Singletrack Staff Blog

On Friday a few of us (myself, Jon Woodhouse, Ed Oxley and Teddy Lundergrass) got up at stupid o’clock and headed over to Wales to ride Snowdon. We had been planning an end-of-year trip there for quite a few weeks beforehand. As it happened the conditions could not have been better: bright sunshine, super-clear blue skies, no wind, frozen-but-not-icy ground, quiet trails… everything was perfecto.

Bonus points were awarded to Snowdon Virgin Ed who managed to ride everything on the Rangers Trail without crashing - despite a couple of worry-inducing spectators and a cowardly photographer baying for blood
Er.. that’s about it really. I love it when a plan comes together

P.S. I was riding a Titus El Guapo test bike. And very much fun it was too. A full review of the bike shall be appearing in the next issue of Singletrack..

Matt and I started riding this morning from Braemar, where it was apparently -11C overnight. High on our mind was the near-frozen river we had to cross - three times - in order to get back to our car at Blair Athol. While the rest of the Highlands seemed to have cold, dank, foggy weather, though, we had blue skies and, when the hills weren’t in the way, glorious sunshine. After leaving Braemar before 10am, we got back to our car just short of 4pm, with 55km under our belts. We were cold, tired, hallucinating a little about food, but most of all we were very, very happy. We’d managed to remind ourselves, in two short days (OK, rather long days) why we put up with the 95% dull and stressful bits of magazine life. We do it for the 5% that gets us doing things like this.

Chris Duncan tests his Endura clothing in some real world weather. He was working too, see?

What a great time! And you can read all about it in the next issue. We were still working, even when thigh deep in a frozen river, someone’s still going to write about it and it might as well be us…

Well the actual day itself is always good, it’s just the chaos that leads up to it. I’m here at the office trying to keep up with the orders flooding in for our new mugs, Merino Howies t-shirts and our Olive T-shirts.. It’s 1:30am on Tuesday morning right now and I need to be back here in the morning to keep going. So far in the last hour I’ve had one Glenmorangie, one can of Red Bull and three cups of coffee. I feel quite wired.. It’s hard to blink.. I don’t think my eyes want to close at all

Anyhoo.. going to crack on.. Wednesday is last post day for Christmas and we are going to get every order sorted by then. Just another 200 orders to go!

One of the downsides to living in a steep sided valley is that you don’t actually see any sunlight for about three months of the year. My house isn’t actually touched by the sun from December to February, while at the office, downtown, the sun ’sets’ behind the hill at 2pm in the winter. And one of the downsides to working on a mountain bike magazine is that you rarely make enough day-time to ride bikes, and we do most of our riding and testing in the evenings.

So it was a great experience to actually make it out of the office for a bike ride/product test ride in daylight and in the actual sunshine. Matt was the instigator and Ben and Mark joined him. We rode up out of the valley and onto the frozen moor-tops, where we could enjoy some blessed sunshine. And like flowers kept in the shade for too long, we visibly perked up at the novelty of riding bikes during work time. It is our job, after all…

Thank god. Lots and lots of hours last week Not as late as Chipps but then I tend to be a bit better in the morning ;] and last minute panics for artwork etc. It’s a bumper issue though with the calendar and hopefully those pictures on the wall of your office or home will keep you motivated during the dark days of winter, and keep you keen for it during the hot days of summer, when you’d rather be out instead of being stuck in the office.

The weather is shocking here so I went for a long walk this morning rather ride a bike ( My toes would have fallen off)
Even in all of the greyness and rain Hebden still is a beautiful place.;] Bert my Jack russell was and is still horrified that he was forced out. Actually it wasn’t really rain, but more like wet slush.!

Went to the local Butchers and I’m going to make Lentil stew with Toulouse sausage and Dry cured bacon.Comfort food for dark days.

It’s my turn to say ‘Thank god the magazine has finally gone to the printers’. I haven’t a clue how this one came to be so hard, but Sim and I are sick of the sight of each other now. I’ve not left the office before 9pm for 12 days in a row - and as for riding mountain bikes, hah! I’ve not ridden one off road for over a month… There definitely needs to be more riding bikes in daylight in my future. I’m going to start this weekend - but at the moment I don’t even want to see a picture of a bike for at least 24 hours… With the magazine not getting to our printers until today, effectively the weekend, it might be later than Thursday before it appears in the shops. Hopefully it’ll appear next Saturday - and it does have a free calendar to cheer you up.

Right, I’m off to the pub… cheers all…