and matching pads. Kansi have taken something we all remember fondly, swirled it around in time machine, and reinvented it as something you can use on the commute. Certainly wherever I rode it, people wanted to look at it, reminisce and jump on board for a ride – so don’t get this bike if you’re working undercover!

To me, the best thing about this bike is that it’s fun, it’s the kind of bike that makes you, and those around you, smile. It’s a real head turner and a conversation starter, so if you’re trying to keep a low profile, it’s probably not the bike for you. What’s genius is that Kansi taken something which has never been more than straight forward and functional, and looked at it in a new way. And the result is really good fun!