Victoria Pendleton on Strictly!

[Torslanda]

Typically. Halfords you are a bunch of wexist sankers.

What's the top accessory option? The one that illustrates their target market? It's a WICKER BASKET. FFS!

Hey! I've got news for you. Not every girl who rides a bike aspires to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.

Signed

Totally unreconstructed male.

[Jules]

It was the evil Miss Gulch who was the cyclist in the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy would have struggled to ride a bike in the Ruby Slippers and danced her day to the Emerald City. Trufax

[rogerzilla]

SPD ruby slippers FTW.

[David Martin]

Maybe it is the fact that CB has already got a very good range of bikes out. I had a look at the pendleton range and concluded that they were attractive in a superficial sort of way, but generally rather pretty BSOs with crap brakes and heavy as anything. For pretty girl around town (flat and not a very big town) they will be ideal.

Then again we are probably unrepresentative of the bike buying public and whilst I am happy to advise, people can ride what they choose to.

[Jaded]

For pretty girl around town (flat and not a very big town) they will be ideal.

What would you recommend for the bustier girls?

[AndyK]

I think my last shred of respect for her just evaporated.

Quite, how dare she not retire to a convent in Avalon.

[rogerzilla]

I'd rather she kept riding while she was still winning, like Hoy.  Achieve your full potential and all that.

I'll admit I ended my TT career on a PB, but I know I couldn't have gone faster without going down the road of £6000 bikes and pointy hats.

[Torslanda]

For pretty girl around town (flat and not a very big town) they will be ideal.

What would you recommend for the bustier girls?

<Cosmo Smallpiece> Hoo, hooooooo! Suspension! Sports bra! Cobbles! </Cosmo Smallpiece>

[bobb]

Well, she came last tonight!

She actually looks like she has some potential. She was terribly nervous though and made some pretty disaaaaaaastrous mistakes....

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

She's in this week's Radio Times, saying

I've spent most of my life being sturdy, strong and stiff on my bike and now, all of a sudden, I'm trying to be flexible, fluid and graceful on my feet. This isn't what I've trained for all my life. In fact, it is the complete opposite and my body and brain are struggling ... the physical exertion isn't very challenging, but the mental element - the counting, the timing, the remembering of the steps and every single movement - is really ... Brendan is teaching me the choreography in chunks and I keep finding myself getting to the end of one chunk and then going blank. My brain is just not used to thinking ahead and I'm having to relearn how to learn.

She says that she spent so much time on the bike training that she didn't have to think about any of it because it was all automatic, and all she had to concentrate on was putting in 100% effort, and she's finding it really hard to have to think about what every bit of her body should be doing.

[gordon taylor]

VP's poor dancing was discussed on this morning's Breakfast show. She's obviously struggling with the movement and the timing. I think there was a general expectation that someone so fit (and glamorous) would be a brilliant dancer, but the fact that she's been strapped into a machine for years making her legs rotate in two dimensions only is showing.

Me? I'm hooked. The whole thing is fascinating and very cleverly put together. VP is fab.

I'm also intrigued by the amount of criticism that she gets - on here particularly. Contrast the comments on VP threads with those on, say, Obree...

[JohnP]

I'm also intrigued by the amount of criticism that she gets - on here particularly. Contrast the comments on VP threads with those on, say, Obree...

VP is closing in on Clarkson on the criticismometer.

[bumper]

Without sounding like a letch, she is easy on the eyes in her strictly gear!

I think we find it too easy to knock people for no major reason in this country. She may not be the perfect dancer but good for her for having a go!

[CrinklyLion]

I like the contestants who find it hard, knuckle down, improve and turn into competent dancers.  I always feel sorry for the ones that go in with massive and often unrealistic expectations placed on them just because they are glam/young whatever.  And whoever is paired with Brendan, you can guarantee some entertainment (and a fair few panto moments) when he loses his rag, either with them or on their behalf.  So I am quietly hopeful of Ms Pendleton on Strictly, although I couldn't watch her routine full screen. 

But blimey, what were the costume department thinking.  Cha cha.  Short skirts, fringing and tassles.  Party frocks taken to frankly silly extremes.  What's with the jumpsuit - do these people have no sense of tradition?

