Feargal McKay
@cycologies.com
Reviewing cycling books and writing about professional cycling's mythological past and the reality behind the stories told and retold by cycling's duff historians
cycologies.com 🇮🇪
cycologies.com 🇮🇪
The Victorians, I am sad to have to report, did not have fainting couches. But I am 100% certain they were constantly dropping dead from apoplexy. Just don't ask me for proof.
November 15, 2025 at 11:43 AM
The Victorians, I am sad to have to report, did not have fainting couches. But I am 100% certain they were constantly dropping dead from apoplexy. Just don't ask me for proof.
(And when was the last time you saw someone having a fit of the vapours? They don't even make fainting couches any more, it's been so long.)
November 15, 2025 at 11:29 AM
(And when was the last time you saw someone having a fit of the vapours? They don't even make fainting couches any more, it's been so long.)
Given Lappartient's comments about ticketing touching on a national debate, you all need to promise not to tell anyone about tickets for the Tour's opening stage being on sale for £329.
If the French ever found out, they'd have conniptions.
#MumsTheWord
If the French ever found out, they'd have conniptions.
#MumsTheWord
November 15, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Given Lappartient's comments about ticketing touching on a national debate, you all need to promise not to tell anyone about tickets for the Tour's opening stage being on sale for £329.
If the French ever found out, they'd have conniptions.
#MumsTheWord
If the French ever found out, they'd have conniptions.
#MumsTheWord
Was William Shatner in your dream?
November 14, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Was William Shatner in your dream?
If you're interested in history and the financial side of the Tour, look out for Eric Reed's book, Selling the Yellow Jersey.
One of the stories told in that is how Bordeaux (IIRC) + Desgrange had a mega falling out over who kept the ticketing revenue in the early years of the race.
One of the stories told in that is how Bordeaux (IIRC) + Desgrange had a mega falling out over who kept the ticketing revenue in the early years of the race.
November 14, 2025 at 12:13 PM
If you're interested in history and the financial side of the Tour, look out for Eric Reed's book, Selling the Yellow Jersey.
One of the stories told in that is how Bordeaux (IIRC) + Desgrange had a mega falling out over who kept the ticketing revenue in the early years of the race.
One of the stories told in that is how Bordeaux (IIRC) + Desgrange had a mega falling out over who kept the ticketing revenue in the early years of the race.
There's 10 ticketed/VIP areas indicated here (the black oblongs)
November 13, 2025 at 7:34 PM
There's 10 ticketed/VIP areas indicated here (the black oblongs)
Here's an interesting piece of spam, sent via DM. Yes I do want to click on that link, Anna!
November 12, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Here's an interesting piece of spam, sent via DM. Yes I do want to click on that link, Anna!
Is it really a decade and a half since betting was last presented as the bogeyman of cycling? Time flies!
This story opened Cav's first chamois memoir and not a single cycling hack even noticed it. In any other sport a really good scandal would have been woven from this admission.
This story opened Cav's first chamois memoir and not a single cycling hack even noticed it. In any other sport a really good scandal would have been woven from this admission.
November 11, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Is it really a decade and a half since betting was last presented as the bogeyman of cycling? Time flies!
This story opened Cav's first chamois memoir and not a single cycling hack even noticed it. In any other sport a really good scandal would have been woven from this admission.
This story opened Cav's first chamois memoir and not a single cycling hack even noticed it. In any other sport a really good scandal would have been woven from this admission.
Renault - sponsors of a cycling team and an F1 team - took cycling into the F1 era more then 40 years ago, testing bikes in the company's wind tunnel.
Cycling hacks can't remember nothing.
Cycling hacks can't remember nothing.
November 11, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Renault - sponsors of a cycling team and an F1 team - took cycling into the F1 era more then 40 years ago, testing bikes in the company's wind tunnel.
Cycling hacks can't remember nothing.
Cycling hacks can't remember nothing.
The Empire is still there today, now called the Olympia but basically the same structure as when Juno performed there.
November 10, 2025 at 11:22 PM
The Empire is still there today, now called the Olympia but basically the same structure as when Juno performed there.
France's diagonal du vide:
November 7, 2025 at 3:31 PM
France's diagonal du vide:
The Tour de France - reaching the parts of France other bike races don't reach.
Except for those curiously large gaps.
What the hell have those people done to offend the Tour's organisers?
Except for those curiously large gaps.
What the hell have those people done to offend the Tour's organisers?
November 7, 2025 at 1:43 PM
The Tour de France - reaching the parts of France other bike races don't reach.
Except for those curiously large gaps.
What the hell have those people done to offend the Tour's organisers?
Except for those curiously large gaps.
What the hell have those people done to offend the Tour's organisers?
I have a collection of Enid Blyton stories I've meaning to get round to. One of the stories, Bicycle Magic, has this line:
"I don't want to live in the shed for the rest of my life and be ridden by you all day long."
That was my childhood fear too.
"I don't want to live in the shed for the rest of my life and be ridden by you all day long."
That was my childhood fear too.
November 4, 2025 at 2:15 PM
I have a collection of Enid Blyton stories I've meaning to get round to. One of the stories, Bicycle Magic, has this line:
"I don't want to live in the shed for the rest of my life and be ridden by you all day long."
That was my childhood fear too.
"I don't want to live in the shed for the rest of my life and be ridden by you all day long."
That was my childhood fear too.
It's interesting to think about what it is that took the cool out of courier chic over the last decade. Any ideas?
November 2, 2025 at 12:39 PM
It's interesting to think about what it is that took the cool out of courier chic over the last decade. Any ideas?
Me nearly a decade ago after reading Emily Chappell's lovely What Goes Around. Today, I have to admit that Deliveroo + Uber-Eats riders on e-bikes isn't quite what courier chic used to be. What was once a celebrated part of the gig economy has become emblematic of all that is wrong with capitalism.
