Singletrack Staff Blog

What have the Austrians ever done for us?

Mark — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 22:28:51 +0000

Today we rode the cable car up to 6000 feet and then rode the last 1000 feet to the summit of er.. mm. what’sit.. er.. Mount Dazbighillun or summat.. anyway.. we spent the rest of the day riding down some seriously entertaining singletrack..

So, while we were riding down we got to thinking.. What is Austria actually famous for? We made it our mission tonight to come up with ten reasons that Austria deserves to exist. We roped in help from many quarters including Ryan Leech and his lovely wife Caryn at dinner. Plus Thomas Oehler and our guide for the day Mattus Rose (Who doesn’t actualy come from Austria at all but from Slovakia).. But this is the best we could do.. feel free to add to the list of you think we have missed anything. So in reverse order we came up with….

10 - Arnold Swarzz. swarsh….shrww// Arnie!
9 - Motzart
8 - Sigmund Freud
7 - Kurt Valdheim (Occasional war criminal)
6 - Herman Mayher (He pissed about on snow at a high standard apparently - we don’t really know)
5 - Incest - a game the whole family can play
4 - Veinr Schnitzel - deep fried meat of unspecified origin - may or may not be animal based
3 - The Sound Of Music
2 - Basement Conversions and home security DIY
1 - Falco!

Off to Italy tomorrow. Who knows how that will turn out.

Postcard From Kaprun

Mark — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:38:23 +0000

I’m in Kaprun for a few days courtesy of Diz at Over The Edge holidays. She’s showing us (Me and Sanny) what they do over here. We got in around midnight last night and e were up at 7 ready for an early start only to be met with heavy rain and cloud. The plan was to do a ride/lift combo up to 6000 feet and then spend most of the day doing a 10km descent! Instead we are sat in the hotel waiting for the cloud to lift and the rain to stop.

Funny thing happened on the Ryan Air Cattle Flight out..
Our flight attendant ‘leader’ was clearly Dutch. We worked this out from hish accshent. He was in charge of the flight ’safety’ talk and was really not happy when he didn’t get EVERYONES attention. After stopping half way through, the rest of his talk went something like this…

“Pleeesh! I need everyonesh attenshun. Thish is important and you ALL HAVE to lishun. Itsh legal! However(sh), if you don’t want to Lishun if you raish your hand now a flight attendant will come and help you and your bagsh leavesh the plane and you will not be flying anywheresh today.. For shure!”

There’s a bike event happening this weekend here called Bike Infection - got to love the Europeans and their cool turn of phrase when it comes to these things. Not sure what it’s actually about yet but Ryan Leech is in town doing some exhibition stuff so we have plans to catch up with him tomorrow.

Cloud looks to be lifting a bit now so going to go get some kit on… More later

Apologeesh to any Dutch readersh

Sanny’s turn now….

Hellosh!

Breakfast was a veritable cornucopia of meat products, pastries, nuttella and cereal which closely resembled the consistency of the bottom of a bird cage. I think I may well have made myself diabetic given the volume of food shoveled in. Fair play to the twists, they know how to put on an awesome spread. The only sour (kraut?) note was the couple of twists at the table across the room who snaffled all the chocolate croissants. Gits! Still, with the rain lashing down, they probably felt the need to demonstrate their efficiency in hoovering up the breakfast bar what with it being too wet to leave their towels by the pool……….Der Shanny

Hard to wake up

Chipps — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:43:32 +0000

I appear to be incapable of going to bed before 1.30am… So, despite being dog-tired, I stayed up until, yes - 1.30am last night. Perhaps I should start setting an alarm in the evening to remind me to go to bed…

At least I got a swift ride in under blue skies yesterday evening - a world away from what the purple-black clouds were threatening when I set off…

Summer is officially here (well it was yesterday in the south)

Steve — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:47:16 +0000

Just spent a whole 3 days riding bikes, which believe you me is some accomplishment for me just lately.

Friday saw a an early start down to Eastbourne for a good few hours around Friston Forest, a couple of miles across the downs and into the trees for lots of woody singletrack action, a traditional beer at the finish made for a great start to the weekend.

Friday night and over to the loval park for a roady crit, no I didnt ride it, its over 25 years since I raced a bike around a park and those 25 years are showing !, and boy those fellas go around corners fast.

