"We're prepared for anything at Milan-San Remo!"

Spyclopunk investigates!

Cyclopunk ace reporter Spyclopunk, currently in Milan where he's using his incredible master of disguise skills to capture photographs of the teams preparing for the race, got chatting to the mechanics of one of the teams yesterday and - after promising them a bottle or ten of wine - persuaded them to let him have two minutes alone with their new top secret bike.

"They didn't want me to say which team they're from, but you have my word for it that this is a genuine story," he says. "I'm not really at home watching daytime TV and sending in pictures of stuff off There I Fixed It in an attempt to get away without actually doing any real work - you can check that with my mum if you don't believe me."

"Anyway, the squad is mindful of the fact that conditions can turn nasty up on the Passo del Turchino and they don't want to get caught out like the riders did back in 1910 when there was so much snow only four out of 63 riders made it over the climb - so they've had this special bike built to clear the way for their sprinters. They say they'll use it to push Cav out of the way too if they get a chance. The cage on the back is in case they encounter any hitch-hiking marmots along the way."

Innovative anti-theft device wins award, Spyclopunk investigates

The annual Society of the Home, Innovation and Technology awards gala is one of London's premier design industry events in which inventors, developers and marketing experts come together to celebrate dazzling new gadgets. Each year, a list of over a thousand new products is submitted to the judges who then whittle them down to just twelve that, in their opinion, will revolutionise daily life. It's a white tie, couture frock, glitzy and glamourous party - which is why security wouldn't let us in to have a look at any of the new bike stuff on display.

In this photo taken from a brochure handed out by
Capt. Ruff's at the Society awards, the ARS unit is
virtually undetectable when fitted to a Trek Fuel
(CC3.0)

We'd heard about ARS; an incredible and entirely novel anti-theft device for bicycles which, according to the judges, demonstrates "blue sky, out-of-the-box imagineering by a team not afraid to use cutting-edge creaovation techniques in order to develop integethical new concepts." That's why we decided we needed to know more: because, well, we had no idea what on earth that actually meant.

"Of course, we were dazzled by the wafer-thin HD audio-visual kitchen implements, the biodegradable olive stoners and hydrorobotic parallel parking safety warnings," says chief Society judge Mikael Foray-Stout. "However, this device is so stunning in its simple effectiveness that there was really no contest. Our focus group agreed, saying that many people who would otherwise utilise bicycles for short journeys in the urban environment are discouraged from doing so due to the necessity of carrying a heavy lock, whereas this device puts paid to that - it entirely neutralises that need and safeguards the owner's property."

Cyclopunk got in contact with the device's manufacturer, Capt. Ruff's BikeCo Ltd of South Safeytor Headland, Lancs., but were unable to speak to anyone at the firm; learning from their answerphone message that they'd all gone down t'pub for lunch. After calling again the next morning, we were still unable to learn anything about the system because, in the words of employee Eli Grimthorpe, "Ah don't trust ye, ye lager-drinkin' soothern pansy. It's a simple design and ye'd probably steal it."

Stopping along the way for a packet of cigarettes,
Spyclopunk found that his ingenious disguise (complete
with a whippet - look carefully in the bottom left corner
of the photo above) allowed him to pass undetected by
locals in the narrow, over-crowded and smoky streets
of Manchester, virtually unchanged since the early
Victorian era and the Industrial Revolution.
(© Eirian Evans CC2.0)

Another job for Spyclopunk!

As regular readers will be well aware, here at Cyclopunk we employ only the finest journalists we can persuade to work for nothing, and the finest of them all is Spyclopunk. Once resident disguise expert at the SAS (which he takes great care to point out does not refer to the Swan and Stag public house), Spyclopunk uses his masterful skills to infiltrate the most covert echelons of the bike industry and make this website the very best for those discerning readers who want the latest news before any of the others have it.

Arming himself with a whippet and some pigeons, Spyclopunk was parachuted into deepest, darkest Oop North from the staff helicopter late at night last week (with the ace pilot stopping only briefly on the way to buy a road map from the Little Chef near Shiptonthorpe after realising he was lost, later making a brief stop on the outskirts of Manchester for a packet of fags). Having landed cat-like on the roof, Spyclopunk used his amazing ninja skills to gain admittance to the state-of-the-art Capt. Ruff's factory via an air conditioning duct ("And I think I'd better lay off the pies for a bit," he later said, "it's down to sheer luck and my excess perspiration problem that I didn't become permanently wedged down it.") He soon found his way into the underground research and development laboratories, where he managed to retrieve a blueprint.

