Nice...

Steamroller

I had some handlebars lying around so decided to build a new bike. What frame goes with H-bars like PB & J? It's a Pug!

Got a new toy. Took it for a ride across Marsden Moor to the coffee shop today. Lots of fun pointing it in the right direction and letting it roll over anything and everything. See what I mean? Surly must have been been thinking of something else when they named their urban fixie thing the Steamroller This is the real deal. Although it's not very intuitive in the steering department. More like point it to Nome and don't change course til we get there.

Riding back on the road from the shop it had 20 psi in the tyres. That was dropped to 16 for the start of today's ride and dropped a further couple while we were out. Nice and grippy. What other bike lets you run such low, traction happy pressures? If in doubt, let some out.

 
Used a Mr Whirly chainset because of it's multi use adaptability and it's very shiny.  The MRP chain keeper is there for keeping the chain on when gears are needed. 36:18 wasn't the right gear choice by the way, tyre diameter is similar to a 29er so 36:20 would be more useful.

So, there it is. Pugsley is fab. Go ride one.

Been away

Just back from a month in sunny Spain. Lucky to get away on the morning of the Icelandic volcano eruption. Fortunate to get back too as it happens. We're left wondering whether our planned travels to Iceland will happen?

First ride out on the mountain bike was a bit of a disaster. Crashed and bashed my hand. Bruising and swelling that still hasn't completely gone meant that I was confined to the road bike for a couple of weeks. Good job we both took 2 bikes!  Not such a bad position to be in as the roads out in the Granada region are absolutely stunning. Plenty of routes to keep us busy. Mostly long, hour plus, steady climbs followed by big, grin inducing, hairpin infested descents. Plenty of coffee and cake stops kept us fuelled.

More later...

We don't get climbs like these in the UK

Blimey, pooped.
125 k. That's all.
Span down the highway towards Motril and turned off
just before I fell into the sea.
38 minutes later was at the top of the first climb.
A super quick descent got me to the t junction at
the bottom just 4 minutes later. Wow.
So then to business. The climb up to 1200m doesn't
half go on a bit - one hour thirty nine minutes in
fact. Sod Crag Vale, this is the new test when you're
next down this way.
The descent off the other side wasn't as descendy as
would've liked. Though the last bit down to the
motorway was long and swoopy.
Caught up with a Spanish chap from Pinos after much
effort after Durcal. He was riding a lovely gold
Orbea - that's about as far as it went as neither
of us spoke each others language. I must try harder.
Got taken back to Si & Em's for tea which was nice
and saved me from cooking.
Will see if my thumb is useable tomorrow before
helping out with the Irish downhillers on Sunday.
Fingers crossed.

Spanish exploration

Day 9 - off relatively early towards Granada. Turned off a while before
getting there and headed up into the countryside. Past the sound of
shooting and keep on climbing. All the way to 1200m or thereabouts
between Sierra de Chaparral and the stunning spiky peaks of de Sierra
de Tejida. We lost most of the mornings climbing shortly after that as
we hurtled towards the sea, turning off before Motril to grunt over a
super steep but thankfuly short climb towards Molivar. Short by Spanish
standards that is. Dropped down to the main road to hit a coffee stop
before a steady 'undulating' route back to Motril. Another ice cream steeled
us for the last few k back to the cortijo. Tomorrow we'll continue the search
for more routes to quell the rumour that this area doesn't have enough riding!

sunny days!

Before we go any further we must announce that this ride is sponsored by the stoats of the doldrums, or maybe that's too local a reference... or maybe it's not even a stoat but he was very cute and not camera shy at all!


In view of all the sunshine bouncing around we abandoned the planned road ride in favour of a spin to the ice cream van in Todmorden. We'll always ride for ice cream. Another nail in the road ride's coffin was the arrival of a new camera. Haven't had any retail therapy in ages and cracked big time.

Even though I was glad of the gears on Monday's epic with Jon there's nothing like the grunt and grind of a good singlespeed ride. Especially around the cobbles of Todmorden...



Here's Shona looking for a repeat of the stoat show, one rider and her bike...



B-Side on the moor after Littleborough...



Ice creams in Walsden. Probably the only place someone would shout 'nice bike, love!' out of a white van to someone on a singlespeed, 650b bike. We were only 50 yards or so from Brant Richards' house though, that could explain a lot. Me, AKA Mr Whippy.

As ever we did the ride the wrong way round. Either we need to think about gradients a bit more or councils should just sign the trails correctly!Nearly home now,

the great chick pea tragedy

After a long lay off the camping thing we headed off to Bala for elevenses on Saturday. After filling our bellies we headed South a couple of miles to the end of the lake, booted up and headed out. We got a little impromptu Welsh lesson from the local park ranger on the way up onto the Aran ridge. As I have a CSE Grade 4 in the languageI think he had a bit of a cheek...

We didn't quite get the solitude we're used to around these parts as there were plenty of people around. It wasn't crowded like the Lake District would've been though. It's still mighty chilly this time of the year at the high point of 907m, especially when the wind's gusting around 40mph. After 6 hours or so we'd bagged a couple of peaks and done the obligutory squelching through a forest. Unusually for a Welsh forestry though the path had remained almost navigable.We arrived at the designated camp spot high up just off Y Gribin at around 600m. We had a restless night as it was still very windy and flippin' cold. A touch below freezing, brrr. This is the spot,


It was sometime during the food prep process that we found the limitations of an unsupported MSR Pocket Rocket and a decent sized pan on a grassy, uneven surface. We lost alomst 50% of our luke warm chick peas to the slugs. It was a particularly gutting moment.

An early start the next day dropping right down into the valley just to climb back out through this basin after the cloud had cleared.Would be nice to live here, just to ride that track!
We climbed this track ...
Via this rubbly section, if this was Scotland we'd be back down here with bikes in a flash.

This up and down routine carried on for the next few hours, up and down another couple of 700m hills. The downs are always hardest. Knee killers.

Managed to hit Bala for mid afternoon tea after a calmer time trotting through the valley back to our start point. Great to be out tromping across pathless hillsides again. Now planning a faster and lighter Rhinog traverse...