![The romance, Chappell puts that down to couriers being "splendidly anachronistic figures" who offer "a constant reminder to disillusioned wage slaves [...] that there is another side to the desk, and a whole world outside the office." The anachronism of their existence is that they should by now have been superseded by the internet. Certainly this is the constant refrain you hear from those within the profession when they speak with fear of their imagined future and nostalgia for their equally imagined past. The fear of the future, though, seems somewhat misplaced in an age when Uber and Amazon - not to forget start-ups like the highly visible Deliveroo - are increasingly turning to cycle couriers, offering a future in which (as Mark Steel has pointed out) we'll soon have almost fully turned the clock back to the nineteenth century when you could phone up your local butcher for a pound of sausages and he'd send the lad round with them on the bike that afternoon. Couriers may seem anachronistic. But they are not yet out of time.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:mpz4d6cysl2lek6eokvvtmbb/bafkreihkhlvhfq646hul4675hp6nt7olo3htvnjjpc3baox2fdpomhd3ey@jpeg)
November 2, 2025 at 12:18 PM
Me nearly a decade ago after reading Emily Chappell's lovely What Goes Around. Today, I have to admit that Deliveroo + Uber-Eats riders on e-bikes isn't quite what courier chic used to be. What was once a celebrated part of the gig economy has become emblematic of all that is wrong with capitalism.
Remember courier chic? Premium Rush returns to Netflix with the least likely courier since Jennifer Aniston (she really was).
I'm looking forward to Premium Rush II, in which Joseph Gordon-Levitt has just 15 minutes to get a Deliveroo pizza order across town.
I'm looking forward to Premium Rush II, in which Joseph Gordon-Levitt has just 15 minutes to get a Deliveroo pizza order across town.
November 2, 2025 at 11:42 AM
Remember courier chic? Premium Rush returns to Netflix with the least likely courier since Jennifer Aniston (she really was).
I'm looking forward to Premium Rush II, in which Joseph Gordon-Levitt has just 15 minutes to get a Deliveroo pizza order across town.
I'm looking forward to Premium Rush II, in which Joseph Gordon-Levitt has just 15 minutes to get a Deliveroo pizza order across town.
"It's only now I'm in a good place that I have a full appreciation of how bad the package situation got, the full gravity of its effect on me."
October 29, 2025 at 6:38 PM
"It's only now I'm in a good place that I have a full appreciation of how bad the package situation got, the full gravity of its effect on me."
It's nine years since Jessica Varnish and other women stood up and called out what was going in inside British Cycling's medal factory. But now that a man is saying it cycling hacks might actually sit up and take notice. Then again, maybe they won't.
October 29, 2025 at 4:13 PM
It's nine years since Jessica Varnish and other women stood up and called out what was going in inside British Cycling's medal factory. But now that a man is saying it cycling hacks might actually sit up and take notice. Then again, maybe they won't.
"Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis, star of Gangs of New York and Last of the Mohicans, invited me for lunch in New York. He'd watched the Tour and been massively inspired by my performance. At one point it looked like our worlds might collide. There was talk of a film being made about me."
October 29, 2025 at 1:43 PM
"Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis, star of Gangs of New York and Last of the Mohicans, invited me for lunch in New York. He'd watched the Tour and been massively inspired by my performance. At one point it looked like our worlds might collide. There was talk of a film being made about me."
In 2013 Wiggins made the cover of Scootering magazine.
"I'd obsess over certain things," his ghost writes in The Chain. "I had five scooters at one point, SX200 Lambrettas and the like. I never had a licence to ride them, but that wasn't the point."
"I'd obsess over certain things," his ghost writes in The Chain. "I had five scooters at one point, SX200 Lambrettas and the like. I never had a licence to ride them, but that wasn't the point."
October 29, 2025 at 1:35 PM
In 2013 Wiggins made the cover of Scootering magazine.
"I'd obsess over certain things," his ghost writes in The Chain. "I had five scooters at one point, SX200 Lambrettas and the like. I never had a licence to ride them, but that wasn't the point."
"I'd obsess over certain things," his ghost writes in The Chain. "I had five scooters at one point, SX200 Lambrettas and the like. I never had a licence to ride them, but that wasn't the point."
All the lies that I sold you ....
Seriously, how do we take The Chain seriously when all this has preceded it?
"I had no option but to keep playing the game, keep telling people what they wanted to hear," his ghost wrote in 2012.
Is he still playing the game?
Seriously, how do we take The Chain seriously when all this has preceded it?
"I had no option but to keep playing the game, keep telling people what they wanted to hear," his ghost wrote in 2012.
Is he still playing the game?
October 29, 2025 at 1:17 PM
All the lies that I sold you ....
Seriously, how do we take The Chain seriously when all this has preceded it?
"I had no option but to keep playing the game, keep telling people what they wanted to hear," his ghost wrote in 2012.
Is he still playing the game?
Seriously, how do we take The Chain seriously when all this has preceded it?
"I had no option but to keep playing the game, keep telling people what they wanted to hear," his ghost wrote in 2012.
Is he still playing the game?
Having suffered though five of the previous seven books (I skipped the Opus + My Story, the kiddiefied version of My Time - as if you have to dumb Fotheringham's writing down) so obviously I have to ask: am the the audience for this book?
Answer: No, not given they asterisk out fuck + shit.
Answer: No, not given they asterisk out fuck + shit.
October 29, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Having suffered though five of the previous seven books (I skipped the Opus + My Story, the kiddiefied version of My Time - as if you have to dumb Fotheringham's writing down) so obviously I have to ask: am the the audience for this book?
Answer: No, not given they asterisk out fuck + shit.
Answer: No, not given they asterisk out fuck + shit.