Lloyd Cole: Rattlesnakes and rim brakes

Lloyd Cole is best known as the lead singer of 80s favourites Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, but has of course enjoyed a long and successful solo career in the years since too. For our purposes, however, it’s his love of cycling and riding bikes that prompted Steve Thomas to sit down for the chat that follows…

How and when did cycling come into your life?

What you probably should know is that I grew up in a small town called Chapel-en-Le-Frith (in the Peak District) and that was on the A6, in the days when towns didn’t have bypasses, and the A6 was one of the major roads going north-sound in the UK. That went right through the middle of town, and so my mother wouldn’t let me have a bike. She said, ‘it’s too bloody dangerous out there’.

Literally, these giant lorries were going through the middle of town all of the time, and she was actually part of the local initiative that finally got them to build a bypass to stop this. So, I never learnt to ride – I could obviously ride a bike, but I was never the kind of kid that could just ride and take his hands off the handlebars, I still can’t.

I don’t really know what the impetus (to start cycling) was, but it was about nine years ago when I decided I wanted to have a bike. Possibly it was because we live very close to a bike path, and it’s great. I discovered that once I actually started cycling I could just do a loop of 50 miles without ever leaving the bike path, which is what I did for maybe the first three years of cycling.

I bought a 3-speed bike, and when I found myself leaning over the handlebars with my hands off the bars, with my forearms on the bars, I realised that was a bit stupid so I bought an 8-speed bike. When I found myself doing the same thing on that, I realised I needed to get a proper bike, I suppose. Again, it’s a bit more complicated than that; I’m not dyslexic, but I do have spatial awareness issues, I’m one of the few professional musicians I know, in that circle, who can’t play drums.

I can’t get a rhythm going with my feet and hands doing different rhythms. I can play guitar and sing at the same time – no problem; but if I bring my feet into the equation, I can’t do it. Never even tried to learn to drive a manual car until after I left London, I took the driving test in America, in an automatic car, because I know me driving a manual car would be a problem for the rest of the world.

So, when I decided to get an upgrade from the hybrid (a Marin, lovely bike, which is now the shopping bike) I didn’t think I could ride a typical racing bike with derailleurs and shifting, and using both hands. I just didn’t think I could do that; foolishly, I didn’t take any advice on that from anyone else. I just went on the internet and looked around, and found out that there were these internal hubs by Rohloff in Germany, that just need one hand to change gear and they had 15 gears. I thought that’s perfect for me, I’d be a klutz on the other one. I found a Mercian bike on eBay that had a Rohloff hub.

The guy that commissioned it to be built had got terrible back problems from riding it, within the first months of buying it, so it had hardly been ridden. I got it for a bit of a bargain, but still, it was a lot of money. I started riding that, and have been going ever since. I did, finally, discover that I could change gear using both hands – but it took a while to figure that out.

What has riding a bike brought to you in life, what does it mean to you?

There’s a lot of things. The feeling of being on a self-propelled device, with the wind in your face, and knowing that you’re not burning gasoline, or any kind of fuel, I think I find it really exhilarating; I find it helps my mental wellbeing. Being able to 
exercise that keeps me in reasonably good shape, that is mostly fun, it’s a huge bonus that I’d never anticipated having in my life, when prior to riding the bike, the only stuff I did for keeping fit was going to the gym, and I never, never enjoyed that.

It was also great to find something that I hadn’t really done before that I didn’t completely suck at – or, I was definitely not terrible at. It was great to set goals, reach them, then set more. It was great to finally get on Strava and meet people around the world. I remember, the first really significant thing somebody said to me on Strava; they said that if I could ride 15 miles I could ride 30 miles, and if you can do that you can ride 100 miles.

In my first serious year with the Mercian, I went from riding 33 miles at a maximum to doing my first, and only Imperial century, That was idiotic, it took me all day, and it was on the bike path; I went round its entirety twice, and I did feel pretty good about it. I’m in physically, and mentally, much better shape – thanks to riding the bike. God knows where I’d be without riding the bike; sometimes I think; maybe I wouldn’t even be here.

What bike do you have now, and how into the gear and tech side are you?

