Singletrack Staff Blog

It was my Birthday night ride last night. Not far, but very technical. Due to mechanicals (my brakes have died on the Chameleon and I managed to kill the shifter on the Heckler) I rode the Marin Quake monster. Bloody hell!! Fourty pounds of very active bike is quite odd to ride when you’ve never really rode anything like it before. Uphill it was draggy but tolerable (stomping not being the key to upwards progress ;))
Downhill, you really have to let the bike work and not really get too involved. Trying to steer it is hard work and probably not the quickest way down anything. Better to let the thing take its own line. No need to be scared of any obstacle less than a foot high anyway.

After the ride it was down to the Fox and Goose for a couple… or a few… maybe four or five… and whiskeys.

I’m very slightly jaded today!

Much to the horror of Bert, the office dog, the place is now full of big, black, bouncy Swiss balls. They’re just one aspect of Dave Smith’s ten point programme of torture… Sim’s getting quite good at designing the magazine while kneeling on one. Meanwhile Matt’s girlfriend Tanya appears to lack any sort of internal gyroscope and was pitched off it all over the place…

I’m sure the webcam will prove to be interesting viewing in the next few weeks… Now all I need to do it find the enthusiasm to go out and do some sprinting on the bike…

Trying to write 16 different (and interesting!) reviews of 16 different lights is proving to be rather hard. So I’ve decided to play up the price tag factor a bit more in this group test (as well as describing how good at lighting up the trail they are, obviously).

Thinking back to when I first shopped for decent lights - and thinking about all the “what lights for £XX then?” questions I get asked - I reckon folks’ budgets are a primary concern when shopping for lights.

But how do you compare lights that cost £100 with ones that cost over £800? Do they have to be 8 times ‘better’ to be the ‘better’ light? And can we forgive a light that isn’t very good purely because it doesn’t cost very much?

In the end I find it’s much better to simply credit the reader with a bit of intelligence and they can use my thoughts to work out what’s best for their own needs (and credit card limit). Not sure what I’m babbling on about now. And so to bed

Being a man I have to say I have, over the years, enjoyed images of scantily clad women… Not any more*
Chipps, Sim, Mark, Jo and I have just been photgraphed in our boxers for our up-and-coming training articles with Dave ‘Devil Incarnate’ Smith

Now I think that, except for Jo, I’ve seen everyone in the office in boxers or even naked either in the office or by the side of a car getting changed to go riding, Today was an entirely different experience… I don’t know whether it was the cameras. or maybe the knowledge that twenty thousand copies of the magzine are being printed with us almost naked, but I don’t think I’ve felt so selfconscious in all my life.

All of a sudden the room seemed to get hotter and everybody was giggly, my armpits suddenly seemed very damp and no one wanted to take their clothes off.. I volunteered in the end to get it out of the way.

Don’t worry love, we’ll fix it in Photoshop…

Well, it was finally done and we drove back from the location (a very nice upstairs room in a house) no one said a word… Giggles and “I don’t believe we’ve done that” was all that was said.

A few thoughts… It must be really, really weird doing glamour shots, and male and female models in the ‘adult industry’ must have no self conciousness at all.. ;]
If you want to see men and women shamed (some more shamed than others) get issue 32!

*Like giving up beer, the lesson will be swiflty forgotten.

Managed a quick hour’s ride this afternoon with Craig. Felt a bit harder work than usual but still managed to get up and down everything satisfactorily quickly. With leaves everywhere, all sitting on top of a thin layer of oily mud we had to keep our wits about us on the more precipitous sections. Top stuff!

New Hope Moto brakes are feeling much better now I’ve got them positioned further in board (albeit with a not-unpleasant high pitched squeal) and the Fox RP23 shock feels a whole lot nicer than the Rock Shox Pearl that was on the Prophet before.

And Craig managed to survive riding the Marin Quake 7.2 - which left its last pilot in A&E!

I’ve not ridden a bike since last Sunday. Probably won’t be riding this weekend either. Colds are rubbish. That is all

I’ve just had an e-mail from Dave Yates saying he’s just about to start work on my old Kona Lava Dome. It’s going to have a disc mount and hose guides added and the canti bosses removed and then it’ll be treated to a respray and with any luck be ready to ride come spring. So, the pressure to decide on a colour is increasing and I need to get the graphics sorted out for it soon.
Like I say, I’m quite excited now!

So Dave the Fitness guru tells me that our ‘training’ starts on Monday…
In order to quantify our regime, we’ve all been out and done a measured off road circuit of a couple of miles, timed with a stopwatch. Then we’ll go back to it after Christmas (which itself is going to be a bit of a challenge…) and do it again - hopefully with amazing improvements to our times…

In the meantime, I’ve been remembering the disadvantage of winter riding… The grit. I’m suddenly needing to put the washing machine on every night with a drum full of gritty gear that’s going to be needed for the next day… And in the mean time, there’s a bike starting to dissolve in the kitchen. And Americans wonder how we wear out stuff so quickly…

Since injuring myself back in July I’ve been sticking to mainly  XC and “old skool” riding to regain both fitness and bottle. But after a partial success on Bolty’s Steps last week at the end of yet another cross country ride I felt the time had come to jump back into something a bit more challenging.

Techno tuesday ride this week looked good and so despite the rain I rolled out the Patriot 66. It’s had a bit of TLC while I’ve been playing elsewhere, disks serviced, new rotors, chainguard instead of (largely redundant) big ring and a pair of nice new 2.35 Stick E Kenda Blue Groove and Nevegal tyres.

The first climb reintroduced me to the novelty of gears and climbing on a 6 inch bike - sit back and spin, no grunting required. As soon as we pointed down it was a revelation. Despite a route with loads of slippy, greasy and rocky trails the bike was faultless, steering was bob on with hardly any hint of slippage. My confidence and speed just kept getting higher as the ride progressed so that on the last trail I finally stopped thinking about the “what if” and just focussed on the riding.

Was it me or was it the bike? It’s easy to think of the Patriot as a skill compensator, I prefer the concept of skill magnifier myself

I think I’ve finally got my techno mojo back

According to the Dispenser of Punishment, Dave Smith, our Get Fit Singletrack campaign was going to start on Monday, but Dave’s not been in touch yet, so we’re all still eating chocolate… It’ll start before we know it though… In preparation though, we’re all riding as much as we can, so that’s a Good Thing anway…