Saturday and a ride along the downs from Brighton to Eastbourne, original plan was for an out and back epic, once again I was mixing my ambition with my ability, fortunately our host came to the rescue and provided both beer and barbecue and then a lift home.

Sunday saw a later start (legs were a little weary now) and after a full english breakfast there was more of those sunblasted trails, up and down, up and down, up and down.

The trails were in fabulous condition, dry and dusty.

All that can only mean one thing, this week is summer, make the most of it

Digital Famine

Chipps — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:37:48 +0000

Due to the delights of BT, we’ve had a couple of days sans internet in the office. Add to that Ben and Sim in Europe for the GT and DT launches and Matt and Mark putting in sporadic appearances in the office and it was a pretty dull couple of days with just me there. It did mean that I got a good amount of writing done, some stuff boxed up and tidied and even saw my desk. But where’s the fun if you can’t distract yourself by checking your email every five minutes…

Had a call from Pat Adams yesterday too, he’s back home and taking things easy having been taken ill just before Mayhem. Nevertheless he sounded cheery and, despite assurances that he was going to rest up, was already planning for Sleepless… Some people just can’t slow down.

Mayhem!

Chipps — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:20:44 +0000

Once again, Mountain Mayhem brought out the worst of the British Summer weather: wind, rain and slippery trails - but it was still fun - and still the biggest gathering of mountain bike racers in the country. And, just like last year (and many more, in fact) the sun came out in the end and dried the course out for a rock solid and almost dusty final lap. Needless to say, Sunday evening and Monday were sunny, warm and still… Nevertheless, and once again, Mayhem 2008 will have been great when we look back on it. Now, hopefully I can resist the draw of doing a 12th one next year… Or maybe I can’t.

Cheese Lag and Business As Usual

Chipps — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:39:22 +0000

I’m back from a few days holiday with my family in the hills near Annecy in France. I had a great time, didn’t ride any bikes and had a great amount of cheese (mainly Reblochon). I’m now back and packing tonight for my 11th Mountain Mayhem. I had decided to ‘retire’ last year, but I got caught up in the fuss again and find myself with a team. Besides, I have some spiffy new test bikes to try out. Plus the Yeti ARC, which was made for days like these. I may not be in tip-top condition and the weather looks like being the usual damp-fest, but I’m excited to be out there again. It’s all good…

Â£15 a tonne

Mark — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:50:43 +0000

That’s the tariff we’ve set ourselves here in the office for how much we pay for every tonne of carbon we produce through traveling about to make the mag.

It’s an arbitrary figure to a large extent because we aren’t paying in to any existing offset schemes. Instead we are saving up the cash ourselves and then inviting worthy bike related environmental projects to apply for the cash at the end of the year.

I came up with that number by essentially googling for the top ten most popular offset schemes and then averaging out the cost per tonne that they charge. And we will be using the carbon calculator at www.climatecare.org to work out how much carbon we use on every trip we make. For example, Matt and Sim travelled up to Fort William from the office in Todmorden last weekend and racked up 642 miles all in. Based on Matt’s best guess that his old Diesel VW van gets 35 mpg that works out at Â£3.30 in the pot.

Considering that it is now press launch season proper and various office members will be jetting off hither and thither to get the latest skinny on next years products between now and October, we expect our Carbon Guilt fund to be quite flush by the end of the year.

I Tried

Mark — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:43:49 +0000

And did surprisingly well.. 125th from 240 starters.. Knocked 2 minutes off my fastest time for the swim, clearly powered by adrenalin. Did a middle of the pack 55 minute ride followed by the most uncomfortable run I’ve ever done. Really enjoyed it and will be back next year to beat my time.

Who’d av thunk it! Mark in triathlon is fun shocker!

Warm Bread, Blue Skies

Chipps — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:48:38 +0000

I popped round to the corner shop for some bread and discovered that it comes straight from the bakers every morning - hot and crusty! Warm bread, fresh coffee and blue skies makes it feel more like Europe this morning. Combined with a warm, sunny ride yesterday with Nick Craig and everything is all good.
Now I just need to crack on with all that writing that needs doing… Oh well.

Did anyone see the new iPhone launch? Having decided I didn’t want one, I found this great series of videos made by a blender company to show how good their blenders are. And one features an iPhone…