Singletrack Staff Blog

It’s where the heart is, and I think I really must have settled in here. This weekend Tanya (my girlfriend) had her mates up from London to enjoy the easy pace of village life and my cooking. All combined with big walks and bottles and bottles of wine. Saturday was classically autumnal ie. chucking it down with rain and very windy. The Londoners were determined to face the weather so they set off to Hebden Bridge via Stairs Lane.

Unfortunately this meant rather than slouching on the sofa for the afternoon I was obliged to go ride my bike (following up behind them to make sure they’d gone the right way). Arriving in Hebden Bridge we warmed ourselves with Leffe and whiskey before heading home.

Sunday was the opposite end of the weather world. Short sleeve jerseys and if it wasn’t for the squishy nature of the ground I’d have sworn it was Summer. Crystal clear blue skies and butterflies! Back to Oxenhope for the traditional dish of chilli with Yorkshire Puddings, a couple of beers and then home to weigh down the sofa for the evening. Ahhhhhh…

Focus Black Hills 2007
Price: £399.99
Weight: 28lbs
From: www.wiggle.co.uk

I’m taking a slightly different tack with the idea of a Long Termer. Thing is, I’m fortunate enough to be in the position where I ride lots of expensive, cutting edge bikes week in week out with Singletrack so I thought I’d check out what’s happening with entry level bikes these days. The sort of inexpensive-but-decent bike that may be of more interest to your work colleagues, friends, Significant Other etc. I’m interested to find out if a £800 bike is twice as ‘good’ as a £400 one.

I make no apologies for getting a mail order bike over the internet; a lot of first time ‘proper bike’ buyers will do exactly the same thing due to a combination of price, free time and fear of LBS showrooms and salespeople.

Like a real life first timer I did a lot of shopping around before deciding on my choice. I did try and find a rigid forked bike (for less money) but there just weren’t any around really. I also had to choose between having crap forks and crap disc brakes or forks that looked okay and decent v-brakes - not that tricky a choice really.

Out of the box everything seems to work fine except the brakes rubbed the rims a bit as they weren’t tensioned properly but after a few seconds of screwdrivering they were sorted (although a newcomer might not be able to work that out without assistance). The frame has some impressive detailing to it: bi-axial down tube, triangulated stays, good mud clearance, disc mount etc.

There’s no horrendously bad bits bolted to it either by the looks of things. And it’s good to see a decent set of tyres on an entry level bike for once (Schwalbe 2.25 Racing Ralphs). I can’t see anything that shouldn’t perform perfectly adequately for quite a while - although it’s going to be interesting to see how long the forks behave adequately I guess.

Excellent 2 hours around some of my favourite trails at Delamere last night with 15 good folks, all smiling and laughing, even with such a big group the momentum was high and with the mild temperatures we are having at the moment I was sweating like a pig within minutes of the start

Some fantastic photo opportunities of light trails, especially around the lake but the trails were too good to stop and bother, I’ve no idea where we went and for all I know we could have just gone around in circles (err, actually isnt that what happens anyway ?) the trails were remarkably dry but Dave did mange to find the deepest mud filled ponds to ride through ensuring that everyone smelt of wet dog by the end.

Only the one mechanical all night meant that the stops were short and sweet, never had chance to get the hip flask out but that was more than made up for by the fabulous cakes the Debs offered at the end of the ride.

Drove home tired but happy with the world, 2 hours of sweat soaked fun had driven away all the crap of the day and set me up determined to make the effort to ride more this week, this month and all winter.

 

As I said in my last Editorial, the good summer has meant that we’ve had lots of dry dusty rides to look back on from this year. Therefore winter shouldn’t come as such a harsh shock this time. I was wrong - no matter how ready you think you are, nothing really prepares you for the first day after the clocks have gone back. Suddenly it’s dark well before six. Lights are an essential accessory now, even for Sunday afternoon rides and the tops of my radiators at home are already starting to fill up with damp kit drying.
Despite all this, though, I was still riding in short sleeves on Sunday and only got soaking wet feet once or twice (which obviously were still damp by the end of the ride). The weather was good enough to sit on walls and watch the view and sSunday lunch at the pub was eaten outside in the beer garden. I’ve still got a couple of weeks then to dig out my winter gear - it’ll soon be ’sheltering behind a wall and sharing a soggy chocolate bar’ weather - but not just yet…

On Wednesday Cy from Cotic popped by the office to say hello and to show us a couple of new things and left two bikes lighter.

