Singletrack Staff Blog

I’ve kind of got the reputation for never getting injured. Despite riding quite a lot. And riding some silly things.

But the inevitable happened last Saturday. A bunch of us were in the Lakes doing some “Proper Mountain Biking” (TM) from Wasdale Head (Greendale, Miterdale Forest, Eskdale Green, Boot, Burnmoor Tarn etc). I hit the deck hard n’ fast on a relatively flat piece of field!

I didn’t think the injury was that bad - certainly nothing broken - and carried on and finished the (excellent) ride. But ever since the following morning I’ve had difficulty doing things like putting a jumper on or reaching for my car seatbelt. I’m guessing it’s a stretched/mashed muscle.
It’s especially annoying as (for once) I’d planned on doing a lot of riding this week. We have a couple of really interesting bikes in that we’ve been waiting aaaaages for that have finally turned up (Santa Cruz Blur 4X, Pace RC405, Specialized Enduro..)

Much as I’m tempted, I’m going to rest my shoulder until next week now. Fingers crossed it’ll be okay by that point and I can go an play on some cool bikes!

What’s it like racing in Saudi Arabia? Well, we’re in the mountains, for a start, so no seas of sand dunes, though stages 1&2 of the Abha Trophy had some pretty sandy traps in them. Stages 3&5 are in the mountains proper though. Today’s stage 3 went from nearly 3000m down to 1000m - mainly downhill, with a big kicker of a granny ring grovel at the end.

It started on loose, dusty jeep tracks, with plenty of loose rocks to catch you out (ahem…) for 10km and then went into a mad, but fun dry and rocky riverbed for about 10km more. Then came the grovelling climb before another loose, sandy descent to the finish. I’d reckon the nearest riding I’ve done to here has been in Moab and in Arizona. Arid and rocky, sunny and hard work, but great fun.

Oh, and our Singletrack Flickr page now has a new, catchy address http://www.flickr.com/photos/singletrackmag/

It must be nearly winter, I’m singlespeeding a bike.

Despite common misconception not everyone at Singletrack rides a singlespeed. To be honest I’m not a big fan. Mr Shimano and Mr SRAM make fantastic products that make riding a bike easier and faster even in muddy horrible conditions. I don’t mind the extra weight and can live with a few mis-shifts here and there for the ability to drag myself up a hill without having to resort to pushing. My back likes my approach to gears too. The last time I rode a singlespeed I felt crippled for two weeks with a back that would seize at any opportunity.
However, despite all that, even I’m not going to dismiss a bike that can be ridden in hub deep mud and just put back in the cellar till it’s next outing for a whole winter, with any luck.
So, my Dialled Bikes Prince Albert is now a singlespeed. Well, it will be when I find a spacer kit and a new chain, and maybe a tensioner…
Hang on I thought singlespeeds were supposed to be simple? Hm.

I was going to write on the blog on Wednesday night about the dilemma of packing for unknown climes. I was going to ponder about it because I had to pack for a six-day stage race in Saudi Arabia. I’ve never been and didn’t really know what to expect. Would it be sunny and hot? Hot and humid? Hot days, cold nights?

Pack for sunny weather and high altitude. I hadn’t realised we’d be at 2,200m

As it is, all that pondering would have been moot. KLM managed to lose my bag between Manchester and Paris, so I ended up in Saudi with a bike , helmet and hydration pack. And camera bag too. So I’m going to be racing in a pair of borrowed shorts, a gifted top and the race organiser’s own shoes. Never mind, it’ll add to the story I’m sure.

85 racers, seven nations and about ten organising staff (plus loads of local help). We’re well looked after…

The Abha Trophy looks like being a great event, organised by the kind of wiry Frenchmen who will happily climb, kayak and mountain bike in the same day, all while chatting cheerfully in three languages to anyone who’ll listen. There have been a great many bike disasters already in assembly - my seat QR bolt disappeared, another guy’s rear shock valve snapped on first use, someone snapped a chain in the car park… Fortunately there are three big boxes of spares and a couple of emergency spare bikes.

I’ll post more pics when I get a moment, though I’m reliant on other people’s generosity for things like power adaptors and battery chargers… Tomorrow is the first day of the event. ‘Only’ about 53km, but I neglected to notice before getting here that we start at 2,200m… eek!

Sometimes epic can take the back seat.

We’ve just had two rather ace classic autumnal days of riding on the trails surrounding Betws Y Coed. Rather than gamble on ground conditions and have to navigate we took the easy option of sticking to man made first at the Marin trail and then taking in the loops at Penmachno.

