Bike Testin’
Went for a biggish ride in the southern Dales yesterday (Skipton, Rylstone, Embsay Crags etc). Hey, these bikes won’t test themselves you know. Everything was going swimmingly - the sky was extremely hazed over so the photos were looking a bit dull - but apart from that things were rolling along nicely.
Until the replaceable dropout on the test bike Felix was riding exploded into several million pieces. Needless to say he was “just riding along” when it happened. A few minutes of very sweaty bodging later and we had semi-successfully singlespeeded it. Okay, so chain was so tight that it kept loosening the chainring bolts… and the chain snapped every twenty minutes or so… and the climb up to Embsay Moor is not best done with one (increasingly steep) gear… but we struggled on manfully and had a good ride.
I don’t think I sat down for the last hour of the ride because my arse was so sore from riding in the Worst Cycling Shorts Ever. Despite feeling a bit sun-scorched and generally a bit knackered we still attended the regular thursday night ride (riding some different test bikes) and that was great fun too - despite having several very ‘Calderdale’ climbs in it.