Singletrack Staff Blog

Roadtrip! Matt and I are off to bonny Scotland tomorrow in a hired van to see lovely people about advertising, do a bit of riding and get the Singletrack stall set up at Fort William for the World Cup. I say stall, it’s going to be a sprawling megaplex of easy-ups. Ish. Come over and say ‘hi’ and let Matt sell you something.
Last years race was incredible, made all the better with Peaty winning, and hopefully this year will be just as good. Just need to cross our fingers for the weather as it looks like it could be rather moist.
I’m currently trying to pack normal clothes, riding clothes, put a bike together and look after my poorly sister. Something is going to get forgotten, I know it.
Matt says we may need to sleep in the van, I hope he doesn’t snore.

Yesterday we seemed to sneak a good long ride in, dodging the rain and wind at Afan. A good ride with good friends, followed by beer and a bbq back at the Bryn Bettws Cabins. Perfect.
Today no-one seemed too keen to ride, I guess it might have had something to do with the downpour rattling off the windows.

We are still waiting for our first delivery of Roam DVDs but as you can see we have the envelopes all ready to go.

Child labour is ace and it’s edjucashonal too. Here’s Sam brushing up on his geography as he sorts all the over seas orders from the UK ones

Mt beloved Giant VT is waiting for a new shock at Blazing Saddles so I have no bike to ride

Well, to be honest there are others lieing around in the office but I really don’t want to ride that 29 inch singlespeed again. Ho hum.. Can’t be long now before I get my bike back.

Crazy ride night last night in wind with early explosions of rain followed by wind scoured clouds and fantastic colours, with the sun shining down on Oxenhope.. Lots of bits of wiggly singletrack interspersed with a crazy road climb that I couldn’t clean on my Singlespeed ;-( A final dash on the road to get to the pub and lots (to many) of Landlord!!

Simple things are so good sometimes.

Well, that’s how it seemed this evening. We rode ‘Moon River’ a local favourite trail with lots of little tricky, nadgery step ups and downs. It was great to still be riding until 9.30 and not need lights…

I looked at my GPS/computer when we got back and we’d ridden less than ten miles in three hours… Now that’s either very technical, or slack…

Tomorrow’s my last day in the office for a few days. I’m off to Finale to ride the Italian 24 hour race there. I don’t know who’s in my team, what bike I’m riding or what I’m eating or drinking - and my only Italian words are ‘Tiramisu’ and ‘Vino Rosso’ - so how could it possibly go wrong. Apparently I have a tent, but need to bring a sleeping bag and my cycling shoes… Easy… eek!

Oh, and then I’ve got two days of freeriding with Hans Rey… er… Right then…

Chipps

Latest update from Specialized today is that DVD’s should be with them maybe by the end of this week.

We are sat on a huge pile of empty but stamped and addressed padded envelopes waiting for them to arrive with us. As soon as they do they will be posted in the length of time it takes us to open the boxes and stick them in the waiting envelopes. Sorry about the wait if you have placed your order already.

No, the other sort of showers, the rainy sort.

Apparently we’ve got big thunderstorms heading our way, which might make for some interesting riding - or at least costume changes… Hot one minute and pouring with rain the next. The net result is still on the dry side though, so our trails are firming up wonderfully. Bike riding on Saturday in a local style, followed by an afternoon of Cycle Speedway racing on Sunday - the hardest cycling race you can complete in under a minute…

Found a couple of unwelcome hitchhikers from my Exmoor and Quantocks trip: ticks… It’s hard to remain calm and prise them gently out of your skin when they’re waving their arms around… Not having the proper tools for the job didn’t help, nevertheless, the pliers did an OK job of it. I’ll have to keep an eye on the holes though and make sure I don’t get that dreaded ‘bullseye’ inflammation, or it’ll be time for a rare visit to the doctor…

Was ace! Up…. a lot very steeply followed by a Long techy descent. Craig laid down twice, Rob dragged a massive bike round with him and back in time for the pub … Warm nights and later sunsets are where its at.

Well it seems our Free Stumpjumper book deal with every copy of ROAM is a bit of a hit. I was expecting a few dozen orders but the response has gone way beyond that.

I’m keeping in very close contact with Specialized UK (ROAM distributor) to make sure that a) they have enough books to meet demand.. and b) we get copies of ROAM asap.

At the moment they haven’t yet taken delivery of stock but the latest ETA is sometime next week. We’ve got everyone’s orders ready so that when they arrive all we have to do is pop the book and DVD in the pre-stamped, addressed envelopes and get them to the postie

Just heard from both Matt and Sanny that last night’s Glasgow Roam premiere was a complete sell out. Apparently one chap thought it was a bit loud and walked out before ROAM started. Turns out his raffle ticket came up for a pair of pedals later. Ho hum eh?