Cyclebabble

On Tuesday I went to the launch of a new book "Cyclebabble", which is a digest of the best bits from the Guardian bike blog. The launch event was at Look Mum No Hands, a bike shop cum cafe-bar on Old St EC1.

Look Mum is a bit painfully trendy for my taste, but it was nice to meet a couple of the people behind the book, including Sara from the Guardian's tiny publishing department, and the very enthusiastic Peter Walker. I also chatted with a nice lass who turned out to be the girl behind the wonderful 101 Wankers project. Dawn was lovely and her blog is a laugh, as well as highlighting a serious and mystifying issue: why does riding a bicycle somehow make a girl fair game for witless comments and sexual harassment? Are the low-forehead fraternity somehow threatened by her.. I dunno.. freedom of movement? If so, god forbid they ever spot a girl in a sports car.

I was invited because I occasionally comment on the Guardian blog, but I don't know if any of my comments made it into print as I didn't have time to flick through all of it. They were selling copies for £6 instead of the cover price of £7.99 but I didn't buy one for two reasons:

- Everything in it is already available on the Guardian site

- Even if I did want a hard copy (perhaps for the loo) I thought it would probably be cheaper on Amazon (and it is!)

Anyway, it was interesting to attend and I enjoyed a couple of refreshing Slags. Thanks guys, and good luck with the book.