Tag Archives: retro-jersey

When in London: Look Ma No Hands Cafe

 

Dear Roulers,

Here’s my first blog entry for 2016.  Back in October 2015, the Missus and I had a 4 week European Holiday that included a few days in London.  I spent more than a few hours visiting a list of bike shops and scooping up bargains were I could find them.  One of the best shops was a café that I used to frequent when I lived in London.  In fact, I can remember when it opened in 2010.  Tired of really crappy coffee offered by Starbucks, Costa and Café Nero, I was becoming quite desperate for a decent Australian style latte or flat white.

Fortunately, ‘Look Ma No Hands’ opened up and offered much better coffee crafted by staff that had a much better understanding of their expresso machine.  The shop had free wifi, a sunny aspect and a fledgling bicycle workshop.  Also, it showed old 70’s & 80’s TV coverage of the grand tours and monuments.  It was mainly frequented by students and bicycle couriers with the occasional suited trespasser like me.

20160107-LMNH-Map

So when I dragged my footsore wife from Old Street Tube Station to the there in late October 2015, it was with fond memories and quiet hope that it hadn’t changed much over.  I checked out the Café’s website and it seemed very promising.  Happily, reality for once matched the glamour and gloss of website.  The café was full of people viewing a crowd sourcing pitch for short film about how cycling was helping a young man  get the better of his clinical depression.

 20160107-LMNH-Cafe  20160107-LMNH-Wshop

The coffee was much better than I remembered it and we spent a lazy 45 minutes soaking up the vibe and trying on shop branded merchandise.  I purchased a short sleeve jersey and cap.  Both have been given a few test rides and have passed the ‘marv’ test with flying colours.  Its kind of cool to own a jersey that no one in Melbourne has or at least I haven’t seen on the back of another rouleur around my locale.

 20160107-LMNH-Jersey  20160107-LMNH-Cap

So to quote ‘Molly’ Meldrum and that irritating TV ad that’s on high rotation at the moment, when you are next in London ‘Do your self a favour’ and visit one of the great cycling cafes in the UK, Look Ma No Hands.

Until next time,

Marv

Welcome back to 2015

Dear Cyclists,

I’m afraid to say that the last 2 weeks have been, much to my chagrin, bicycle free..boo 🙂  However, the premium service provided at Freedom Machine [shameless plug…apologies :-)] has polished up my Villier and my wife’s Giant a treat. So I look forward to many happy kilometres of pedaling. So as part of my usual set of new year’s resolutions I’ve resolved to achieve two inter-related personal goals.

1) To complete 5000 km this calendar year.
2) To commute to work 4 days a week.

I’m pleased to report I’ve started both today with a liesurely 3 km ride to work this morning. My Henty Wingman was packed full of work clothing and stuff so that ride was a bit harder than the distance would indicate. I also note that the current tram track work in Spencer St is playing havoc with tram timetables on the Route 109.

So I’m pleased to report that I’ve only 4997 kilometres left to complete my goal.

On a different note, just before Christmas I became a bit OCD about retro cycling jerseys. I saw and later purchased this care of Stolen Goat.

http://stolengoat.com/product/jura-cycle-merino-wool-ls-jersey-french/

Awesome Tri-colour Jersey

Whilst the UK pound-vs-AUD conversion will always be a painful, the 20% discount I received on signing up and VAT exemption took a good portion of the sting out of purchasing experience. I have to say the jersey is of superb quality and fitted perfectly. I can’t wait for some cooler weather in April/May.

I continue to be mystified by why some enterprising company can’t make a similar jersey in Australia. After the wool is sourced from Australia or New Zealand.