I’m kind of ashamed that I own as many bikes as I did without really being able to look after them. I’ve got a great local mechanic, and I lean heavily on him. I bought the Marin and the Mercian without knowing at all what I was doing. I think I joined the local cycling club when I was still riding the Mercian, before I bought the Parlee; I only joined the club when I could finally drink water when I was riding, that’s the extent of my hand-eye co-ordination issues. I don’t have that kind of balance; when you see proper bike riders putting their hands in the air at the finish, swinging water bottles around, I can’t do any of that. I’m still trying to learn to ride no handed, it would be great to give my hands a break now and then.

I was introduced by a local cycling friend to a really good mechanic and bike shop nearby, and started getting it serviced there. I started to realise that it would be nice having a bike that was little bit lighter than the steel Mercian. I had him get me a Parlee Chebacco, a bike which is good for road and gravel. I have it set up mostly for road; I thought I would like gravel, but I don’t. I don’t like the feeling of the ground moving bellow me. I’ve been able to ride stuff like bridleways in the UK, because that feels kind of solid.

The one time I rode on real gravel, in New Zealand, god, I didn’t like that at all. The Chebacco has gone back to Parlee this winter, and I know I don’t need a better bike, given my skills, and so rather than getting a new bike this year I’ve sent it to be re-finished in British racing green, the colour I wanted in the first place (but it wasn’t in stock).

After I got the Parlee, and got a bit out of control with the biking, I got bought a Shand, to keep in the UK. It’s a Stoater, and that’s one of the best words in the world; I lived in Scotland for some time, and stoater means something that’s awesome, so I have a gold one – and really wish I hadn’t bought a gold one, because I didn’t realise quite how terrible bike theft is in the UK, and wish I’d bought something a bit more anonymous.

That’s the lot; I haven’t really ridden the Shand anywhere near enough to legitimise buying it. I ride the Parlee a lot, and ride the Mercian for fun, there’s that lovely feeling you get from steel – and I also ride it when I’m trying not to be a dick when riding with people not as fast, as it slows me down a bit. 

Winters are harsh in Massachusetts; how much riding can do you do during winter – can you ride outside?

Not at all. When Covid hit, it was a bit scary, as I couldn’t even go to the gym, and that was pretty much at the height of my cycling mania, because I’d been getting better and better for three years in a row, and was getting pretty excited about think that I wasn’t really a bad cyclist – I’m a bit more realistic about it these days.

So, I bought a Wattbike for the house, and that was a life saver during Covid. The winters here are terrible. When the snow comes down there’s ice everywhere, and I’m not going out in that. It was a bit warmer yesterday, and I saw a guy cycling, and he was going up the hills at about 20mph, you could tell he was serious cyclist, but I just don’t bother and put my bike in the basement.

I’ll be on the Wattbike when I’m home, until probably March-April. You got me on a good day, because it was my first day on the Wattbike in this ‘post-season’ where I actually didn’t feel really terrible, and got close to last year’s speed. I had about two enforced months off my bike, with touring and doing my job in Belgium and France, where you’d think would be great places to ride – but, when you’re touring in a vehicle and there’s no room for a bike in it, it’s not going to happen. I’ve been spending a couple of months trying to get some fitness back here, and today it was fun. I could push past the limit of worrying about my legs and lungs hurting.

Cheesy, I know – but what would be your perfect spin, anywhere, any ride?

I think now it would be with friends, not on my own, people I like cycling with. It might be near Oxford, with some of my UK friends. It might be near Cascais in Portugal, with my relatively new Irish and Portuguese friends there. Or it might just be around here; I’m really lucky that the roads are quite good, and there are certain circuits I do here that really suit me. I like going uphill, but I don’t like going down really steep hills, I get scared.

I don’t like going more than 32-35 mph, downhill, I get a bit scared doing that. Then I have to keep braking, and there’s not much fun in that, is there? I know from a technical point of view that I’m probably safe not braking, but I’m too scared. My ideal ride is, probably, on gradients of two to seven per cent, anything above ten per cent is a bit hard for me. I don’t mind going up a bit of a wall now and then just for fun, but I like rolling roads.

On Zwift, my favourite ride is in Scotland. It’s lovely; there are some really steep gradients when you get back into Glasgow, but for most of the ride you’re going up and down, and you can kick into the climbs. It drives me mad when riding with bike clubs and they don’t do that (use the descent to get a kick into the climb) and just keep a steady pace.

Be sure to check out Lloyd’s ongoing musical journey on his website. You may also bump in to him on the virtual Bonny Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond on Strava this winter. Steve also has a more in-depth podcast going out over the festive season with Lloyd, all about his bikes, music, and more. You can find the show on Spotify.