I have just returned from a long and exciting journey.

I was visiting Islay, the Hebridian Island that is home to Jez Hastings and Brian Palmer creators of The Washing Machine Post, a website read and trusted by cyclists around the world.

The reason for this trek was to understand the thinking behind the Islay jacket. A custom made tweed cycling jacket.

The brainwave of Jez and Brian, with enthusiasm from us at Mosquito. We love selling custom bikes so why not clothing.
It will be available from Mosquito, individually made to measure.
To get the full Islay experience I stayed with Jez and his lovely family in Port Charlotte. Besides a couple of nice rides in breathtakingly beautiful countryside I also sampled some of the Islands famous export, malt whisky. Plus making daily visits to Debbie’s- Welcome to Great Coffee- café.
The Island has an extraordinary history of weaving, I visited the Islay woollen mill. A place with a heritage dating back to the 16th century. The mill makes Tweed using traditional methods produced in small batches to the highest quality. The colours are those of the landscape around the mill, greens and browns with flecks of blues and purple from the heather.
So the tweed is the starting point, next was the idea to make a cycling specific jacket. Tweed has always been used to make riding and country sports wear so with its natural properties of water resistance and warmth without bulk it lends itself very well to cycling. The interesting part was to design it with clean construction and a cycle specific shape.
Then to find someone who can make the jacket to a very high standard and be able to keep the quality of manufacture to these standards when each jacket is custom made for each rider.

Jez has found such a person, Anne, she lives in a hill top croft on Islay, with an understanding of how Tweed works she has worked on the development of this jacket so that it shapes around the body using the natural weave of the fabric.

The finishing touches are the buttons, made by Anne’s husband is his workshop next to hers. These wonderful buttons are each cut from the antlers shed by the deer on the surrounding hills. Worked and finished by hand, each button is unique.

So the finished product is a superb bespoke jacket, made from small runs of Islay Tweed. Not just another cycling jacket, this is a garment that will soften and mould and live the ride with you, to be treasured and admired for many years.

The jacket will cost ……..and will take three weeks from order to delivery. Samples of Tweed and examples of the jacket will be available at Mosquito; order forms can be emailed or completed with Gill at Mosquito

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Been back a few weeks now from summer holiday to Mallorca, a few weeks of sun, sea, wine and a bit of bike riding - actually quite a lot of bike riding including several races in blistering heat (unfortunately not accompanied by blistering speed on my part). Son, Thomas, is now getting big enough to compete in the local races and came home with a sack of trophies for the sideboard, the Spanish work on the principle that the smaller you are the bigger the trophy!
In a fit of post holiday madness I have agreed to take part in the Masters Tour of Mallorca, notice I say ‘take part in’ as opposed to ‘compete in’! in fact ‘hang on for grim death in’ might be more appropriate!The T of M is a four day stage race for riders over 30 with 3 age classifications and some good riders, in fact it was won by UK pro Malcolm Elliott a few years back.
Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Probably, but then again the chance to race for 4 days on closed roads and with stages in the mountains feels like an opportunity not to be missed. So, how to train for a stage race? I’m going for plenty of racing with blocks of days on the bike back to back. With the rest of the family over the bank holiday weekend I raced saturday and monday with longish steady rides sunday and tuesday. Then regular weekday rides with racing every weekend.
Last Sunday was the Annual Giler Ree Memorial race down in Eastbourne. This was entered in a moment of madness (that’s the problem with online entering,you can sit at home with a glass of wine and convince yourself to ride events which in the cold light of day may not seem so sensible!) Anyway 130 km with eleven times up a 3.5km climb with a bunch of super fit 1st cat riders = a lot of suffering, so I was pleased to finish even picking up the consolation prize of being 1st 3rd cat rider over the line - I think that’s what you call the wooden spoon.