Blasting the past

Sometimes your view of the past can be greatly distorted, most of the time you only remember the good things and ignore the rest. At the weekend we rode in the 'La Retro 1903' historic bike ride organised by Anjou Velo Vintage. Starting from Angers via Brissac to Saumur covering a distance of 82 km. The route was created to celebrate the 100th edition of the Tour de France.

The ride was graced with the presence of several tour legends, notably Raymond Poulidor, Jean-Marie Leblanc, both pictured, Bernard Thévenet and Joop Zoetemelk. Part of the condition of the ride was that cycles only up to 1987 could be used; strictly no cleats or brake lever style gear shifters were allowed. We were supplied a bike for the ride from a pool of vintage cycles. It was a total lottery but in true Simpson style we landed a late 70's Peugeot, which turned out to be a gem of a bike. However good the bike, the use of down tube mounted gear shifters brought back many memories but did make you realise just how far bike technology has progressed.

A busy (National Bike) week

We started National Bike Week by riding, along with 28,000 other cyclists, the BHF's annual London to Brighton Bike Ride. We set off at 6am to avoid the crowds, especially on Ditchling Beacon and arrived just before 10am. Having met up with some friends we rode back to London (L2B2L). With several diversions in place due to closed roads etc, we made it back having notched up a total of 120 miles.

As you may have already read, we also saw the next issue of the magazine go to press. There's no substitute for seeing your work in print! We're looking forward to taking delivery on Monday 24. To top all this we've just seen samples of the latest edition(s) to our Grand Tour Range, which we are also launching next week. The summer will be good whatever the weather!

Orchestrated manoeurves in the dark

Some say the city comes alive at night. The area around Smithfield meat market certainly did on Saturday night. We love this event as it brings competition cycling of the highest order literally to the streets of London. Strangely it's never that warm for a June night but the atmosphere is electric.

One of the aspect we love about this series of races in the variety of events on offer. It's amazing to see Penny Farthings being raced over the old cobbles of the meat market as well witnessing the pros going hammer and tongs at it. Good to see such a strong turn out for the Women's Criterium event! Thanks to Mitch Payne for his, as ever, excellent images.

Out of the darkness and into the light

It seems that summer is finally with us but we are seeing none of it at present. This is an intense work period right now for us. As issue two gets ready to go to press we are busy working on new designs for future projects. The calendar for both June and July is frantic but are looking forward to getting some miles in very soon.

For us the creative process is a constant refinement of ideas. Both layouts and writing get worked and reworked countless times until we are satisfied with the end result.