Singletrack Staff Blog

Looks like this weekend I can ride my own bike on my own trails. Woop!!

I realise it sounds dreadfully “poor ol’ me” but it is possible to get a bit peeved by having to ride test bikes on far-flung terrain (within the UK as well as Euroland).

We’ve just come to the end of “Silly Season”. June and July were full of Press Launches. August was a hurried crush of product- and bike-testing and writing-up.

So I’m rather looking forward to getting out this weekend on my own bike on my most familiar trails.

Perhaps the most peeving thing about Silly Season is not riding with your friends. You realise how much of a social thing MTBing actually is. It’s all very well riding swish new bikes on ace new trails. But believe it or not that’s not what it’s all about.

As well as looking forward to riding a familiar bike on familiar trails I’m mostly eager to catch up with riding buddies who I haven’t seen much of for the past few weeks.

Bring it on!

Lots of riding the last few days … so much I made myself ill on Sunday night .. still looks like winter on my legs…..

Both Matt and Sim put their radiators on this week because of the weather, but I found a hidden joy in having the first crumpet of the autumn season. Let’s face it, we’re not getting any blue sky, hot summer days this year, so let’s start looking forward to crisp, dry rides that end with big mugs of tea, crumpets and later, the pub… The Summer is dead, long live Autumn!

A bunch of our mates are over in Napa, California, riding in the sunshine under blue skies for the 11th Singlespeed World Championships. Much as I should probably be there, it was all a bit too close to magazine deadlines (next week) and Eurobike (the week after) so I’m sitting this one out. I’m sure everyone’s going to have fun - and there’ll be a fine collection of people there.

I’ll get to catch up with most of them at Interbike next month. Again, under blue skies in the hot sun.

WHY CAN’T WE HAVE A SUMMER, JUST FOR ONCE? WHY DOES IT HAVE TO RAIN ALL THE PIGGING TIME?

Sorry about that… I’m merely voicing the feelings of, well, everyone I know in the UK. Summer showers are fine, the odd day of rain, perhaps. Even a whole summer of dry weather under grey skies, I can just about go for that. But having your wheels disappear up to the hubs in a bog, in the middle of August really does make me want to move to Moab…

Er, anyway… As you were. I’m sure it didn’t need saying… But it did…

Was said repeatedly today, and then remembering that we were in middle of August.

Sim and I have been trying to piece together a number of trails for a while so they make a sensible loop, so this afternoon with bikes needing testing and patches of blue in the sky (Honest!) We thought we could go do the bits that would make the loop work.

I have to tell you people.Honestly it’s October under tyre out there.

In general I have had little time for the Expat Spanish types that want a little bit of the UK in the Costa del sol, but lately I have to say the idea of dry trails 10-11 months a year seems very appealing.

Being Stoic is all well good but I’m sure long term it’s physiologically damaging, (it’s the humanist version of being Catholic) You are meant to occasionally receive joy from speed and dry trails no just your body firing off endorphins to shut up your complaining  legs.

Bahh!!!! ; [

Indian Summer please!

Seems that 1.8in Bontrager Mud Tyres work well, but still pick up the sticky stuff as well as other tyres once the course explodes. The only people with wheels consistently going round in the dark of the night were running 1.35in or 1.5in Schwalbe or Conti mud tyres. And to think I’d looked at mine and left them behind. Anyway. That was Sleepless 2008 - another wet summer race in the UK. Everyone was pretty cheery out on the course - I think we’ve all resigned ourselves to another sucky summer of rain.

Off to be at Sleepless for the weekend. I’m racing pairs, while Mark and Matt will be charming people from the Singletrack booth. Matt has a HUGE amount of stuff to stick in his ace van to take down.

For me, my packing list looks like:
Socks, jerseys and shorts (lots of…)
Bontrager Mud tyres
Umbrella…
More mud tyres
Dirtworker… www.dirtworker.co.uk
And that’s about it. Oh and coffee…

Boo! ;[

It's not so bad actually but it was nice to be away, we were quite lucky to have got there however after this mishap on the motorway.......

Van was quite fish-taily at seventy !!

Seems Asda need us super cash rich magazines to help make them more profit? according to this email sent by ASDA to all magazine distributors.

So, assuming you have just read that lets recap..

ASDA, as a retailer in the newstrade already gets the following from us magazine publishers…

- 25% of cover price on full no risk sale or return*
- Magazine’s delivered to stores at our cost
- Unsold copies are binned - not returned

*We get 52% the rest goes to our distributor, Warners Group Publications

That seems a pretty good deal to me already. Now a 25% margin is not bad but in retail terms it’s not that great but then this is all Sale or Return, meaning they only pay for what they sell and any mags that are left on the shelves when the new issue is ready just get binned and they don’t have to pay for them. This whole system is the reason why there is such a disgusting amount of waste in the magazine publishing business. Have a look at our plans for trying to do something about our own contribution here.

So despite the fact we have to print 25,000 copies of Singletrack to sell 16,000 with the rest going to waste, ASDA now want to have the option to have a Double Page Spread (DPS) ad in Singletrack; they want us to pay £2450 just to be allowed to sit on their shelves; they want our distributor to pay up £10k for the priviledge of supplying them at all; they want publishers to pay for in-store promotions every month; they want sales forecasts set and if they are not met, they want to be compensated for the difference; and incredibly they want a 2% bonus to be paid to them based on the total turnover of every magazine on their shelves and this bonus is to be backdated to 1st January 2008!

I’m staggered and I have one thing to say to ASDA…

Fuck Off!

Is slide them up and down a lot. ;^ O

Fortunately there was no damage to my nether region.  It did however give Chris & Tim at Mojo another chance to remind me of the folly of carbon parts on Mountain bikes (well in there opinion). ;]