The response to The Sofaboy Chronicles has blown my mind. (Maaaaan). So much so that I feel obliged to take the thing at least half seriously now.

To that end, as of now, you'll find me mostly at www.thesofaboychronicles.com.

This Posterous blog will continue to exist since it's a great platform for mobile blogging. I see it being the main way I'll keep in touch during trips to races, Eurobike, etc.

The new site is still being populated, as an example I seem to have embarked upon a full fledged autobiography in the "About Me" section which will probably take years to complete, but I'll post something there most days for folk to read or listen to. Currently I envisage pages for, and about, random waffling as my online diary (the usual stuff), gear, urban cycling, my own bikes, music and maybe mountaineering. 

What you'll have noticed is there no dedicated page on The Chronicles site for my frequent rants about pro racing and the UCI.

That's because Derek Troy of The Bike and I are going to launch a separate 'cast dedicated to covering road racing in all of it's guises along with a look at social media and gear used in the pro peloton. If it ends up like the chats Derek and I currently have then it'll be irreverent, sweary and hopefully informative. Keep an ear cocked for it.

Speak soon

John

p.s. I'm also going to upload a complete archive of The Velocast to the site (including the dodgy early ones).

Posted this by accident on the soon to be "proper" Sofaboy Chronicles site instead of here. If you read it there ignore this post, if not here you go! This happened earlier this week.

"So, a few days ago I heard from @stooopot via Twitter. Fairly soon after we started chatting I realised his name rang a bell.

My Postie sense was tingling.

I thought he might live in Innerleithen, six miles away from Chez Galloway and part of the area delivered to by Peebles D.O. I asked him on Twitter if he lived in Innerleithen.....yes was the answer. First bit of the global village thing clicked into place. I was chatting to someone six miles away as a result of a location agnostic piece of technology.

Next step?

I thought I'd freak Stuart out a bit by tweeting some detailed info about his letter box, specifically that it doesn't open wide enough and he should have it fixed so we could get more of his frequent Wiggle and CRC parcels through without having to issue a P739 "You Were Out" card. Hey, I'm a postie, I'm easily entertained!

Stuart wasn't particularly freaked out but it certainly gave his wife pause for thought when Davie, their postie, arrived the next day! She asked "Is he the creepy postie?" ;o)

Next step? A chat via Skype.

So, to recap. I'm talking to a guy six miles away from where I live as a result of Twitter and I have intimate knowledge of his letter box. We're chatting away quite the thing. Stuart moved to Edinburgh from Cheshire. He owned a kite shop in Edinburgh. "Oh" says I, "The one in the Grassmarket?" "Yes" says Stuart. Ah, I can now picture his business. Second click.

Next we start talking about me.

I talk about working at the Edinburgh Bicycle Co-Op and commuting from Peebles to Edinburgh every day on the bike and then we talk about the accident I had when I went over the bars of my bike and my lower left arm was driven into the upper arm after I went over the handlebars.

At this point Stu starts going, "Hang on, I need to get a handle on this timeframe." 

A couple of sentences later it gets creepy. I had my accident on a yellow Trek 8000 MTB. In the immediate aftermath of the accident I was told I'd never ride again so sold a bunch of stuff, including the Trek 8000.

The guy who bought the Trek 8000 didn't keep it long (though that's another story) and it was bought from him by @stooopot and was his introduction to mountain bikes after starting as a roadie.

So, not only did I start chatting with a guy who lives down the road via Twitter. He bought the bike that ended my racing career! Mindf**k!

John"

I've been asked for download links for each episode so here you go

Episode 1

Episode 2

Going forward I'll write a post whenever I release a show with the appropriate link and Show Notes when necessary.

After posting previews of the first two episodes they're now out there in the wild. ;o)

You can subscribe via iTunes or add the RSS feed to the reader of your choice. I've been gobsmacked by the number of folk who'll listen to a postie and friends waffle on about cycling but nonetheless I'll try to keep it interesting for you all. ;o)

If you're an iTunes user you can subscribe here The Sofaboy Chronicles . Please consider leaving a review on iTunes, positive or negative. It'll help other folk decide if the 'cast is worth a listen. If you're one of the folk who don't use iTunes then you can subscribe to this RSS feed.

You can email me at thesofaboychronicles@gmail.com or just follow me on twitter where I am @sofaboy if you want to get in touch. I'd be genuinely delighted to hear from you.

John

I've been talking to Tony via email over the last few days and in one of those serendipitous moments I got an email asking for a download of the interview I did with Tony before the 2009 Tour of Britain. With the demise of The Velocast site I thought I'd repost the interview here.

You can't go wrong buying his books either! ;o)

Details at www.tonyhewson.co.uk

A lot of the stuff we did on the Velocast was a result of sharing links we found interesting. So, every couple of days I'm going to post stuff that interests me. Here's the first batch.

Horny as a horny things horny bits. There's just something about Celeste.

Bianchi Team Bike

Designed to make me reach for my wallet.

Soma does it again

Super cool frame with the Sturmey Archer setup that got me excited at Eurobike '09

Hipster but actually cool

Fastest Roubaix winner and great DS moves on.

RIP PP

New bit for my Larkin Tele.

Rare Breed Guitars

Genesis are becoming a favourite brand.

Latitude

Comments welcome.

You can now subscribe to The Chronicles on iTunes here 

I did something daft to the feed so the artwork isn't up yet but should appear in due course once iTunes refreshes the feed.

If your universe is non Apple-centric the RSS feed is here for the podcatcher of your choice.

More episodes to come very soon indeed.

Update: Summat wrong with the feed, no doubt my fault. ;o) Will fix asap.

Update 2: RSS feed fixed. You can subscribe to and download the show via iTunes now but it will take a while until iTunes refreshes it so you can stream it directly to iTunes. Sorry folks.

Once this goes out as a podcast (which folk who've listened to it here first should feel free to ignore) I'll have sorted the slight Cylon effect on my voice. Nick sounds great though. I hadn't planned to do another preview 'cast but as I was editing Nick I though "Fuck me, this is what grass roots cycling is all about!" So, here's a rough edit of Ep 2 of The Sofaboy Chronicles.