One of the bikes is a top secret prototype that looks lots of fun, but we’ll tell you more about that at a later date. The other bike is a RoadRat which will be my long term test bike. As of next week I’ll be within commuting distance of the office and rather than just sticking slicks on a mountain bike I thought trying something a bit more specialised might be an idea.

The RoadRat is a bit more versatlie than your typical hybrid commuter though. Singlespeed - fine, gears - just as fine, discs - yup, canti’s - aha, mudguards - sure, racks - you got it, skinny slicks - go for it, knobbly tyres - 1.8’s seem to fit, so yeah. See what I mean, it can do just about anything you ask of it. Or that’s what I’m hoping. I aim to try out every perceivable combination of add-ons and extras to see just what it is up to.

So this is the starting configuration: singlespeed, flat bars, slicks and V-brakes.

A very ‘right’ looking bike I’m sure you’ll agree and at £255 for the frame and forks it’s not even silly expensive.

I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be fun…

My bikes are all in a bit of a state… As something has worn out on one bike, I’ve simply switched to another one - or ridden a test bike. The result is that I barely have a single working machine. I know that many riders don’t even have the luxury of more than one bike, but I have been working in the bike industry for 16 years, so allow me some leeway, eh?
Anyway, my Maverick needs its headtube reaming, my Soulcraft needs a new drivetrain (cassette, rings and chain) and my Surly Karate Monkey needs brakes because I upgraded the forks to disc-only numbers. I need to put aside a good couple of days to love up my fleet… Or am I just thinking that because it would involve being inside and out of the rain?

Me and Tim K forced each other to ride tonight. The rain had been lashing down non-stop since noon and showed no signs of letting up. I was desperate to get out on a bike if only for a short while. Tim was only free to ride this evening (as opposed to the usual Thursday night ride). We decided that we would only go out for one hour. Surely we could withstand the weather for an hour?

Well, we duly put in our hour and went to the pub. Hopefully we’ve paid a few tokens into the ‘karma bank’!

My body is misbehaving at the moment and will not be convinced that it’s eighteen in any way.

Last week I had an ace time with Freeride Spain being dragged up huge mountains and plummeting down silly technical trails, normally laughing manically as I survived the next corner (thanks Simon, Emma, Oscar, Jon, Lee and Tom).

All of this time though my back has been aching a lot . . then a lot more. On Friday I had a massage to try and loosen up before Dusk ‘Til Dawn which helped a bit, but my gait was definitely more monkey than human.

Riding my bike is actually not that painfull (honest Doc!) and - with the help of Brufen Gel and pills - I had a great race at Thetford. I actually felt better than I have ever felt there… until I got off the bike.

I couldn’t straighten up at first until the medic rubbed anti spasm cream on my back and I could lay out flat for a while. Then a five hour drive home to really bed it in.

Monday saw me at the Osteopath. A new one for me (my old one is way down South from here). A very ‘powerfully built’ man who pulled me around very violently,whilst expressing horror at my various inflexible joints and broken limbs. He also told me that one of my legs is an inch shorter than the other one!

No riding for a week apparently but I’m sure a gentle spin on Saturday couldn’t hurt could it?…

Had an ace night ride last night over at Hollingworth Lake. Biff up north provided the excuse and Kona Rep Andy Mee kindly provided the guiding and company. Despite being so close to our usual haunts (it’s on the same map), the riding proved to be pleasantly and subtley different. Plenty of ups and downs were crammed into the familiar short distance though.
As usual the minute we set off I switched into “follow mode” and became disorientated the second time we passed under the M62 and consequently have no idea where went (note to self, sneakily pack GPS when out with others).

Thanks to Andy and crew for showing us around. We’ll be back for more.

It took me forever to get back from this weekend’s Dusk til Dawn. Mainly due to the amount of super-power-naps I had to take so as to not drive off the road. Regardless of taking nearly as long to drive home as I actually raced, the event was once again fantastic.
While the rest of the country got rained on, we had clear skies and a starry, starry night in Thetford Forest. A hard course, with absolutely no let-up surprised any scoffing Northerners who assume that you can’t have fun, or pain, without big hills everywhere. The course was superbly tacky and the racers were all cheery. It only rained about three hours after the end of the event - by which time most people had headed home - and I was still asleep in my tent…
Now that I’m actually due to be in the country for the forseeable couple of months, I’m looking forward to some UK riding - and to sociable night rides, pub rides, the odd ‘cross race and the long list of broken and neglected bikes to repair while the nights are long.
Chipps