However, after examining the document for several hours, our technical expert Dr. Les Sarbin pronounced himself absolutely unable to crack the code with which the strange diagrams were labelled. "I was absolutely unable to crack the code with which the strange diagrams were labelled," he later said. "But then, I had a flash of inspiration - with help from my assistant, I used a laser protractor to painstakingly rotate the document through 180 degrees, so we were looking at it the other way up. Suddenly, it all fell into place and I could understand it as though it were plain English." That document is reproduced below.

Imagine trying to make sense of this if it had been rotated through 180 degrees!

"The device is genius in its simplicity," he continues. "Basically, to the casual observer - ie, you and not a clever scientist like me - the device will look almost indistinguishable from a standard bike saddle and seat post when fitted to a bike. It features the ARS unit itself, which is fitted between the saddle rails where it can't be seen and is wired to sensors within the padding - this works rather like a retina scan, making a comparison between the buttocks of the person sitting on the bike and an image pre-programmed into the unit. I'm not yet certain what features it's built to recognise; probably pimples, hairiness, odour and suchlike.

"Now, the secondary function is where it gets really clever. Having made its comparison, it utilises an algorithm in order to determine whether or not the buttocks belong to the bike's owner. If a certain match - say 80% - is achieved, then it does nothing. However, any less than that and it sends an electronic signal to a device fitted within the special seat pillar. This then releases a firing pin, detonating an large gauge shotgun cartridge and sending several grams of red-hot lead pellets up the would-be thief's jacksie."

We later spoke to a public health and safety department spokesperson to enquire as to whether or not such a device could be legally sold in the United Kingdom. "Well, the company are seeking official approval at the moment, so I can't really comment," she told us. "However, as a keen cyclist and victim of at least five bike thieves over the years myself, I bloody hope so."

EXCLUSIVE! How Andy will win the Tour

Spyclopunk strikes again! Once again, our crack team of undercover investigative reporters has been involved in a covert mission as we attempt to bring YOU, our esteemed readership, exclusive and ground-breaking news from the murky world of professional cycling.

Recently, we revealed the amazing new Cervelo InvisiBike with which the Garmin-Cervelo team hope to win the 2012 Tour de France.

Today, with LeopardTrek on the brink of joining forces with RadioShack to form the new RadioSchleckTrekNissanCyclingShackProfessionalLeopardRacing Team, we can exclusively reveal the tactics with which team boss Johan Bruyneel aims to propel his new star Andy "What's a nice boy like you doing in a peloton like this?" Schleck to Tour victory.

Creeping round the back of the hospitality tent at the Tour of Britain to slide a camera under the walls for a sneaky shot of the podium girls' knickers, ace reporter Ian Twitchie-Forrts overheard the Belgian ex-pro holding a whispered discussion with an unknown character who we've since decided was almost certainly John Burke, president of the Trek Bicycle Corporation on the strength of little else than A; it sounded like a man's voice, B; Burke is a man and C; Twitchie-Forrts learned his trade at News International and doesn't see why shoddy journalism should get in the way of a good story.

A highly-skilled master of stealth and disguise, ace reporter
Ian Twitchie-Forrt can move around undetected anywhere
he chooses. That's how Cyclopunk brings you news stories
you won't find anywhere else.

Hearing the words "Andy," "Tour," "TT," "Fabian," "new bike" and "race," Ian's finely-honed reporter's mind told him that he might just have stumbled on the story of the decade - especially if he filled in the gaps with "won't win the," "because he's not very good at," "so with," "doing all the work at the front of the" and "while Andy and Frank chill out at the back and think about kittens and stuff, we'll thrash every other team in the." You may think this sounds like conjecture, but Ian's cv says he's really good at this sort of thing and that's good enough for us.

Realising, as journalists say, that a scoop of this magnitude would fill several thousand sewage works and earn him such gratitude from Cyclopunk editors that they might even stretch as far as to buy him a can of Special Brew, Ian withdrew his camera and another piece of equipment he prefers not to specify; then went off on a prowl around the team compound to see what he could find. He struck gold at the LeopardTrek bus, having taken some time to find it due to originally mistaking it for a spacecraft.