There’s something relaxing (and relaxation was the order of the day) about just following. No decisions needed, no need to consult the map, just the guarantee of rideable trails with no real obstacles. Ride and relax, spoilt by the blue skies, sunny weather with just a hint of cold on the wind.

Sim and I managed to leave the office at a reasonably civilised (for deadline week) 9pm last night, having just sent the final pages of Singletrack 38 to Warners, our printers. It should be on the shelves next Thursday or so. With a little more time to think today, I realised I’d not even had time to go to the supermarket in the last two or three weeks. Going from Dusk til Dawn, to deadline, the London Show and final finishing of the magazine, I’ve been surviving off soup, noodles and junk food. Not because I couldn’t afford real food, but because I just haven’t had time. Now I have a weekend of free time and bike riding ahead, I’m really looking forward to it. Especially because the weather looks like being good.

And then, in a week, I’m off again. This time to Paris and then on to Saudi Arabia, where I’m going to be racing the Abha Trophy, a five day mountain bike stage race… Should be interesting.

I never got to see team Sunn, my experience of them was purely through magazines which I would read and re-read, fascinated by this ’super team’.
What made them special, other than having a roster of the best riders to ever grace a racetrack, was the image. This was a true factory team. Data loggers, timing sections of a track, even testing the soil acidity (not sure even I believed that one mind), some great graphics and paint jobs mixed up with genius of Max Commencal all added together to make Sunn a team that you followed with fascination. This was surely the future of race teams I remember thinking, hell, they didn’t even have a joint sponsor (The Sunn-Un period) and they looked and acted like they had money to burn.
When they folded and companies began pulling budgets for race teams it was a pretty sad time for a downhill fanboy like myself.

When Honda announced they were making downhill bikes I was pretty excited, when I saw them and saw they had Greg Minaar riding for them I was really excited, and when I finally saw the bikes in action I was gobsmacked.
The factory team feeling was back.
You couldn’t help but be dragged along by it all. The mystery bikes with the top secret gearbox, Showa mechanics who spent a season on the DH team and then went off to be part of the MX team, the image, it was all there, and it was electric.
Now the Honda team is no more and I’m left feeling like I did when Sunn disappeared, like something special has been taken from our sport.
I’m sure Honda have their reasons for pulling out, and in a way I kind of admire them for quitting whilst on the top of their game, but I hope that they don’t take away what they’ve learnt from DH and leave us with nothing. It’d be good to know that their findings, whatever they may be, will be used to further bike technology and push the sport forward.

So thank you Honda for bringing something special to our sport that was sorely missing, thanks to the riders for making the bikes exciting to watch and thanks to the mechanics who must have been the most watched mechanics in any pit I’ve ever seen.

Sayonara team Honda G-Cross, we’ll miss you.

Sim

I’m currently trying to finish a feature about cranks for this issue. Cranks are awkward things to review in a “which is best” stylee. Apart from a couple of models, all these modern external BB cranks seem to be much of a muchness when it comes to shifting, stiffness and bearing life performance. But how to put that in a review without sounding shoulder-shruggy?

I think I’m going to do what I usually do in these situations and credit the reader with a bit of intelligence. Hopefully from the descriptions of each one, a little bit of reviewy words, a decent “real world” (not-studio-glam) pic and details of the price and weight everyone will be able to shortlist a crank that looks good for their desires…

Sunday.. Final day of the London Cycle Show and for me at least the final big event of the year. This year seems to have been much more manic than usual in terms of living out of bags, tents and hotel rooms and expensive legal nonsense. I’m really looking forward to a few months of dull 9 to 5 with lots of riding bikes for fun instead of for work. That sounds so disengenuous considering that what we do here certainly beats having a proper job but it’s just how I feel.

Bikes are great. The bike industry in the UK is great too. There’s loads of really good people in it who are genuinely passionate about bikes and what they do. But right now I just want to ride my OWN bike in my OWN time on my OWN trails… and go to sleep in my OWN bed.

Issue 38 is about to go to print now and so we will have at least a week or two of calm before it all starts again for issue 39. To end on a positive note though.. This year has seen our little mag turn into a big one. We are selling more and more copies every issue (Increased sales by 1200 from issue 35 to 36), more business is coming to us rather than us chasing it. That’s all good stuff that’s kept us all going for the last few months and should ensure that we stay around for a good while to come yet.

Well, I’m at the show and swapping between manning the stand, chatting to readers, answering questions about the Orange belt drive bike we have on show, and trying to finish writing the next issue. Obviously it’s a little hard with all these distractions, but it’s good to hear from readers that we seem to be doing roughly the right thing… I’l have another show report up tomorrow - and then I have to face Engineering Works Hell on the train home. Yay!