Introducing The Musette

Stand by for weekly half-formed thoughts on the sport of cycling

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musette: A lightweight cotton shoulder bag containing food and drink given to riders during a bike race.

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When I first started writing on the internet, I wrote about cycling. I found an Australian website called The Roar which essentially published whatever anyone sent them. Granted, they didn’t pay me for what I sent, but for the first time in my life I was sending articles out into the world and strangers were reading them.

Cycling was big in Australia when I wrote about it for The Roar. They had live text of the Tour de France and other big races. I ended up somehow running some of this live text. Again, I did not get paid.

So you’d think that, fast forwarding ten years or so, when I started a Substack it would be about cycling. But at the time I thought it would be too niche, that no one would read it. I know, I know, you’re supposed to write the thing you would want to read. But I do quite like other people reading it too.

So I wrote and still write about travel, a subject I love almost as much as cycling. That’s still pretty niche, really. I should have written about tech. People make money writing about tech. But then I hate reading about tech. And I know shit all about tech.

So, cycling. Each Sunday on The Musette I’ll send out an essay about the sport of cycling. It may be about that week’s racing. It may be about a rider, or a big story, or about really anything at all, as long as it involves two wheels.

If you fancy supporting this not just through subscribing but by giving me some of your hard-earned cash, there’s an extra perk. Paid subscribers will also receive a historical deep dive into something cycling related each month. A paid subscription to The Musette is only £3.99 a month, or £29.99 a year, but there’s also a special offer on to celebrate our launch. By pressing the button below you can get 75% off your first 12 months, so your subscription is under £1 for a whole year.

But if you quite like keeping the cash you earn, that’s also fine. I’m really excited to have you here. Whether you like cycling or not I hope you’ll find some entertaining writing about a sport that makes absolutely zero sense. I hope you enjoy the ride. (See what I did there?)