[Riggers]

Saturday. I was occasionally drawn to 'pop my head up' and 'grrrrr' at  Strictly, as I read my book, to be increasingly annoyed with Darcy Busty (or not), and her use of the word 'yeah' or 'yah' after pointing out suggestions of improvement to whoever. Easy on the eye she may be, but she needs a slap.

I understand she now lives in Australia, but I thought she must have received a huge bout of yummy-mummy-Chelsea Flu or summink, the way she was talking.

[Biggsy]

But blimey, what were the costume department thinking.  Cha cha.  Short skirts, fringing and tassles.  Party frocks taken to frankly silly extremes.  What's with the jumpsuit - do these people have no sense of tradition?

I thought that ultra-naff attire has been popular for competition dancing since the seventies?  A forty year tradition!

I'm strictly watching it just for Queen Victoria.  I'll be relieved in a way if/when she gets knocked out. 

[CrinklyLion]

I thought that ultra-naff attire has been popular for competition dancing since the seventies?  A forty year tradition!

Absolutely!  And for a cha cha, that should be sparkly, fringy, beady, glittery, and somewhat reminiscent of a tinsel-bedecked christmas tree.  Even, IMO, if you are Ola or Flavia.  Controversial, I know.  What  can I say, I have an utterly irrational dislike of catsuits and jumpsuits.

Plus there is also the effect of making yourself stand out from the crowd in the wrong way.  Break with tradition and you risk it being interpreted as saying "I'm something a bit special, I am".  There's a few people on there over the years who have made controversial choices in their costumes and choreography and got away with it - generally because they did so in a way that was funny/endearing/engaging or because, not to put to fine a point on it, they were shit hot at dancing - or indeed both.  When it goes wrong (Brendan and Lisa and the spiderwoman catsuit routine, Erin and Colin and The Dolls Of Doom) it isn't pretty.

I tend to not have a clue who most of the celebrities are at the start of the season - Strictly is, quite literally, the _only_ TV series that I have watched for about 4 years.  Other than that our TV doesn't know about anything other than children's telly channels!  This series is unusual in that I recognise a few and could probably have even told you what some of them were called.  I'm looking forward to seeing how they get on.  There wasn't anybody that made me need to hide behind the cushions because they were painfully awful, there wasn't anybody (yet) that made me want to spork them in the eye by being obnoxious.  And I loved the actor from 'stenders who I can't put a name to.  VP is an interesting one partly because her pro partner is always controversial, although his reputation has mellowed a lot over the years.  And sportspeople are often interesting contenders - there's only been a few who were 'naturally' good, but there's been a lot who have got there through work, attitude, listening to their coach and, the final touch, eventually giving in to the Strictly bug and embracing the glitter and spray tan.

[mrcharly-YHT]

In case anyone hasn't come across this, from VP:

The main reason I did Strictly is that I had always wanted to dance. I talked to people who had been on the proramme and they said it had been brilliant and they'd do it again. That's what I want to feel at the end of it, that i've loved it and had a great time.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

  And I loved the actor from 'stenders who I can't put a name to. 

Rickaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

[CrinklyLion]

No - the other one.  I think it was 'stenders.  The clips had that all-encompassing grey tone that I associate with the square....

[bobb]

No - the other one.  I think it was 'stenders.  The clips had that all-encompassing grey tone that I associate with the square....

The only contestant in the show who has been on Eastenders is Syd Owen who played Rickaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. He was very good. I thought he'd be shithouse!

[CrinklyLion]

Oh - must be another soap then.  I did say that I never know who they are!  Although I did recognise Rickaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay - from when I did watch telly, I guess!  I was pleasantly surprised by how competent he was - and partnered with the delightful Ola too.  One to watch?

[Biggsy]

Wellard's been on it, hasn't he?

[CrinklyLion]

Just catching up on the week's ITT, including Brendan and Victoria on the sofa with Zoe yesterday.  They're foxtrotting to Moondance tomorrow.  I reckon that might be a bit OK.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

bobb made me watch that. I think the red dress is for Fern Britton. I said it the minute they showed it and bobb can't understand why I'm so adamant and apparently "the neckline" isn't a good enough reason.