FREEWHEELING

Changing Seasons

For me the mark of the real onset of spring is when my hay fever starts. This year we have moved seamlessly from cold to hay fever, and I never noticed the change. Cycling on Saturday I suddenly realised that the wind was blowing all sorts of pollen and tree debris into my eyes, which was all very unpleasant. It was an annoyingly cold wind as well. So there I was, in a winter jersey, with eyes watering from hay fever. Not fair!

I was struck by the sight of a fellow-cyclist on Saturday wearing full current Movistar team kit (not usual in The Regent's Park). Most people wear anonymous black, but then there are the club jerseys, and the randomly assembled obsolete team items (which is my style). Seeing this chap reminded me of possibly the worst replica kit I have ever seen, worn by a middle-aged (presumably Spanish) couple at the Tour de France last year.Now the thing you need to know about Movistar is that their kit is dark navy blue, with a blobby lime-green M (for Movistar, the mobile arm of the Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica); not the most striking kit in the peloton, indeed some might say dull, but with more dignity than many teams. Full disclosure: I own a Movistar jersey from about five years ago, but it's a team issue one made for Giovanni Visconti when he was Italian national champion, and so much of it is in Italian colours, with only portions in navy blue. The offending replica kit, a matching pair, spotted at the Ardeche time-trial, was firstly very shiny (which didn't seem quite authentic) but most strikingly, purple. Not navy at all, but violet. Vivid, glossy, mauve. Surely this wasn't sold by Movistar's real kit manufacturers? In which case are there really pirated cycle jerseys out there? We've all seen dodgy Manchester United and Real Madrid shirts  (you can buy them in every street market in the developing world) and obviously there are Chinese factories turning out millions of the things, but cycling jerseys? Really? Is there truly a big enough market? Actually, thinking about it, the really surprising thing was that they weren't just jerseys, but the full kit, with proper matching cycling shorts. Churning out a counterfeit jersey isn't so different from a football shirt (though it does have pockets and a zip) but shorts are different, being a very odd shape, but more significantly also containing an anatomically-shaped pad. Manufacturing those is not a trivial business, and would take a bit of investment. So can there really be sweatshops turning out counterfeits? You'd surely need to be manufacturing kosher cycling kit, and surely any European supplier would go bananas if they found their manufacturer was ripping off someone else's kit. Of course, it could just be that this was perfectly legitimate replica kit from the proper manufacturer, but really badly produced, but that seems unlikely in the perfectionist world of cycling accessories.


Sights and Smells

I routinely cycle around the Outer Circle of The Regent's Park, just doing laps, which means that I become accustomed to the environment. On a bike you notice smells, for instance. There is a place, just before the entrance to the Zoo, which is routinely enveloped in a miasma of fish-and-chips, but then as I was passing last week I realised it now smelt of chargrilled meat, which came as a surprise, but then (on a subsequent lap) I spotted that the Zoo was hosting someone's wedding reception, so perhaps that made for different catering. Most of the time there is no real olfactory sign of the Zoo's real purpose, but just occasionally, if the wind is in the wrong direction, you do get a pungent sense of the giraffes and warthogs. Catering is more obvious.

I was cycling round on Friday lunchtime, and suddenly found unexpected congestion where the road runs down behind the London Central Mosque. A bright gold Porsche made a series of unfeasible manoeuvres before parking on the double yellow lines, a few places down from a maroon Rolls-Royce, and straight after a BMW with diplomatic plates. At the weekend everyone parks legitimately down that stretch, but on a weekday the London Business School seems to attract illegal parking, and I was pondering why they thought they could get away with it when I came upon what was clearly the rush to Friday midday prayers. It occurred to me that I've never noticed a Westminster traffic warden round that side of the Park, though you do see Camden ones quite regularly on their stretch, though to be fair, it may just be that the Camden ones are more visible, in their green overalls.

I did several circuits past a parked funeral cortege, clearly killing time before collecting mourners, parked up near the old St Katharine's precinct. Not funeral directors I knew, and presumably from far away, given how much time they sat there. I wondered where they were heading, possibly St Marylebone, but you couldn't be sure because they hadn't picked up the family yet. The first time I came round I crossed myself and prayed for the departed, but then felt a little self-conscious repeating the gesture the next time round. On the third circuit I touched the peak of my cap as well, and was preparing to take my cap off the fourth time, but they'd gone by then, which was a shame.

On Saturday afternoon, in a secondhand bookshop, a man in a morning suit said to the girl at the till, "I'm sorry, I've lost philosophy?" which somehow seemed a very Bloomsbury thing to say.

Is there any more beautiful British bird than the jay? When the scaffolding was up round my house a jay took advantage of it to get up close to poke around for insects around my window frames and cladding, and clearly net curtains worked so he couldn't see me. It was absolutely stunning, that extraordinary pinky-buff colour, and finely-chiselled head. There seems to be a pair of them nearby, so I imagine they are nesting, but I don't know where.