Singletrack Staff Blog

Our office-moving party was a resounding success, with such disparate ingredients as local beer, heavy dub through Matt’s huge speakers, the Tandem of Doom, a Thai curry and heaps of sushi. I’m not entirely sure what went on as, in the best traditions, I was in the kitchen for most of the night. But judging by the fragility of some folk on Saturday morning, a good time was had by all.

Now it’s back to normal as we plunge with increasing speed and inevitability toward our next magazine deadline. No more fun for us, eh? Must remind ourselves that the good bits of this job are actually quite good. This is a shot of one of the local trails we rode on Saturday… Not too shabby.

Well, I’m back after a week away. Mostly holiday, though my initial plan of road riding in Yorkshire for the week was derailed by a) not having a road bike and b) getting a last minute invitation to the Lapierre Bikes launch in Alpe D’Huez. So, I decided to go to France for the week instead and take a few days off at the end of the bike launch to ride with my pal Graeme/MacPuppy in the Vercors area of France.

The Lapierre bikes are great and there’ll be a report on the website shortly, but here’s a quick sneaky peek at their 140mm travel fun bike.

The rest of my week was spent spanking myself up and down some big French hills in the sunshine, both on and off road. An ideal antidote to the stupid weather here. Here’s the view from the scary road on the wonderfully named 1000m ‘Col de La Machine’.

The doorbell just went and a bike box turned up with the nice TNT man. It was Sim’s Commencal Meta5, shipped back from the Shimano XT launch in France. Sim got the bike out of the box and it was covered in summer dust. I was taken aback with how odd it was to see a dusty bike. Thinking about it, though, I can remember one dusty weekend of riding since April. I know that I go on about the weather sucking so much, but I’d forgotten how great it is to ride on dry, dusty trails. Mmmm… Yum.

It’s Thursday night and our traditional night ride evening. It’s also raining and I’m on deadline. I know that I’m going to probably jib out and not ride, claiming that I have work to do or no bike to ride, but the reality is that I’ll go home, eat some food and stare out at the not- or barely-raining countryside and hate myself for not going out. I’ll then not do any work and probably fiddle with bikes, or solder amplifiers or something odd.
Friday is looking better though. I’m DEFINITELY going out Friday night. Time for some UPness!

Sim and I are back at our desks in the office. Our trip was a success in that we managed to see the Sea Otter and follow it with a lightning tour of lots of Northern California bike companies. Now all that remains is to work out which stories to put on the website and which are worthy of the magazine. Certainly some of the products were great and the scenery stunning. We even had a couple of days of sunshine, though not on a par with the sunny UK while we were away, but that’s the risk you take when you leave the UK isn’t it? A good sunny day in Britain is unrivalled.

South Downs? Lancashire Moors? Nope, Laguna Seca, California, though not as warm as Britain that weekend.

After spending all day trying to ignore the lovely day outside the office window I needed to get out on my bike. Thankfully the extra hour of post-work daylight gifted to us all by British Summer Time meant I didn’t have to mess about with sticking lights on my bike. Just throw on some (highly random) cycle clothing and GO!

Was good to be back riding one of my own bikes. Good to feel that it’s still an ace bike despite neglect. Good to be riding on my own; go as fast/slow as I want, stop for a look at the view, do a weird circuitous doubling-back route ‘cos I felt like it.

I wonder if the frequency of our blog posts goes up whenever we’re on deadline. Actually, I don’t need to wonder. Everyone knows that blogs are the ideal displacement activity, whether you’re trying to avoid doing the washing-up, or writing a magazine…

So, since the Handmade Show we’ve mostly been dull and writing stuff, but there have been good points. Some great spring weather, followed by the current icy snap. Some riding, some hiding indoors and eating and some more displacement in the form of bike fixing and tyre swapping… Only three days until the clocks go forward though and THEN we’ll be into proper spring time ride frenzy land. Woohoo!

I’ve only averaged one bike ride per week for the past month. Not sure why really. Maybe I just rode a bit too much over December and January (which were two of the best riding months ever it has to be said).

But hopefully the recent arrival of some shiny new and extravagantly coloured test bikes will kickstart me again. I may even start posting on this Blog more frequently too

I didn’t take the Singular out last night, I rode my loverly, loverly, Soulcraft which I’ve had since 1999 and has recently been ‘refreshed’ with a whole new SRAM and Truvativ drivetrain, new pads on the Magura Louises and some pimp Fox F80s. Not through any ‘bike suitability’ choice, but simply because it had pedals and lights already on it.
Everyone but Ed and I bailed out before the ride, so the two of us had free rein on route choice. We don’t mind a bit of UP-ness, so we did two big climbs and descents, taking in the best of the frozen, and super grippy, singletrack. Although there were barely two centimetres of snow, it was enough to give the world a snowy glow and to give a surprising amount of traction.
We’d both brought hipflasks along, and the joy of looking out at the frozen landscape, sipping on an Islay whisky, was unparalleled.
And as Vaughn Monroe sang… ‘Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…’ - more of the same please, weather!

We’ve had snow here in Calderdale. Not quite the half a foot that some folks have had, but enough to make the place appear white and chilly. I’m out for our regular Thursday night ride tonight, but it sounds like half of the regulars are doing other things. A pity (for them, that is…) because snowy nightrides have made for some of my favourite moments here. Woohoo!

Reckon I’ll ride the Singular tonight, see how the big wheels and nine gears get on.