"Basically, I rigged up a quick disguise and sneaked round the side of it," he says, "and let me tell you, I was bricking it in case they had any pitbulls or Jens Voigt on guard. They didn't, though, and so I was able stick my head in through the bus's emergency exit at the back - and, well, I couldn't believe my eyes."

"Nearly four weeks I've been in this business, but never have I seen anything quite like the bike they had hidden away on that bus," he continues. "It was like something from another planet. When these pictures get out the UCI are probably going to go mad because all the other teams will just give up and not even bother applying for the Tour. Later in the day, as they were loading up the pasta, they actually took the bike off the bus for a minute or so and that's when I managed to get a photograph."

Our resident expert Neil Droznan spent last night examining the photographs and has come up with an explanation of what Bruyneel is planning.

"It's a simple matter really," he says. "as well know, drafting is permitted in team time trials. Cancellara, as we all know, is the best time trialist in the world and the air gets out of Voigt's way in case he hurts it. The only trouble is, whereas Andy and Frank can climb a mountain like a goat on amphetamines, they're well-known for not being that good at anything else - well, except embroidery and flower-arranging. As a result, they're just not quick enough on a TT course to draft behind Fabian and Jens."

"Having also taken a close look at the UCI time trial rules, I've been able to discover that at no point does it mention six-seater bicycles or whether or not they're permitted in competition," he adds. "So what Bruyneel plans to do, obviously, is stick Voigt on the front to frighten the laws of physics out of the way; Cancellara behind him to act as the engine; bung Posthuma, Gerdemann or whoever in the middle to make up numbers and then stick the Schleck boys at the back so they don't slow the team down and get a bit of a kip so they're all rested and ready for the steep stuff.

We rang Bruyneel at his lair in a mountaintop castle in the Belgian Alps, hinting that we know what he's up to - at that time he refused to comment other than cackling darkly. However, he phoned us back this morning and told us to look outside. We subsequently did so, but can't see anything different out there.

Since we have better things to do, would one of our readers be so kind as to keep an eye on this live webcam feed and alert us if you notice anything?

(Does not apply to images attributed to other authors/owners)

Not something you see everyday...

Top-notch Canadian bike boffins Cervelo - who like to point out that the company's name means "brain bike" for the benefit of all us scumbags who went to schools that don't teach Foreignish - have long had a reputation for introducing revolutionary new concepts to the professional cycling world. The best-known example to date would the anti-gravity drive fitted to the 2011 S3, which riders have to be careful to lock to a solid and immovable object not to prevent it being stolen but to stop it floating away; an innovation unsurprisingly deemed illegal for competition use by the UCI.

They've been a bit quiet of late, however, leading some sections of the cycling press to forget all about them and concentrate on writing articles about how Bertie Contador should probably take a leaf out of Hippy Dave Zabriskie's book and adopt the vegan diet. But Spyclopunk, Cyclopunk's crack investigative journalism division, doesn't give up so easily; having secret channels and means of finding out what's going on in the secret research and development departments of the bike manufacturers - including access to covert military satellites capable of taking control of computers on Earth, entering "funny bike pictures" into Google and making up a story based on the results.

Cervelo S3, seen yesterday and drooled over in the bike shop

That's how we are once again able to bring you breaking news, revealing Cervelo's latest project - a new bike fitted with state-of-the-art "stealth" technology, with which they believe the Garmin-Cervelo team will be able to win the 2012 Tour de France.

"Well, it's a pretty simple idea really," said Cervelo engineer Bob Norris, who wishes to remain anonymous. "Basically, the idea is we build an invisible bike and then the guys on the team can whip past the other riders without them knowing about it. That way, the other teams will think our guys are back in the grupetto or have been kidnapped by a UFO or something and not give chase. It's genius. Mwa ha ha ha!"

Spyclopunk, who has a deserved reputation for asking hard-hitting questions, pointed out that the other teams might consider it a little odd and raise suspicions when they noticed Garmin riders passing them, apparently levitating in the racing crouch.

Cervelo's amazing new stealth bike, photographed by Spyclopunk

"Oh, but we've thought of that - that's why we're called Cervelo, see, 'cos we're clever," Norris explains. "We've also got these amazing invisible jerseys and shorts - you want to see them, they're like something out of Harry Potter, only you can't of course because they're invisible. We haven't been able to make the riders themselves invisible yet, but the plan is to sack the current team and sign up Andy Schleck, Brad Wiggins and a few of those other dudes who have to run around in the shower to get wet - those guys are so skinny you can hardly see them from the side."